The Summertime Girls

by Laura Hankin

  WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO REPAIR A ONCE UNBREAKABLE BOND?

  “Can we talk for a bit?”

  The moon outside the window lit up the room enough that Ally could see Beth’s eyes focus on her, but she couldn’t make out their expression. Trepidation or impatience?

  “Sure,” Beth said, sounding more alert. “What’s going on?”

  “I just—Where did you go?”

  Beth was silent, so Ally forced a laugh as she continued. “I mean, obviously I know you were in Haiti and you were busy. But I sent you so many e-mails, and you barely wrote me back. Nothing, from December to the end of April.”

  Still, silence. Ally plowed on. “I just really needed my best friend to be there for me, especially with all the awful shit going on in my life. It felt like I was sending the most vulnerable parts of myself into a void, this blankness, where there used to be so much love and support. I was having a really terrible time, and you weren’t there.”

  She waited, tensed and bare, goose-pimpled, feeling like she’d just cut herself open and proffered her insides in the most haphazard way. Though she’d spent months thinking about this conversation, she still didn’t have any clue how it was supposed to go.

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  THE SUMMERTIME GIRLS

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  Copyright © 2015 by Laura Hankin.

  “Readers Guide” copyright © 2015 by Penguin Random House LLC.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY ® and the “B” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-18827-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hankin, Laura.

  The summertime girls / Laura Hankin.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-425-27963-2 (paperback)

  1. Female friendship—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.A71483S86 2015

  813’.6—dc23

  2015003049

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  Cover photo: Women on Beach © Masterfile.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  What Will It Take To Repair A Once Unbreakable Bond?

  Title Page

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Readers Guide

  PROLOGUE

  Elizabeth Abbott and Allison Morris decided they’d be best friends forever on the day they met.

  When Ally walked into her fifth-grade classroom, one week late for the start of school, she wondered if her classmates could see the anger rolling off her, the steam escaping her pores. In the wake of her parents’ divorce, she’d fought desperately against her mother’s decision to move from Baltimore to Wilmington. Upon losing that battle, she’d launched a new offensive: to get settled in time to start school with everyone else. When that too inevitably failed, she’d told herself that at least she’d get to school five minutes early on her first day. Naturally, her mother dropped her off five minutes late, spouting apologies and kissing the air centimeters away from her cheek.

  Ally didn’t want to be the new kid. She’d seen transfer students at her old school, those midyear immigrants, panicky as they submitted to inspections that even the Ellis Island authorities would have considered too thorough. Sometimes, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from laughing at the desperate need for approval written all over their faces. So now, she kept her eyes fixed on the hangnail pestering her thumb while the principal introduced her and asked for a volunteer to be her “special buddy.”

  “Elizabeth A.?” The principal sounded unsurprised. “Thank you for volunteering, sweetheart!”

  And that was when Ally brought her head up, and she and Beth looked at each other for the first time. Ally thought she’d never seen a person her age who looked so serene or—what was the word she’d just learned?—benevolent. This girl was pale, with hair the color of roasted pumpkin that fell, unbroken as a bolt of fabric, down her back. While the other kids fidgeted and passed notes, she sat with her hands on her desk, two sharp pencils laid out parallel in front of her. She smiled at Ally, revealing gappy teeth that braces would soon force together, and Ally thought, Elizabeth A. is my angel.

  • • •

  WHEN the recess bell rang, Elizabeth A. led the new girl to a patch of grass at the edge of the schoolyard, looking over her shoulder to make sure she didn’t lose her way. As they settled themselves on the ground, Ally said, “You should tell people to call you Beth.”

  “What?” Elizabeth A. asked.

  “Have you ever read Little Women?”

  Elizabeth A. had devoured it in two days that summer. “Oh my gosh, I love that book!” she said.

  “Me too!” Ally said. They impulsively grabbed hands. “You’re totally Beth March,” she said. “She’s so good and nice.”

  Elizabeth A. raised one eyebrow. She thought Beth from Little Women was kind of boring. Jo got to be the one with adventures, with the fire inside her. “Yeah, but then she dies,” she said.

  Ally pondered this, then nodded vigorously, stray strands of fine brown hair escaping from her ponytail. “Okay, so you’re Beth minus the early sad death part. Ooh, plus if people called you Beth, then you wouldn’t have to be one of four Elizabeths anymore.” They looked over to where Elizabeth W. and Elizabeth K. were playing an ear-piercing game of capture the flag, then to where Elizabeth L.D. sat alone in the dirt, methodically ripping the legs off a daddy longlegs. Put that way, the prospect of a nickname had a certain appeal.

  “Which March sister would you want to be?” Elizabeth A. asked.

