“You don't look like a man or a boy,” Tibby pointed out.
“Or I could just be your general assistant. You know, P.A. Carry your junk and stuff.”
Bailey looked so genuinely excited, it was hard to turn her down.
“Thanks, but I really don't need any help,” Tibby said.
Bailey was on her feet and examining Mimi. “Who's this?” she asked.
“It's Mimi. I've had her since I was seven,” Tibby explained dully. She tended to act like she didn't care deeply about Mimi when she was around her friends.
“She's sweet,” Bailey said. She made twitching-nose faces at Mimi. “Could I hold her?”
Since she was about eight, not a single person, except for Nicky, had ever expressed interest in holding Mimi. Maybe that was the fringe benefit of being friends with a little kid. “Sure.”
Carefully, confidently, Bailey scooped her out of her box. Mimi didn't seem to mind. She settled her fat body into Bailey's chest. “Ooh. She's warm. I don't have any pets.”
“She doesn't do much,” Tibby said, feeling a bit disloyal to Mimi. “She's pretty old. She sleeps a lot.”
“Is she bored in there, do you think?” Bailey asked.
Tibby had never really considered that. She shrugged. “I don't know. I think she's pretty happy with it. I don't think she longs for the wild or anything.”
Bailey settled into a chair with Mimi. “Have you decided who's going to be your first interview?” she asked.
Tibby was about to say no. She stopped herself. “Probably Duncan, this freak at Wallman's,” she answered.
“How's he a freak?” Bailey asked.
“God, he's just . . . he just speaks this other language. Assistant General Manager language. He thinks he's so important. It's fairly hilarious.”
“Oh.” Bailey scratched Mimi's stomach.
“Then there's this lady with unbelievable fingernails,” Tibby continued. “And I think Brianna deserves a little airtime with her antigravitational hairdo. And there's this girl who works at the Pavillion I'd love to interview. She can recite whole scenes from movies, but only really dumb ones.”
Bailey fidgeted in her chair. “I always wanted to make a documentary,” she said wistfully.
Tibby had a feeling she was about to play the leukemia card. “Why don't you make one?”
“I don't have a camera. I don't know how. I really wish you'd let me help you.”
Tibby sighed. “You're trying to make me feel guilty because you have leukemia, aren't you?”
Bailey snorted. “Yeah. Pretty much.” She held Mimi close. “Hey, was that your little sister down there?”
Tibby nodded.
“Big age difference, huh?”
“Fourteen years,” Tibby said. “I also have a two-year-old brother. He's taking a nap.”
“Wow. Did one of your parents remarry?” Bailey asked.
“No. Same parents. They got married to a new lifestyle.”
Bailey looked interested. “How do you mean?”
“Oh, I don't know.” Tibby sank down on her bed. “When my parents first had me, we lived in a tiny apartment over a diner on Wisconsin Avenue, and my dad wrote for a socialist newspaper while he was getting his law degree. Then, after he got burned out as a public defender, we lived in a trailer on two acres out past Rockville, and my dad learned organic farming while my mom made sculptures of feet. One whole spring we lived in a tent in Portugal.” Tibby looked around. “Now we live like this.”
“Were they very young when they had you?” Bailey asked.
“Nineteen.”
“You were kind of like their experiment,” Bailey said, putting the sleeping Mimi on her lap.
Tibby looked at her. She'd never thought those precise words, but they captured a feeling. “I guess so,” she said with more openness than she'd intended.
“Then they got to be grown-ups and they wanted kids for real,” Bailey speculated.
Tibby was both amazed and discomfited by the way this conversation was going. What Bailey said was exactly true. When all her parents' friends had started having kids, her parents had seemed to want another chance to do it right. With baby monitors and matching bumpers and little musical mobiles. Not like it was for Tibby, a little tangly-headed accessory kid getting pulled along for the adventure.
Bailey looked at her with large, sympathetic eyes. Tibby felt sad. She wasn't sure how she'd ended up talking about this stuff. She wanted to be by herself. “I've got to, uh, leave in a while. You'd better go,” Tibby said.
