Kate Jacobs by The Friday Night Knitting Club - [The Friday Night Knitting Club 01] Page A
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together, the two thin letters that James had
sent her, with the Paris postmarks. She'd never opened either. The original
business card Anita had given her. And there it was. The high school yearbook.
Georgia opened it, knew that she'd find the entire inside cover taken up with
just one person's inscription:
Crazypants !
I'll always remember: our heart-to-hearts sitting on the bench at Smithie's , getting chewing gum stuck in my hair at the game
(thank you, peanut butter!) and sneaking in from Homecoming at 4 A.M.!!!!!!
(No, Mom, I just got up to go to the bathroom!) Seriously, G., you're the
funniest, smartest girl I know—and the best friend I'll ever have. Where would
I be without you?!!! Who else will listen to me cry about Barry F. all night
long and then double date with us the night after???? You're the best. It
wasn't easy coming into this town and being new. (Insert a certain gesture to
you-know-who and her minions here.) Okay, okay, being serious. Georgia, the day
you invited me to join the paper changed my life! One day I'm going to write a
Pulitzer Prize–winning story and you'll be my editor. We're always a team,
right? The two of us together! So even if things change or don't come out
exactly as planned, we'll always stick together and be there for each other.
Because it's where our hearts are that matters.
You're my sister in spirit forever.
C.
Funny how she could read so much into Cathy's
note that she'd missed the first time. So clearly Cathy knew in June? Too bad
she didn't find out about Cathy's treachery until September. Theirs had been a
stupid plan—foolish, she realized now. Their pledge to only go to a college if
they both got in. So Georgia ignored her parents' and teachers' pleas and turned
down a partial scholarship to Dartmouth because Cathy didn't get in. Instead,
they agreed to go to the University of Michigan. A fine school, indeed, but it
wasn't an Ivy. But who cared? They'd be together, meeting guys and taking
classes, signing on with the college paper. And eventually in their junior year
they'd move off-campus so they could get a taste of apartment-living before
they moved to New York after college. To begin those great careers they were
going to have. And they'd be together forever! Why did teenage girls use so
many damn exclamation marks? There ought to be a tax on unnecessary
punctuation, thought Georgia. Especially when the writer is lying to you.
* * *
Because Cathy had been wait-listed at Dartmouth
all along. And when a spot opened up—the placement that had been Georgia's,
maybe—she leaped at it. Never breathing a word of it to Georgia all summer. The
moment when she went over to Cathy's house to coordinate whose parents would
drive them to the University of Michigan. Cathy wasn't home. Oh, dear, her
mother had said. Didn't she tell you? Her father drove her to New Hampshire
this morning. Oh, Georgia, she said. I thought you knew.
Georgia could still recall standing stock-still in the doorway of Cathy's
house, the rush of hot-cold shivers going up and down her spine, the twist in
her stomach, the gasping realization that she'd picked staying true to her best
friend over leaping at her big chance to go to an Ivy. And then Cathy had
simply ditched her. Gone off to Dartmouth without a word.
That was the last time—before this morning—that Georgia had ever been in
contact with her best friend. She had waited for the guilty phone call,
hovering in her Michigan dorm room, debating how long she'd make Cathy grovel.
But the call never came. And the long-awaited, much-dreaded run-in over the
December holidays—how much time had she wasted that first semester imagining
what she would say to Cathy?—never took place. Mr. Anderson was promoted at the
bank and she heard from some classmates that the family had moved to a big old
house just outside of Pittsburgh. And that's where Cathy must have gone for
holidays and summers until she eventually landed in New York. Because
sent her, with the Paris postmarks. She'd never opened either. The original
business card Anita had given her. And there it was. The high school yearbook.
Georgia opened it, knew that she'd find the entire inside cover taken up with
just one person's inscription:
Crazypants !
I'll always remember: our heart-to-hearts sitting on the bench at Smithie's , getting chewing gum stuck in my hair at the game
(thank you, peanut butter!) and sneaking in from Homecoming at 4 A.M.!!!!!!
(No, Mom, I just got up to go to the bathroom!) Seriously, G., you're the
funniest, smartest girl I know—and the best friend I'll ever have. Where would
I be without you?!!! Who else will listen to me cry about Barry F. all night
long and then double date with us the night after???? You're the best. It
wasn't easy coming into this town and being new. (Insert a certain gesture to
you-know-who and her minions here.) Okay, okay, being serious. Georgia, the day
you invited me to join the paper changed my life! One day I'm going to write a
Pulitzer Prize–winning story and you'll be my editor. We're always a team,
right? The two of us together! So even if things change or don't come out
exactly as planned, we'll always stick together and be there for each other.
Because it's where our hearts are that matters.
You're my sister in spirit forever.
C.
Funny how she could read so much into Cathy's
note that she'd missed the first time. So clearly Cathy knew in June? Too bad
she didn't find out about Cathy's treachery until September. Theirs had been a
stupid plan—foolish, she realized now. Their pledge to only go to a college if
they both got in. So Georgia ignored her parents' and teachers' pleas and turned
down a partial scholarship to Dartmouth because Cathy didn't get in. Instead,
they agreed to go to the University of Michigan. A fine school, indeed, but it
wasn't an Ivy. But who cared? They'd be together, meeting guys and taking
classes, signing on with the college paper. And eventually in their junior year
they'd move off-campus so they could get a taste of apartment-living before
they moved to New York after college. To begin those great careers they were
going to have. And they'd be together forever! Why did teenage girls use so
many damn exclamation marks? There ought to be a tax on unnecessary
punctuation, thought Georgia. Especially when the writer is lying to you.
* * *
Because Cathy had been wait-listed at Dartmouth
all along. And when a spot opened up—the placement that had been Georgia's,
maybe—she leaped at it. Never breathing a word of it to Georgia all summer. The
moment when she went over to Cathy's house to coordinate whose parents would
drive them to the University of Michigan. Cathy wasn't home. Oh, dear, her
mother had said. Didn't she tell you? Her father drove her to New Hampshire
this morning. Oh, Georgia, she said. I thought you knew.
Georgia could still recall standing stock-still in the doorway of Cathy's
house, the rush of hot-cold shivers going up and down her spine, the twist in
her stomach, the gasping realization that she'd picked staying true to her best
friend over leaping at her big chance to go to an Ivy. And then Cathy had
simply ditched her. Gone off to Dartmouth without a word.
That was the last time—before this morning—that Georgia had ever been in
contact with her best friend. She had waited for the guilty phone call,
hovering in her Michigan dorm room, debating how long she'd make Cathy grovel.
But the call never came. And the long-awaited, much-dreaded run-in over the
December holidays—how much time had she wasted that first semester imagining
what she would say to Cathy?—never took place. Mr. Anderson was promoted at the
bank and she heard from some classmates that the family had moved to a big old
house just outside of Pittsburgh. And that's where Cathy must have gone for
holidays and summers until she eventually landed in New York. Because
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