“Of course not,” her mom replied airily, always deaf to the irony in Lena’s voice.
Lena had spent so much time missing Kostos earlier in the year that she’d gotten into the habit of imagining he was present. It was a little game she had. And somehow, his imagined presence gave her perspective on her value as a person. Now she imagined him sitting in the backseat of the car, listening to Lena act like an ungrateful wiseass.
She is horrible, she imagined Kostos thinking as he sweated on the dark leather seat.
No, I’m only horrible to my mother, Lena imagined defending herself.
“It’ll just be a minute,” her mother promised.
Lena nodded gamely for Kostos’s benefit.
“I want to get something for Martha’s graduation brunch.” Martha was her cousin’s goddaughter. Or her goddaughter’s cousin. One of those.
“Okay.” Lena followed her mother out of the car.
The store was cold as February. That was a plus. Her mother went right to the racks of beige-colored clothing. On the first pass she picked out a pair of beige linen pants and a beige shirt. “Cute, no?” she said, holding them up for Lena.
Lena shrugged. They were so boring they made her eyes glaze over. Whenever her mom went shopping, she always bought things exactly like all the things she already had. Lena overheard the conversation with the salesperson. Her mother’s clothing vocabulary made her wince. “Slacks … blouse … cream … ecru … taupe.” Her Greek accent made it that much more embarrassing. Lena fled to the front of the store. If Effie were here, she would be cheerfully trying on flowered things in the dressing room next to her mother.
Lena looked through the sunglasses and hair doodads on the counter. She glanced out the front windows. DETNAW PLEH, said the sign on the door.
Her mom finally narrowed the heap of beige to an “adorable eggshell blouse” and a “darling oatmeal skirt.” She topped them off with a large pin Lena wouldn’t have worn even for a joke.
As they were finally leaving, her mother stopped and seized Lena’s upper arm. “Honey, look.”
Lena nodded at the sign. “Oh, yeah.”
“Let’s go ask.”
She U-turned them right back inside. “I noticed the sign on your door. My name is Ari, and this is my daughter Lena.” Mrs. Kaligaris’s real name was Ariadne, but nobody called her that except her own mother.
“Mom,” Lena whispered through clenched teeth.
With a couple hundred fresh dollars in the register, the saleslady introduced herself as Alison Duffers, store manager, and listened eagerly to Mrs. Kaligaris’s pitch.
“This job might be perfect, don’t you think?” Ari finished eagerly.
“Well—,” Lena began.
“And Lena,” her mother interrupted, turning to her, “think of the discounts!”
“Uh … Mom?”
Mrs. Kaligaris chatted amicably, gathering lots of useful information, like the hours (Monday through Saturday, ten till six), the money (starting at six seventy-five an hour plus a seven percent commission), and the fact that they would need her to fill out some paperwork and supply her social security number.
“Wonderful, then.” Mrs. Duffers beamed at them. “You’re hired.”
“Hey, Mom?” Lena said as they walked to the car. She couldn’t help smiling in spite of herself.
“Yes?”
“I think she just hired you.”
Carmen was pulling on the Traveling Pants for their great inaugural journey of the second summer when the phone rang.
“So guess what?” It was Lena’s voice. Carmen turned her music down.
“What?”
“You know that place Basia’s?”
“Basia’s?”
“You know, off Arlington Boulevard?”
“Oh, I think my mom goes there sometimes.”
“Exactly. Well, I got a job there.”
“Seriously?” Carmen asked.
“Well, actually, my mom got a job there. But I’ll be reporting for duty.”
Carmen laughed. “I never pictured you having a career in fashion.” She studied herself in the mirror.
“Thanks a lot.”
“Hey, do you really think I should wear the Pants tonight?” Carmen asked, fishing.
“Of course. They look gorgeous on you. Why not?”
Carmen turned to get the back view. “What if Porter thinks the writing is weird?”
“If he can’t appreciate the Pants, then you know he’s wrong for you,” Lena said.
