It's finally here! We are beyond excited to bring you the Release Week Launch for Katie Cotugno's 99 Days!!! Did you enjoy How To Love? Then grab your copy of Katie's latest novel today!
99 DAYS
by Katie Cotugno
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
by Katie Cotugno
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
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Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.
Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.”
Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.
EXCERPT
Julia Donnelly eggs my
house the first night I’m back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone
still remembers everything.
“Quite the welcome wagon,”
my mom says, coming outside to stand on the lawn beside me and survey the runny
yellow damage to her lopsided lilac Victorian. There are yolks smeared down all
the windows. There are eggshells in the shrubs. Just past ten in the morning
and it’s already starting to smell rotten, sulfurous and baking in the early
summer sun. “They must have gone to Costco to get all those eggs.”
“Can you not?” My heart is
pounding. I’d forgotten this, or tried to, what it was like before I ran away
from here a year ago: Julia’s reign of holy terror, designed with ruthless
precision to bring me to justice for all my various capital crimes. The bottoms
of my feet are clammy inside my lace-up boots. I glance over my shoulder at the
sleepy street beyond the long, windy driveway, half-expecting to see her
cruising by in her family’s ancient Bronco, admiring her handiwork. “Where’s
the hose?”
“Oh, leave it.” My mom, of
course, is completely unbothered, the toss of her curly blonde head designed to
let me know I’m overreacting. Nothing is a big deal when it comes to my mother:
The President of the United States could egg her house, her house itself could burn
down, and it would turn into not a big deal. It’s a good story, she
used to say whenever I’d come to her with some little-kid unfairness to report,
no recess or getting picked last for basketball. Remember this for later,
Molly. It’ll make a good story someday. It never occurred to me to
ask which one of us would be doing the telling. “I’ll call Alex to come clean
it up this afternoon.”
“Are you kidding?” I say
shrilly. My face feels red and blotchy and all I want to do is make myself as
small as humanly possible--the size of a dust mote, the size of a speck--but
there’s no way I’m letting my mom’s handyman spray a half-cooked omelet off the
front of the house just because everyone in this town thinks I’m a slut and
wants to remind me. “I said where’s the hose, Mom?”
“Watch the tone, please,
Molly.” My mom shakes her head resolutely. Somewhere under the egg and the
garden I can smell her, the lavender-sandalwood perfume she’s worn since I was
a baby. She hasn’t changed at all since I left here: the silver rings on every
one of her fingers, her tissue-thin black cardigan and her ripped jeans. When I
was little I thought my mom was the most beautiful woman in the world. Whenever
she’d go on tour, reading from her fat novels in bookstores in New York City
and Chicago and LA, I used to lie on my stomach in the Donnellys’ living room
and look at the author photos on the backs of all her books. “Don’t you blame
me. I’m not the one who did this to you.”
I turn on her then,
standing on the grass in this place I never wanted to come back to, not in a
hundred million years. “Who would you like me to blame, then?” I demand.
For a second I let myself remember it, the cold sick feeling of seeing the
article in People for the first time in April of junior year, along with
the grossest, juiciest scenes from the novel and a glossy picture of my mom
leaning against her desk: Diana Barlow’s latest novel, Driftwood, was
based on her daughter’s complicated relationship with two local boys. The
knowing in my ribs and stomach and spine that now everyone else would know,
too. “Who?”
For a second my mom looks
completely exhausted, older than I ever think of her as being--glamorous or
not, she was almost forty when she adopted me, is close to sixty now. Then she
blinks and it’s gone. “Molly—“
“Look, don’t.” I hold up a
hand to stop her, wanting so, so badly not to talk about it. To be anywhere
other than here. Ninety-nine days between now and the first day of freshman
orientation in Boston, I remind myself, trying to take a deep breath and not
give in to the overwhelming urge to bolt for the nearest bus station as fast as
my two legs can carry me—not as fast, admittedly, as they might have a year
ago. Ninety-nine days, and I can leave for college and be done.
My mom stands in the yard
and looks at me: She’s barefoot like always, dark nails and a tattoo of a rose
on her ankle like a cross between Carole King and the first lady of a
motorcycle gang. It’ll make a great story someday. She said that,
she told me what was going to happen,
so really there’s no earthly reason to still be so baffled after all this time
that I told her the worst, most secret, most important thing in my life—
and she wrote a bestseller
about it.
“The hose is in the shed,”
she finally says.
“Thank you.” I swallow down
the phlegmy thickness in my throat and head for the backyard, squirming against
the sour, panicky sweat I can feel gathered at the base of my backbone. I wait
until I’m hidden in the blue-gray shade of the house before I let myself cry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Katie is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in The Broadkill Review, The Apalachee Review, and Argestes, as well as on Nerve.com. Her first novel, HOW TO LOVE, is due out from Balzer + Bray on October 1st, 2013.
The great loves of Katie's life include child's pose, her little sister, and mozzarella and honey sandwiches. She lives in Boston (and in sin) with her boyfriend, Tom.
Have you read How To Love? If no, what's holding you back? :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't, but it's on my tbr. I'm planning to read it soon. :)
DeleteSo many good things about this book! I really have to read it :)
ReplyDeleteHi Ranu! This book sounds great, I'm planning to read it too. :)
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