These Girls

by Sarah Pekkanen

  She’d stop and pick up a bottle of good champagne at the next liquor store she passed, she decided. It was Abby’s first night as their official roommate. They needed to mark this beginning.

  Acknowledgments

  I could fill another book by typing the words “thank you” over and over, and it still wouldn’t show the gratitude I feel toward my publishing team, led by the three smartest, hardest-working women I know.

  My agent, Victoria Sanders, is the perfect mix of kind, fierce, loyal, and funny. She’s also the most generous person I know. My editor, Greer Hendricks, has a magic touch with manuscripts, and takes exquisite care of every single detail relating to my books (Greer, I’d list the adjectives that describe you, but you’d probably cross them out and tell me no one would believe a character who’s this amazing). And Atria’s publisher Judith Curr has the kind of vision that makes ophthalmologists quiver with joy. She has also created a workplace that makes everyone want to stay around for decades—a rare feat in the publishing world.

  To all the booksellers, book bloggers, and librarians, thank you for spreading around the love of reading, and for always championing books.

  I’m still trying to figure out how I got lucky enough to be taken on as a client by super-publicist Marcy Engelman and her team, Dana Gidney Fetaya and Emily Gambir (but if it was in error, I’m hoping they don’t read this)! Chris Kepner and Bernadette Baker-Baughman at VSA completely rock, as do Paul Olsewski and Cristina Suarez at Atria. And the indefatigable Sarah Cantin helped this book along in more ways than I can count. The first time I met Sarah, I knew she was going to be a star in publishing. Remember her name—and keep an eye out for the books she is now editing.

  Yona Deshommes! Thank you for believing in me and for constantly talking up my books. I fully expect to one day see you tackle someone and hold them down while you read them my novel. Anna Dorfman created a beautiful cover for These Girls and copyeditor Susan M. S. Brown kept you from noticing all my errors.

  Chandler Crawford does an amazing job of selling rights to my novels in foreign countries. My thanks to her, and to my readers and publishers overseas. And at Atria Books, my deep appreciation to Chris Lloreda, Carole Schwindeller, Lisa Sciambra, Lisa Keim, Hillary Tisman, Anne Gardner, and Natalie White. To Carolyn Reidy at Simon & Schuster, I’m so grateful for your support.

  Anna Davies graciously provided invaluable insight into the world of glossy magazines. Chris Smith, Chuck Bieber, and Josh Welsh answered my questions about safety features in cars in the seventies (I really wish I’d called you guys first instead of spending all those hours on Google). And David Oliver provided details about California that helped set scenes for my short story “Love, Accidentally.”

  Crystal Patriarch of BookSparks PR is as dedicated and hardworking as they come. Crystal, thank you for doing so much to spread the word about my novels. I’m also indebted to Jodi Picoult, Jen Lancaster, and Nicolle Wallace for their support (and to Emily Bestler for passing along my manuscript)! My gratitude to the sharp-eyed Laura Garwood Meehan for an early critique, and to Amy Hatvany for helping me pin down a slippery plot point.

  These Girls is about female friendships, so it’s fitting that the idea for it was born while I was on a bus ride to New York City with Rachel Baker, my “frister” (a friend who turned into a sister). Rach, thanks for talking through book ideas and just about everything else in life with me.

  Speaking of friends, I love connecting with readers on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you all for joining me on this publishing journey, telling me about your lives, and making me laugh (for any new readers who would like to connect online—please come find me)!

  My dad taught me what it meant to be a writer when I was a kid, and he’s my inspiration and teacher in many more ways than just that. My mom showers me with support, kindness, sugary treats, and e-mails filled with exclamation points. Happy 50th Anniversary, you two.

  Olivia Cortez, our “Alvie,” takes loving care of my youngest son (and of me!) during the hours when I write. I never would have finished this book without her.

  These Girls is the first book I’ve written that Anita Cheng was unable to critique in its early stages. It’s no coincidence that it’s the book that required the most revisions. I miss you, girl.

  And, always, to my family—my husband Glenn and our boys, Jackson, Will, and Dylan. You guys are my heart.

  Jodi Picoult interviews Sarah Pekkanen about writing, motherhood, and the magic of female friendships . . .

  Jodi: These Girls explores the nuances of female friendships. How hard was it to create a sense of realism between your main characters—Cate, Renee, and Abby—and how much of that came from your own personal experience in your relationships with female friends?

  Sarah: Female friendships are vitally important to me, which is why I dedicated These Girls to my girlfriends, especially one I call my “frister” (a friend who turned into a sister). I’m surrounded by wonderful guys—I have two brothers and three sons—and I adore them. But female friendships nurture and uplift me, and I find them so textured and fascinating, which is why I’m drawn to writing about them. I love it that my girlfriends and I—often aided by a bottle or two of wine—can hopscotch from serious to silly to painful topics during the course of a single conversation, and end the night feeling as if we could’ve talked forever. I drew on all of those emotions while writing These Girls.

