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

and when she saw it was Lena, she rolled over in her wheelchair. She looked happy and a little surprised.
    “Nice to see you,” she said.
    “I’m not here to draw,” Lena said.
    “Why not?”
    “Well…the whole thing with my dad.” She waved her arm in the direction of Andrew. “My dad’s pretty tough when he makes a decision. He already got most of his money refunded.” Lena glanced down at her fingers, her nails bitten short. “I really just came by to say thanks.”
    “For what?” Annik asked.
    “For your teaching. I wasn’t here long, but it’s a great class.”
    Annik sighed. “Listen, I’ve got to help set up. Why don’t you stay for a few minutes—until the first break? You’re welcome to draw if you want. I’ve got extra pads and charcoal. Or you can do whatever. Then we’ll have a chance to talk for a minute.”
    “Okay,” Lena said. She didn’t really want to leave anyway. She would stay and water the plants if that were her only excuse.
    Annik left supplies out on a free easel. It was like leaving drugs out for an addict. It had been Lena’s easel; that’s why it was free. At first Lena just stood in the back of class and watched people draw. Then her fingers started itching for a piece of charcoal. She ambled over to the easel, just drawing with her eyes at first. She hesitated. Then she picked up the charcoal and she was lost until the bell rang.
    Annik came over. “That’s lovely,” she said, studying the three poses of Andrew laid out on the sheet. “Do you want to go outside and talk for a minute?”
    “Okay.” Lena expected they’d talk in the hallway, but Annik led her down the hall, up a ramp, and out into the courtyard. Annik rolled up to a bench, and Lena sat down on it. The dogwood trees rustled and a small fountain gushed appealingly in the middle. Various sculptures and found-object works, one involving a stack of car tires, decorated the perimeter.
    “Are you comfortable drawing Andrew?” she asked. Annik’s hair was a beautiful red, made only more so by the sunlight. There was orange and gold and chestnut and even pink in it. Annik was fairly young, Lena realized, probably in her late twenties, and her face was delicate and pretty. Lena wondered, absently, if there was a man who loved her.
    “Yes,” Lena said. “I felt a little awkward the first day, but then it went away. I don’t think about it anymore.”
    “That’s what I thought,” Annik said. “How old are you?”
    “Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen at the end of the summer.”
    Annik nodded. “Can I tell you what I think?”
    Lena nodded.
    “I think you should take the class.”
    “I think I should too. I wish my dad felt that way.”
    Annik put her hands on her wheels like she was getting ready to roll away.
    Lena wondered, as she had many times before, what had happened to Annik that made her need a wheelchair. Had she always been in a chair or had she grown up on her legs like a regular kid? Had she had an accident or a disease? Lena wondered what of Annik’s worked and what didn’t. Could she have a baby if she wanted to?
    Though Lena wanted to know, she didn’t dare ask. She shied away from the intensity that might come from asking such a question. Intimacy came faster when a person wore their pain and poor luck for all to see. And yet, not asking felt like an act of neglect or cowardice. It kept a distance between them that Lena regretted.
    Annik rolled back and forth a little, but she didn’t go anywhere just yet. “You do what you need to do,” she said.
    Lena wasn’t sure whether this meant take the class or listen to your father, but she had a pretty strong suspicion it was the former.
    “I’m not sure how I’d pay for it, for one thing,” Lena mused.
    “I’m allowed a second monitor,” Annik said. “You’d need to help set up and clean up every day, including mopping. But you’d get free tuition.”
    “I’ll do it,” Lena said instantly, not aware of making the