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  FEATURING A WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS READERS CLUB GUIDE

  ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THESE GIRLS

  “Pekkanen’s latest celebrates the healing power of female friendship for three very different young women sharing a New York City apartment. You’ll wish you could move in with these girls.”

  —JODI PICOULT, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “The honesty and complexity in These Girls is impressive and rare. You can’t help but root for each character as they struggle to strike that elusive balance between professional success and personal happiness.”

  —NICOLLE WALLACE, bestselling author of Eighteen Acres

  “Pekkanen again proves her innate understanding of women’s relationships. With a style that’s both wry and heartfelt, readers will absolutely recognize themselves and their friendships on these pages.”

  —JEN LANCASTER, bestselling author of Bitter Is the New Black

  A WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

  NOW AVAILABLE FROM WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS

  PRAISE FOR THE OPPOSITE OF ME

  “Fresh and funny and satisfying. A terrific book about sisters that made me laugh out loud.”

  —JENNIFER WEINER, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “With her smart, soulful novel, author Pekkanen explores the place where self and sisterhood intersect.”

  —REDBOOK

  “Sharp-tongued . . . a spot-on portrayal of the existential dilemmas of young adulthood.”

  —THE WASHINGTON POST

  PRAISE FOR SKIPPING A BEAT

  “Original and engaging, Skipping a Beat explores the complexity of marriage and what it really means to share a life.”

  —EMILY GIFFIN, New York Times bestselling author

  “In this compelling and satisfying read, Pekkanen offers relatable characters that move you and an ending that surprises and pleases. Highly recommended.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL starred review

  “This portrait of a couple forced to take responsibility for the breakdown of their relationship is at once heartbreaking and familiar.”

  —PEOPLE

  SARAH PEKKANEN is the internationally bestselling author of The Opposite of Me and Skipping a Beat. Her work has been published in People, The Washington Post, and USA Today, among other publications. She lives with her family in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

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  COVER DESIGN BY ANNA DORFMAN • COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNA MOLLER/PHOTOGRAPHER’S CHOICE/GETTY IMAGES

  STEPBACK PHOTOGRAPH BY AJ WILHELM/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC/GETTY IMAGES

  Family secrets may shape us all, but it’s the rich, complicated layers of friendship that can save us.

  Cate, Renee, and Abby have come to New York for very different reasons, and in a bustling city of millions, they are linked together through circumstance and chance.

  Cate has just been named the features editor of Gloss, a high-end lifestyle magazine. It’s a professional coup, but her new job comes with more complications than Cate ever anticipated.

  Her roommate Renee will do anything to nab the plum job of beauty editor at Gloss. But snide comments about Renee’s weight send her into an emotional tailspin. Soon she is taking black market diet pills—despite the racing heartbeat and trembling hands that signal she’s heading for real danger.

  Then there’s Abby, whom they take in as a third roommate. Once a joyful graduate student working as a nanny part time, she abruptly fled a seemingly happy life in the D.C. suburbs. No one knows what shattered Abby—or why she left everything she once loved behind.

  Pekkanen’s most compelling, true-to-life novel yet tells the story of three very different women as they navigate the complications of careers and love—and find the lifeline they need in each other.

  Also by Sarah Pekkanen

  The Opposite of Me

  Skipping a Beat

  WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

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

  Copyright © 2012 by Sarah Pekkanen

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Washington Square Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition April 2012

  WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Jill Putorti

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pekkanen, Sarah.

  These girls : a novel / Sarah Pekkanen. — 1st Washington Square Press trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Life change events—Fiction. 4. New York—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3616.E358T54 2012

  813’.6—dc23

  2011039946

  ISBN 978-1-4516-1254-7

  ISBN 978-1-4516-1255-4 (ebook)

  For my family of girlfriends, especially Rachel Baker

  And in loving memory of Anita Cheng

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Acknowledgments

  A Readers Club Guide

  'The Opposite of Me' Excerpt

  'Skipping a Beat' Excerpt

  Bonus Material

  Reviews

  About the Author

  About Washington Square Press

  Ask Atria

  One

  “HOLD IT!” A VOICE commanded.

  The elevator was already crowded—at a few minutes before 10:00 A.M., everyone was heading for the upper floors of the Manhattan skyscraper that housed office space for a half dozen glossy magazines—but Cate Sommers instinctively reached out and prevented the doors from closing.

  “Thanks.”

