only Tibby will stay behind to spend her summer alone in her drudgery, working for minimum wage at Wallman’s drug store in Bethesda. Tibby suggests Carmen can make her feel better by giving her the pants she got at the secondhand store. They have never looked too appealing to Carmen, but now that someone else is showing some interest they look a little better. Tibby slips them on and the other girls are stunned: she is a slender, shapely girl, which she generally hides under her oversized, shapeless clothes. The jeans fit her perfectly. When the gorgeous Lena tries them on, they hug her figure in a totally different but equally stunning way. Next is Bridget. The jeans fit her perfectly, too, even though she is much taller than the other girls are. They are Carmen’s jeans, and she goes next but has some trepidation that her rear end and thighs, inherited from the Puerto Rican side of her family, will not suit the jeans. Perhaps they will not even fit. Instead, the girls are speechless at the sight. They all agree that these are magic pants.

To celebrate their discovery of the magic Pants as well as their last night together before their first summer apart, the girls break into Gilda’s aerobics studio (which they started doing once a year for the past three years), the place where their mothers met while pregnant with them. They spread junk food on a blanket, put on bad pop music, light candles, and settle on the floor around the jeans in the center of the blanket.

They make a pact that the magic Pants now belong to each of them equally and will be the thing that keeps them together when they are apart. As they write the pact of the Sisterhood (which Tibby films for posterity), they fuss a bit over the rules. They settle on ten rules ranging from “sincere to silly”: The Pants must never be washed, double-cuffed, or worn with a tucked-in shirt. The girls can take the Pants off in a boy’s presence, but no boy is allowed to touch them. No nose-picking or feeling as if they are fat is allowed while wearing the Pants, and their time in the Pants must be documented before sending them on to the next sister. On the left leg, each girl must write the most exciting place they have been in the Pants; on the right leg, each girl must document the most important thing that happened to them while wearing the Pants. Pants equal love: love the Pants, the Sisterhood, and yourself. The girls determine the Pants should be passed on whenever the temporary holder feels the time is right, but it should generally take no longer than a week. Lena will take them with her to Greece first, which is an adventurous beginning for such a Sisterhood. Tibby will get them next (to alleviate her depression at being stuck at home), followed by Carmen and Bridget; then they will reverse the order.

Tibby’s summer is off to a very discouraging start as she rides her bike to work wearing her polyester work smock. She is mortified when Tucker, the hottest boy in her class, recognizes her. She decides to record her summer in what she calls a “suckumentary,” documenting the awfulness of her job and her life. On her first day of work she creates an elaborate antiperspirant display and gets in trouble for walking out of the store with a partial roll of tape (used to make the display) in her smock and losing her employee discount.

Bridget, on the other hand, is attending a soccer camp in stunningly beautiful Baja California and spends her first night sleeping on the beach with a few potential new friends. The next day the girls are separated into six teams for the duration of the camp, and Bridget is stunned at the sight of one of the coaches. Eric is beautiful and a college soccer player; she suspects he is probably not immune to her gorgeous, long, blond hair. Unfortunately, there is a nonfraternization rule at the camp.

Carmen is excited and anxious about spending the entire summer with her father. He usually comes to visit her at Christmas, so she is a bit apprehensive about living in his bachelor apartment. When her father meets her at the airport, Carmen immediately feels that all is well. They talk as they always do; he calls her “sweetheart” and “bun,” and she knows it is going to be a wonderful summer. Then she sees he has traded his Saab for a station wagon and has moved into a suburban Victorian house—with his blond fiancée and her two blond teenage children. He did not tell her these things because he wanted to tell her in person, and Carmen is stunned and hurt. “I’m a guest in the guest room of a family that will never be mine.”

Lena and her younger sister Effie arrive at their grandparents’ home on a small, volcanic island in Greece called Caldera. She is not immediately comfortable with her grandparents but she adores the beauty of her surroundings. Her grandparents owned a restaurant for years and are hosting a dinner for neighbors and friends to welcome their granddaughters to their home. Lena puts on the Pants with some trepidation, for she knows this is the beginning of their journey. As she arrives downstairs, Effie is cooking and grandmother is beaming. Lena knows Effie is the sociable one, the one everyone likes; Lena is wary because of people in her life who only like her because she is beautiful. She usually tries to hide her beauty behind a plain and ordinary wardrobe and is not particularly good at casual conversation. Grandmother announces that she has invited a “nice” boy to dinner that night, and she is anxious that Lena make a good impression on Kostos. As promised, Kostos is a nice young man. He will be going to university in London in the fall and is an extraordinary soccer player—and incredibly handsome. Lena deflects Kostos to pay attention to Effie and finds a quiet place outside to eat. Kostos finds her and asks if she wants to take a walk. She says no, for she has had experiences with boys attracted only to her beauty and wants no more of it. He walks slowly down the street to his home, and she is sad that he asked her out; she might have liked him otherwise.

