August and Everything After Read online

  Also by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

  The Summer After You and Me

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  Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

  Cover and internal design © 2018 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Vanessa Han

  Cover images © Michela Ravasio/Stocksy; Rachel Juliet Lerch/Shutterstock

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Doktorski, Jennifer Salvato, author.

  Title: August and everything after / Jennifer Salvato Doktorski.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Fire, [2018] | Summary: “Summer on the New Jersey shore offers Quinn a new start at life and love, but only if she can come to terms with her past”-- Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017051905 | (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Conduct of life--Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)--Fiction. | Musicians--Fiction. | Mothers and daughters--Fiction. | Family life--New Jersey--Fiction. | New Jersey--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.D69744 Aug 2018 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051905

  CONTENTS

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For my amazing niece and nephew, Cassie Grace and Anthony James Collucci, with love.

  ONE

  I started wearing my grandmother’s old cat-eye glasses in June, right after my latest crush nearly crushed me. The messy incident involved my band student teacher, a six-pack of Blue Moon, and a freak thunderstorm. Connect the dots any way you want. I know it’s not pretty. Neither was I when I put on Grammy’s glasses. But that was kind of the point. When I fled my small town after graduation to spend the summer at my aunt’s beach house, I didn’t want to be the old Quinn Gallo anymore. Here at the Jersey shore, no one knows me as the half-naked girl who had to be rescued from her band teacher’s Toyota Corolla by the Jaws of Life.

  The glasses added a layer to my new anonymity. I found them tucked in the top drawer of the wicker dresser as I unpacked in the guest room, and something inside me shifted when I put on the black, bejeweled frames. Like the first time Bilbo slipped on the One Ring of Power.

  I got the prescription adjusted to fit me and I’ve been wearing them ever since.

  In fact, I’m wearing them tonight as I sit on a barstool at Keegan’s Cocktail Lounge, the old-man bar turned indie rock club where I waitress on Friday nights. I’m reading The Awakening while the opening act—a singer/songwriter dude with a backstory more tragic than my own—sets up. It’s his first performance since his guitarist and drummer were killed in a tour bus accident two years ago. My coworker, Liam, told me all about it.

  “Malcolm was really messed up. He blamed himself.” I told Liam I couldn’t imagine, but unfortunately, I could. My best friend, Lynn, died when we were fifteen.

  So I’ve been avoiding Malcolm since he got here, knowing that if I’m not careful, I’ll get pulled into his orbit. Fuckups attract fuckups, I’m sure of it.

  Apparently I’m ignoring him better than I thought, because he manages to sneak up behind me, lean down so that we’re almost cheek to cheek, and peek through my glasses. I startle and face him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask, louder than I intended.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I had to know if those glasses were real or some hipster gimmick.”

  Before I can stop myself, I reach up and tug his beard. “I was thinking the same thing about this.”

  “Ouch. I usually get a girl’s name before she grabs my facial hair. Or anything else.”

  He wishes.

  I put down my book and hold out my hand.

  “Quinn Gallo.”

  He holds my gaze and hand longer than he needs to, swinging my arm a little like we’re about to twirl a jump rope.

  “Malcolm Trent.”

  I pull away.

  “I know.” I flick my thumb toward the flyer taped to the mirror behind the bar. “I can read.”

  He nods toward my book.

  “I see. Is that the feminist lit talking or are you always like this?”

  I twist the leather cuff bracelet I never take off and think of something nice to say. It’s not his fault he’s immune to Grammy’s glasses. “I’m looking forward to your set.”

  “Yeah? But you brought backup entertainment just in case?”

  “Reading is work, not entertainment. My aunt’s letting me live with her this summer on the condition that I read one book a week. Her picks.”

  “What else have you read?”

  I tick off my reading list thus far.

  “Jane Eyre, Beloved, The Bell Jar—”

  “It’s possible your aunt needs to lighten up.”

  I shrug.

  “Small pr
ice to pay for a summer away from home. I had to get away from my town.”

  “Trouble with the law?”

  “More like trouble with The Mom. I’m not her favorite daughter at the moment.”

  My “poor judgment” regarding my unromantic evening with my band teacher coupled with my decision not to go to college this fall landed Mom and I on opposite sides of an enormous iceberg. We both needed time to thaw.

  “Ha! I could write a book about being the prodigal son.”

  “Can you make it a song instead? If you write a book, my aunt will make me read it.”

  Malcolm’s reflexive laugh warms my body. He looks like he’s about to say something else, but before he has a chance, Caleb, the owner of Keegan’s, signals Malcolm that it’s time to take the stage.