  The air crac
kled with energy as Trey Watkins stepped inside, and Cate saw one young woman nudge another. Trey wore faded jeans, hiking boots, a green henley shirt, and his cheeks were slightly windburned, as if he’d just finished scaling a mountain. Which he probably had, right before he’d started a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and, Cate thought as she managed to avoid rolling her eyes, possibly shimmied up a tree to save a stranded bear cub.

  “Excuse me.” Trey was standing to Cate’s right, and he reached an arm around her, enveloping her in a half hug. She blinked up at him in surprise.

  “Nineteenth floor,” he said, grinning as he pushed the button. She leaned away from him, irritated with herself for being unoriginal enough to fall, even momentarily, under his spell. Trey was a legend around this building, and not just because a six-foot-three, single, straight, employed man was more coveted and rare in New York City than a rent-controlled one-bedroom.

  Sure, he was gorgeous, but Cate couldn’t get distracted by his presence, even if they were pressed together as close as it was possible to be without touching at the moment. This was her first month as features editor of Gloss, the magazine battling InStyle to nab a shrinking audience of consumers in their twenties through forties who liked a spirited mix of articles about celebrity, home, and style. She had photos of Will and Jada Smith’s new swimming pool to consider, headlines to tweak, and a profile of a young wife who’d left a polygamous marriage to shepherd through the editing process (the wife, surprisingly sexy with a new short haircut and a wardrobe with even shorter hemlines, had just won a bit part in a Quentin Tarantino film; otherwise the magazine never would’ve been interested). Plus she needed to weed through a stack of submissions for the first-person back-page column. All before noon.

  The doors opened and Trey held them, politely gesturing for two other men to get out first, then they all headed toward the double glass doors etched with the words THE GREAT BEYOND. Cate could’ve predicted this would be their stop: The guys all wore sneakers, and one even sported a backpack instead of a briefcase.

  Gender and dress identified who belonged to which floor long before the elevator doors opened: The young women in miniskirts and bright tights with sassy streaks of pink or blue in their hair all left for Sweet! on the twenty-fifth floor; the women in sensible gray or black suits picked up their equally sensible briefcases and headed into Home & Garden on floor twenty-two; and all the guys were disgorged on floor nineteen, which churned out manly features yet spotlighted a gorgeous girl—or, more accurately, her cleavage—on every cover.

  “Mmm.” The girl who’d nudged her friend rolled the sound around in her mouth as the doors slid shut, and the other four women in the elevator all laughed. Except for Cate, who flinched.

  The sound was nearly identical to the one made by Gloss’s editor in chief, a Brit named Nigel Campbell, who—apparently following the trend set by the cover models for The Great Beyond—always left one too many buttons undone on his shirt. The troubling thing was, he’d made the intimate, yucky noise two days before he promoted Cate. She didn’t react, and now she couldn’t stop beating herself up about it. Later that night, in bed, she’d formulated the perfect response: an arched eyebrow and a pointed “Excuse me?”

  But she’d frozen, and he’d walked on by, and it was as though the moment had never existed. She kept trying to convince herself that she’d misheard him, that he was clearing his throat instead of admiring her as she leaned over her desk to reach a file folder.

  Except she still heard that sound whenever she met with him—she was always on the lookout, ready to put him in his place—but he’d never repeated it.

  The elevator lurched upward and Cate glanced at her BlackBerry, tapping out a message to Sam, the writer responsible for the polygamist wife story.

  Can we meet in my office at 10:30?

  Cate had worked until nearly midnight making notes on the piece, which wasn’t quite right. She needed to coax a rewrite from Sam, who’d worked for the magazine for a decade, without alienating him. She wanted her first issue on the job to be special, to sparkle with wit and depth and perfectly packaged information. This issue had to shine brightly enough to quiet the voices of the colleagues who’d wanted her job, those who resented the fact that, at the tender age of thirty, Cate had nabbed one of the plum positions at the magazine.

  But, most important, to quell the whispers in her own head that told her she wasn’t good enough.

  At least she dressed the part, in a black-and-red color-block dress and black slingbacks. Her long auburn hair was blown out straight, and mascara highlighted her wide-spaced, gray-green eyes, her best feature. Cate thought of clothes and makeup as her armor some days, a glossy veneer that protected and hid her true center. Since fleeing Ohio to start over in New York, she’d rebuilt her image. No one—not even her roommates, Renee and Naomi—knew about what had happened there.

