Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [117]
Carmen knew, walking down the street away from the snazzy mansion, that she probably shouldn’t be relieved. Her reps would be crushed. Jones would blow a gasket. But she wasn’t planning to marry Jones.
She now knew what the most important meeting of your life probably felt like, and it wasn’t this.
The sessions with Arden and the rest of them were supposed to go on and on for days; they were supposed to want to get her on film, and she was not supposed to leave New Orleans without a contract. Oops. She’d been in there for less than fifteen minutes and now she was being sent home.
Home. That was tricky. Where was home? Where was she going?
And then she knew where she needed to go—to Pennsylvania, on April 2—and she felt not scared but hopeful.
London was the place you got stranded, Lena decided. Heathrow airport was the place where you slept by the window and brushed your teeth in the restroom and felt like a complete asshole.
She couldn’t just go back after all this, could she? It was now Thursday, and April 2, the appointed day, was Sunday. Did that mean Kostos was going to Pennsylvania? He wouldn’t have left so early, though. He was traveling somewhere else, entirely unrelated. Maybe that was it.
By Friday morning she felt lost and sad. It was tiring, carrying a thunderbolt around this long. Sometime between the time she cried in the magazine shop and the time she threw up her lunch in the restroom, her cellphone rang.
“Hello?”
“Is this Lena?”
“Yes.” All the blood in her body seemed to drain to her feet. “Who is this?”
“It’s Kostos. I’m standing outside your apartment building. I’ve been ringing your bell for hours. Where are you?”
She closed her eyes and put the phone down for a moment while her whole body shook, trying to stave off spasms of laughing and tears.
“I’m in London, looking for you.”
He was stunned to silence. “Why? Why London? Why aren’t you here? We’re supposed to meet in the States!”
It was a raw sound she made. Maybe like laughing. He spoke of their meeting as if there had never been a question of his intent.
“Because I couldn’t wait,” she said. “I wanted to come more than halfway.”
Kostos was quiet for a second. His voice was full when he spoke again. “Oh, Lena. I couldn’t wait either.” He laughed. “I wanted to go all the way.”
She was still shaking. “I want to too.” Her face was burning hot. She was laughing and shaking too much to talk.
“I want to see you so badly. I can’t wait anymore.”
She let out a little sobbish noise, much more like crying. She couldn’t make up her mind. She couldn’t say a single word.
“Lena, do you want to stay still and I’ll get on the next plane and come to you? Or do you want to come to me?”
Lena sucked back tears, and though her voice was a mess she answered with confidence. “You stay. I’ll come to you.”
Bridget used Brian’s phone to call Eric just after midnight, nine o’clock his time. She felt semi-delirious when he answered.
“It’s Bee,” she said sheepishly, eagerly.
“Where are you?”
She was so glad to hear his voice. “I’m in Pennsylvania. Bucks County, south of a town in New Jersey called Belvidere,” she said. “I have so much to tell you.” A sob escaped her chest unexpectedly.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Do you think you could come here?”
“To Pennsylvania?”
“If you fly to New York, it’s only an hour and twenty minutes by car.”
“When?”
She realized she was being absurdly presumptuous. She had no business asking him for anything. He was the one who’d been left, and her misery didn’t make it any nicer for him.
She tried to calm herself down and step into his shoes. “I know you have work. You can’t get carried away. When do you think you can come?”
“I can get carried away,” he said. “When do you want me to come?”
“Now? Tomorrow?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. I have something important to tell you.”
Eric was quiet. She couldn’t blame him. This wasn’t the same as her coming back. She’d never