For once Bailey wasn't pushy. She got up to go.
“Put Mimi back, okay?”
Tibby,
I am such a mess. Kostos caught me skinny-dipping, and I totally freaked. You know how I get about privacy. So I throw on my clothes all wrong (I actually managed to put the Pants on inside out—how's that for magical?) and go running home in a fit. My grandmother sees me and assumes something way worse than actually happened.
So then, oh, God, this is painful to recount, she tells my grandfather (in Greek obviously) what she thinks happened, and I am not kidding you, Bapi goes over to beat Kostos up. Kostos's grandfather won't let him in the house, so the two grandfathers get in a fistfight. It sounds funny, I know, but it was horrible.
Now my grandparents are at war with their best friends, and Kostos totally hates me, and nobody but us knows what happened.
I have to just tell the truth, right?
This was my first big Traveling Pants episode. I'm not sure the Pants have the effect we were hoping for. Oh, and I got a little blood on them—which may further inhibit their magic (did my best to wash it out, though). I'm now sending them to you by Santorini's fastest mail (it could take a while). I know you'll do better with them than I did.
I wish you were here, Tib. No, scratch that. I wish we were together anywhere but here.
Love,
Lena
Carmen's dad and Lydia were still at a party. Her dad, who'd basically never had friends, was suddenly a social butterfly. Lydia's friends were all his friends, just like that. He stepped into a life ready-made. House, kids, friends. What was strange was how little of an old life he'd had to bring with him.
Paul was out with Skeletor, and Krista was doing a home spa with two friends in her room. Krista had politely invited Carmen to join in, but the thought just depressed her. It made her miss her friends.
She was sick of the guest room. Every piece of furniture was draped with clothes; the rest were on the floor. She was a hypocrite, she knew. She made messes but couldn't tolerate them.
In the kitchen she saw that Krista had left her geometry homework on the table. Carmen eyed it lustfully. Krista had left off in the middle of the second proof, and there were eight more to do.
The house was silent. She grabbed the papers. She studied them and grabbed the pencil too. She began working. Geometric proofs were pure joy. You started out with both the problem and the solution.
Her focus was so complete she didn't realize Paul had come home until he was standing in the kitchen watching her. Thank goodness he was without Skeletor. He looked puzzled.
Warm blood rushed to her face. What reason could she possibly give for doing Krista's homework?
He lingered for another moment. “Night,” he said.
“Paul, did you do my math homework?” Krista demanded the next morning at breakfast. Her tone fell somewhere between sulky and grateful.
It was Sunday, and Al had made pancakes for everyone. Now he cooked too! Lydia had even set the table with her special floral china. What a treat.
Paul didn't answer right away.
“Did you think I was too dumb to do it myself?” Krista demanded.
Probably, Carmen was tempted to say.
“I didn't,” Paul answered with his usual economy.
Krista sat up straight in her chair. “Do the work or think I was dumb?”
“Either,” he said.
“So who did?” Krista de
manded.
Carmen waited for Paul's eyes to land on her. They didn't. He didn't say anything, just shrugged.
If Paul wasn't going to bust her, should she implicate herself? Carmen wondered.
“I better go,” Paul said. “Thanks for the pancakes, Albert.”
He exited the kitchen and scooped up a duffel bag sitting by the front door before leaving the house.
“Where's he going?” Carmen asked, though it was no business of hers.
Lydia and Krista exchanged a glance. Lydia opened her mouth, then closed it again. “He's going to . . . see . . . a friend,” she finally said.
“Oh.” Carmen wasn't sure why this was such a difficult question.
“So guess what?” Lydia changed the subject chattily. “We've come up with a backup plan for the reception.”
She was talking to Carmen. Carmen realized that was because she was the only one who didn't know about it already.
“Oh,” Carmen said again. She knew she was supposed to ask what it was.