  Cate wasn’t close to Naomi, a photographic model who was always traveling or at her boyfriend’s place, but she’d hoped by now, after six months of living together, that she and Renee would have moved beyond a casual friendship. It certainly wasn’t Renee’s fault that they hadn’t. She was outgoing and kind, always flopping on the couch and offering Cate some of her cheap Chinese take-out dinner, saying, “Save me from my thighs!”

  A few times they’d rented movies together, and Cate had tagged along with Renee on her girls’ nights out a couple of times—the woman was friends with everyone in New York; even doormen greeted her by name as she passed by—but so far, the kinds of confidences Cate yearned for eluded her. She was private, always had been, and couldn’t slip into the sorts of confessions other girls seemed to share as easily as trading a lip gloss back and forth.

  The elevator stopped at the twenty-seventh floor, and Cate stepped out into the airy, lush space. Sunlight streamed in through the oversize windows of the private offices rimming the perimeter, while dozens of cubicles with desks for the editorial assistants and copy editors filled the center of the room. Past covers of the magazine lent splashes of bright color to the walls, and the blond wood floors gleamed.

  “Morning!” the receptionist called.

  Two women were clustered around the receptionist’s desk, and Cate paused, wondering if she should join them. But one of the women was gesturing animatedly, and the others were hanging on her words and laughing. Cate waved and kept walking toward her new office, her shoes clicking briskly against the floor.

  Just as she opened her door, Sam’s response pinged back: No can do. At a press conference all morning.

  “And thanks for suggesting a different time,” Cate muttered as she dropped her briefcase onto her desk with a thud.

  She sighed and forced herself to focus on all she needed to accomplish today, on the words and meetings and phone calls filling her to-do list. But she couldn’t erase the sound of illicit admiration—that half moan, half growl—that relentlessly wormed its way into her brain.

  Half a banana. It was an outrage.

  Who, other than a premature baby monkey, could nibble a few bites of banana and call it breakfast? Renee Robinson reached past the remaining half, which Cate had enclosed in Saran Wrap like a gift-wrapped package, and grabbed the sugar bowl, rationing a teaspoon into her travel mug of coffee. She rinsed out the coffeepot, then bent to pick up the shoes she’d kicked off the previous night and tossed them through her open bedroom door. Renee wasn’t naturally neat, but their Upper West Side apartment was so tiny that if the shared living space wasn’t kept completely clutter-free, it would quickly turn into a candidate for the Hoarders TV show.

  Other than three minuscule bedrooms (the apartment originally held two, but a flimsy partition halved the bigger one), there was a bathroom with a shower that was more temperamental than the fashionistas Renee worked with, and an optimistically named kitchen-living area that barely managed to contain two stools and a love seat. It was filled to bursting—kind of the way Renee felt right now in her boot-leg black pants and lavender
silk shirt. She sighed, wishing elastic waists would suddenly roar into vogue. Or mumus. The mumu was highly underrated in the fashion world, in Renee’s humble opinion.

  Renee picked up her purse and headed out into the crisp fall morning, sipping coffee and trying not to stare enviously at the Starbucks cups every third person she passed seemed to be carrying. What she wouldn’t give for a caramel latte right now—sticky sweet and foamy and rich—but it wasn’t only the fat grams she couldn’t afford. Her thirty-eight-thousand-dollar salary as an associate editor at Gloss would go so much further in her hometown of Kansas City, but here in New York . . . well, the thick stack of bills she was carrying right now said it all.

  Renee stopped at the corner mailbox and reached into her purse for the envelopes. Her Visa balance—she flinched as her check was greedily gulped by the mailbox—was even worse than she’d expected this month. Her goal had been to keep it under four figures, since at least that way she had a chance of cutting it down to zero someday, but working at Gloss meant looking the part. She shopped sample sales, swapped clothes with friends, and purchased cosmetics at Rite Aid, but even a jar of peanut butter in New York was shockingly expensive.

  Renee fed the rest of the envelopes through the slot, then reached into her purse, digging through the mess of receipts and makeup and spare change, to make sure she hadn’t missed one. Her fingers closed around a piece of paper, and she pulled it out.

  She stared at the words on the robin’s egg blue sheet of stationery for the dozenth time, trying to discern clues about the author from the graceful sweeps of the g’s, the l’s that tilted slightly to the right. Renee had been carrying the letter around ever since she’d received it, a week ago, and already the edges were soft from handling.

  . . . You must be shocked to learn about me. I’m reeling from it all, too. But maybe we could correspond, sort of like pen pals? And I was hoping to come to New York so we can meet in person . . .