Local Girls : An Island Summer Novel (9781416564171)

Praise for
JENNY O'CONNELL

PLAN B

“
Plan B,
Jenny O'Connell's first young adult novel, is sure to be a hit. . . . It's full of believable characters, interesting plot twists, and great writing.” Rating: 10/10

—Teen Book Review.com

“
Plan B
gets an ‘A' for a clever plot. . . . [Vanessa is] a vulnerable and sympathetic character.”

—Curled Up Kids.com

THE BOOK OF LUKE

“This fresh, honest novel is full of amazing characters and excellent writing. Jenny O'Connell is a smart, talented author; I'm really looking forward to seeing what she writes next! This is contemporary fiction at its best; readers will not be disappointed.” Rating: 5 Stars

—Teens Read Too.com

“[A] fun and charming book that's worth reading.”

—Young Adult Books Central.com

“Emily . . . is smart, funny, easy to relate to, and so is her
narration.”

—The Yayas, Wordpress.com

An Island Summer Novel

Jenny O'Connell

POCKET BOOKS
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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 © 2008 by Jennifer O'Connell

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All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
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First MTV Books/Pocket Books trade paperback edition June 2008

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Designed by Carla Jayne Little

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

O'Connell, Jennifer
  Local girls : an island summer novel / by Jenny O'Connell. — 1st MTV Books/Pocket
Books trade paperback ed.
     p. cm.
  Summary: When Kendra's best friend Mona returns to Martha's Vineyard for the
summer after spending the school year in Boston, they discover that their friendship—
along with a lot of other things—has changed.
  [1. Change—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Self-actualization
(Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 5. Summer—Fiction. 6.
Martha's Vineyard (Mass.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
  PZ7.O2165Lo 2008
  [Fic]—dc22                                               2008000317

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6335-8
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6335-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6-4171

For Carleigh, who, after ten years,
finally saw me jump in the waves of South Beach.

There were so many people on the island who let me poke around and ask questions, but I could not have written about this wonderful place without Susan, Carol, and Emily, who were so helpful and willing to share island life with me (not to mention babysit). Many others helped me explore all the details that make Martha's Vineyard just about my most favorite place in the world, including Aerin at the Hob Nob Inn, who let me wander and take notes and wish I could get a room for myself, the
real
Ghost Lady, who almost made me afraid of the dark, and Steve at the bait shop, who was kind enough to tell me about the best fishing spots.

And of course my agent, Kristin, who kept telling me to write a series, and my editor, Jennifer, who enabled me to write a series that let me think about summer all year long.

“It's just the school year,” Mona reminded me, as if saying “school year” sounded shorter than saying “nine months.” “I'll be back next summer.”

“I know,” I told her, even though no matter how you phrased it, Mona was leaving the island. The Range Rover was packed up, her new stepfather was in the driver's seat, and the ferry line was just about to start moving. In a few minutes Mona would be gone.

“Kennie, we're going to miss you so much.” Izzy hugged me, squeezing so tight I could feel her new diamond wedding band digging into my bare arm, probably leaving a six-carat imprint in my skin.

“Mom, come on, let her go.” Mona stepped between us, pushing us apart. “Kendra's turning blue.”

Izzy nicknamed me Kennie in elementary school, something that an eight-year-old Mona had found incredibly unfair. She'd always wanted a nickname, but
Mona
wasn't exactly conducive to nicknames, and believe me, she'd tried. The closest she ever came was the time she insisted everyone
call her Mo. It lasted all of two days before she realized that Mo wasn't any better, and might actually be worse.

Mona's convinced that if her mom had actually told her father that she was pregnant, or at the very least sent him a letter telling him she'd given birth to twins, he never would have allowed Izzy to name his daughter after a Leonardo da Vinci painting. But Izzy never shared any details of her pregnancy or the resulting babies with the boy she'd slept with seventeen summers ago and then never seen again. And the only details Izzy had ever told Mona and Henry about their dad was that he was too young and ill-equipped to be a father, much less raise a child—or two. (“
He
was ill-equipped to raise a child?” Mona always liked to point out. “This from someone who named her twins after a portrait of a morbid-looking woman and a guy who painted a bunch of naked dancing ladies—would it have killed her to just call me Lisa?”).

“Izzy, we better get going, the line's about to move,” Mona's stepfather, Malcolm, called from the driver's seat.