“It's going to be in our own backyard. We've rented a giant tent! Doesn't that sound like fun?”
“Yes, fun.” Carmen took the last sip of her orange juice.
“I was so upset yesterday, you know,” Lydia went on, “but I wanted to be brave. And Albert had this fantastic idea about having it here at home. I'm just thrilled with our solution.”
“Sounds . . . thrilling,” Carmen said. She would have felt guilty for being sarcastic, except no one else seemed to hear it.
“Listen, kid,” her dad said, sliding his chair back from the table. “We'd better get going to the club.”
Carmen shot to her feet. “Let's go.” At last, their promised tennis game. She followed him out of the house and hopped into his new beige family car.
“Bun,” he began once they'd pulled away from the house. “What I told you about Lydia's former husband. It's something I'd like you to keep to yourself. Lydia is very sensitive about it.”
Carmen nodded.
“The reason I bring it up is because Paul is driving down to visit his father today. His dad's at a treatment center in Atlanta. Paul drives down once a month and usually stays over,” her dad explained.
For some reason, that made Carmen feel like she might cry.
“What about Krista?” she asked.
“Krista prefers not to stay in contact with her dad. It upsets her too much.”
She's ashamed of him, Carmen thought. Just like Lydia was obviously ashamed of him. Get a newer, better model and forget about the old one.
“You can't just abandon your family,” Carmen murmured. Then she turned her face to the window, and for the first time in days she really did cry.
“I set up the first interview for our movie,” Bailey claimed excitedly.
Tibby huffed loudly into the phone. “Our movie?”
“Sorry. Your movie. That I'm helping with.”
“Who said you're helping?” Tibby asked.
“Please? Please?” Bailey begged.
“Come on, Bailey. Don't you have anything better to do?” In the silence that followed, Tibby's words seemed to echo across the phone line. Maybe that was not a question you asked a girl with a serious illness.
“I scheduled the interview for four-thirty, after you get off work,” Bailey persisted. “I can drop by your house and pick up the stuff if you want.”
“Who are we supposedly interviewing?” Tibby asked warily.
“That kid who plays arcade games in the Seven-Eleven across from Wallman's? He has the ten high scores on the hardest machine.”
Tibby snorted. “He sounds appropriately lame.”
“So I'll see you later?” Bailey asked.
“I'm not sure what my plans are,” Tibby said coolly, not convincing either of them that she had any other life right now.
Of course Bailey showed up the minute Tibby's shift ended.
“How ya doin'?” Bailey asked, like they were best friends.
Tibby felt the hours under the fluorescent lights searing her brain. “Dying slowly,” she said. Instantly she regretted her words.
“So come on,” Bailey said, holding up the camera. “There's no time to lose.”
Upon her first introduction to Brian McBrian, Tibby knew they'd come to the right place for a scorn fest. He was a caricature of a caricature of a loser. He was both skinny and doughy at the same time, his skin as white-blue as skim milk. He had unibrow syndrome, greasy hair the color of dog doo, mossy braces, and a spitty way of talking. Tibby had to hand it to Bailey.
He cranked on Dragon Master while they set up. Tibby watched Bailey with grudging admiration as she attached the external microphone to a makeshift boom. With all the ambient noise inside and outside the store, there was no way to get a reasonable interview without a directed microphone. Had Bailey really never done this before?
Tibby started by setting the scene. She moved from an extreme close-up of an unnaturally pink Hostess Snowball, to a tabloid rack trumpeting Vanna White's alien baby, to a counter display of Slim Jims. She finished her continuous shot on the guy working behind the counter. He immediately slapped his hands over his face, as though Tibby were an investigative journalist from 60 Minutes. “No camera! No camera!” he barked.
Tibby caught a shot of Bailey's laughing face in the camera as she moved to the front of the store. She got a shot of Brian from behind, his jumping angel bones as he wrestled the dragons; then she cut the camera to set up the interview. “Ready?” she asked.
He turned around. Bailey positioned the microphone. “Rolling,” she warned him.