  “Meg, definitely. She’s the prettiest,” Ally said. “What about you? Beth, right?”

  Ally smiled then, a smile far more radiant than any other smile Elizabeth A. had previously seen. It dimpled her round cheeks and lit up her dark brown eyes. It was a magic smile, a smile of confident, long-awaited recognition, and Elizabeth A. didn’t want to disappoint it.

  “Um, I think you’re right. I’m a Beth,” she said. “I’m definitely gonna ask Ms. Applebaum to call me that from now on.”

  Newly christened, Beth talked to Ally nonstop for the rest of that bli
ssful recess, ignoring the chaos around them. They sat cross-legged facing each other in the September sun, squealing whenever they discovered their similarities—they were both only children, cruelly denied puppies because of parental allergies! Neither one of them understood the fuss their female classmates made over the color pink! And, sure, perhaps outwardly, they didn’t seem a perfect match, with Beth’s ironed jumper standing in stark contrast to the missing button on Ally’s sweater. But Beth sensed that somehow they finished each other. She imagined the two of them balancing on a seesaw. Together, one on either end, they could maintain a perfect equilibrium, a straight line parallel to the ground.

  “Ugh, the lunch bell,” Beth said when it rang. “I don’t want to stop talking and go inside.”

  “I know,” Ally said. “Can we just be friends forever?”

  Beth could feel her cheeks reddening in pleasure. “That sounds good to me,” she said.

  ONE

  Check, check. Hi, I’m Ally Morris.” Ally breathed the words into the microphone and listened to them reverberate. They wended their way through the air of Looseleaf Music Hall, off the little stage on which she sat, bouncing against the exposed brick walls. Then they poured into the ears of her audience, whose members, she counted quickly in her head, numbered a grand total of six.

  “Wooo, Ally!” cheered her roommate, Gabby. Her friend Lucy, from college, wolf-whistled, and Scott, who played drums in this terrible cover band she used to sing with, clapped politely. He’d been trying, in his Nice Guy way, to sleep with her ever since her breakup with Tom, but she couldn’t get past his tendency to shout when he talked, as if drumming so frequently had destroyed his ability to speak at a normal volume. She pictured him trying to whisper sweet nothings to her and accidentally bursting her eardrum. The two bartenders and the sound guy constituted the rest of her listeners.

  She readjusted the microphone, which had been slightly too high for her five-foot-one frame, and began to pluck absentmindedly at her guitar strings. “Thanks for coming out tonight, guys,” she said, staring at the door, willing passersby to enter. All the people outside power-walked right by, bending into the late April rain drenching New York City’s Lower East Side. “Let’s give the latecomers a few more minutes to get here.”

  The sound guy leaned out from his booth and said, “It’s 6:03. You should probably get started if you want your full set time.”

  “Okay then!” She hoped her tone was bright enough to disguise the dismay she felt. “Lucky you all, you get an intimate concert experience.” She cleared her throat, strummed a C chord on her dark red acoustic Fender, and leaned toward the microphone.

  I want a snowy day to come

  I won’t settle for the sun.

  I just want to stay with you in my bed.

  The tune she sang was bouncy and sweet, like ersatz Ingrid Michaelson.

  We’ll watch it pile up outside,

  It’s a great excuse to hide,

  And we’ll order in delivery instead.

  She’d sung this song so many times before that the lyrics came out of her mouth automatically. She didn’t need to think about them—didn’t want to think about them, actually, given that she’d written them about Tom back when they’d been the kind of couple that did sometimes stay in bed all day, instead of not a couple at all. She sang mindlessly, but her mind kept busy. It detached itself from her body and leaned against the back wall, watching her. It said, Stop trying to wear sundresses all the time. It doesn’t make you look winsome, it makes you look like an idiot. It’s fifty degrees and pouring.

  When the booking agent at Looseleaf had called to ask her if she wanted a last-minute concert slot, she’d very calmly accepted. Then she’d hung up the phone and shrieked, and danced around her Queens apartment in her flannel pajama pants. She’d twirled and shimmied and jumped until she ran out of breath. Looseleaf was a big deal. Okay sure, it was no Madison Square Garden, but occasionally when she walked by and looked at the list of upcoming concerts, she actually recognized the names of some of the singer-songwriters. She’d been sending Looseleaf her demo far more often than was proper ever since she’d moved to New York nine months prior, and she’d been on the verge of giving up on ever playing there when the phone call came.

