Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [113]
“Oh, I’m supposed to marry him next month.”
Roberto looked surprised. “You are?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I’m not really going to, though.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Does he know that?”
“Not yet. I guess I should tell him.” She picked at the rough skin around her thumbnail. In the scheme of things, calling off the wedding didn’t seem so desperately important. “Honestly, I don’t think he’ll mind that much.”
Carmen was supposed to absorb the city of New Orleans at warp speed. She was supposed to talk the talk, walk the walk, eat the food (but nothing too fattening!), see some hurricane damage, and visit at least one graveyard, according to the strict orders of her manager. And she had a script to read while she was at it.
The problem was, she couldn’t say goodbye to them. She held Clara with one arm and dragged her roller bag with the other while Pablo held on to her free pinky, and Roberto carried two giant bags, one large bag, a diaper bag, and a car seat through the train station to the RTA bus depot.
How was Roberto going to do this alone? Carmen knew he’d managed to do it for the last eight months alone, but now she was there to worry about every tiny juncture—the first bus, the second, the aluminum race car that was bound to fall out of Pablo’s pocket, Clara’s bottle! As though they could not make it another step without her. Or perhaps it was she who couldn’t without them.
They finally straggled their way to the bus depot. It was time for Carmen to leave. She couldn’t leave them, but what else could she do? She couldn’t exactly get on the bus and go to Metairie with them. She imagined introducing herself to Teresa’s sister, giving a big wave. “I’m just the lady they met on the train.”
She’d already given Roberto her cellphone number (should she ever get the thing going again), her address in New York (“though I probably won’t be there much longer”), even the number of the hotel in New Orleans. He’d given her his cellphone number too. She didn’t know why. There wasn’t much point to any of it. It was just another way of not saying goodbye for a little longer. He had a life to get on with. So did she.
“Hold on to your car,” she told Pablo. “Her diaper feels heavy,” she said to Roberto. “Do you think you have enough formula to get you all the way there?” She realized she was starting to cry as she said these things.
The bus came. She held on to Roberto for too long. She was going to make them miss their bus. She put her face in his collar so the kids wouldn’t see her tears. She was ashamed of herself, making it a sloppy goodbye.
Roberto kissed her forehead, he kissed her cheek. His one big hand was pressed to her back and the other one covered her ear. Now he was worried about her along with everything else. That was not what she wanted.
It was an act of will to pull herself together when she kissed Pablo and Clara the last time. An actress at her finest. I am not falling to pieces as I sniff your head. I am not losing my shit as I do this.
She stood calmly as she waved goodbye to them and they waved back through the window of the bus. They were too far away to see her shaking, weren’t they? She tried to look composed. And then the bus turned the corner.
And she dissolved.
WTF? was the thought running through her head as she sat down in the middle of the sidewalk and cried. What has become of me?
She dragged herself to the cabstand. She cried all the way to the Ritz-Carlton hotel. She left her suitcase in the lobby but didn’t go up to her room. She walked to the riverfront. She walked back and forth, she couldn’t keep track of how many times.
Oh, there was local flavor aplenty. There was a riverboat, and there were people shouting and milling about and selling things. She was supposed to be taking in the sights, she knew, but she could only think about the toy car inching out of the pocket of a little boy she would probably never see again.
Bridget slept on the bare mattress on the icehouse floor for a long night and most of a day. Sometimes she felt that her sleeping mind did better work than her