All the Summer Girls by Meg Donohue

Author:Meg Donohue [Donohue, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780062203816
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2013-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

By the time Kate snakes her way through the dance floor and pushes the door open to the patio, a group of guys has already offered up their table to Vanessa and Dani. It’s in this moment, when she sees they’re both literally swaying, that Kate realizes just how drunk they are. Dani looks as if she might slide off her chair. Vanessa’s eyelids are heavy and have a bit too much shine, and she’s glaring at Dani. Kate’s stomach flips. Vanessa, usually reserved, is a fight-picker when she’s drunk, and Dani, drunk or sober, is always up for sparring. Kate hurries over to the table and suggests they go across the street to Circle Pizza.

“No! You have to get back out there,” Dani says.

“Out where?”

“The dance floor. That guy was super into you.”

“That guy probably isn’t even old enough to be here.”

“So what?” Dani says. “He’s cute.”

“I’m not interested.” The thought of having to bike all the way home, worrying the whole way about the baby, is elbowing its way through the crowd of thoughts in her mind. She thinks she should probably just start walking now, but she can’t, of course, leave her friends.

Dani shrugs. “Maybe it’s for the best. It was a little weird. He kind of looked like—ow!” Dani bends over to rub her shin, glaring at Vanessa.

“Like who?” Kate asks. Vanessa is shaking her head at Dani. Colin. That’s what Dani was going to say. Gabe doesn’t look a thing like Colin—not a thing—but she knows that’s where Dani was headed. This is the first time Colin has come up. They look everywhere but at one another.

“Shut up, Dani,” Vanessa says finally.

“It’s okay,” Kate says. “But you’re crazy. He doesn’t look anything like Colin.”

“So then, what is it?” Dani asks. The elbow she’s leaning on slips off the tabletop. “You’re single,” she says, righting herself. “He’s cute. Live a little!”

The last time Dani said this to her, Kate got so drunk she did something she will regret for the rest of her life. She will never, ever go down that road again. But this is exactly what Peter wants her to do, isn’t it? He wants her to remember how to lose control. Kate had only told Peter a version of the truth about what happened to Colin. This, she knows, is as much an indication of a problem between them as anything.

Dani drinks from a plastic cup.

“Was that cup here when you sat down?” Kate asks, feeling a wave of nausea. Kate knows Dani is hurting from her father’s announcement, but her drinking seems compulsive. Who knows whose lips last touched that cup? It constantly amazes her how oblivious people are to the real danger presented by invisible germs.

Dani looks down into the cup and then back at Kate. She picks up the cup and drinks the entire thing.

“That’s disgusting,” Vanessa says.

“No,” Dani says. “It’s vodka.”

A waitress appears and sets down three shots. “These are from those guys,” she says, hiking her thumb in the direction of the group of guys who had given up the table.

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