The Second Summer of the Sisterhood Part 22

In Tibby's eleven-year-old heart she had known she was a sister to Lena and Carmen and Bee, but she'd longed to be a sister officially, too. She had reasoned that Carmen only lived with one parent and Lena already had a sister, so that meant hers was the family for Bee. She'd made a painstaking drawing of how her room would look with two beds and two dressers and two desks.

Tibby remembered how far and wide she'd allowed her imagination to rove. She'd made plans to share her allowance. She'd benevolently determined that Bee shouldn't have to do any ch.o.r.es for the first year, and after that they could trade off. She'd imagined her parents, especially her father, cheering Bee on at her soccer games. She'd wondered whether Bee would ever call herself Bee Rollins, and whether a stranger would ever see Tibby and Bee eating at a restaurant with their parents and think that they looked alike.

When Tibby was thirteen, her mother had gotten pregnant, and she had indeed become an official sister. She became an official sister again when she was fifteen. Tibby had always felt that this was a case of G.o.d listening to her prayers and taking them a bit too literally.

For some reason, Tibby had brought the old drawing of her bedroom to Williamston with her. In fact, the first thing she did when she unlocked the door of 6B4 was to prop up the drawing above her dresser, in front of the mirror. She squinted at the tiny rectangle she'd drawn to represent Mimi's cage. She remembered drawing it at an equal distance from the two beds, so that Bee could enjoy Mimi too and wouldn't feel envious.

She wondered what Alex would think if he saw this drawing. What would he think if she told him that she'd been profoundly attached to her guinea pig until it had died when she was nearly sixteen years old?

What would Bailey think of Alex?

She knew what Bailey would think of Alex. If she tried, she could see through Bailey's eyes, and it was like holding a mirror up to the world. Bailey would know Alex was a poser and she wouldn't think about him at all. There were too many other genuine characters out there, people Bailey would want to think about.

This made Tibby remember Vanessa. She unpacked another of the items she had brought from home. It was a see-through bag full of Gummi creatures-snakes, monkeys, salamanders, turtles, fish. Nicky had given it to her. Tibby guessed there was roughly one sugary creature for every cruel thing Maura had said about Vanessa, every nonfunny thing Tibby had dutifully laughed along with.

Carefully Tibby tied a green ribbon around the top. She used the blade from the scissors on her desk to make the ends curl up. She attached a little note. Thanks for being a great RA, she wrote in neat, anonymous cursive. She left it outside Vanessa's room. She knocked on the door and then whisked herself away before Vanessa could see her.

It was such a dorky thing to do, but at least Tibby was being the kind of dork she could feel good about.

"Paul, pick up the phone," Carmen commanded from behind a closed door in her bedroom. She probably wouldn't have bellowed into the answering machine like that if she'd been calling him at home-at her dad and stepmother's house in Charleston. But Paul was staying at U Penn for most of the summer, taking extra cla.s.ses and playing soccer. "Hey, Paul's roommate. Hey, you. Pick up the phone. Please?"

No answer. Why weren't people in college dormitories ever home?

She hung up and signed online.

Paul. Hey! Call me right away. Right now!

She pushed the Send b.u.t.ton.

She tiptoed to the door and opened it quietly. Krista was still asleep.

Running away seemed to agree with Krista. When Carmen had been on the run, she'd slept fitfully and in short bursts. She'd had constant stomach pains. Krista seemed full of appet.i.te. Carmen had offered her a french fry from the bag she'd intended for her mother, and Krista had gratefully eaten the whole bag. Then she'd fallen asleep within five minutes of hitting the pull-out couch. She hadn't stirred in over two hours.

Carmen was halfway through CosmoGIRL! when the phone finally sounded. She pounced within a quarter of a ring.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Carmen?" Even in an emergency, Paul's voice came slowly.

"Paul. Paul!" she whispered. "Do you know who is sleeping on my fold-out couch at this very moment?"

Paul was silent. He was absolutely the wrong person to play guessing games with.

"No," he finally said.

It was too absurd a bit of information to just dump without a buildup, but what choice did she have? "Krista!"

That took a moment to settle on him. "Why?"

"She ran away!"

"Why?" Paul didn't sound quite surprised enough.

"She's not getting along with your mother. They had a fight. I don't know. She got her ears pierced or something." Carmen paused. "Have you ... seen your sister lately?"

"In April."

"She's really ... different than last summer. Don't you think?"

"How?"

"Oh, I don't know ... makeup, different hair, different clothes. You know."

"She's trying to be like you."

Carmen's lungs seemed to shrivel. There wasn't enough air to make words.

Leave it to Paul. He said one word for every thousand of hers, but he did make them count.