Wallman’s is killing Tibby slowly and painfully. As she is restocking items in personal hygiene, Tibby hears a crash and a thunk; when she turns around she sees that a girl, probably ten years old, has fallen into the deodorant display and hit her head on the linoleum floor. After telling a coworker to dial 911, Tibby goes back to the girl and waits for the EMTs to arrive, checking the girl’s wallet so she can contact her parents. Tibby asks to ride along in the ambulance, thinking she would like someone to hold her hand if it were her. When she arrives back at Wallman’s, Tibby is in trouble; she missed too much of her shift and will not get paid for her time away. She sees the girl’s wallet (her name is Bailey) and rides to her house to return it to her. Bailey’s mother answers the door and sends Tibby up to see her daughter. The girl is actually twelve and has an attitude; when Tibby goes back downstairs, the mother tells her that Bailey has leukemia. This changes Tibby’s antagonism to sadness, and she soon leaves Bailey’s house. The image of the fallen girl continues to haunt her, and the next day Bailey shows up at Wallman’s to give Tibby another opportunity not to be such a jerk, she says. They arrive at some kind of sarcastic truce and go for ice cream. Tibby shares her ideas for the movie she is planning to make, and Bailey makes fun of the rather artificial Tucker, on whom Tibby obviously has a crush. Despite the age difference, the two have much in common.

When Carmen joins the family for her first meal in her father’s new home, she feels out of place. The table is elaborately set and they hold hands to say grace, which feels very different from the burger and game of pool her father usually shares with her on their first night together. Krista is about the same age as Carmen and tries to start a conversation; Carmen responds either in monosyllables or in anger. The older son, Paul, says nothing. Soon she has to leave the table and asks to call her mother. Her mother asks whether Carmen is mad at her father or at the strangers. Carmen knows she should be happy for her dad, but she cannot bring herself to like them—and “she hated herself for hating them.” After several days of pouting, Carmen agrees to attend a party with the two teens; her dad is hopeful she will have fun, but she does not. Her only moment of fun is making Paul’s girlfriend momentarily jealous.

Bridget asks one of her campmates to trade teams with her so she can have Eric as her coach, but that is not allowed. He leads a group run every day, and today Bridget hurries to join the pack. It is a strenuous run even for a strong natural runner, but Bridget is determined. She introduces herself to Eric. Early in their conversation, Bridget tells him her mother died four years ago. She has never been comfortable speaking of it, but it seems right to tell it now. Bridget sprints ahead of the pack and Eric keeps up with her. They fall into the sand in exhaustion, but soon Bridget invites him to swim and enters the water. Eric follows, and their flirtation begins. One night Bridget suggests the girls go to the nearby Hotel Hacienda. Though it is against camp rules, three of them decide to go. It is an evening of hot, sweaty salsa dancing, and Bridget eventually dances with Eric. When she gets a bit too close, he tells her they cannot do this.

Lena eats breakfast in silence with her grandfather because they do not share a common language, then she heads to town to do some painting. She puts on the Pants and gathers her supplies; just as she is leaving, Kostos arrives at the door to deliver some fresh pastries from his grandmother. Her grandmother starts matchmaking again, inviting Lena and Kostos to sit down to eat one of the treats. They each make an excuse but leave the house together. Lena asks Kostos which way he is heading, and she promptly tells him she is going the opposite direction. He seems hurt by her obvious attempt to brush him off. In the next days, Kostos walks by the house five or six times, obviously hoping to see Lena. Lena only has one more day with the Pants before she has to send them off to Tibby, and she has decided to be adventurous so she will not disappoint the Sisterhood or the Pants. She goes to a deserted spot to paint and is mesmerized by the beauty of the olive grove around her. It is stiflingly hot, and she hesitantly strips off her clothes and cools off in the refreshing water of the pond, a move totally unlike her. Lena is embarrassed even though there is no one in sight, but the water feels heavenly. She is perfectly content—until she hears a rustling and scrambles out of the water and toward her pile of discarded clothing. As she does, Kostos comes out of the brush and simply stares at her nakedness. She screams at him as she tries to cover herself, and finally he walks away muttering in Greek. In her rush to get dressed, Lena is quite disheveled when she arrives back at her grandmother’s. When asked what happened, Lena sputters furiously that Kostos is not a nice boy! Unfortunately, this statement is misconstrued and soon Lena’s grandfather is storming down the street, demanding to see Kostos. Both grandfathers are acting protective, and when Lena’s grandfather is not allowed access to Kostos he hits Kostos’s grandfather. Kostos steps between them to prevent any further fighting.