“What if he asks me about them?” Carmen asked.
“Then you’re in luck. You won’t run out of things to talk about for the entire night.”
Carmen could practically hear Lena smiling into the phone. Once, in eighth grade, Carmen had been so worried about running out of things to say on the phone to Guy Marshall, she’d written out a list of topics on a pink index card. She wished she’d never told anybody about that.
“I’m going to get my camera,” Carmen’s mother announced when Carmen walked into the kitchen a few minutes later. She was unloading clean dishes from the dishwasher.
Carmen glanced up from the raw place next to her thumbnail. “Do that only if you want me to commit suicide. Or homicide. Or matricide, I think they call it.” She resumed picking her thumb skin without mercy.
Christina laughed, jangling the silverware basket. “So why can’t I take a picture?”
“Do you want the guy to run screaming from our apartment?” Carmen drew her sore, newly spare eyebrows down in consternation. “It’s just a stupid date. It’s not the prom or anything.”
Carmen’s casualness was betrayed by the fact that she’d spent almost the entire day with Lena doing manicures, pedicures, facials, waxing, and conditioning treatments. Actually, Lena had lost interest after the pedicure and spent the rest of the time reading Jane Eyre on Carmen’s bed.
Carmen’s mother looked at her patiently and offered up her martyred mother-of-a-teenager smile. “I know, nena, but it happens to be your first date, stupid or not.”
Carmen turned wide, horrified eyes on her mother. “If you say that when Porter is here—”
“Fine. Okay!” Christina held up her hand. More laughing.
Anyway, it wasn’t her first date, Carmen comforted herself sullenly. She just hadn’t yet had one of these nineteen-fifties–style jobs where the guy picks you up at your house and causes you extreme mortification at the hands of your mother.
According to the stark-faced clock on the kitchen wall it was 8:16. This was a tricky business. Their date was at eight. If Porter came earlier than 8:15, for example, that would seem overeager. It would impart strong loser overtones. If, on the other hand, he came after 8:25, that would mean he didn’t like her all that much.
Eight sixteen ushered in the official grace period. Nine minutes and counting.
She bustled into her room to get her watch. She refused to fall victim to the evil kitchen clock any longer. With its large black numbers, unmistakable minute marks, and fat, relentless second hand, it was the least forgiving clock in the house. According to it, she was constantly late for school and virtually never made her twelve o’clock curfew. She made a mental note to give her mother a replacement clock for her birthday. One of those stylish museum clocks with no numbers or markings of any kind. A clock like that would cut you a break now and then.
The phone rang as soon as she went back into the kitchen. Her mind raced. It was Porter. He was bailing. It was Tibby. Telling her not to wear the plastic mules that made her feet sweat. She studied the caller ID panel, waiting for her destiny to appear…. It was … the law firm where Christina worked. Bleh.
“It’s the Stalker,” Carmen said irritably without picking up.
Christina sighed and strode past her. “Don’t call Mr. Brattle the Stalker, Carmen.”
Christina put on her slightly pinched office face and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
Carmen was already bored with her mo
ther’s conversation, and they hadn’t even started talking. Mr. Brattle was Christina’s boss. He wore a class ring and used the word proactive a lot. He always called with big emergencies like not being able to find the letterhead.
“Oh … yes. Of course. Hi.” Her mother’s face unpinched. Her cheeks went pink. “Sorry. I thought you were … No.” Christina giggled.
It couldn’t have been Mr. Brattle. Mr. Brattle had never once in his life said anything to cause anyone to giggle, even accidentally. Huh. Carmen was considering this mystery when the buzzer sounded from downstairs. Inadvertently, her eyes flashed to the evil wall clock. For once, the news wasn’t bad: 8:21. Very good, in fact. She pushed the button to open the lobby door. She wouldn’t subject Porter to intercom trauma.
