East Coast Girls

by Kerry Kletter

  She’d noticed, as she drove through town, that the restaurant she’d once loved so much was still up for sale.

  She could afford it.

  Of course, she didn’t know how to run a restaurant.

  And restaurants were a bad bet. Everyone knew that.

  But the idea of a place where people would gather for joy, a place she could come and go and always belong—she liked the thought of it.

  Probably she wouldn’t do it.

  But maybe she would.

  And of course, in the back of her mind, Jack. She knew it was inevitable she would bump into him somewhere in town. She’d finally found the courage to text him an apology. His reply had been muted. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all good.” Blue knew it was a blow off. Whenever she thought about it, it was like a slow, sharp razor across her chest. Still, she fantasized about the day when she would maybe own that restaurant and he would happen to walk in, see the afternoon sunlight spilled like a drink across the polished bar, surfboards riding the beechwood walls, a large aquarium in the corner teeming with fanciful fish. And be impressed. This was as far as she could walk it. With him or any other man. Love was still too dangerous a hope to carry. For now she’d settle for making her life better and hoping someone would notice.

  She pulled in to her driveway, got out and looked up at Nana’s house, her house. She did love it so. Dust motes floated in the panels of light through the windows as she entered. A chaos of boxes and paint buckets and cleaning supplies was scattered everywhere. She put down the grocery bag of sandwiches and snacks and drinks she’d bought for the girls and put them away. The clock on the microwave said noon. They’d be here any minute. She went outside, lit up. She’d promised herself she’d quit after the move, but then life hadn’t quit and there was too much stress and tomorrow, she told herself, tomorrow I’ll do it.

  The traffic out front had thinned to a dribble. It was so quiet here after Labor Day. Soon early darkness would take over, the air would smell of wood smoke and then of snow, and only the locals would remain.

  It would be lonely. But then that wasn’t new.

  And, too, she needed it—the quiet and the clean air and the open space. It was so hard to know yourself or what you wanted when there was so much noise and too many people and every city breath engaged her lungs in extra labor.

  She heard the familiar sound of pebbles hopping under tires followed by cheerful honking as Maya, Hannah and Renee pulled in. One last drag on her cigarette, then she stubbed it out and stepped forward to greet them.

  “Hey!” Renee said, climbing out. She hadn’t started to show yet but there was a flush in her cheeks that made her look more like the teenager Blue remembered. She moved as if to hug Blue, then paused, unsure. The bond was still so fragile.

  “I’ll grab your bag,” Blue said instead.

  “I could kiss the ground!” Maya said, stepping into the sunshine. “Grandma—” she pointed toward Hannah “—drove the last leg, clocking five miles under the speed limit and wouldn’t let us turn on the radio because it was ‘too distracting.’”

  “I told you guys you could drive if you wanted,” Hannah said.

  “Technically Maya did,” Renee said. “From the back seat.”

  Blue shook her head and laughed.

  Hannah smiled through tired eyes. Blue noticed the subtle drag in her movement and took her bag, gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m just happy you’re here,” she said. “Seriously, thanks so much for coming out to help, guys. I should probably warn you...”

  Blue let the mess in the foyer finish her sentence for her. Maya let out a low whistle as they waded through the minefield of supplies and unlabeled boxes. Blue shot her a warning look. She’d given Maya a loan for her house on the condition she get a second job to pay it back. And Maya had actually done it, gotten herself an additional job selling paint or something random. Still Blue knew that whenever Maya had money, she spent it. If Blue was lucky, she’d see half of that loan returned, so she planned to hold the debt over Maya’s head as much as possible.

  Now she sighed, overwhelmed. “I didn’t even bother to sort it. Just moved all my junk here. I don’t even know where to start.”

  Renee put her hands on her hips, surveyed the scene. “We should probably throw out everything you don’t need first,” she said. “Then we can work with whatever’s left.”

  They all nodded.

  A daunting task.

  But a start.

  Perhaps even a life philosophy.

