Summary: Chapter 5
“Love is like war: easy to begin, hard
to end.”
—Proverb
Lena doesn’t want to meet Kostos, but Effie tells her
he’s attractive. Lena agrees, but she’s suspicious of him. In her
experience, boys never care about anything but appearances. Grandma
introduces Lena and Kostos and brags that Kostos is going to college
in London and plays soccer. She says he’s staying in Greece this
summer to help his grandfather at the forge. Kostos is evasive when
Effie asks if he has siblings. Lena leaves Effie with Kostos. Later,
Kostos tries to engage her in conversation. He points out his house
and asks if she’d like to take a walk. Lena says no, disappointed
that he asked her out since she was getting to like him.
Bridget has a crush on a coach named Eric, a sophomore
at Columbia University, but the camp forbids campers and coaches
to date. Connie, a coach, puts the girls into the teams they’ll
play on for the summer. Bridget is on team three. She sees Eric
notice her long blond hair. Bridget writes to Carmen and tells her
she’s in love with Eric.
Summary: Chapter 6
“Rule #1: The
customer is always right. Rule #2: If the customer
is wrong, please refer to rule #1.”
—Duncan Howe
Tibby, miserable at Wallman’s, imagines herself dying.
Then she hears a crash and watches a girl collapse. She runs over
and yells for someone to call 911. The girl
seems to be around ten years old. Tibby looks inside her wallet,
but there’s no identification. The EMS arrives and asks Tibby what
happened. Tibby offers the wallet, and the EMS man thinks she stole
it, but Tibby explains she was just trying to find contact information.
Tibby doesn’t like the thought of the girl alone in the ambulance,
so she rides along.
At dinner, Carmen is startled when the family holds hands
to say grace, remembering how Albert refused to become Catholic
to please her mother’s family. Krista says Carmen looks different
from how she imagined, and Carmen asks snippily if she’s surprised
that Carmen is Puerto Rican. Carmen hates everyone. She leaves the table
and calls her mother, Christina, sobbing. Carmen says she doesn’t
like the new family and that they don’t like her, but she denies
that she’s angry with Albert. She knows she should be happy for
Albert, but she’s still upset.
Bridget joins Eric’s run and engages Eric in conversation.
He says his mother is Mexican, so he knows Baja well. Bridget tells
him her father is Dutch. He asks about her mother, and she says
she died, even though she usually tries to avoid revealing this
personal detail. Bridget tells Eric she’s sixteen, even though she
isn’t yet. Eric is nineteen. After the run, Bridget sprints into
the water, and Eric follows.
Analysis
Although Tibby, artsy and pierced, and Bridget, all-American
athlete, seem to be very different, they move through the world
in similarly open, extroverted ways. They are both in the thick
of things and always eager to get involved. At Wallman’s, Tibby
doesn’t hesitate to yell out for help and accompany the young girl
in the ambulance, even though the girl is a stranger and Tibby is
on the clock at work. She assesses the situation and quickly acts.
Similarly, Bridget doesn’t hesitate to pursue what she wants. She
eagerly makes friends and is forthright about the boy she likes,
joining a run with him just so she can engage him in conversation.
Bold and impulsive, Bridget values feelings more than rules. Unlike
Tibby, who knows the rules and considers whether she should break
them, Bridget seems to think that rules are made to be broken. Tibby
and Bridget are both viewed with suspicion because of their openness.
The young girl, for example, can’t figure out what Tibby is doing
beside her in the ambulance, while Eric warily asks Bridget how
old she is. Both girls care little for what others think once they
decide for themselves to take action. Similarly, both girls are
resourceful and quick to figure out ways to get what they want:
Tibby tapes up the deodorant display, while Bridget joins Eric’s
run, then seductively lures him into the water afterward.
