Girls of July Read online

  Dedication

  In memory of Richard Peck, whose advice I still take (and pass on)

  twenty years after we first met

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Britta

  2. Kate

  3. Spider

  4. Meredith

  5. Britta

  6. Spider

  7. Kate

  8. Meredith

  9. Britta

  10. Kate

  11. Meredith

  12. Spider

  13. Kate

  14. Meredith

  15. Spider

  16. Britta

  17. Kate

  18. Meredith

  19. Britta

  20. Spider

  21. Kate

  22. Britta

  23. Meredith

  24. Spider

  25. Britta

  26. Meredith

  27. Spider

  28. Kate

  29. Meredith

  30. Britta

  31. Spider

  32. Kate

  33. Meredith

  34. Britta

  35. Kate

  36. Spider

  37. Kate

  38. Britta

  39. Kate

  40. Britta

  41. Kate

  42. Spider

  43. Meredith

  44. Britta

  45. Spider

  46. Meredith

  47. Kate

  48. Spider

  49. Meredith

  50. Kate

  51. Meredith

  52. Britta

  53. Spider

  54. Britta

  55. Kate

  56. Spider

  57. Britta

  58. Meredith

  59. Kate

  60. Spider

  61. Kate

  62. Meredith

  63. Kate

  64. Spider

  65. Britta

  66. Spider

  67. Meredith

  68. Kate

  69. Meredith

  70. Spider

  71. Kate

  72. Meredith

  73. Britta

  74. Spider

  75. Britta

  Appendix A: College Essay

  Appendix B: Meredith and Harmon’s Starry Night Playlist

  Appendix C: Spider’s Top Ten Favorite Movies Ever

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Alex Flinn

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Britta

  TO THOSE WHO APPRECIATE STARLIGHT AND FRESH AIR: three rooms for rent in secluded cabin in the Adirondacks, July 1–31. Teen girl and grandmother seeking teen female housemates. Private lake with canoes and kayaks available. Come see our deer! Pick wildflowers and blackberries! Dip a toe in our icy lake! Hike our mountains! Stargaze in a sky devoid of city light bleed! Responsible renters only! NO PARTIERS! Also, no cell phone reception. Get away from it all! Interview required. Contact Alicia Webster [email protected]

  BRITTA’S DAY COULDN’T have been worse, and it was only half over. If you could even count lunch as half when it began at 10:40. The meal you ate at 10:40 was called brunch.

  It had started with rain, pouring-down Miami rain that began right at 6:20, when Britta had to leave for the bus. Her mother had taken away her car. Then, first period, she got back her Algebra II test with a big red F across the top. And third period, she’d argued with Ms. Barfield, her drama teacher, about the pukey-yellow costume she had to wear for her second act duet. It made her look like a summer squash. Unfortunately, she’d been impulsive enough to say just that. Now her favorite teacher thought she was a brat. Why couldn’t she control herself sometimes?

  Enough with people. At lunchtime, instead of meeting her friends, Britta ducked into the library. She settled onto a beige plastic couch under a “Read” poster of some basketball player reading Harry Potter and took out her iPad. She scrolled, clicking on posts about “9 Actors You Didn’t Know Almost Played Batman” and a gif of two cats fighting with lightsabers.

  Scroll, scroll, scroll. Then she saw the ad.

  It had been shared by a friend of a friend of a mutual’s cousin or something, as such things were. Or such things would be, if people usually posted ads for summer vacation properties on social media instead of Airbnb. Which, of course, they didn’t.

  Starlight and fresh air.

  The accompanying picture showed a peaceful lake mirroring pine trees. She clicked on it. Then, one of a house with a porch going all around.

  It was like a sign, like someone was saying, “Relax, Britta! Get away from Mom and her skeezy boyfriend and relaaaaax.” She wondered what city light bleed was.

  Britta noticed Meredith Daly, sitting under a poster of Taylor Swift reading The Giver. Meredith wore khaki shorts that were longer than any teenager should wear and a white polo that said “German Honor Society.” Because of course she did. She crouched over a stack of homemade flash cards, her reddish hair covering her eyes. She sort of rocked back and forth, flipping over first one, then another pink card.

  “Wagner Act.” Meredith turned the card over and pumped her fist in victory. Britta bet Meredith knew what light bleed was. She switched sofas and tapped her shoulder.

  Meredith started. “What? Huh?” She pulled away her noise-canceling headphones.

  “Do you know what city light bleed is?” Britta asked.

  Meredith looked at Britta like she was on bath salts. “What?”

  “City light bleed. ‘Devoid of city light bleed.’ What does that mean?”

  Meredith shook her head. “No idea.” She replaced the headphones.

  Britta googled “city light bleed,” which she should have done in the first place. It had to do with astronomy. With less city light bleed, you could see way more stars.

  Once Britta’s family had gone camping, and she remembered the stars, millions of them, spread like a lace overlay on a black velvet dress. Dad had held her hand and shown her the Big Dipper and her own constellation, Libra. That was when Dad had been around.

