Sisterhood Everlasting - Ann Brashares [56]
That night Bridget used the ancient pay phone in the lobby to call Eric. She called him at work, knowing he wouldn’t be there. She left him a message wishing him a merry Christmas and telling him she loved him. She thought she might say something else, but she couldn’t. Her heart was pounding as she hung up the phone.
The next morning she used it again to call Nurse Tabitha.
“Did you talk to your boyfriend?” Tabitha asked.
“Not yet. No.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know.” Bridget poked her finger in the swinging hatch of the change slot. “How long do I have?”
“How long do you have?”
“To make the decision. To, you know, end it.”
“Bridget, you are probably about nine weeks pregnant. That’s early. According to California law, you can terminate the pregnancy at up to twenty-four weeks. But once you’ve thought it through and made up your mind, I do not recommend waiting. Based on my experience, if you go past fourteen weeks, it’s a whole lot worse for you.”
“Worse for your body?” Bridget asked.
“Worse for your heart.”
Back in the quiet crypt of her room, Lena carefully packed Effie’s things in a cardboard box. Although they were spread around the place, each of Effie’s possessions stood out. The bottles of magenta and turquoise nail polish, the chartreuse tights, two Christmas stockings, the high-heeled gold boots, the lacy pink thong still in its package, the three different kinds of hair product in neon green plastic, a tub of makeup. It was as though Lena’s drab apartment was incapable of digesting objects so colorful, fragrant, and festive.
Lena gazed wretchedly at the cheerful array in the box. Effie had come armed to celebrate Christmas with manicures, pedicures, facials, and makeovers. She was going to remake Lena’s underwear drawer. She was going to give Lena a new hairstyle. She’d threatened to download new songs onto Lena’s iPod. She had come because she wanted to make Lena feel better. These were the things Effie knew how to do.
“You just have to let people love you in the way they can,” Tibby had said to Lena once.
Lena carefully taped the seams of the box and left it by the door to take to the post office. Effie had come bearing intimacy and joy and Lena could tolerate none of it. Effie was far above anything Lena deserved.
It’s not that you don’t matter; it’s that you do, Lena told her sister silently.
Now Lena’s drab silence was fully regained, her misery preserved. She perched on the edge of her bed, sitting on her hands. This was just what she had wished for, wasn’t it? Effie was gone, without even spending a night. Lena’s fingers and toes were unpainted. A holiday was uncelebrated. Her hair was as plain as before. Lena was all alone, dismal and withdrawn once again. She’d done what it had taken to scare Effie away, maybe for good.
Lena tipped over and lay with her cheek pressed into the itchy top blanket. She wondered again about her inclination to wish for things that made her so deeply unhappy.
Lena woke with a jolt in the middle of the night. She stared at the ceiling for a time, her eyes as wide and clear as if it were the middle of the day. She got up and walked the four steps to her desk and sat down in the chair.
Her apartment featured one large window, which faced the air shaft. For about an hour during the day and an hour at night, the sun and then the moon, respectively, found their way into her room. Now the moonlight brushed in through the dirty chicken-wire panes and illuminated the letter that stood there unopened day after day, night after night.
She glanced at the brown box by the door, waiting to be taken to the post office. She thought of Effie. She looked at her hands and watched them as they picked up the thick envelope and eased it open. She considered her actions with a distant sense of disbelief, but what else was there to do? What was there to wait for? Who else was there to be?
You thought you had the choice to stay still or move forward, but you didn’t. As long as your heart kept pumping and