That Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

Picture each worry like a gift. Put them in order, from the mildest to the most intense. Imagine yourself picking up each one and wrapping it with care. Picture yourself placing the gift under a tree, and then walking away.

Maybe when you first experience a place as a six-year-old, you become six again, every time you return.

She dressed to please herself, and to feel comfortable, and if these boys believed that her body was an object that existed for their pleasure, she’d be happy to tell them otherwise.

“White guys—especially white guys who are part of a family business—they fail upward, or they move sideways. And they always come out fine in the end.”

How long had it been since she’d had someone’s complete attention this way, for this long? How long since she’d felt like she was with someone who could see her, and could see how hard she was trying?

for old married ladies like them, making a new friend was the closest they could get to falling in love.

Talking to Beatrice about privilege was like trying to explain water to a fish.

He’s always been one of those born-on-third-base-and-thinks-he-hit-a-triple types.

they were lifetime members of the Lucky Sperm Club.

“You know, the feminists can say whatever they want, about women making money and men staying home,” Hal said into her hair. “But in my opinion, this is the way it’s supposed to work.”

I would have slapped him.

Hal said, “I think I remember seeing you, sitting on the staircase. You had a blue-and-white nightgown with flowers, right?”

So creepy he noticed and remembered

in a world where being born female meant spending years of your life at risk, and the rest of it invisible, existing as prey or barely existing at all.