Carmen’s relationship with her father is strained because of her jealousy and anger toward her father’s new family, and she wishes she did not feel this way. Bit by bit, her anger dissipates as she sees the members of this new family as individuals rather than as the collective enemy, though she is tired of the incessant wedding talk that is consuming her father and soon-to-be stepmother. Her dad has to cancel a tennis date with her to address a wedding crisis. Paul offers to play with her even though he is a soccer player with no aptitude for tennis. She beats him soundly. That night Carmen is drawn to Krista’s geometry homework sitting on the table and soon discovers she has completed every problem. Paul notices, but the next morning when accused of doing it, he does not implicate his future stepsister. When it is time to try on her bridesmaid dress for a fitting, Carmen is mortified first because of how it looks and then because it does not fit. The seamstress is rude, adding humiliation to Carmen’s own disdain of her curvaceous figure. She walks out of the room, hurling insults behind her. Paul meets her in the hallway and says she antagonizes people; Carmen does not believe him.

It is Bridget’s first soccer scrimmage at camp, and she is determined to impress Eric. The goal of this scrimmage, according to Bridget’s coach, is to practice passing; when Bridget plays like a one-person team, she is yanked from the game and chastised for being a selfish player. When she goes with Eric on a run later in the day, it is clear he does not approve of her showboating. When she admits she was trying to impress him, Eric tells her again they cannot become involved because of the rules of the camp. Bridget says it is a rule she does not care about, but Eric is adamant that he wants to keep his job. That does not stop Bridget, who is recklessly single-minded when she wants something. That night she wants Eric, and she goes to his cabin. He wakes when he sees her and they go outside. While he is clearly attracted to her, he asks her to promise not to do this again. She is not convinced he means it.

The two old Greek grandfathers are in the hospital waiting room, and Lena feels terrible for having been the cause of their scuffle. Her grandfather needs four stitches in his cheek, and all Lena can think is how thankful she is that Kostos intervened and how she can rectify the misunderstanding she caused. She notices a droplet of blood on the Pants and ineffectually tries to eradicate the stain, knowing she cannot wash the Pants. Kostos leaves the hospital without speaking to her. It is not an auspicious opening adventure for the Traveling Pants, and Lena sends them to Tibby for the next leg of their journey. Lena is miserable because she has not been able to make amends or explain the truth to her grandmother or to Kostos yet. He no longer walks by her grandparents’ home, but she finds herself wandering past his home, which she once assiduously avoided.

Tibby gets an unexpected visitor. Bailey shows up at her house to offer to help with her documentary. She quickly becomes a consistent and observant presence in Tibby’s life, which Tibby finds a bit disconcerting. She is the only person, besides her sisters, who asks to hold Mimi, Tibby’s guinea pig. One day Bailey calls Tibby to tell her she has set up an interview that afternoon with the player who has the ten highest scores on the most difficult game in the Seven-Eleven mini-mart near Wallman’s. Brian McBrian is a video nerd in every sense of the word, but he speaks to Tibby directly and honestly in front of the camera. Both girls are mesmerized by him as he plays his game like a master. Bailey now spends much of her time in Tibby’s room, even when Tibby is not there, editing their movie. Tibby is now wearing the Pants, and Bailey admires both the Pants and the Sisterhood. Their next interview is with Margaret, a woman who has worked at the movie theater for the past thirty years and is living somewhat vicariously through the thousands of movies she has seen there alone. This makes Tibby sad. The next interview is with Bailey herself, who asks to wear the Pants during their discussion. When Tibby asks her new friend what she is most afraid of, Bailey’s answer is quick: time. She is afraid she will not have the time to really know others or have them know her, enough time to rectify quick judgments and misunderstandings. She is “afraid of seeing snapshots instead of movies.” Tibby is surprised at her wisdom, and when she mails the Pants to Carmen she is not sure yet what her experience with the Pants taught her.

