The Summer Everything Changed (32 page)

The weak mid-November light forced its way through the windows of Isobel's room. The famous New England fall foliage was long gone; the air was crisp when it wasn't damp; the earth was gray and brown; the first snowfall was said to be not far off.

Isobel was looking forward to spending the weekend after Thanksgiving with her father, Vicky, the girls, and little Andrew Jr. How typical, Isobel thought, not entirely without fondness. Vicky, her father had told her, had wanted to name the boy Jared but he had stood firm. Well, her father's quirks didn't bother Isobel so much any longer. She had more important things to focus on.

Like rebuilding—and enjoying!—her life.

An interesting thing had happened. Quentin's cousin Lara had come by the inn one afternoon to apologize for not having told the truth about Jeff when he had broken her nose. She was a pretty girl, a few years older than Isobel. She and her cousin shared the same gorgeously wild brown curls and soulful brown eyes. She was nervous throughout their meeting, literally wringing her hands. (Isobel had never actually seen anyone do that, though she had read about it in novels.) Lara admitted that she still wasn't ready to go public, and might never be. Isobel understood why.

The bracelet had been dealt with. The local jeweler—the one from whom Jeff had stolen the piece—confirmed that the diamonds were indeed diamonds, and the gold was indeed gold, maybe the only two things Jeff hadn't lied about. Of course, there was no way Isobel could keep it; it was tainted beyond rehabilitation. Her mom sold it for her on eBay, and with the money it fetched, Isobel invested in better software for the blog. With another portion of the money Isobel bought a Marena pin she found at her first live auction in Vermont. (Gwen had driven, though Isobel had just gotten her permit.)

Gwen and Quentin were together as a couple now, and Gwen was as attentive to her friendship with Isobel as ever. Isobel knew all too well how hard it must be on her at times, juggling two important emotional priorities—but at least in this case, Isobel and Quentin actually liked and respected each other!

Flynn and Catherine were spending much of their time together, too, though Catherine had declined to say if he was “the one.” “It doesn't seem to matter so much anymore,” she had told Louise and Isobel. “Flynn is a great guy, and we enjoy each other's company. That's fine for now. Maybe it will be fine for always.”

James and Jim, Isobel's Knights in Shining Armor, had gone home to their castle (that's how Isobel liked to imagine it) in the Hudson Valley, with reassurances that they would return the following summer. A sizable deposit had sealed that promise. They kept in touch via e-mail and had invited Louise and Isobel to pay them a visit at Christmastime.

And Jeff Otten? He was still in Colorado, causing who knew what sort of trouble. But even if he came back to town, he could never hurt Isobel again because she had changed—she had!—and she would no longer let anyone treat her with such disrespect. Sometimes, alone in her bed in the middle of the night, it still surprised her that a person—only a person, not a demon—had been able to achieve so much power over her, and in such a short period of time.

A person who had been born of a mere woman. Isobel often thought of the time in early October when she and her mother had seen Mrs. Otten in the produce section in Hannaford. Isobel didn't recognize her, never having met her, but Louise had met her, once, and her face had taken on a strange look.

“Jeez, Mom,” Isobel had asked. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Except that's Mrs. Otten, over by the oranges.”

She was a pretty, slightly plump woman somewhere around Catherine's age, Isobel guessed, dressed expensively and conservatively in a tweed skirt suit. She didn't look like a victim, but what did that mean? She also didn't look like a conspirator, and yet, that's what she was, aiding and abetting her son in his crimes.

Part of Isobel had wanted to walk right up to Mrs. Otten. “Hi,” she would say. “I'm Isobel Bessire, your son's latest victim.” But she didn't have the nerve or the level of hate it would take to confront Jeff's mother in that way. Isobel had just watched Mrs. Otten choose some fruit and walk away.

Isobel, as a survivor, was learning how to be aware of toxic people, but at the same time to retain a healthy degree of trust in humanity's innate goodness. It wasn't always easy, but if her mom had learned to do it, so could she. If bazillions of people through history had learned, then so could Isobel Amelia Bessire! And she was learning to accept that even a smart and savvy person could make a mistake in judgment, and that it shouldn't be a cause for self-loathing. Next time she had the slightest doubt about someone's behavior toward her, she would tell, because talking was good . . . almost as good as writing!

Isobel sat at her desk and opened her laptop.

CityMouse was back with a vengeance!

Please turn the page
for a very special Q&A with
Holly Chamberlin!

Q.
The Summer Everything Changed
is very much a story about a mother and daughter, a topic you have visited in several other novels, for example,
Last Summer
and
Tuscan Holiday
. Is this a subject you intend to return to in the future?

A.
Oh yes. The mother-daughter dynamic is a rich and varied one; I could write a story a month for the rest of my life and never repeat a detail. Fortunately, I have a good relationship with my mother so I have no personal ax to grind or demons to put to rest—we've battled it all out long before now! The novels allow me to explore—at a safe distance—a relationship that is classically fraught, complicated, and sometimes painfully intimate.

 

Q.
Was it difficult to write about the topic of teenage domestic violence?

A.
Yes, it was an emotional drain; there were times I wanted to snatch Isobel from her abuser's grip and had to keep reminding myself that it was all a fiction and that I was, in fact, in charge. Talk about characters taking over an author! And writing this novel was a challenge in another way. I had to figure out how to tell a story that would engage the reader and keep her engaged—and not unduly depressed—while it was becoming increasingly dark and dangerous. Hopefully, I met this challenge successfully.

 

Q.
Isobel, your teenaged heroine, is an interesting combination of sassy and secretively fearful, of spirited and secretly hesitant. Do you think she is unusual, or do you find that many teenaged girls are not as confident and as self-assured as they seem?

A.
I believe that all too many adolescent girls and young women are a painfully mixed-up bundle of contradictory beliefs and behaviors. In portraying Isobel as intellectually independent at the same time she is emotionally dependent and even naïve, I think I portrayed quite a common—and unfortunate—type. Frankly, I drew on my own experience to create her. As a teen, I could ace a test and write a great paper, but at the same time I was intimidated by intimacy, full of self-doubt, and fearful of identifying and speaking my needs lest I be rejected or considered somehow bad or wrong or troublesome. Women have come a long way—but not far enough.

 

Q.
Did you relate at all to Louise, Isobel's mother, or to Catherine, Louise's friend?

A.
To some extent a writer “relates to” or has a relationship with every single character, if only to say, “God, what an awful person she is; I'm not at all like that!” In this case, feeling some sympathy toward two adult women wasn't so difficult. For example, like Louise, who among us hasn't ignored a crisis in our own home because of laziness or stress or some deep-seated psychological reason we'd rather not acknowledge? And, like Catherine, I am middle-aged and don't have children, so there is some of my own angst in her story. That said, every character in the book is just that—a character, not me, not my mother, not my friend, not anyone else who lives and breathes.

 

Q.
Can you tell us what's next for Holly?

A.
Well, I'm currently writing a novella that will be published as part of a collection along with a few other writers. And I'm working on another novel. Like
The Family Beach House, Summer Friends, Last Summer,
and
The Summer Everything Changed,
the story is set in Maine—but that's all I'm telling you! Okay, and it involves mothers and daughters—that's no surprise.

 

The suggested questions are intended to enhance
your group's reading of Holly Chamberlin's