  Jodi: Your main characters in this book come to reevaluate what’s important in life as they navigate the complications of careers and love. As someone with three young children, and who has enjoyed a bit of success now as a novelist, how do you prioritize what’s important in life? Has this changed as you’ve grown older?

  Sarah: I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was a little girl. After college, I covered feature stories for the Baltimore Sun newspaper, but when my first son was born, I left that job because it required a long commute and frequent travel. And when I suddenly stopped writing, I felt as if I’d lost a crucial piece of myself. But I couldn’t figure out how to reconcile my need to write with my need to be with my children. Then one night after the kids were asleep (by then I had two young boys), I sat down in front of my computer and began to type. The words poured out of me, and turned into my first novel, The Opposite of Me. I never forget for a moment how lucky I am to have a flexible job that I adore, and it’s fairly easy for me to work in writing time around my kids’ schedules. My family is my priority, but I know I’m a happier—and better—mom when I’m writing, too.

  Jodi: As someone who has twists in books all the time, I get asked about my endings a lot. These Girls, too, has quite a surprise in store for the reader. Did you know it would end this way before you started writing the book, or did that evolve?

  Sarah: I love books that contain twists (which is one reason why I’m a big Jodi P. fan!), and I knew even before I wrote the first line of These Girls that it, like my previous two novels, would pack a big surprise at the end. I read a lot of thrillers and mysteries, and sometimes I even deconstruct them, studying how an author put together pieces of the puzzle and used tension-building techniques like foreshadowing. It’s my hope that readers feel as if my books have the same page-turning quality as a thriller—but with less blood and mayhem, of course!

  Jodi: What advice would you give to someone who is trying to break into writing as a career?

  Sarah: Treat writing like exercise—you need to do it nearly every day to get results. For people who say they’re too busy to write a book, I’d encourage them to search for little windows of time in their day. Maybe wake up half an hour earlier than usual, or carry around a notebook and write a few paragraphs on the bus ride into work. Jodi, I remember that you and I once chatted about how we both wrote in car-pool pickup lines outside our kids’ schools because it was one of the few quiet times we could carve out of the day. I’d advise other writers to fight for those little snippets of time, and the page count will pile up, slowly but surely.


  Jodi: What is the most bizarre fan encounter you’ve ever had?

  Sarah: I love that you asked me this question, because it was the very first question I ever asked you! Years ago, I was writing a newspaper article on strange things that happen to big-name authors at book signings, and you told me about the time someone asked if you’d ever consider writing nonfiction. You replied that it seemed daunting because one had to be meticulous about getting every single fact straight . . .and then you brought up James Frey, who got into trouble for making up parts of his memoir A Million Little Pieces. And a few minutes later, the librarian in charge of your book signing brought over two audience members to meet you: James Frey’s parents. This was during the time when Oprah was eviscerating him, but you merely brought up his situation as an example and didn’t pass judgment or make a joke. I thought it was very classy, and even his parents weren’t bothered by your comment, which says a lot.

  So . . . as for my most bizarre fan encounter, I’d have to say it was the time when my husband and I took our three kids out to dinner at a busy restaurant. One of our sons was very tired and cranky—we later learned he hadn’t eaten lunch at school that day—and while we were waiting for a table, he completely melted down, crying and whining. We quickly left, and then my two-year-old tripped and fell on the sidewalk and he started crying, too. So there we were, this hot mess of a family, and suddenly a woman stopped and pointed at me and yelled, “Aren’t you Sarah Pekkanen? I love your writing!” And that remains, to this day, the first and only time I have ever been recognized in public. (And I’m still kicking myself for not answering, “No! I’m J.K. Rowling!”)

  “Sarah Pekkanen’s latest celebrates the healing power of female friendship for three very different young women sharing a NYC apartment. At turns bittersweet, laugh-out-loud funny, and painfully real, you’ll wish you could move in with these girls.” —Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Lone Wolf and Sing You Home

  These

  Girls

  SARAH PEKKANEN

  A Readers Club Guide

  QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. Discuss the role of work in each girl’s life. To what extent do they find a sense of identity in their jobs? How do they define success or failure in their work lives, and how does either affect the way they think about themselves?

  2. Each character in These Girls seems to be facing both an internal and an external struggle. Can you identify these? Are these struggles resolved by the novel’s conclusion?

  3. Did you initially empathize with Abby or Joanna? Did your feelings toward Joanna change as the novel progressed? Does the fact that Abby has an affair with a married man make her less of a sympathetic character to you? Why or why not?

  4. Describe the ways that each girl interacts with and connects to other people. How are their relationship styles similar, and how are they different?

  5. Given the close bond that Trey and Abby share, do you think that he should have told her what happened to their brother? Why or why not?

  6. How are mother-daughter relationships depicted in this novel? Was there one dynamic in particular that you identified with?

  7. After Cate reminds her mother not to call her at work, she thinks to herself, “It felt odd to be imposing such restrictions and curfews on her mother, as if they’d somehow swapped roles during the past few years” (78). To what extent is this true of all the parent-child relationships we see in These Girls?

  8. What is These Girls saying about the role—and effect—of secrets in relationships? Are some secrets necessary, or are they all inherently negative? Do you agree with Abby’s assessment that “The hardest things to talk about are also the most important things to talk about?”