  Now Dad was gone, and there was her mother’s new boyfriend, Rick, who was always “joking” about her tight shorts or how many boys she must be dating or asking if she wanted a ride in his Lamborghini. And who was the reason she didn’t have a car anymore. She needed to get away to someplace Rick-free for the summer.

  In the past, her mother would never have let her. Britta hadn’t been allowed to sleep over at a friend’s house until ninth grade, and even then, her mother had called five times.

  But now that Rick was in the picture, it might be different. Her friend Teghan had suggested they be CITs together at a Girl Scout camp in North Florida. Yeah, no. Being in a cabin with fifteen eight-year-olds was not Britta’s idea of a summer vacation. And what if she misplaced one or something? It could happen.

  Britta looked back at the photo of the lake. This! This was what she wanted—to hike and kayak and stargaze. Not use chopsticks to check little kids’ scalps for lice.

  Beside her, Meredith said, “Works Progress Administration.”

  Britta looked Meredith over, since Meredith was plainly oblivious. Meredith would be pretty if she’d lighten up. They had no classes together, Meredith being a genius who only took AP think-tank classes. But they’d sort of been friendly in grade school, when Meredith, skinny and sad-looking, had transferred in second semester of fourth grade. Every day at lunch, she sat alone, reading. So weird. But Britta felt sorry for her, sorry enough that once, she’d asked her about her book.

  Meredith’s eyes had lit up. “It’s called Inkdeath,” she’d said. “It’s the last book i
n the Inkheart trilogy. Have you read them?”

  Britta had shaken her head no, sorry she’d said anything. Now Meredith would think she was dumb. But Meredith had said, “Well, you should. They changed my life.”

  That was sort of a funny thing to say, but the next time the class went to the library, Britta had checked out the first book, which had a picture of a lizard on the cover. Meredith had smiled when she saw her doing so. And, while Britta wouldn’t say the book was life changing, it was a pretty good story, and Britta had actually finished it, instead of losing it under the debris on her nightstand and returning it unread, her usual habit with library books.

  Meredith flipped through the cards, furrowing her brow so much Britta’s mother would say she’d have crow’s-feet at twenty. Man, if anyone needed to relax, it was Meredith. Suddenly, it struck Britta that someone smart like Meredith might make a good partner in crime.

  So, like in fourth grade, Britta decided to suck it up. She held her iPad out. “Meredith?”

  Meredith didn’t respond, flipping a yellow card. Britta rolled her eyes and stuck her iPad between Meredith’s face and the flash cards.

  Meredith jumped. “Excuse me! Do you have no concept of personal space?”

  Now that she had Meredith’s attention, Britta pointed at her own ears, hoping Meredith would figure out she should take off the headphones.

  She did. “What?”

  “It’s silly.”

  “Probably,” Meredith agreed, replacing her headphones.

  “Wait!” Britta pointed to the ad. “Just look. Isn’t it heavenly?”

  Meredith glanced at it. “Nice.” She went back to the card that said “Act passed by Congress in 1933 to stabilize the banks.”

  Meredith said, “Emergency Banking Act.”

  But Britta persisted. “It says they have three rooms to rent for July.”

  “Uh-huh.” Meredith reached for the headphones again.

  Britta talked faster, competing with the headphones. “And a private lake! And kayaks and stars and . . . deer! And no light bleed! I looked it up, and it means it’s so dark you can really see the stars, all of them.” She had to stop to breathe, but Meredith had paused anyway. “Don’t you ever wish you could go someplace where no one knows you, where you can’t be reached? Where there’s not so much stress?”

  “Why are you asking me this? We’re not friends.” Meredith looked back at the cards.

  “We’re not enemies. And they have three rooms. We could take two of them. I want to get away from my mom’s boyfriend, and . . . everything.” She tried to decide whether to say what she was thinking, about the real reason she’d thought Meredith should go. “I heard about what happened last week.”

  Meredith’s head jerked up. “What? Does the whole school know?” The unspoken words, even you, hung there like Taylor Swift’s poster.

  Britta shrugged apologetically. “Word gets around. And everyone looks up to you.”

  Meredith hung her head. “God. I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be.” Britta’s hand hovered over Meredith’s shoulder. She wanted to pat her or something. “People freak out sometimes. You just need a vacation. We could go up there.”

  Sighing, Meredith scrolled through the photographs again. This time, Britta could tell she was really looking, because she glanced away from the flash cards.

  “I know it’s weird, asking you,” Britta said. “But if I asked any of my actual friends, they’d laugh. And if you asked any of your actual friends, same thing, right?”

  Meredith tried to hand back the iPad. “I can’t take a vacation. I need to do something important over the summer, pad my resume for college.”

  “Aren’t you in a bunch of activities?” Britta said. “Isn’t that why you’re stressed out?”

  Meredith laughed. “Yeah. I’m in all the activities. That’s why I can’t just take off. I’m president of the National Honor Society and the Key Club, and I built Habitat homes, and I organized a walk for cancer, and I’m on the bowling team.”

  “The bowling team?” Britta said. “You bowl? Like, on a regular basis?”

  “You have to have a sport—to show you’re well-rounded.”

  “Okay, so you’re president of all these clubs and on the bowling team, and—”

  “I’m the captain of the bowling team.”