  They headed upstairs to drop off their bags.

  * * *

  Hannah was the last one up and with an effort that belied her years. Grief, she was learning, moved in slow, heavy turns, made a shipwreck of its inhabitants, pinned them in its murky aquatic hold. But today, or at least in this moment, the ache was accompanied by gladness. It was like a fluid leak into the wrong engine, the way hope could find its way into sorrow.

  She entered their room and Maya turned and gave her an encouraging smile. She gave one back. “You look tired,” she said, just noticing now. Maya never looked tired.

  “I worked fourteen hours yesterday,” Maya said.

  “Ugh,” Hannah said.

  Maya shrugged. “It’s temporary.”

  Hannah knew Maya’s optimism was sincere, that Maya’s greatest strength was her refusal to get pulled down by life’s hardships. Their whole life Maya had always been one step ahead of suffering, in the place of possibility where things were better. Still, it seemed that Hannah could see the vulnerability in everyone’s eyes lately, even Maya’s, and this, too, was a product of loss—the deeper attunement to struggle. She felt the shared question inside them, in every person she passed—will I be okay?—the uncertainty more conscious in some than others but each tending to it in their own way, this baby in need of constant soothing. And this thought gave her a great empathy for humanity and for herself and for all the various ineffective tools that people use to beat back the terror of their own fragility, of life’s unpredictability and potential for pain. For the first time in a long while she felt that she was not alone, not crazy, that she was just coping, getting by like everyone else.

  They unpacked their stuff, ate lunch at the picnic table under birdsong and the gaze of a doe who had wandered into the yard and a September sky the saturated blue of oceans on a globe.

  Then they began the work.

  Hannah was put in charge of cleaning, Renee organizing and rearranging with her decorative eye, Blue tossing out all that was useless or old or didn’t belong to her. Maya moved between them, lending a hand and pausing with unnecessary frequency for refreshments. The light shifted across their conversations, their silences. Hannah was grateful for the work, for the way it occupied her mind, pushed her back into her body and against grief’s propensity toward inertia.

  She saw Renee repeatedly check her phone, and something in the furtiveness of the act raised Hannah’s suspicion that she was communicating with Darrin. Blue and Maya must have noticed, too, because each time it happened, they glanced at each other with a raised eyebrow.

  “He wants to go to therapy,” Renee blurted finally.

  Maya sighed. “They all say that when they’re caught. Men like him don’t change.”

  “I think they can,” Renee said. “If they want to enough.” She looked to Blue.

  “I’m inclined to agree with Maya,” Blue said. “But I concede that anything’s possible.”

  “I have to try at least,” Renee said.

  Hannah understood. It was so hard to know when to give up on a person. To know who could be fixed and who could not. Nothing was ever as simple as it seemed. And so often the only answer, the hard but only answer, was to wait and see.

  Still, she hoped, they all hoped, Renee wasn’t just settling because it was easier to deny a problem than to truly face one. The co
st for that was always higher, both in pain and lost years. They’d seen that play out before with Renee, and Hannah worried this was merely a new version. But she couldn’t be sure. Change was often incremental, almost imperceptible to the observer. Failing to see it didn’t mean it wasn’t happening.

  The light shifted again. Shadows crossing the room and quiet descending like weather. Everyone preoccupied with their work and their thoughts. Hannah surveyed her friends. They were inhabiting such different lives from what she had once imagined. Not that she’d ever had a particular picture of what they’d all become. It was just that she never expected their adulthood to be so...ordinary. Somehow youth had made her friends seem larger than life, destined for greatness. But then, what was that?

  Where would they all be ten years from now? she wondered. Would the answer surprise her?

  Renee stood up, looked around at the few remaining boxes in the foyer. “I’m starving,” she said. “Anyone up for dinner?”

  “I hear there’s a great place for lobster rolls on the docks,” Maya said. “I’d be happy to pick some up...if Blue gives me cash.”

  “Can’t possibly imagine why you’d want to go to the docks,” Blue said.