Carmen wasn't sure which implication to respond to. When she got some air into her lungs, she went for the obvious. "Are you saying I dress like a s.l.u.t?"

"No." Paul often sounded baffled by the things she read into his words.

"W-well," she spluttered. Maybe a different tack was better. "Why do you think she's trying to be like me?"

"She admires you."

"No way! She does?" Carmen said it louder than she'd meant to. She heard stirring in the living room.

"Yes."

"Why?" Carmen couldn't help asking, even though she knew Paul was a terrible person to fish compliments from.

He paused at length. "I don't know."

Great. Thanks. "Well, what should I do?" Carmen whispered. She heard footsteps. She had to get off. Carmen couldn't let Krista know she had betrayed her at the first possible opportunity.

"I can't tell her I told you!" Carmen added. "I promised not to tell anybody."

"Let her be with you awhile," Paul said. "I'll come soon."

"She's awake. Gotta go. Bye." Carmen hung up just as Krista knocked on her door.

"Hi," Krista said faintly, the weave of the blanket imprinted on her cheek. Whatever trace of bravado had brought her there was wearing off.

Carmen suddenly felt tender toward Krista. Maybe it was just that she was a big, fat sucker for flattery.

Because now that she took a moment to look, Carmen could see that Krista's new do was a truly sad approximation of Carmen's own wavy hair. Where Carmen's hair was full and dark, Krista's was fair and scant. Krista's hair was pretty left alone, but it couldn't stand up to a perm. Krista's cutoffs were very much like a pair Carmen had worn last summer in Charleston, but the effect of them on Krista's blue-white stick legs was radically different. The black eyeliner Carmen often wore blended into her dark lashes, but it made Krista look vaguely like a drug addict.

"May I?" Krista asked, hesitating at the door.

A very polite drug addict.

"Of course. Come in." Carmen waved her in the door. "You sleep okay?"

Krista nodded. "Thanks. Do you happen to know the time?" she asked.

Carmen turned to her clock radio. "Five thirty. My mom will be home in a little while."

Krista nodded. She looked tentative in her postnap disorientation. "Do you think this will be okay with her?"

"'This' meaning you?"

Krista nodded. Her eyes got big the way they used to last summer whenever Carmen cursed.

"Yeah. Don't worry." Carmen led her into the kitchen and poured a gla.s.s of orange juice for each of them. "So ... hey. Do you feel at all like maybe ... calling your mom?"

"I'd rather not." Krista shook her head. "She'll be furious at me."

"She's probably long past furious. She's probably really worried. You know what I mean? You could just tell her that you're safe and everything."

Krista looked partway convinced. Carmen remembered her being malleable. "Maybe I will ... call her tomorrow?"

Carmen nodded. She could understand that. If you were going to make a stand, you had to hold out twenty-four hours, at least.

Krista drank her juice in silence for a while.

"So you and your mom had a big fight, huh?" Carmen asked, keeping her voice gentle.

Krista nodded. "We fight a lot lately. She says I'm rude. She hates everything I wear. She can't stand it when I raise my voice." Krista swiped a frazzled blond strand behind her ear. Carmen was amazed to hear the hard little fiber of anger in Krista's voice. "She wants everything quiet and perfect in her house. I don't feel like being quiet and perfect anymore."

Carmen knew she had trailed poison through Lydia's orderly little world last summer, but she hadn't known Krista was eating it. "I don't blame you," Carmen said.

Krista touched the rim of her orange-juice gla.s.s. Clearly she longed to confide in Carmen. "If I act the way she wants me to act, I'm just invisible." Her voice was plaintive. "If I act the way I want, she says I'm ruining her life."

Krista appeared to be searching Carmen's face for some kind of wisdom. "What would you do?"

Carmen considered this position of responsibility into which she had been thrust.

What would she do? What would she, Carmen, do?

Whine, resist, complain. Throw rocks through the window of her father and stepmother's house. Run away like a coward. Torment her mother. Act like a selfish brat. Destroy Christina's happiness.

Carmen opened her mouth to try to give some advice. She closed it again.

There was a word for this. It started with an h. It not only indicated you were a horrible waste of a person but also somehow seemed to indicate that you were fat.

What was it?

Oh, yeah. Hypocrite.

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut b.u.t.ter quite like unrequited love.

-Charlie Brown

Tibby laid the stack of CDs on the counter. "It wasn't any of these," she said. "The one I'm looking for, it wasn't just piano. It had other instruments too."

The man nodded. He was in his forties, she guessed. He wore Hush Puppies on his feet and had the haircut of a person who didn't care about his hair.

"Piano and other instruments?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"It was a concerto."

Tibby's eyes lit up. "Yes. I think you're right."

"You're sure it's Beethoven."

"I think so."