Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [16]
Eudoxia always referred to Kostos as “your young man.” Drew she referred to as “the sandwich maker.”
Lena was tempted to act like she didn’t know what Eudoxia was talking about, but she didn’t bother. “Probably not. Imagine how busy he is. He works in London now.”
“He goes back and forth. That’s what he said in his letter.”
Lena pressed her fingers to her warm face. It was her own fault. She’d spent a lot of hours stumbling around in Greek trying to describe that letter. In fact, her fervency had ushered in a series of conversational breakthroughs, and Eudoxia had noticed it. She started calling Lena “my Daphne,” and when Lena asked why, she said, “Don’t you read your myths?” After that she always liked getting Lena to talk about Kostos.
As for the subject of Drew, it did not yield any breakthroughs.
“You should write to him and tell him you are coming,” Eudoxia declared. “You could write it in Greek! I could help you! Wouldn’t that be a surprise?” She whacked her hand on the table again.
Lena hesitated. She could imagine how many people from Kostos’s old life were clamoring for his attention. She didn’t want to do that to him.
In the silence Eudoxia seemed to recognize this was not something she could reasonably hope for. “But promise me this, my Daphne,” she said, leaning forward. “Promise me that at least you will call him. You will call him before you leave that island.”
Lena just laughed. Not bloody likely. “Maybe,” she said aloud in Greek. “You never know what will happen.”
When you jump for joy,
beware that no one moves the ground
from beneath your feet.
—Stanislaw J. Lec
Carmen was a terrible one for bargaining with God. She knew it was wrong, but she found herself doing it anyway. When she was nine, the night before she was flying to Orlando for a holiday weekend in Disney World with Lena’s family, she flopped around in her bed for hours, so excited she couldn’t stand it. As the hours passed, excitement grew so big it transformed into terror that she would die before morning. Her desire turned monstrous, and she was suddenly sure it would swallow the happiest day of her life. She begged God to please just keep her alive through tomorrow, please, and then he could do whatever he wanted with her.
Two decades had passed since then, yet she lay in her bed on the night of October 27 with the exact same feeling. She wriggled and turned and stuck various limbs outside the covers to cool down, asking God to please just look after her until she was reunited with her friends in Santorini the following day. If she could just get to that, she would be happy. He could do whatever he wanted with her after that.
What could she offer in return? She’d be a better person. She’d spend less money on shoes. She’d play in the network’s charity softball game. She’d mentor a high school student. She would call her father twice a week absolutely and without fail. She would read the editorial page of The New York Times every day. She would no longer search the Internet for cellulite photos of actresses who got the roles she was rejected for.
Though Carmen felt foolish, she also felt lucky that she was bargaining with God, who was all-forgiving, as opposed to somebody who would surely come back to collect on her wager.
Lena prided herself on her capability as an abstract thinker, but sometimes her brain was as concrete as a lizard’s. It took the actual sight of Bridget and Carmen, flesh and warmth and flying hair, racing toward her through the international terminal at JFK in New York City, to make her understand how terribly much she had missed them.
Bridget reached her first and grabbed her without entirely braking. Lena felt herself pulled into the familiar momentum.
Carmen in her tall cork sandals got there a few seconds after. She squeezed Lena’s forearm so hard it would make a bruise. She screamed so loudly in Lena’s ear she left it ringing. She stepped on