Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

favorite. It was a little smeared, but it had mostly survived
her temper tantrum. Today she packed a hat and a
bathing suit. Just in case. She felt brave going back
there. It didn’t take much to make her feel brave.
The walk uphill felt even steeper than it had been nine
days ago; the transformation from rock to meadow seemed
even more dramatic. She felt an extra kick in her blood flow
when the picturesque little grove came into sight. She went
to the exact spot she’d been before. She could practically see
the three holes her easel had made in the ground. Carefully
she set up her panel and squeezed fresh blobs of paint onto
her palette. She loved the smell of her paints. This was good.
She mixed the precise shade of silver, brown for
warmth, green, and blue—those olive tree leaves wanted
more blue than you would imagine. Each one seemed to
reflect a tiny piece of the sky. The slow hypnosis of deep
concentration was passing over her. It was her safest feeling,
a state she preferred to stay in far longer than most
human beings. She was like one of those strange hibernating
frogs whose hearts didn’t beat for a whole winter. She
liked it that way.
She heard a splash. She looked up, trying to pull her
senses back to alertness. She blinked, forcing her eyes to
see three dimensions as three dimensions again. There
was another splash. Was someone swimming in the pond?
There were few sensations Lena hated more than thinking
she had perfect privacy and discovering she didn’t.
She took a few steps away from her easel and peered
around a tree to give herself a partial glimpse of the
203