Girls in Pants - Ann Brashares [89]
This was one of the less direct compliments she had ever received. If it even was one.
“Daddy, I don’t want to upset or disappoint you. But I really do want to go. I want you and Mom to want it with me.”
He sighed. He put his elbow on his desk and rested his cheek in his palm in a boyish way. “Lena, I’m afraid I’m the one who’s upset and disappointed you.”
She didn’t hurry up and nod, but she wasn’t going to argue, either.
“You should go to art school. You proved it to me with those drawings just as you proved it to the scholarship people.”
She kept her expression in check. She didn’t trust him yet. “So it’s okay with you, then?”
He thought about this for a while. “I’m honored that you’re asking me when you earned the right not to have to.”
Her chest ached. “I want to ask you,” she said. “It matters to me what you say.”
“The answer is yes.”
“Thanks.”
She got up to go.
“Lena?”
“Yes?”
“When I began to realize, with your mother’s help, the depth of my recent mistakes”—he cleared his throat—“I felt proud of you for not going along with them.”
“You didn’t make it easy,” she told him honestly.
God help me, Rena dear, I am coming home. George has finally seen the sense in it. Effie will fly home with me in one week. Please make arrangements with Pina, if you can spare her, to air out my house?
Dearest Valia, I cry as I read this. How happy we will be to have you home where you belong!
I have tried in my way to be free.
—Leonard Cohen
“Hi, Dad.”
“Carmen? Hi, bun! How are you?”
She felt slightly sheepish, but she couldn’t let this wait any longer. “I’m fine.”
“How’s the baby?”
“He’s great. He kicks like a black belt.”
Albert laughed appreciatively, even though it was the baby of his ex-wife and her new husband they were talking about.
“How’s your mom?” He asked it in a genuine way.
“She’s great, too. She says it’s all coming back to her, even eighteen years later.”
“I’m sure it is,” her dad said a little wistfully.
“So, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
He waited patiently, though she sort of wished he would interrupt.
“Do you think…um…” She pulled her heavy hair off of her sweaty neck. “Do you think Williams might consider taking me back again?”
“Do you think you want to go there?”
Carmen didn’t want to seem like she was making her decisions rashly, so she didn’t belt out her answer, but rather, paused. “I do.”
“What about Maryland?”
Carmen chewed her lip. “I was thinking I might board there, you know, get the college experience and still be close to home. But then I realized I really, really want to go to Williams. Do you think they’ll take me back? God, I mean, what are the chances they would keep a spot?” Her voice ended squeaky and she didn’t sound calm anymore.
“I’ll tell you what,” her dad said. “Let me call.”
Carmen made attempts to clean her room while she waited. In truth, she did that spasmodic, surface rearranging, like putting the random AA battery into her sock drawer to get it out of sight, that would only make the job bigger when she got down to real cleaning.
Less than ten minutes later, the phone rang. She pounced at half a ring. So much for calm.
“Hi?”
“Hi.” It was her dad again.
“Did you talk to them?” she blurted out.
“I did. And Williams College says you’re good to go.”
“They’ll take me?”
“Yep.”
“Just like that?”
“Yep.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Seriously?” Carmen was afraid to let herself be happy quite so soon.
“I’m happy for you, bun,” her dad said. “I can hear in your voice that it’s really what you want.”
“It’s really what I want,” she echoed.
She shook her head, feeling the nerves sizzle and zing all over her body. “I can’t believe it’s that easy.”
He didn’t respond. “You better start packing,” he said instead. “And you have fun at the beach with your friends this weekend.”
“I will. Thanks.”
After she told him she loved him and hung up the phone, she got another sneaking suspicion. Could this have been a case of parental collusion again? Maybe even deceitful parental intervention?
Had her dad ever called Williams