  “Captain of the bowling team. But you’re not going to get into college because you took a month off to go to the mountains when you’re obviously stressed out?”

  “Maybe not the right college. My mother went to Princeton.” But Meredith looked at the ad again, expanding the photograph of the house with her finger.

  “I bet it smells like pine trees,” Britta singsonged. “Like Christmas all year-round.”

  Meredith nodded. “My mother would say I have time for this after I get into college.”

  “So don’t tell your mother. Tell her you’re taking a college class. At Princeton.”

  The bell rang then. Meredith handed the iPad back to Britta.

  Britta packed her stuff up slowly. Her next class was close to the library, and she wanted to give Meredith more time to change her mind. “You could write your college essays in peace.”

  Nothing.

  “It could change our lives,” Britta said.

  Meredith laughed. Still, Britta’s patience was rewarded when Meredith called after her. “Britta?”

  Britta smiled. So she remembered her name, at least. “Yeah?”

  “Call me later.” She gave Britta her phone number.

  2

  Kate

  Three months later

  “HURRY, KATY, YOU don’t want to miss the flight,” Kate’s father called across the clockwork craziness of Hartsfield Airport at ten o’clock, when the travelers swarmed like ants on a doughnut.

  What if I do want to miss it? “I’m tying my shoe.”

  “Well, giddyap.” Her father wore a suit, scanning the crowd as he always did when they went anywhere, to see if there was anyone he knew, the consummate politician.

  “I don’t think I should go.” Kate rose and started down the concourse. “Mother’s having a fit that I won’t be able to go to twenty-seven debutante events, and—”

  “It’s for the best. I don’t want you and Blake here if this hits the papers.”

  Kate nodded, eyes on the gate numbers. Kate didn’t want to think about what “this” was, that he might get arrested. It made her stomach jump to think about it. Her father was kind and gentle and wanted to help people. How could he go to jail?

  “I’ll talk to your mother.” Her father walked faster. “Come on. If you miss the plane, you won’t make the bus either.”

  “Right. The bus.” She’d never taken the bus, even to school. The Covingtons didn’t take buses. No one she knew did. She wondered if it would be dirty. She shuddered, imagining it.

  People at the gate were lining up to board. She noticed two girls her own age, a redhead and a petite brunette with French braids. The brunette might have been younger than her, judging from the pink camouflage duffel bag she carried. She wondered where they were going.

  “Will you call and tell me what happens?” she asked her father.

  “Not sure. Cell phone reception’s pretty bad there. And internet. It’s for the best.”

  “Oh. Right.” She remembered that from when she had spoken to the girl who was renting the place—Spider was her very odd name. She had interviewed Kate to make sure they were compatible, and she’d said, not apologetically, that reception was spotty. “Sometimes, when the wind blows right or you’re on a hill, you get a text.” So there would be no calls from her mother about debutante party themes or the perfect white dress or what kind of flowers wouldn’t make her father feel ill or matching bow ties for the dog. No Snapchat or Twitter or Instagram with gossip about her family, no updates from Daddy.

  And no calls from Colin.

  Kate felt her phone vibrating inside her purse. Mother. Or maybe
Colin. He’d called several times since she’d broken up with him by text the night before. She knew that was cruel, but it was for the best. She didn’t want him embroiled in her family scandal either, or to feel like he had to stick by her to avoid looking bad. Better to think she was a bitch.

  The airline was calling the first class, gold, platinum, emerald, titanium, tin, copper, bloodstone, and all the other levels that came before boarding group one. She remembered her mother’s face the last time she saw her.

  “Katy!” Her father held out her carry-on, a Louis Vuitton that would look ridiculous out in the wilderness.

  “Now boarding group one.”

  “So you’re just going to dump me in the woods? Like I’m Snow White or something?”

  He handed her the bag. “I’m protecting you.”

  “What if I don’t want to be protected?”

  “It will be peaceful there. You can hike.” His voice went down at the end, like when she was little and he used to say something and you just knew it wasn’t open for discussion.

  “Now boarding group two.”

  “Is that your group?” her father said.

  “Yeah.” Kate felt the incredible urge to hug her father, throw herself into his arms like she had when he’d come home from business trips when she was little. But the Covingtons didn’t hug, not as adults, anyway, except maybe at funerals. That was why she was surprised to see that he had his arms out, right there in the airport. She moved closer, and he drew her in.

  “Have a good time, Katy. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about me.”

  Finally, he released her, and she started toward the gate.

  “Now boarding group three.”

  The two girls from before were in group three. She got in line behind them. Lucky girls! They probably went on adventures like this all the time.

  That was silly, Kate knew. They might be cousins, visiting their sick grandmother or on their way to some boring church camp, and the only reason their parents hadn’t insisted on getting a special pass to walk them to the gate was because they were just changing planes in Atlanta.

  She looked back to tell Daddy she’d call when she arrived, but he was already gone. She trudged forward. Then, somehow, she was on the plane. A man looked annoyed when she brushed past him. But when he saw Kate’s face, he smiled. People always did that. It was the blessing and the curse of being beautiful. It was impossible to pass unnoticed.