The evening of the dress incident, Carmen goes downstairs to dinner with a little more confidence because she is wearing the Pants. There is no indication from Lydia, Krista, or her father that anything out of the ordinary had happened, which makes Carmen somehow even angrier. She goes outside for a walk, slamming the door behind her. Her walk calms her down a bit, and she finally makes her way to her father’s house so he will not worry about her. She expects there will be some kind of reaction to her outburst and departure. However, when she looks in the window, she sees her father with his new family, holding hands and saying grace before the meal. Suddenly infuriated by this image of her father’s new family—a family that does not include her—Carmen picks up a rock and throws it through the window. The glass shatters, and she meets her father’s eyes before she runs. After hiding for hours, Carmen sneaks back into the house to gather her belongings. She buys a bus ticket back to Washington and mails the Pants to Bridget along with the wish that they will bring her “good sense,” something Carmen knows she is lacking. When she shows up at Tibby’s house, Carmen is looking for a safe place to shed her unshed tears and to be heard and understood. When Tibby listens but does not get angry on her behalf, Carmen is crushed. After listening to everything, Tibby timidly asks, “Is it possible it’s not the worst thing in the world?” Carmen storms out of the room. A week passes, and her father has not called except to make sure she arrived safely. Carmen could call him, but her guilt is making her too miserable to see beyond her own misery and pain. She is determined to be loved by one of her parents, but it is hard for Carmen to be anything but critical of her mother.

Days later and despite her grandmother’s obvious disappointment in a young man she loved as her own, Lena is still unable to broach the subject of the misunderstanding about Kostos. When Effie finally hears the whole story, she is adamant that Lena tell the truth. Lena buys some pastries and walks to the forge where Kostos works, hoping for a chance to talk to him. When he sees her, he nods at her but does not meet her eyes. She calls his name but he keeps walking. The only solace Lena can find is in her painting, and she returns to her perfect spot of beauty and solitude despite Kostos’s unexpected appearance the last time she was here. As she settles in to try to capture the beauty of the olive trees against the sky, Lena hears a splash. Lena peers through the brush and makes a discovery. This time it is Kostos who is naked, and she is the surprised gawker. She now knows that she is the one who has inadvertently barged into his special place. Lena is mortified, but Kostos finally looks directly into her eyes.

Bridget tries to call Tibby, but she is not home. At breakfast, Bridget confides to her camp friends that this might be the night she and Eric spend together. When she retrieves her mail from the mailroom, she screams in delight at the Pants and puts them on immediately. In the first game of the soccer tournament, Bridget plays an inspired and unselfish game. When the one-sided game is nearly over, Bridget is sent in as goalie, something she has never played before and sees as a demotion. Eric smiles at her consternation. When a kick comes her way, she catches it instinctively; however, when she hears the disappointment of the crowd, she tosses the ball backwards into the net and gets a cheer from the crowd and a smile and a thumbs-up from Eric. That night, as Bridget predicted, she and Eric are intimate. Eric said he did not want her to come to him but he hoped she would, and she did. After Eric goes back to his cabin, Bridget is overwhelmed with emotion.

Lena’s younger sister Effie is ecstatic because she has kissed a handsome young waiter from the local café; in contrast, Lena is miserable and preoccupied. She picks up her sketch pad and some charcoal and finds herself drawing the contours of Kostos’s face; when she looks outside her window, she finds herself looking at Kostos himself. Her heart begins racing. Later she is able to talk with her grandmother. When she hears that Kostos, an American citizen, was raised by his grandparents here in Greece because his parents and younger brother died, Lena is terribly sad. She is finally able to explain that Kostos did not disrespect her in any way, and grandmother says she realized it a day or two after the incident. Lena worries about Bridget. She is like Kostos; each of them has suffered loss but they are “still open to love.” Lena, on the other hand, has experienced no loss but shuts herself off from loving.

The next morning Bridget is besieged with questions from her friends. She had not expected to mind this, but her experience with Eric is personal and she wants to keep it to herself. So she lies. She tells them nothing happened, and then she hibernates in her sleeping bag all day. Her friends are worried about her, but she assures them she often has such days. Tonight is the championship match between Lena’s team and the team Eric coaches. As Bridget is collecting her thoughts and writing a note to send with the Pants, Eric approaches her as if nothing extraordinary has happened. He eventually says it was wrong of him to be with her and apologizes. She throws her pen at him and hates him for saying that. She writes a letter to Carmen and says she wishes she had listened to her about having good sense.

