The Longings of Wayward Girls

S

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The darrk-side of a seemingly perrfect Conneccticut suburbb comes to ligght when one woman’’s long-buried secrets refuuse to stay inn the past, in this rivetingg debut novell.

It’s an idy yllic New Enggland summerr, and Sadie iis a precociouus only child on the edge of adolescencce. It seems llike July and AAugust will ppass lazily by, just as they have every yeear before. But one day, Sadie and heer best friendd play a seemmingly harmleess prank onn a neighborhhood girl. Sooon after, that same little girrl disappears ffrom a backyyard barbecue— and she is never seen aggain.

Twenty years p pass, and Sadiee is still living in the same, qquiet suburb. SShe’s married to a good mman, has two bbeautiful childdren, and seems to have pput her past bbehind her. BBut when a booy from her old neighborhhood returns to town, thee nightmares oof that summmer begin to reesurface, and iits unsolved mmysteries finally become cleear . . .

Chilling in the best possiblee ways,
The LLongings of WaWayward Girls
iss an engrossiing page-turneer by a skilled writer of psycchological suspense.

Karen B rown
is the auuthor of
Littlee Sinners and OOther Stories,
whhich was nammed a Best Book of 2012 by
Publishers Weekly,
and
PPins and Needleles: Stories,
whiich was the rrecipient of AWWP’s Grace PPaley Prize forr Short Fictionn. Her work hhas been feattured in
The PPEN/O. Henryy Prize Stories, BBest American Short Stories, TThe New Yorrk Times,
and
Good Housekkeeping
. She tteaches creatiive writing annd literature at the Univerrsity of South Florida.

“
The Longings of WaywardGirls
caaught me by the throat froom the first paage. Brown has deftly ccrafted a firstt novel that wiill touch a choord inside anynyone who hass harbored a hauntiing secret, or been buffeted by the confflicting crosswwinds of coming of age.”
—Leee Woodruff,
NNew York Times
bestsellling author oof
ThoseWe Love Most

“A heart-stopping novvel of suspensse that’s as inntelligent as itt is compellinng, as beautifuul as it is ddisturbing. Brrown’s skill, eempathy and sensitivity maake this debuut stand apart,
and standd out. The astute observations, evocativve atmospherre, and bone-cchilling scenees
make fora moving, prrovocative reaad.”
—M. J. RRose, internaationally besttselling authoor

Marketing/Puublicity
National print rreview and feaature campaiggn • Atria Gallley Alley Featuure title

Atria S Summer Fictioon Feature titlle, including ppromotion on AtriaSummerrFiction.com Cross-prommotion with thhe author’s weebsite: KarenBBrownBooks.ccom Cross prromotion withh author’s sociial networkingg platform: Facebook, Twittter & Pinteresst Onnline promotioons and featurres including ggiveaways

Wasshington Squuare Press
On Sale JJuly 2, 2013 • 9781476724911 • $15.00 UU.S/$17.00 Cann.
Puublicity Contaact
Valerie Veennex • [email protected]
Nonmerch9781476729206. UUncorrected Prooof. Not for Sale. checking thee finished book. FFurther informattion available on
Please do not quuote for publicatiion without copyright page. AAuthor photo byy Robert Baisden

of

Wayward Girls

Also by KAren brown
Pins & Needles: Stories Little Sinners and Other Stories

of
Wayward Girls

A Novel

Karen Brown

wAsHInGTon sQUAre Press
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Washington Square Press
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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New York, NY 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Karen Brown

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,
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Designed by Kyoko Watanabe
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Karen, 1960–
The longings of wayward girls : a novel / Karen Brown. — First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition.
pages cm

1. Women—Connecticut—Fiction. 2. Secrets—Fiction. 3. Psychological fiction. 4. Suspense fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R7213L66 2013
813'.6—dc23
2012044427

ISBN 978-1-4767-2491-1
ISBN 978-1-4767-2493-5 (ebook)

Brown_Longings_BG.indd 4 1/29/13 4:49 PM

For Valerie and Dianne, and for our parents.

. . . it was summer
as long as I could remember, I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling under me, the wise stars bedding over me, my mother’s window a funnel of yellow heat running out, . . .

—Anne Sexton, “Young”

Part One

E

THE SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING NINE-YEAR-OLD
Wintonbury—June 14, 1974

Nine-year-old Laura Loomis, missing now since late Thursday, never went into the woods surrounding her house alone, according to her mother. The afternoon of her disappearance Mrs. Loomis had taken Laura and a friend to the Wampanoag club pool. They’d gotten ice cream at the concession stand. Mrs. Loomis said she dropped Laura at a friend’s house down the street from theirs, and she was to return home by dinnertime. Laura was last seen walking toward her home on Hickory Road at 4:30 p.m. She is described by her mother as 4 feet, 8 inches, blond with blue eyes, and wearing a shirt with a rainbow, blue shorts, and blue sneakers. The search continued today, with firefighters from Bloomfield and Windsor sweeping the wooded and often swampy area surrounding the neighborhood. No clues have been found, and police are not ruling out the possibility that foul play may have been involved in the child’s disappearance.

May 5, 1979

S

adie wasn’t a bad girl. When she was little she played church, flattening soft bread into disks, singing the hymns from stolen paper missals:
Our Fathers chained in prisons dark, were still in heart and conscience free, how

sweet would be their children’s fate, if they like them, could die for Thee.
she set up carnivals and lemonade stands, collected pennies for UnICeF on Halloween. she bought a tree to be planted in her name in a forest purged by fire. she included everyone in her neighborhood games, even the irritating younger siblings, even the girl, sally Frobel, who was clearly a boy, and the boy, larry schuster, who was clearly schizophrenic. They were cast in roles like the frog in her production of
The Frog Prince
or the dead boy in her Haunted woods. she understood, perfectly, what was expected of her—and still, when it came to Francie bingham, none of this applied. she was feral, unequivocally vicious, like a girl raised by the mountain lions that occasionally slunk out of the wilderness of Massacoe state Forest, between the swing sets and the lawn furniture, into the tended backyards of her neighborhood.