Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [55]
“You didn’t love her,” Lena erupted, all bile and nastiness. “How can you even say that? You know you didn’t.”
Effie looked injured. It was a look she was good at. Lena didn’t let herself consider the idea that it was real.
“You were angry about the stupid thing with Brian.” Another wave. Lena couldn’t hold it back. “He loved Tibby and he didn’t love you, and you never let go of it. You still blamed her for that. I know you did.” It was nasty, finally, when it came up.
Effie’s eyes were shiny. “How small do you think I am?”
“You stole our pants because of that! And you lost them!” As this bilious memory came up and out, Lena recognized the strange, childlike belief that was nesting right inside it. If they’d still had the Traveling Pants, this couldn’t have happened. The pants wouldn’t have let this happen to Tibby or to any of them. The pants would have protected them.
“You still haven’t forgiven me for that! You said you did, but you never did and you obviously never will.”
Lena pressed her mouth together. She wiped the tears off her cheeks with her fingers. She and Effie were shouting and both of them were crying, Lena realized, and it was probably a good thing the place was mostly empty. Ella Fitzgerald sang on about Frosty the Snowman and Lena trembled in her chair.
“That’s not true,” Lena said, more quietly.
“Anyway, I wasn’t mad at Tibby,” Effie spat out. “I wasn’t mad at Brian. I was mad at you.”
Lena felt her chin wobbling, her shoulders shaking.
“I was mad at you for choosing her over me. I was mad at you for choosing your friends over me every time. I am your sister! That never meant anything to you, did it?”
Lena watched helplessly as Effie stood. “Yes, it did,” Lena said.
“No, it didn’t!”
“Effie.”
“I came here because I wanted to help you, Lena, but I can’t. I don’t matter enough to you to be able to help.”
Lena was crying hard. She put her face in her hands. “That’s not true,” she tried to say.
Effie rooted around her bag and pressed five twenties onto the table. Her eyes were still streaming as she hitched her bag over her shoulder and walked out.
Lena watched her sister’s back, and after Effie was gone she stared at the door of the restaurant with the diminishing hope that Effie might come back through it.
Bridget walked slowly back to Bolinas and into the Sea Star Inn. She was starving, and it was the first place she came to. She ordered eggs and sausages and buttered toast and more toast.
She didn’t realize until she saw the tinsel strewn around the place and heard the well-wishers on the radio that it was Christmas.
“Do you know if there are any rooms available tonight?” she asked the waitress, who also appeared to be the innkeeper. The place was ramshackle enough that Bee hoped it was in her price range.
She got a tiny room and use of a bathroom in the hall for forty dollars a night. That evening she got into the creaky bed as the sun was setting. When she woke up in the middle of the night she could hear rain beating against the window.
By the second day of sleeping in a bed and eating cooked food, she’d run out of money. The waitress/innkeeper, Sheila, saw Bridget in the lobby with her pack on her shoulders.
“You going already? I’m sorry to see it.”
“I’d like to stay,” Bridget said. “But I ran out of money.”
She saw the look on the woman’s face. “I mean,” Bridget said quickly, “I can pay my bill.” She took out her wallet. “I’ve got enough here. I just don’t have any more to spend.”
Sheila nodded. She wore a bandana tied over her hair just the way Bridget’s grandmother Greta sometimes did. “I’ve got some odd jobs around here,” she said. “I could spot you a few days’ room and board if you’re prepared to work.”
For some reason, the way it came out of Sheila’s mouth, the word “work” sparkled like a new pair of cleats, a banana milk shake.
“I’d love to work,” Bridget said.
“All right, then.” Sheila nodded. “Go