He didn't primp or stiffen or put his head at a weird angle the way many people did before a camera. He just looked at her dead-on.
“So, Brian, we hear you're quite a regular here at Seven-Eleven.” Tibby assumed that truly dorky people were deaf to sarcasm.
He nodded.
“What kind of hours do you keep?”
“Uh, just pretty much one till eleven.”
“Does the store actually close at eleven?” Tibby asked, her mouth crinkling up into a grin.
“No, that's my curfew,” he explained.
“And during the school year?”
“During the school year I get here by three oh five.”
“I see. No after-school activities or anything?”
Brian seemed to gather the implication of her question. He gestured out the front glass of the store to the parking lot. “Most people live out there,” he said. He pointed to the game. “I live in here.” He tapped the glass of the screen.
Tibby was slightly unnerved by his honesty and the levelness of his stare. She had imagined she would be intimidating to a person like Brian.
“So tell us about Dragon Master,” she asked, beginning to feel she was backing down.
“I'll show you,” he said, slipping two quarters into the money slot. This was obviously why he'd agreed to this.
“Round one is the forest. The year is A.D. 436. The first great expedition in the search for the Holy Grail.”
Tibby trained the camera on the screen, looking over his shoulder. The image wasn't as clear as she'd have liked, but it wasn't too bad.
“There are a total of twenty-eight rounds, spanning from the fifth century to the twenty-fifth century A.D. Only one person on this machine has ever gotten to round twenty-eight.”
“You?” Tibby asked, a little breathlessly.
“Yeah, me,” he said. “On February thirteenth.”
Tibby the scornful documentarian knew this was excellent stuff. But for some reason, she felt mildly impressed in spite of herself. “Maybe you'll get there again today,” she said.
“It's possible,” Brian agreed. “Even if I don't, there's the whole world here.”
Both Tibby and Bailey peered over his shoulder as Brian, a hugely muscular warrior, gathered troops of loyal men and a curvaceous woman to fight by his side.
“You don't even confront a dragon until level seven,” he expl
ained.
At level four, there was a sea battle. At level six, the vandals set fire to Brian's village, and he saved all the women and children. Tibby watched his hands, fast and sure on the various knobs and buttons. He never looked down at them.
Sometime after the second dragon appeared, Tibby heard the battery die and the camera flick off, but she kept watching.
After a long siege of a medieval castle, Brian paused the game and turned around.
“I think your battery ran out,” he said.
“Oh, yeah. You're right,” Tibby said nonchalantly. “That was my third one. I don't have another one charged. Maybe we could finish this later.”
“Sure,” Brian agreed.
“You can keep playing if you want,” Tibby offered.
“I will,” he said.
Bailey bought them each a Hostess fruit pie, and they watched the heroic version of Brian fight through twenty-four levels before being incinerated by dragon breath.
Eric was leading another run at five. Bridget wasn't sure he looked happy to see her.
“Today we're cutting our time to six-minute-fifty-second miles,” Eric announced to the group. “Once again, you know your bodies. You know when you are overdoing it. It's hot out here. So take it easy. Slow down when you need to. This is conditioning, not competition.” He looked right at Bridget.
“Ready?” he asked them after he'd given them a few minutes to stretch.
He seemed to resign himself quickly to the idea that Bridget was going to run alongside him no matter how fast or slow he ran. “You are quite a player, Bee,” he said to her in a measured voice. “You put on a real show today.” He thought she'd overdone it. That was obvious.
Bridget chewed the inside of her lip, ashamed. “I got too intense. I do that sometimes.”
He made a face like that wasn't coming as a big surprise.
“I was showing off for you,” she confessed.
He seemed to hold his thoughts for a second as he looked her right in the eyes. Then he looked back to see how close the next runner was. “Bee, don't,” he said under his breath.
“Don't what?”
“Don't . . . don't . . . push this.” He couldn't seem to find words he was happy with.
“Why not? Why am I not allowed to want you?”