Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares Read Free Book Online Page B

and Andrew and Annik and these deep, stabilizing stretches of meditation—it all felt like too big a gift to be received. She would have to work to receive it.
    Her heart soared at the sound of the timer indicating the break was over. Back to work. It was amazing how much she could hate and love the very same sound.
    And so began the fateful pose.
    For starters, it was unfortunate that the door opened in the middle of the pose, when Lena was least able to process what was happening. It was unfortunate that the person who walked through the door was Lena’s father. It was also unfortunate that the door was located near the model stand and that Andrew was oriented in such a way that the first thing you saw, upon bursting through the door in the middle of a pose (which you really weren’t supposed to do), was a very up-close look between Andrew’s legs. It was particularly unfortunate that Lena didn’t recognize all of these unfortunate things in time to soften her father’s experience, but instead unwittingly treated her father to a long stretch of her unabashed fixation upon the glories of Andrew.
    When her father started talking, overloud, she came to. He was looming over her. It was a rude transition. It took her a moment to find any words.
    “Dad, you are—
    “Dad, you didn’t—
    “Dad, come on. Let me just—”
    She started a lot of other sentences too. The next thing she knew, he had his hand clamped around her arm and was steering her back through the door, turning her forcibly away from Andrew.
    Annik appeared in the hall with amazing speed. “What’s going on here?” she asked calmly.
    “We are leaving,” Mr. Kaligaris blustered.
    “You are?” she asked Lena.
    “I’m not,” Lena said faintly.
    Mr. Kaligaris exclaimed three or four things in Greek before he turned to English. “I will not have my daughter in this…in this class where you have…in this place where she is—”
    Lena could tell her father wouldn’t use the necessary descriptive words in her earshot. When it came down to it, her father was a deeply conservative and old-fashioned man. He’d grown even more so since Bapi’s death. But long before that, he’d been way stricter than any of her friends’ fathers. He never let boys up to the second floor of their house. Not even her lobotomized cousins.
    Annik stayed cool. “Mr. Kaligaris, might it help if you and Lena and I sat down for a few minutes and discussed what we are trying to do in this class? You must know that virtually every art program offers—”
    “No, it would not,” Mr. Kaligaris broke in. “My daughter is not taking this class. She will not be coming back.”
    He pulled Lena through the hall and out onto the sidewalk. He was muttering something about an unexpected meeting and coming to find her to get the car back, and look what he finds!
    Lena didn’t manage to pull away until she was standing in the harsh sunshine, dazed and off balance once again.

 
    It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

—This Is Spinal Tap

 
    H ow bad could it be?
    That was what Carmen asked herself as she fixed Valia a cup of tea first thing when she arrived at the Kaligaris house early Monday afternoon and brought it into the den, where Valia was watching television.
    “Awful.” Valia nearly spat when she tried the tea. “Vhat did you put in this?”
    “Well, tea.” Carmen was being patient. “And honey.”
    “I said sugar.”
    “The sugar bowl was empty.”
    “Sugar and honey is not the same. American honey you cannot eat.”
    “You can if you want,” Carmen began, but realized this was not a diplomatic avenue. “Here, I’ll try again.” She took the teacup back into the kitchen. She located the box of Domino granulated white sugar on the high shelf in the pantry. She refilled the sugar bowl.
    While she waited for the water to boil a second time, her mind traveled to September. From a chilly distance she imagined