Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [42]
They muttered prayers standing on hard grass, but nobody tried to do any real eulogizing. Only the minister spoke of Tibby, and he kept calling her Tabitha. They’d plan a proper memorial service for the spring, Alice said. It was too shocking, too soon, too rushed, too confusing to attempt more than burying the body that was supposedly Tibby that came off an airplane. In the spring, Alice said, they’d know what to do. Alice had given them relentless permission not to come, but only Bridget had taken it. “I’ll come in the spring,” Bridget had said woodenly, and Carmen had known it would hurt Bee worse not to be there, but she hadn’t been able to bridge the gap to tell her so.
Carmen had thought that when the burial was over there would be some relief, but there wasn’t. Before, she had been able to aim the terrible feelings at the burial, so where was she supposed to aim them now? What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t haul this misery around through her normal life. She couldn’t fit it through the door of her loft. But what other life did she have?
She could stay here, curled up in the dark on her mother’s bed.
But she couldn’t. The skin of her back had begun to feel irritated under her mother’s hand. Her whole body felt uncomfortable. The pressure in Carmen’s chest forced her to sit up.
Christina withdrew her hand and she looked at Carmen sorrowfully. She knew she wasn’t helping. Her face was full of compassion, but Carmen could see that her mother was spooked and uncertain too.
Not even you can reach me here, Carmen thought.
Perry and Violet were too quiet. They talked quietly. They ate quietly. When they played music it was quiet.
Bridget was loud. She stomped around loudly, wanting to drown out her loud thoughts, but it didn’t work. By the second week she couldn’t take it anymore. She left them a note and set off on her bike in the dark toward Sacramento.
She saw the neon lights of a pool bar on the outskirts of the city and pulled her bike into the parking lot. She locked her bike, heaved her pack onto her shoulder, and walked in. Now, this was loud.
She pulled her hair from its elastic and shook it out before she went up to the bar. She smiled at the fifty-some-year-old bartender and lifted her pack. “Do you think you could keep this back there for me?” she asked him sweetly. She smiled, and whatever reservation he had seemed to dissipate.
“Just this once,” he said, and swung it under the bar. “What can I get you, sweetheart?”
“I’ll take a Bud,” she said. She didn’t drink very often, and when she did, she wasn’t prissy about it. She thought of Carmen and her white wine spritzers.
It was far from her last drink of the evening, but it was the last one she paid for. The guy who sent over the next two beers looked like he was barely out of high school. When he came over to ask her to dance he had an insistent look on his face and she didn’t like it. “No thanks,” she said with no coyness whatsoever.
He looked more irritated than hurt. “Come on, girl. I bought you two beers.”
“And I thanked you for the beers. You didn’t buy me.”
She left him at the bar and went over to the area with the pool tables. It was crowded and the music was loud.
A waitress materialized with a tray and a bottle of beer on it. “This is from the gentleman over by the jukebox,” she said, giving Bridget a little wink.
Bridget looked in the direction she pointed. The guy tipped his hat to her. He had tanned skin, straight dark hair down to his shoulders, and a worn cowboy hat. He wore a plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves, revealing tattoos on both forearms. She walked over to him. “Hey, thanks.”
“With pleasure.” He studied her with obvious interest. “Can I talk you into a game of pool, beautiful?”
He was entirely relaxed and confident in the asking. He wasn’t old, probably in