  9. Discuss some of the challenges that Cate’s new job presents. How does she handle these? In particular, what role does gender seem to play in them?

  10. Each girl sees something in another of her roommates’ disposition that she covets. What are these qualities? Is this kind of desire an essential component of female friendship?

  11. In the last scene of the novel, Cate tells Trey, “I don’t want to be the girl who chose a guy over her friends.” How did you feel about their final encounter? Did you agree with how Cate handled this situation? Would you have handled it differently?

  12. Ostensibly, Renee wants to lose weight because she thinks it will help her nab the beauty editor job. But does she have other reasons? What else could be driving her?

  13. If you were casting the film version of These Girls, who would you pick to play each character? Why?

  14. Picture where you see Cate, Renee, and Abby in five years. What do their lives look like? Share your imaginings with your group.

  The Opposite Of Me

  A smart, funny, and poignant novel about the desire to have it all, the relationships that define us, and the complicated, irreplaceable bonds of sisterhood.

  Twenty-nine-year-old Lindsey Rose has, for as long as she can remember, lived in the shadow of her ravishingly beautiful fraternal twin sister, Alex. Now that she is finally on the cusp of being named VP creative director of an elite New York advertising agency, Lindsey’s carefully constructed life implodes during the course of one devastating night. Humiliated, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her Prince Charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin while she furtively tries to piece her career back together. But things only get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.

  Read on for a look at Sarah Pekkanen’s

  The Opposite of Me

  Currently available from Washington Square Press

  Excerpt from The Opposite of Me copyright © 2010 by Sarah Pekkanen

  1

  AS I PULLED open the heavy glass door of Richards, Dunne & Krantz and walked down the long hallway toward the executive offices, I noticed a light was on up ahead.

  Lights were never on this early. I quickened my step.

  The light was on in my office, I realized as I drew closer. I’d gone home around 4:00 A.M. to snatch a catnap and a shower, but I’d locked my office door. I’d checked it twice. Now someone was in there.

  I broke into a run, my mind spinning in panic: Had I left my storyboard out in plain view? Could someone be sabotaging the advertising campaign I’d spent weeks agonizing over, the campaign my entire future hinged on?

  I burst into my office just as the intruder reached for something on my desk.

  “Lindsey! You scared me half out of my wits!” my assistant, Donna, scolded as she paused in the act of putting a steaming container of coffee on my desk.

  “God, I’m sorry,” I said, mentally smacking myself. If I ever ended up computer dating—which, truth be told, it was probably going to come down to one of these days—I’d have to check the ever-popular “paranoid freak” box when I listed my personality traits. I’d better buy a barricade to hold back the bachelors of New York.

  “I didn’t expect anyone else in this early,” I told Donna as my breathing slowed to normal. Note to self: Must remember to join a gym if a twenty-yard dash leaves me winded. Best not to think about how often I’ll actually use the gym if I’ve been reminding myself to join one for the past two years.

  “It’s a big day,” Donna said, handing me the coffee.

  “You’re amazing.” I closed my gritty eyes as I took a sip and felt the liquid miracle flood my veins. “I really needed this. I didn’t get much sleep.”

  “You didn’t eat breakfast either, did you?” Donna asked, hands on her hips. She stood there, all of five feet tall, looking like a rosy-cheeked, doily-knitting grandma. One who wouldn’t hesitate to get up off her rocking chair and reach for her sawed-off shotgun if someone crossed her.

  “I’ll have a big lunch,” I hedged, avoiding Don
na’s eyes.

  Even after five years, I still hadn’t gotten used to having an assistant, let alone one who was three decades older than me but earned a third of my salary. Donna and I both knew she wore the pants in our relationship, but the secret to our happiness was that we pretended otherwise. Kind of like my parents—Mom always deferred to Dad’s authority, after she mercilessly browbeat him into taking her point of view.

  “I’m going to check in with the caterers now,” Donna said. “Should I hold your calls this morning?”

  “Please,” I said. “Unless it’s an emergency. Or Walt from Creative—he’s freaking out about the font size on the dummy ad and I need to calm him down. Or Matt. I want to do another run-through with him this morning. And let’s see, who else, who else . . . Oh, anyone from Gloss Cosmetics, of course.

  “Oh, God, they’re going to be here in”—I looked at my watch and the breath froze in my lungs—“two hours.”

  “Hold on just a minute, missy,” Donna ordered in a voice that could only be described as trouser-wearing. She bustled to her desk and returned with a blueberry muffin in a little paper bag and two Advil.

  “I knew you wouldn’t eat, so I got extra. And you’re getting a headache again, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “It’s not so bad,” I lied, holding out my hand for the Advil and hoping Donna wouldn’t notice I’d bitten off all my fingernails. Again.

  When Donna finally shut my door, I sank into my big leather chair and took another long, grateful sip of coffee. The early-morning sunlight streamed in through the windows behind me, glinting off the golden Clio Award on my desk. I ran a finger over it for luck, just like I did on every presentation day.