She waved him away, but hugged me one last time before getting in the passenger seat and closing the door.

“You better go,” I told Mona, watching the first cars begin the drive toward the ferry ramp. “You don't want to hold up the whole line.”

“I can't believe I won't be seeing you every day, I'm not going to have anybody to talk to.” Even before she finished the sentence I could see the tears building, the drops making her already blue eyes even brighter.

“You'll have Henry, and I'm just a phone call away. It's not like you'll never speak to me again.”

Mona nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know, but it's not the same.”

It wasn't the same, and I didn't even try to tell her it was. Instead I opened the back door and ducked down, looking across to the other seat. “Make sure she's okay, Henry.”

Henry smiled at me and nodded. “I will, Kendra, don't worry, she'll be fine.”

“I can't believe this is it!” Mona sniffled as I stepped aside so she could get into the backseat.

“This isn't it, Mona. Like you said, it's just the school year.”

“Private school, yuck.” She pretended to stick her finger down her throat and I laughed. For the first time all morning, Mona smiled.

“Don't forget about me,” I whispered into Mona's ear before the door to Malcolm's Range Rover closed shut and the ferry's horn blew one last time.

Mona attempted to smile through the open window and whispered back, “Nothing will change. I'll be back next summer and everything will be the same.”

If we'd only known how wrong she was.

I closed my eyes and inhaled just long enough to recognize the first sign of summer. Luckily, I opened them again in time to see the four-way stop ahead. But as I pressed my foot on the brake and came to a stop at the intersection, I inhaled again, leaning my head out the open window. I knew that scent even before I could see where it was coming from. The smell of summer. Skunk.

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard: 8:49. Mona's ferry would be arriving in eleven minutes. Almost ten months of waiting and I had just eleven minutes to go.

After looking both ways, I dropped my foot on the gas pedal and headed toward the ferry. Even without spotting the skunk, the slight burning in my nose told me I was getting closer, until there it was, pushed just off the road toward the bike path. Mona always complained when I lowered the car window at the first whiff of skunk. She'd crinkle up her nose and then pinch it shut, her index finger self-consciously rubbing the bridge of her nose and the invisible bump that wasn't noticed by anyone but her. Still, I always kept the window down and breathed deep, even knowing how much it bugged her, because
eventually she'd always end up laughing, a nasally laugh that turned into a snort when she finally unpinched her nose.

But now, I avoided looking at the black-and-white mound next to the bike path and instead looked straight ahead at the sign announcing I'd entered Vineyard Haven.

It was near the end of June, and a Sunday, which meant there would be two types of cars at the ferry—the tourists leaving the island after a week's vacation, and the tourists arriving. The thing is, if it weren't for the fact that they were facing different directions, you probably wouldn't be able to tell which was which. But as someone who has lived on the island her entire life, I could tell. It wasn't the stuff they packed in their cars, because coming or going, the SUVs and sedans were layered to the roof with duffel bags, pillows, beach chairs, and boogie boards. If they were really ambitious, and unwilling to trade their expensive ten-speeds with cushy leather seats and spindly rearview mirrors for an on-island rental, there were always the bike racks hanging off the backs of trunks, wheel spokes slowly turning as they caught the breeze off the harbor. And it wasn't their license plates, because just about every other car was clearly labeled “tourist”—Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and even a few Pennsylvanias tossed in for good measure. No, it was the difference between the shiny, sparkling cars with their polished hubcaps, and the cars coated with dirt and sand, their once gleaming exteriors dusted on-island like powdered donuts.

I made the left onto Water Street, following a BMW with
WASH ME
handwritten in block letters in the layer of dirt on the bumper. I patiently waited for the cars ahead of me to pull into the Steamship Authority parking lot and line up single file between the painted rows so they could board the ferry.
Then I veered left and pulled Lexi's car into the row of spaces for people like me.

My sister knew I'd wanted to meet Mona at the ferry, and since she was planning to be at the deli early to let in the last of the contractors, she'd offered me her car. Even though July Fourth was almost two weeks away, which meant the worst of the summer traffic hadn't even started, I left the house early. Not as early as my parents and Lexi and Bart, who just
had
to be at the deli by seven, but early by a seventeen-year-old's standards, and
especially
early for someone whose last day it was to sleep late.