“Hi,” she said to him, after waiting the appropriate number of seconds before answering the door. She tried to seem as though she’d just been belt-sanding a dresser rather than plain old waiting for him.
The state of his hair (smooth, medium long), the set of his face (alert, interested) didn’t change now that he was standing inside her apartment instead of outside her locker in the hallway at school. She didn’t see a more intimate version of him.
He was wearing a gray button-down shirt and nice jeans. Which meant he liked her more than if he’d just worn a T-shirt.
“Hey,” he said, following her inside. “You look great.”
“Thanks,” Carmen said. She shook her hair a little. Whether or not it was true, it was the right thing to say.
“You, uh, all set?” he asked brightly.
“Yeah. I’ll just grab my bag.”
She went into her room and grabbed the fuzzy turquoise bag from her bed, where it perched like a prop. When she came out, she expected her mom to pounce. Oddly, Christina was still talking on the phone in the kitchen.
“Okay, well. All set,” Carmen said. She put her bag over her shoulder and hesitated by the door. Was her mom seriously going to miss this milestone chance to embarrass her?
“Bye, Mom,” she shouted.
Carmen meant to breeze out of there, but she couldn’t help turning around to check. Her mother had appeared in the kitchen doorway, phone at her ear, waving eagerly. “Have fun,” she mouthed.
Very strange.
They walked side by side down the narrow hallway. “I’m parked right outside,” Porter informed her. He was looking at the Pants. His eyebrows were slightly raised. He was admiring them.
No, he was confused by them.
Was it possible that she couldn’t tell his confusion from his admiration? Maybe that wasn’t a good sign.
I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.
—Groucho Marx
Bee would have ordered a huge bowl of spaghetti. She wouldn’t care if she had noodles hanging out of her mouth like tentacles. Bee didn’t subscribe to the list of acceptable date foods.
Lena did. She would have ordered something neat. A salad, maybe. A neat salad.
Tibby would have ordered something challenging, like octopus. She would challenge her date with octopus, but she wouldn’t order something that would end up between her teeth and cause true discomfort.
“Sautéed breast of chicken,” Carmen said to the darkly freckled waiter, failing to acknowledge that he was a sophomore in Tibby’s pottery class. Chicken was safe and boring. She had come within a breath of ordering a quesadilla, but had realized that could bring up annoying ethnicity issues. Momentarily she was struck with fear that Porter would order something Tex-Mex to make her feel at home.
“I’ll have a burger. Medium rare.” He handed in his menu. “Thanks.”
Very no-nonsense and masculine. It probably would have bothered her if he’d ordered something girlish and trendy, like a wrap.
She bunched up her napkin in her hands and smiled at him. He was very nice-looking. He was tall. In fact, he seemed especially tall sitting across from her. Hmm. Did that mean he had short legs? Carmen had an irrational fear of short legs, since she suspected she herself had them. Her mind leaped about. What if she fell in love with him and they got married someday and they had children with very, very short legs?
“Do you want another Diet Coke?” he asked politely.
She shook her head. “No thanks.”
If she had another Diet Coke, she would have to go to the bathroom right away and give him an opportunity to notice her short legs.
“So … have you thought about where you’re going to school?”
The question hung out there, and Carmen wished she could suck it right back in. This was the kind of question her mother would have asked him if she hadn’t been on the phone when he’d arrived. You didn’t ask that of a fellow sufferer. The trouble was, they’d covered all the “How many siblings do you have”—type bases before they’d even ordered.
Gabriella, Carmen’s worldly cousin, had told her that you could judge the success of a date by how quickly it went. Maybe running out of things to say before you ordered your food was a bad sign.
Carmen glanced down at her watch. Her eyes froze. Uh-oh. Was that rude? Quickly she glanced back up.
Porter didn’t look offended. “I’ll probably go to Maryland,” he answered.
Carmen nodded with great interest.
“What about you?”
This was good. This would buy at least three sentences of conversation. “Williams is my first choice. It’s pretty hard to get in, though.”
