The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Read Online Free PDF Page B

Lena was still iffy about her grandmother, she fell instantly in love with the Caldera. The water was a darker copy of the sky, teased by the wind just enough to make it glitter and shine. The thin, semicircular island hugged the wide expanse of water. A tiny island popped up in the middle of it.
    â€œOia is de most beautiful village in Greece,” Grandma proclaimed, and Lena couldn't imagine that wasn't true.
    Lena looked down at the whitewashed buildings, much like this one, clinging to cliffs jutting down to the water. She hadn't realized before how steep it was, how strange a spot it was to make a home. Santorini was a volcano, after all. She knew from family lore that it was the site of the worst explosion in history and countless tidal waves and earthquakes. The center of the island had literally sunk into the sea, and all that was left was this thin, wobbly crescent of volcanic cliffs and some black ash-tinted sand. The cauldron looked calm and beautiful now, but the true Santorinians liked to remind you it could start bubbling and spewing anytime.
    Though Lena had grown up in a flat, sprawling, grassy suburb where people feared no natural disaster worse than mosquitoes or traffic on the beltway, she'd always known her roots were here. And now, looking out at the water, some deep atavistic memory bubbled up, and it did feel like home.
    â€œMy name is Duncan Howe, and I'm your assistant general manager.” He pointed with a large, freckly finger to a plastic nameplate. “And now that you've finished orientation, I'd like to welcome you as our newest sales professionals at Wallman's.” He spoke with such authority, you would have thought he was talking to a crowd of hundreds rather than two bored, gum-chewing girls.
    Tibby imagined a string of drool dangling from the side of her mouth all the way down to the scuffed linoleum squares.
    He studied his clipboard. “Now, uh, Tie-by,” he began, giving it a long
i
.
    â€œTibby,” she corrected.
    â€œI'd like you to unload inventory in Personal Hygiene, aisle two.”
    â€œI thought I was a sales professional,” Tibby commented.
    â€œBrianna,” he said, ignoring Tibby, “you can start at register four.”
    Tibby frowned sourly. Brianna got to snap her gum at an empty register because she had uncommonly huge hair and gigantic boobs that even the darts on her smock couldn't accommodate.
    â€œNow don your headsets, and let's get to work,” Duncan commanded importantly.
    Tibby tried to abort her laugh, so it came out as a combination hack-snort. She slapped her hand over her mouth. Duncan didn't seem to notice.
    The good news was, she'd found her star. She'd decided the morning after the vow of the Pants that she was going to record her summer of discontent in a movie—a suckumentary, a pastiche of lameness. Duncan had just won himself a role.
    She jammed her headset over her ears and hurried herself to aisle two before she got the boot. On one hand, it would have been excellent to get fired, but on the other, she needed to make money if she was ever going to have a car. She knew from experience that there were few career opportunities for a girl with a pierced nose who couldn't type and was not a “people person.”
    Tibby went back to the storeroom, where a woman with extraordinarily long fingernails motioned to a very large cardboard box. “Set that up in deodorants and antiperspirants,” she instructed in a bored tone. Tibby couldn't look away from the fingernails. They curved like ten scythes. They rivaled the nails of the Indian guy in the
Guinness Book of World Records
. They looked the way Tibby imagined a corpse's fingernails would look after a few years in the ground. She wondered how the woman could pick up a box with those nails. Could she dial a phone? Could she type on the keys on the register? Could she wash her hair? Could a person get fired for having their fingernails too long? Could