  Maya smiled, the grin of a girl falling in love. “I did mention we’d stop by. And hey, maybe Andy has cute friends.”

  “Not for me,” Hannah said. “It’s going to be a long time before I’m ready for that.”

  “As if you know what life will do,” Maya said.

  Hannah thought of Henry then, and her heart was pierced with such sharp longing that it took her breath away. The girls continued discussing dinner plans but the thought of going out left Hannah suddenly exhausted.

  “If you guys don’t mind, I think I’m going to stay here,” she said. “Close my eyes for a little while. Bring me something back?”

  “You got it,” Maya said.

  Hannah placed her order and headed upstairs. But instead of lying down, she pulled out her laptop and sat down at the desk by the window. Ever since Henry died, she and Vivian had been meeting once or twice a week for coffee and Vivian had been gently encouraging her—the way a mother might—to work on her novel. She’d even read some pages and given Hannah constructive feedback. Whatever fear she’d had that Vivian would have no use for her if anything happened to Henry had quickly been assuaged. She understood now that they would always be deeply important to each other, that, like the girls, Vivian was her chosen family.

  It was so essential—she understood this now—to not be alone for too long, to not lock herself away, no matter the pull to do so. Alone was where pain was magnified by too much silence and too much time; alone for too long was where fear was bred. Gratefully even the work on her novel took her out of her own head, put her in the company of characters. Her favorite daydream was of the dedication she would someday write to Henry so that he would live on as a loved person in the first page of a book, maybe even live beyond her. And the idea of the acknowledgments at the back, to her friends, her first responders, to eternalize in print her gratitude for their lifelong rescue efforts.

  Still she didn’t want the girls to know just yet that she’d started working on her novel again. It might be a false start, another project she’d end up abandoning and then be ashamed about. It was still a fight every day, the rebuilding of a muscle that had atrophied—not just writing, but hope. She listened to the clatter and chatter of her friends as they headed to the car, let the noise sink into the background and finally disappear. Soon the ache for Henry retreated, or at least quieted to a dull pang. She opened the document and reread what she’d written. Then she stared at the blank page before her, put her hands on the keyboard and tried to trust that something would come.

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My amazing editor Emily Ohanjanians for understanding this book so well and helping me to shape it into what I wanted it to be. I feel so lucky to have you. My fierce agent, Catherine Drayton, for your support, critical eye and honesty. Everyone at MIRA who helped this book make its journey into the world.

  Jeff Zentner for your unmatched wit, incredible mind, emotional attunement, beautiful books and best of all your friendship. You always show up.

  Jennifer Niven, Angelo Surmelis and the rest of my LA friend-family who keep me in laughter, great conversation and lots of cake; Adriana Mather for your percipience and your chill; Nicola Yoon and Charlotte Huang, my original crew and favorite dinner companions; Jeff Giles, ever brilliant, funny and on call; and all the other wonderful, talented authors whom I have the great privilege to call my friends. You are the best thing in publishing and have brought so much joy and fellowship to my life.

  Dr. Susan Nagin Thau for your empathy, wisdom and strength; Dr. David Neer, whose kindness makes my heart grow; Bob Maloney, a mentor, friend and a force of nature; Katie Cunningham Tashjian and Mary Cunningham, for your huge hearts and munificent spirits; the magnanimous and lovely Kelly Rutherford to whom I am indebted; Lori Barnett and Melinda Rennert Mizuno, who set me on this path; Alexa Jade, water child of my heart; Savannah Sullivan, the brightest light; the great Ryan Labay and his wonderful crew; Tammy Rayevich Leitch for all the summers; and all my friends near and far, old and new, who championed my first book with such unbelievable enthusiasm, generosity and kindness that I cannot even think about it without crying. To have your love and support has been the most humbling, beautiful, life-changing experience, and I’ll never forget it.

  For the readers, thank you for spending time in these worlds I imagine and letting me do what I love.