“Great school,” Porter said.
“Yep,” she agreed. Her grandmother hated it when she said “Yep” or “Yeah” or “Uh-huh” instead of straight-up “Yes.”
Porter nodded.
“My dad went there,” she said, unable to keep a note of pride out of her voice. She recognized that she worked that tidbit of information into conversations a little too often. When you didn’t have an actual father around, you tended to rely more on the facts.
Just then Kate Barnett walked into the restaurant with Judd Orenstein, wearing the shortest skirt Carmen had ever seen. It was denim with a lime green hem. In this case, the hem kind of was the skirt.
Carmen wanted to laugh about this. Badly. But glancing at Porter, she somehow doubted that he would want to laugh with her. Carmen squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t start laughing and took a mental snapshot to share with Tibby later.
A date was good. A date was fine. But if she said “Kate Barnett borrowed a skirt from her four-year-old sister,” her date would think she was catty and possibly even mean.
One problem with her date, she realized, was that he was a boy. She didn’t know much about those. The regular cast in her life consisted of her mother, Bee, Tibby, and Lena. Just beyond that circle were her aunt, her female cousin, and her grandmother. In the old days she’d hung out with Bee’s brother, Perry, but that was before they’d hit puberty, so it didn’t totally count. There was Paul. But Paul was different. Paul was as sturdy and responsible as any forty-year-old man. He was on a higher plane.
The truth was, Carmen loved the idea of boys. She liked how they looked, how they smelled, how they laughed. She’d read enough magazines to know the rules and intricacies of dating. But when you got right down to it, having dinner with one was kind of like having dinner with a penguin. What were you supposed to talk about?
Dear Kostos,
How are you? How is your bapi? How is the football team?
So guess what? I got a job. At a clothing store about a mile from our house. It pays $6.75 an hour plus commissions. Not bad, huh?
Effie is a busgirl at the Olive Vine, did I tell you that? She charmed them by using all seven of the Greek words she knows (most of them having to-do-with making out). Last night I heard her in the shower practicing the Olive Vine birthday serenade.
Say hello to the old people from me.
Since February, when she’d broken it off with Kostos, Lena had written these brief, chatty, pal-to-pal letters once a month or so. She didn’t know why she wrote him at
all anymore, really. Maybe it was that girl thing of wanting to stay friends with old boyfriends so they wouldn’t go around spreading bad rumors about you. (Not that she really believed Kostos would do that.) Or maybe it was so they couldn’t get over you completely.
Her old letters had been different—frequent and agonizing. She wrote in pencil before pen. She held the paper up to her neck so that it might absorb a little of her. She put it in the envelope but didn’t seal it for a few hours. She sealed it but didn’t stamp it for a day. She always hesitated at the mailbox, hovering before opening the door, hovering before closing it, as if her future were in the balance.
Lena had thought that since she’d broken it off, she would stop thinking about him and missing him so much. She’d thought she’d be free. But it hadn’t quite worked out that way.
Well, it might have worked out that way for Kostos, ironically enough. He’d apparently stopped thinking about and missing her. (Which was fine.) He hadn’t written her a letter in months.
Lena studied the bottom of her paper, wondering how to sign off.
If she hadn’t actually feared that she loved Kostos, she would have written Love, Lena, no problem. She wrote Love at the end of notes and letters to people she didn’t love at all. She signed thank-you notes to Aunt Estelle (her uncle’s needling ex-wife) Love, Lena. When you stopped to think about it, there was terrible love inflation in letters generally. It was easy to write Love when the word was meaningless.
Did she still love Kostos?
As Tibby liked to say, give Lena a choice of A or B and she’ll always choose C.
Did she love him?
A: No.
B: Yes.
C: Well, you might suspect that, considering she did think about him a lot. But maybe it had just been attraction last summer. How did you separate attraction from love? And how could you possibly think you loved someone you barely knew and hadn’t seen in almost nine months and quite possibly would never see again?