Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [115]
She didn’t check any of them. She just stuck the phone in her back pocket and kept walking. She imagined the train ride in the alternate universe where the phone had worked, where she’d called people and blabbed and answered 145 messages, all while casting nasty looks at the crying baby and the overwhelmed father across the aisle. Carmen felt like a lotus-eater who’d finally woken, looking back over long narcotic dreams.
There was a message light blinking on the phone in her hotel room when she eventually got there. Manager? Agent? Publicist? Mother? Fiancé? She threw herself facedown on the bed and just thought for a while. She was sure getting a lot more attached to the inside of her head.
And then it was time to get up and face the music. With trepidation she hit the message button and listened.
“I just wanted you to know that the formula held out, the Matchbox car was not lost, the diaper was only pee, and we made it safely to Metairie.” There was a noise Roberto made that she couldn’t decipher, like a cough. “Thank you, lovely Carmen … for everything.”
I like my body
when it is with your body.
It is so
quite new a thing.
Muscles better
and nerves more.
—e. e. cummings
Brian joined Bridget on the screened porch of her little house after he put Bailey to bed. He sat on one of the new kitchen chairs he’d brought out and she sat on the creaky iron daybed. They listened to the stream under the floor.
As the light was fading, the rain started. You could hear it drumming against the skylight and see it tapping the surface of the stream. It turned the trees into liquid green. It gave the air on the porch a texture and a taste. This little house was sunny, all right, but it was never more beautiful than in the rain.
“I know it might not feel like it,” Brian said, “but we are rejoining the world here.”
“Are we?”
“Yeah.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“It will.”
“When?”
“Couple of days.”
“Really. How?”
“You wait. You’ll see.”
“Okay.”
“Enjoy the quiet while you have it.” Brian sounded like he was talking to himself.
“Okay.”
He gave her a hug before he started back to the main house. “Oh, one other thing.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “You want to borrow this?”
“Your phone?” He tossed it and she caught it. “Why?”
“In case you want to call anybody.”
Bridget sat on the porch with the phone for a long time, but she didn’t call anybody. She dragged the new floor lamp onto the porch with her, glad the cord reached far enough, and turned it on. She sat cross-legged on the daybed and finally opened Tibby’s other letter. She was still two days early, but she wasn’t afraid of it in the same way anymore.
Dear Bee,
I put an address at the bottom of this page, and I want you to go there. It’s kind of demanding of me, I know, and you don’t have to if you don’t want. It sounds crazy, because I haven’t even been to the place myself, but I feel like you belong there. I have this fantasy that you’ll see it and you’ll want to stay. You laugh, my persistently moving friend, but there’s a little house on the property that is meant for you. Seriously. As soon as you see it, you’ll know what I mean.
There are a couple of important things waiting for you there, if you decide to go. One of them is my daughter. She’ll be two in June. That’s a big one to drop on you, I know. I may have already told you about her in Greece. The second is Brian. He’s been through a lot.
When I try to fall asleep at night, and I’m full of thoughts and fears for the people I love most, I have this recurring image of you holding my daughter’s hand. My fantasy is that all three of you will help grow her up, but it’s you I seem to picture in the nitty-gritty of it. Who knows why—maybe it’s just an odd fancy of mine. I know kids aren’t your thing. And yet I cling to