Bridget sat on the floor of her room with her heart pounding. On the carpet lay four envelopes, all addressed to Bridget and Perry Vreeland, all with Alabama postmarks. They were from a woman named Greta Randolph, her mother’s mother.

The first letter was five years old, and asked them to attend a memorial service in honor of Marlene Randolph Vreeland at the United Methodist church in Burgess, Alabama. The second was four years old, and told Bridget and Perry that their grandfather had died. It included two uncashed checks for one hundred dollars apiece, explaining that the money was a small bequest from their grandfather’s will. The third was two years old and included a detailed family tree of the Randolph and Marven families. Your Heritage , Greta had written across the top. The fourth letter was a year old, and it invited Bridget and Perry to please come visit whenever they could.

Bridget had never seen or read any of them until today.

 

She’d found them in her father’s den, filed with her birth certificate and her report cards and her medical records as though they belonged to her, as though he’d given them to her. 

Her hands were shaking when she went into his room. He was just home from work, sitting on the bed and taking off his work shoes and black socks as he always did. When she was very small, she’d liked to do it for him, and he’d liked to say it was his favorite thing in the day. Even at the time it had made her worry that there weren’t enough happy things in his days.

“Why didn’t you give these to me?” she yelled at him. She strode close enough for him to see what she held. “They are written to me and Perry!” 

Her father looked at her like he could barely hear her. He looked that way no matter how loudly she talked. He shook his head. It took him some time to figure out what Bridget was flapping in his face. “I am not on speaking terms with Greta. I asked her not to contact you,” he said at last, as if it were simple and obvious and not a big deal.

“But they’re mine!” Bridget shouted. It was a big deal. It was a very big deal to her.

 

He was tired. He lived deep inside his body. Messages took a long time to get in and get out. “You’re a minor. I’m your parent.”

 

“But what if I had wanted them?” she shot back.

 

Slowly he considered her angry face. 

She didn’t feel like waiting around for an answer, letting him set the pace of the conversation. “I’m going there!” she shouted at him without even thinking about what she was saying. “She invited me and I’m going.”

He rubbed his eyes. “You’re going to Alabama?”

 

She nodded defiantly.

 

He finished with his socks and shoes. His feet seemed small. “How are you going to manage that?” he asked her.

 

“It’s summer. I’ve got some money.”

 

He thought about it. He couldn’t seem to think of a reason why she couldn’t. “I don’t like or trust your grandmother,” he told her finally. “But I’m not going to try to forbid you to go.”

 

“Good,” she snapped.

 

She went back to her room as her old summer dissolved and her new one dawned all around her. She was going to go. It felt good to be going someplace.

 

“So guess what?”

 

This was a phrase from Bee that always made Lena sit up and listen. “What?”

 

“I’m going away. Tomorrow.” “You’re going away tomorrow?” Lena repeated dumbly.

 

“To Alabama,” Bee said.

 

“You’re kidding me.” Lena was only saying that. It was Bee, so Lena knew she wasn’t kidding.

 

“I’m going to see my grandmother. She sent me some letters,” Bee explained.

 

“When?” Lena asked.

 

“Well . . . actually . . . five years ago. That’s when the first one came.”

 

Lena was stunned not to have known this.

 

“I just found them. My dad never gave them to me.” Bee didn’t sound mad. She stated it as a fact.

 

“Why not?”

 

“He blames Greta for all kinds of stuff. He told her not to contact us. He was annoyed that she tried.”

 

Lena had so little optimism where Bee’s dad was concerned that this did not shock her.

 

“For how long, do you think?” she asked.

 

“I don’t know. A month. Maybe two.” She paused. “I asked Perry if he wanted to come with me. He read the letters, but he said no.”

 

Lena didn’t find that surprising either. Perry had been a sweet kid, but he’d grown into a reclusive teenager. 

Lena felt alarmed at this change in plans. They were supposed to get jobs together. They were supposed to hang out all summer. But at the same time she felt oddly comforted by the impulsiveness. It was something the old Bee would do.

“I’ll miss you .” Lena’s voice wobbled a little. She felt weirdly teary. It was natural that she would miss Bee. But Lena usually registered that something was sad before she felt it. Now the order was reversed. It took her by surprise.

“Lenny, I’ll miss you,” Bee said quickly, tenderly, as startled as Lena was by the ready emotion in Lena’s voice. 

Bee had changed so much in the last year, but a few things had stayed the same. Most people, including Lena herself, backed away when they sensed some out-of-control emotion. Bee went right out to meet it. Right now, that was a thing Lena loved.

Tibby was leaving the next day, and she hadn’t finished packing or begun shopping for their biannual break-and-enter at Gilda’s. She was madly packing when Bridget appeared. Bridget sat atop Tibby’s bureau and watched her throw the entire contents of her desk on the floor. She couldn’t find her printer cable.

 

“Try the closet,” Bridget suggested. 

“It’s not there,” Tibby answered gruffly. She couldn’t open her closet because it was jammed with things she could neither keep nor throw away (like her old guinea pig’s cage). Tibby feared that if she even cracked open the door, the whole mountain would tumble and crush her to death.

“I bet Nicky took it,” Tibby muttered. Nicky was her three-year-old brother. He took her stuff and broke her stuff, usually the moment before she really needed it.

 

Bee didn’t say anything. She was being awfully quiet. Tibby turned to look at her. 

If a person hadn’t seen Bee in a year, they might not have recognized her sitting there. She wasn’t blond and she wasn’t thin and she wasn’t moving. She had tried to dye her hair really dark, but the dye she’d used had barely conquered the famous yellow struggling underneath. Bee was normally so thin and muscled that the fifteen or so pounds she’d gained over the winter and spring sat heavily and obviously on her arms and legs and torso. It almost looked like her body wasn’t willing to incorporate the extra fat. It just let it sit there, right on the surface, hoping it would go away soon. Tibby couldn’t help thinking that what Bee’s mind wanted and what her body wanted were two different things.