Carmen tries to write a note of apology to her father and his new family, but nothing sounds right. Instead, she stuffs all the money she has into an envelope and mails it to her father—no note included. Things are still tense between Tibby and Carmen, but Carmen agrees to be interviewed for the documentary. The questions center on Carmen’s family situation, and soon she is in tears. Both Bailey and Tibby offer her comfort, telling her she is “allowed to be mad.” At work later, Tibby is surprised not to see Bailey waiting for her as she has all summer. Her concern grows as the minutes pass, and finally she goes to Bailey’s house. A neighbor tells her the family has gone to the hospital, so Tibby goes to see her friend. Bailey’s mother sees her and explains that her daughter has spent most of the last five years in a clinic as she battled her disease. They decided to allow Bailey to live a normal life this summer because it was likely to be her last. She thanks Tibby for being such an important person in Bailey’s life this summer. She explains that her daughter is now fighting an infection, and the outcome is uncertain.

It is nearly the end of summer, and Lena wishes she had the courage to tell Kostos how sorry she is about what happened between them. As a sort of peace offering, she goes back to the olive grove and paints furiously and with inspiration. It is her best painting. Soon it is time to celebrate one of the biggest Greek holidays; however, unlike her sister, Lena does not feel festive. From her window in the dark, Lena sees Kostos dancing joyfully with her grandmother and wishes she were brave enough to let him know how she feels. In the morning, Effie raids her sister’s closet for something to wear and discovers the charcoal drawing of Kostos. She slowly turns to Lena and exclaims that she cannot believe Lena is in love with him. Although Lena tries to deny it, Effie knows the truth and encourages her to tell Kostos how she feels. Lena’s biggest fear is that he will not return her feelings, and Effie tells her that is why she must be brave.

Tibby gets home from the hospital and calls in sick to work; she does not want to be reminded of Bailey’s absence at the end of her shift. When she taps on Mimi’s glass cage, there is no response. The guinea pig is dead. Tibby eventually puts her in a bag at the back of the freezer and convinces herself that her pet is not dead. Tibby hibernates in her room, still in denial about her new friend’s condition. When the phone rings she fears the worst; when the answering machine goes on, she hears Bailey’s voice asking Tibby to call. Tibby stays under the covers. When she comes out of her cocoon, she stuffs herself with junk food and watches television. She has the volume on as loud as possible in an attempt to drown out the phone messages, the last from Bailey’s mother, who asks her to call or come by the hospital. Bailey would like to see her friend, but Tibby cannot face her.

Sitting on her mother’s bed, Carmen is finally able to admit that she is mad at her dad both for leaving her and for having a new family without her. Finally she calls her father and unleashes her anger and hurt on him. When she asks about the broken promises of being closer than ever but only seeing her two or three times a year, her father apologizes through his tears. Carmen tries to get Tibby to talk to her, but Tibby does not want to tell her anything. The phone rings and the answering machine begins; Tibby grabs for it so Carmen will not hear, but to no avail. Bailey’s mom is distraught and says her daughter is not doing well and asks Tibby to please come see her. Carmen sees Tibby is near tears and tries to comfort her, but Tibby asks her to leave. An hour later, Carmen returns and tells her she needs to go see Bailey, and she leaves the Pants on Tibby’s bed. Later Tibby has an epiphany and is suddenly afraid she might be too late. She quickly puts on the Pants and makes her way to the hospital. Visiting hours are over but she manages to get into Bailey’s room. Bailey looks the same to Tibby, except for the tubes in her arm and nose. Bailey does not respond when Tibby says her name, so she simply holds her hand and gently lies down next to her, hoping Tibby knows she is not alone. In the morning Bailey is thrilled to see her friend, and Tibby tells her that Mimi died. Bailey seems to understand. She then encourages Tibby to hurry so she will not be late for her shift at Wallman’s but asks her to please come back to see her. Tibby sees Carmen waiting for her in the lobby. She needs the Pants.

