Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

had dried funny from the pond water. It was slightly
puffy, rather than smooth and straight. She had the sensation
of being tipsy. She put her face right up to the mirror.
Is that really me?
Returning to the waiting area, she saw how silly the
grandfathers looked. Their plastic chairs were side by
side, but in their efforts to spurn each other they were
sitting almost back to back. Lena knew how ridiculous,
how absurd—how comical, even—this whole thing
was. But though it seemed funny, it didn’t actually
feel funny to her. It just felt bad. She felt ashamed.
Obviously her grandmother believed that Kostos had
physically attacked Lena, and she had told Bapi so. Now
they both believed that their beloved Kostos was some
kind of evil rapist.
Lena could see now how profoundly she had overreacted.
She should have told Grandma the truth and not
let her jump to dramatic conclusions.
So Kostos had spied on her. He’d seen her naked. It
was a bad and stupid and juvenile thing to do. Even so,
she’d felt relieved to see his big sturdy self intervening in
the fight and calming the two men down before they
killed each other.
Kostos had spied on her, and she was annoyed at him
for that. But he hadn’t done the things her grandparents
believed he’d done.
Now what? When everything calmed down and
they’d all had a chance to rest, she would apologize to her
grandparents and explain exactly what had happened.
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