No Boys. No Babies. (a book)

INTRODUCTION

It’s interesting what can bring a group of friends together. A wedding, a funeral, a public embarrassment, heartbreak, a disappointment in life.

Sometimes, you don’t need a reason.

And sometimes, you have too many reasons to count.

There’s just a force that pulls you together. For friendship, for nostalgia, curiosity, maybe. The fact is you’ve been through a time in your life together. And for whatever reason, these people are a part of you.

What makes you come together doesn’t matter. What makes you stay together does.

EXCERPT

Summer and Ben were wrong. One half of a cigarette was not enough.

“I understand. I do,” she says, exhaling. “I’ve been there so many times. I listen to all these women that I train. They hate their jobs. And some of them have been working at the same job for 10, 20 years. They’re all wealthy, and they take great vacations, but they hate what they do. And they go home. And they scream at their husbands and kids. I can’t live like that. If I don’t like a job … I leave it.”

Summer hands the cigarette to Ben who looks at her completely expressionless. Inside, his mind is spinning. Summer’s openly admitting to her job-hopping for the first time ever. He takes a drag. And she continues.

“On the plane, my last day, I was talking to the people on board. We were approaching the gate, and I was thinking. I was thinking about what I would be doing, you know, during the rest of my life. And then I thought this is the rest of my life. People are always trying to dissect me. Wondering why I can’t keep a job. It’s easy. It’s ‘cause I don’t have to.”

There are a lot of theories floating along their inner circle about Summer and her job-quitting. Liz thinks that her parents are giving her money. Therefore, she doesn’t commit to anything when the going gets rough. Catherine worries that she’s depressed and just can’t figure out what to do next in her life. Brooke thinks Summer’s just fine, maybe just going through what everyone goes through, and there’s nothing to worry about. And, of course, Penny whispers that Summer’s prostituting herself.

Ben smiles from ear to ear. Not only has he just heard the answer to the question everyone wants to know, but he understands it completely. She has a deep down resentment for settling for less. And shouldn’t everyone? Summer’s right. She doesn’t have to.

It would be interesting to take a snapshot of the two of them now, in Atlantic City, sitting at the table, and then one of them the night when Summer taught Ben how to smoke. They were only 16 years old in the parking lot of Food Lion at the end of Route 71 — the place where all their classmates would meet and wait to hear news of that night’s party. Except there wasn’t rumor of anything happening that night, and they sat in Ben’s Ford Festiva, talking and smoking the night away.

The years have matured them. But the connection, like a dusty old book, is always there.

Most likely, the two pictures would look exactly the same.

CONTACT

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