That Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

“I thought you looked like summer. Like, if I was going to paint a picture and call it Summer, it would look like you.” He gives an embarrassed laugh. “That probably sounded stupid.” “No!” She opens her eyes and looks at him. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. It’s perfect.” You’re perfect.

Kinda cringe; but cute

Daisy, who’d been raised casually Jewish, had never been to a confessional, but she imagined the rite to feel something like this, sitting in the dark and telling all your sins to a stranger.

Daisy missed her friend with a pain that felt physical, a wound that refused to close. She had plenty of acquaintances, other moms she could call up for coffee or a barre class, but Hannah had been her only real friend.

remembering how her own father liked to say that no people were as cheap as rich people.

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

She had. “They’re stupid white people,” Hannah would tell her, usually through a mouthful of whatever dish Daisy was cooking. “You’re a white person,” Daisy would tell her, and Hannah would say, “But, hopefully, not a stupid one.” Hannah, like Hal, had grown up in a household where salt and pepper were the only seasonings, but she loved all kinds of food, the spicier, the better.

people treat you the way you let them. Hannah never let herself be treated poorly.

Diana thought about how men made messes and women cleaned them up; how this was the way of the world.

“I thought you’d like it. It made me think of you.” “Because it’s dark and weird?” “Pretty much.” “Okay,”

waited for him to approach her again, to hand her a note, to pull her back into the alcove and kiss her again. But he never came.

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.