  After her impromptu solo dance party, she’d immediately taken to Facebook and written promotional statuses every day for the week leading up to the concert. She’d sent personalized e-mails to potential managers and harangued her friends until they told her they’d try to make it. Normally, she felt guilty inviting them to the tiny solo gigs she played, because the venues so clearly meant nothing. When she sent out those invitations, she always couched them in apologies or offers. It’s not going to be big, but you should come hang out with me. Listen to some music! she’d write. I’ll buy you a beer and be eternally grateful. Looseleaf’s smaller concert room, though, where she was playing, could fit up to seventy-five people, and regularly did. She’d been there before, at crowded shows, where people swayed and cheered, and she’d watched the performers with an envy so strong she nearly choked on it. This concert, she’d told herself, would be a turning point for her.

  Except it wasn’t. Barely anyone had shown up. She played her whole forty-five-minute set feeling like a total fool, a smile affixed to her face. Her friends danced along in their seats, laughing at her banter. They pity me, she thought. A couple more friends trickled in as time went on, but the audience didn’t even break ten. Although the box of CDs she’d brought to sell after the show burned a hole in the bag at her feet, she left them unmentioned, and they remained zipped away, out of sight. Shame prevented her from shilling.

  When she finished her last song and hopped off the stage, Gabby was waiting for her with a hug and a beer. “That was so fun!” she said, handing her the bottle. “This rain is insanity. It’s like absolutely biblical proportions. I bet that’s why more people didn’t come, ’cause everyone just wants to stay in bed when it’s like this.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Ally put the beer bottle to her mouth and didn’t pull it away until the liquid inside was half gone.

  “So, you want to head home?” Gabby asked. “Drink wine and watch a movie?”

  “I think I’m going to hang out a bit and watch the next set. Be home soon.” She hugged Gabby and the rest of her friends as they headed out, thanking them for coming, committing to coffee dates the following week with a chipper smile. She turned down Scott’s deafening offer to buy her another drink as nicely as she could. Then she went and sat at the bar, watching the band with the seven o’clock slot start to set up. She didn’t normally act like a masochist but, she thought bitterly, tonight was different.

  One of the bartenders, a skinny guy with a shaved head and long fingers, took her empty beer bottle away. “Cute set,” he said. “You sounded like a songbird.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Can I get you something else?”

  “How about just an endless amount of whiskey?”

  He laughed. “Ice?”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  On the stage, a guy in suspenders pulled out a mandolin, while another with a bow tie picked on a banjo. The bartender brought her over a double. She tried to pay him, but he insisted that it was on the house.

  “Tough luck, with the weather,” he said. “Otherwise I’m sure you would’ve had a better crowd.” Even as he said it, though, the door opened and a group of people poured in. Mr. Mandolin Suspenders waved at them casually.

  She hated them all.

  Whiskey, though, that was something she loved. She adored its charred flavor, its smoothness as it raced down her throat, its amber color in the glass. Most of all, she loved how effectively it dulled everything, so as the room continued to fill up, she drank it faster and faster. The two guys onstage started to sing a plaintive song with so many confusing metaphors, it made her head hurt.

&n
bsp; When she’d drained the glass, the bartender brought her over another. He had knobby wrists, like Tom.

  “What do you think of these guys?” she asked. She’d been too nervous to eat anything since breakfast, and the whiskey was hitting her faster than normal. She fought valiantly to keep the slur out of her words.

  “Eh,” he said. “Derivative hipster crap. I liked your stuff better.”

  “Compliments and free whiskey? I’m going to nominate you for bartender of the year.”

  “I’ll accept your nomination if I can be president of your fan club,” he said.

  “Deal.” She took another big sip of her drink and then said, “Hey, you wanna make out with me in the bathroom?”

  He blinked, taken aback, and then the corners of his mouth tugged upward. “Uh, yeah. Let me just get Jack to cover for me.” She slipped off the bar stool while he said something to the other bartender, who shot an appraising glance her way. Then he came around the bar and led her through the crush of people to a black door with a handicapped sign on it.

  As soon as the door swung shut behind them, he pushed her up against the wall. She twined her arms around him, and he stuck his tongue, with its leftover cigarette taste, in her mouth. The music from outside thumped gently through the door and the light above the cracked mirror cast an ineffectual glow on the ground. She floated in a whiskey bubble that separated her from the rest of the world, even as she pressed against the bartender’s body.

  He ran his hand up her leg and under her dress, pushing her underwear to the side. She looked over his shoulder at the graffiti-covered walls, as he stuck his finger inside her. Fuck this misogynistic bullshit, someone had scribbled with a black Sharpie. Constipation happens, someone else had written in a loopy cursive. She could tell, as he moved his finger roughly, that whatever he was doing wasn’t going to work—none of the guys she’d drunkenly hooked up with since Tom had been able to make her come, and this bathroom didn’t particularly lend itself to romance. He kept going, dogged, although she was ready for him to stop, so she pulled away, dropped to her knees, and unzipped his pants instead.