“I may have lost her,” Bee said solemnly.

 

“Lost who?” Tibby asked, looking up from the mess.

 

“Myself.” Bee bounced one heel against a closed drawer. 

Tibby stood. She abandoned her mess. Gingerly she backed toward her bed and sat down, keeping an eye on Bee. This was a rare mood. Month after month Carmen had subtly tried to pry introspection out of Bee, but it hadn’t come. Lena had been maternal and sympathetic, but Bee hadn’t wanted to talk. Tibby knew this was important.

Although Tibby was the least physical of the group, she wished Bee were sitting next to her. And yet she knew intuitively that Bee was sitting on her bureau for a reason. She didn’t want to be sitting on a low, soft place within easy range of comfort. She also knew that Bee had chosen Tibby for this conversation because as much as Tibby loved her, she would listen without overwhelming her.

“How do you mean?” 

“I think about the person I used to be, and she seems so far away. She walked fast, I walk slow. She stayed up late and got up early, I sleep. I feel like if she gets any farther away, I won’t be connected to her at all anymore.”

Tibby’s desire to go closer to Bee was so strong she had to clamp her elbows against her legs to make them stay put. Bee’s arms were wrapped around her body, containing her. “Do you want . . . to stay connected to her?” Tibby’s words were slow and quiet, seeming to make their way to Bridget one at a time. 

Bee had made every effort to change herself this year. Tibby quietly suspected she knew the reason. Bee couldn’t outrun her troubles, so she’d entered her own version of the witness protection program. Tibby knew how it was to lose someone you loved. And she also knew how tempting it was to cast off that sad, ruined part of yourself like a sweater you’d outgrown.

“Do I want to?” Bee thought about the words carefully. Some people (like Tibby, for instance) tended to listen in a muffled, sheltered way. Bee was the opposite.

 

“I think I do.” Tears flooded Bee’s eyes, gluing her yellow eyelashes into triangles. Tibby felt tears fill her own eyes.

 

“You need to find her then,” Tibby said, and her throat ached. 

Bee stretched out one arm and left it out there, her palm turned up to the ceiling. Tibby got up without thinking and took the hand. Bee laid her head on Tibby’s shoulder. Tibby felt the softness of Bee’s hair and the moisture from her eyes against her collarbone.

“That’s why I’m going,” Bee said. 

Later, when Tibby pulled away from Bee, she wondered about herself. She wasn’t as destructive as Bee. She had never been as dramatic. Rather, she’d slipped carefully, stealthily away from her ghosts.

Late that afternoon, Carmen lay in her bed feeling happy. She’d just returned from Tibby’s, where Bee and Lena had turned up too. They would gather again tonight for the second annual Pants initiation at Gilda’s. Carmen had thought she’d be feeling miserable right around now, feeling sorry that she wasn’t going anywhere. But she often found good-byes easier than expected. She took care of most of the dreading beforehand. And besides, seeing Bee had made her happy. Bee had a plan, and Carmen was glad. Carmen would miss her like crazy, but something inside Bee had shifted for the good.

The summer didn’t look so bad from where she lay. They had drawn straws to determine the route of the Pants, and Carmen would get them first. She had the Pants and a date tomorrow night with one of the best-looking guys in her class. That was fate, wasn’t it? That had to mean something.

All winter she’d tried to imagine what the Pants would bring her this summer, and now, with the convergence of her date and the Pants, she saw the big clue she’d been hoping for. This summer, they’d be the Love Pants.

Carmen sat up when she heard a familiar trill from her computer. It was an instant message from Bee.

 

Beezy3: Packing. Do you have my purple sock with the heart on the ankle? Carmabelle: No. Like I’d wear your socks.

 

Carmen looked from her computer screen down to her feet. To her dismay, her socks were two faintly different shades of purple. She rotated her foot to get a view of her anklebone.

 

Carmabelle: Ahem. Might possibly have sock. 

The door of Gilda’s Aerobics Studio in upper Bethesda had a lock that was laughably easy to pick. But when they got to the top of the stairs, the smell of old sweat was so pervasive Carmen wondered why anyone besides them would choose to be there, never mind take the trouble to break in.

They got right to work, with a feeling of grandness in the air. It was already late. Bee was boarding a bus to Alabama at five thirty in the morning, and Tibby was leaving for Williamston College in the afternoon.

As a matter of tradition, Lena set up the candles and Tibby laid out the Gummi Worms, the deformed cheese puffs, the bottles of juice. Bridget set up the music, but she didn’t turn it on. 

All eyes were on the bag in Carmen’s arms. They had each inscribed the Pants and ceremoniously put them away in September after Carmen’s birthday, the last of the four. None of them had seen them since.

There was a hush as Carmen opened the bag. She drew out the moment, proud that she was the one who had found the Pants—though, granted, she was also the one who had almost thrown them away. She let the bag fall to the ground as the Pants seemed to flutter open in slow motion, swirling the air with their memories.

In silent awe, Carmen laid the Pants on the floor, and the girls arranged themselves in a circle around them. Lena unfolded the Manifesto and laid it on top of them. They all knew the rules. They didn’t need to look at them now. They had already diagrammed the route of the Pants, and the logistics were a lot easier this summer.

They held hands.

 

“This is it,” Carmen breathed. The moment was all around them. She remembered the vow from last summer. They all remembered it. They said it together:

 

“To honor the Pants and the Sisterhood

 

And this moment and this summer and the rest of our lives

 

Together and apart.” 

It was midnight, the end of together . . . and in another way, the beginning of it.