Bridget takes her time preparing for the championship game. Her usual enthusiasm is gone and she has little energy, which are both anomalies for the whirlwind soccer player. From the first moments of the game, Bridget is lethargic and tentative, which sets the tone for her entire team. When the coach yells at her, Bridget walks off the field. Later, her friends do what they can to try to revive the old Bridget, but she does not respond. Eric asks Bridget to go for a walk with him, and she does. He now understands that what they did was something new for her and they should not have done it. He tells her she is beautiful and talented and she has haunted him since the beginning of the summer. He tells her she is too young for him, but all Bridget can think is that she is too young for what they did. She is not comforted.

Today is Carmen’s father’s wedding day, and Carmen has made the arrangements to be there. She arrives just before the ceremony begins and slips into the back row of the church. It is a lovely ceremony, and Carmen knows she could have been part of it and that they wanted her to be part of it. As her father walks down the aisle, he meets her eyes and she knows he loves her. At the reception later, he hugs her for a long time but does not speak. Carmen knows what he means. They include her in all the wedding pictures, “the dark-skinned girl in a pair of blue jeans.” The photographer cares, but the family does not. Even Paul is almost sociable and asks her to dance. The Pants have helped teach Carmen a lesson and they can now go to Lena.

Tibby finishes her shift at Wallman’s, and of course Bailey is not there to meet her, which just reminds Tibby of what is happening to her friend. She sits behind the building and cries. Soon Tucker sees her and tries to console her, offering to take her for a cup of coffee and a talk. Suddenly Tibby sees what Bailey has always seen, that Tucker is beautiful but in an artificial way, and she tells him she does not want to go with him. After visiting hours are over, Tibby is not yet ready to go home. She goes instead to the Seven-Eleven and asks Brian McBride to teach her how to play his game, Dragon Master. Bailey has been learning the game as well, Tibby discovers, and Brian sends a home version of the game with Tibby to give to Bailey in the hospital. As she walks home, Tibby reflects on the simple things that create happiness every day, even in the face of death. When she visits Bailey that night she knows her friend is weakening.

In a magical ending to the summer, the Traveling Pants arrive in Greece on Lena’s final day there. They look a little more worn and wrinkled than when she saw them last, but they also look strong and enduring. Lena takes their arrival as a sign that she must tell Kostos how she feels before she leaves. The short walk to the forge seems interminable, but Lena sees Kostos almost immediately. When Kostos sees her, he invites her to sit down. She is awkward and unsteady; he is comfortable and sturdy. Because she cannot seem to find the words, Lena hands him the painting of his special spot. Kostos is polite and simply waits, as it is clear that Lena has more to say to him. She is nervous, sweating profusely both from nerves and from the heat. Lena takes comfort in this: if Kostos likes her at all, for once it will not be because of her looks. She stumbles through an explanation and an apology, which he graciously accepts. Then Lena does what she has never done—she tries to explain that, though she has not been particularly nice to him, it is not because she does not like him. Kostos understands her rather incoherent explanation and draws her close; they kiss.

After one last silent but now comfortable breakfast with her grandfather, Lena is heading home. She reads the letters from Bridget over the course of the summer and is again concerned for her friend. Bridget generally moved like a whirlwind, and when life occasionally “slammed her hard,” she was not particularly well equipped to recover on her own. As they prepare to land in New York, Lena decides she must go to bring Bridget home and sends Effie home on the last leg of her journey alone. She is thankful to have the Pants with her on this journey.

When the phone rings the next day, Tibby knows what she will hear and is prepared for it. She attends the funeral but has trouble sleeping that night. Finally she takes the paper bag out of the freezer and rides her bike to Bailey’s gravesite. She gently digs a small hole in the loose dirt on Bailey’s grave and buries Mimi with her friend. Tibby makes a vow to them both to “make her life big.”

Bridget is surprised to see Lena but gladly puts on the Pants when she gives them to her. They represent love and support, just as Lena does.

Epilogue

On an idle day between all four birthdays, the girls follow tradition and celebrate their birthdays together at Gilda’s studio. This year, their celebration falls on the night before school starts, which Carmen considers particularly auspicious. After a lifetime of summers spent together, the girls now have their own unique experiences and stories to share with each other. The only witness to all of their lives is the Pants. Carmen looks around and sees that they do not look much different than they did the last time they gathered at Gilda’s, but they are more subdued tonight. Even though they have shared their stories from the summer, they have reserved some of what those experiences mean and how they have been changed by the events of this summer. The Pants are the assurance that eventually all will be told, even if it takes all year. Then, next summer, the Traveling Pants will be taken out and their lives will begin again, together or apart.