  For the librarians, teachers, booksellers, reviewers and bloggers who spread their passion for books—we’ve never needed you more.

  And finally, most important, David Zorn, love of my life, best person I’ve ever known, who should probably get cowriting credit on all my work for the endless (endless!) reads and smart, careful critiques of my many drafts. You are the king of patience, insight, comedy, kindness, compassion, integrity and good hugs. I don’t know how I got so lucky with you but I’m grateful every single day.

  Thank you.

  East Coast Girls

  Kerry Kletter

  Reader’s Guide

  Questions for Discussion

  Hannah, Maya, Blue and Renee are all such distinct personalities. Which character did you most identify with and why? Did you empathize more with any one character than the others?

  The four characters shared similar childhoods in that their mothers were absent or abusive. As a result they became one another’s family. What are your thoughts on the subject of “chosen” versus “given” family?

  The characters have all been deeply affected by the events of that terrible night twelve years ago. How did each of them internalize the incident, and how has that internalization played out in their life choices? How do their individual ways of coping now get in their way? What patterns do they each keep playing out?

  What did you think of Blue and Renee’s friendship? Did you agree with the reason Blue cut Renee out of her life after that terrible night? Did you want to see them restore their friendship during the story? What do you imagine you would have done in Renee’s position?

  How did you feel about Renee’s character? Did you feel that you wanted to see scenes from her point of view or did you feel she didn’t deserve one, given her role within the foursome?

  How do you feel that the setting—Montauk, Nana’s beach house—added to the story? What did it represent for the characters?

  Lately there’s been a lot of conversation about sexual harassment and the kinds of safety measures women are forced to take when they go out into the world. Men often seem surprised by the fact that many women stay silent and endure harassment, and yet, as in Maya’s case, confrontation can carry its own risks. How do you feel about the bind women are put in, where they are forced to absorb street harassment
and accept it as part of life or risk danger simply by defending themselves? What would you have done in Maya’s position? What can we do as a society to put an end to the harassment of women?

  How did the characters change throughout the story? How did your opinion of them change? Did any of the characters stay the same?

  How did you feel about the ending? What did you like or not like about the way the story resolved?

  Maya and Hannah have a yin-and-yang relationship. Sometimes Hannah takes comfort in Maya’s practicality and the way she dismisses Hannah’s fears. Other times she feels that Maya is insensitive—perceiving her anxiety as a weakness, hiding her Xanax, having strong, mostly unspoken opinions around the subject of Henry. Since Maya is largely a compassionate person, what do you imagine drives her insensitivity? Do you think it’s simply that she doesn’t understand? Is she a product of a society that tends to see people struggling with mental illness in a diminishing way, particularly women? Or do you think Maya is acting out of her own trauma?

  When Maya and Hannah go looking for the psychic, they grapple with the idea of fate. Do you believe in fate? Do you agree with Maya that, either way, it’s better not to know the future, or are there things you’d like to know? If so, what are they?

  If this was going to be made into a movie, who would you cast in the roles of the four women?

  A Conversation with the Author

  What inspired you to write this story?

  I always start out with a question I’d like to find the answer to myself. In this case, I’d just sold my first book, my friends were so incredibly supportive and I was struck, as I often am, by how important and extraordinary it is to have good friends. At the same time, my best friend got very sick and, as happens, we were all suddenly confronted with the fragility of life. It was a very frightening time and I was keenly aware of just how hard and painful it is to love people when we have to live with the possibility of losing them. So I wanted to answer the question for myself, which is Hannah’s question in the book: How does one live, really live—capital L—in such an uncertain, sometimes scary world where out of the blue something bad can happen? How do we let go of the reins and just accept what life brings us instead of wanting to run and hide and pull the covers over our head and never take a risk or love too much because what if something went wrong? And what are the ways in which those fears mute the experience of living and how can we step away from them—how can we hold the duality of joy and precariousness, love and loss? So I started from there and the book came out of that and then, happily, my friend got well and here we are.