  “I gotta—”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. I’ve gotta get to work too.”

  Neither of us moves.

  I stare at him over the top of my glasses. He tilts his head like he’s deciding what to do next. Then, before I have time to register what’s happening, Malcolm reaches toward my face and gently pushes my glasses back up my nose.

  “You have pretty eyes, Quinn. You shouldn’t hide them behind ugly glasses.”

  For the first time in my life, someone looked me in the eyes and didn’t point out that they’re two different colors. The right one is brown, the left is blue. I want to say thank you, or have a good set, or something, but by the time I get my voice back, he’s gone.

  I smooth my apron, pick up my book, and try to shake off the feeling that my defensive shield just failed me and allowed my next nobody to walk right through.

  TWO

  Nobodies. That’s what my younger, wiser sister, Evie, calls the guys I attract and/or obsess over.

  It’s hard to argue with her. I’ve had a bad run.

  Sophomore year I unceremoniously lost my virginity to Sammy the Snake. The nickname alone should have tipped me off that a sexting scandal with some girl named Brittany was in his future, but my best friend had recently died and I wasn’t thinking. Junior year I had a thing for the Austrian exchange student, Ralph. We had a friends-with-benefits arrangement for most of the school year before he blew me off. Brokenhearted, I retreated to my bedroom to listen to sad songs and study Jeff Buckley lyrics until Ralph boarded his jet back to Vienna.

  Halfway through my senior year, Mr. G—a guy with one tie and a limited number of dress pants—walked into the band room and took up residence in my geek love fantasies. I thought I caught him staring at me a few times as I lugged my drum to the storage room, but figured I’d imagined it. Up until then, all my romantic relationships had been exactly that: imagined. Or maybe unrequited? Same thing, I guess. The good parts were all in my head. Then on the last day of band, two days before graduation, he left a note on my snare: Need to talk to you about something, and it has nothing to do with band.

  After Lynn died, I had some definite ideas about what I did and didn’t deserve. I’d skipped homecoming dances, parties, college visits, talent show tryouts, and student council fund-raisers. I was one of only six senior girls who didn’t get asked to prom. When I got that note, I thought my cosmic debt had been repaid, that it was okay to want to really connect with someone again. I took it as a sign from the universe.

  After my one and only “date” with Mr. G made the local news, I figured the universe was telling me we weren’t quite even-stevens yet.

  “You can’t keep giving the best parts of yourself away to some nobody,” Evie had said after the oak branch and my reputation came crashing down.

  I’m so caught up flipping through my mental scrapbook of Love Gone Wrong that I bump into Liam as he’s washing glasses behind the bar in Keegan’s. He’s wearing his “uniform”—a black tee that says “Barback. I can’t pour beer. Please stop asking.” Barbacks are like busboys for the bartenders. They clean up and stock shelves but don’t serve.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  Liam says nothing. Just smirks.

  “What?” He’s making me paranoid.

  “Nothin’.”

  Yeah, right. I know Liam, and that face is not nothing. I start filling the crystal-like bowls we keep on the bar with trail mix, because Keegan’s is fancy like that, and pretend I don’t care what Liam has to say. I can wait.

  “Saw you talking to Malcolm,” he says.

  Here we go. “And?”

  “Looked like you two were having a moment.”

  “A moment? There was no moment. I told him I was looking forward to his set. He told me my glasses were ugly.”

  Liam laughs.

  “You know, Q, it wouldn’t kill you to get a new pair…and a new wardrobe.”

  Rude. I love the vintage Doc Martens and sleeveless plaid shirt I’m wearing. Both belonged to my aunt Annie, a diehard Gen Xer who’s convinced the music world is ripe for a grunge revival.

  “Where’s Kiki tonight?” I ask. “I like you better when she’s around.”

  I thought Liam was a douchebag when I first met him back in June. Before he called me “Q” he called me “Benny,” which is Jersey shore-speak for unwelcomed tourist. So there’s that. But there’s also the way he makes these big proclamations about music, picking apart every band that comes through here like he invented the three-chord pop song. He’s grown on me in the past few weeks, in a poor-misunderstood-douchebag kind of way. His twin sister Lucy and friends are nice though, and Kiki, his girlfriend, is totally adorable. She keeps telling me we need to hang out.

  “She’ll be here soon,” he says.

  “Good. They invented the phrase better half for guys like you.”

  His wry smile tells me we get each other. Liam picks up a dishrag and snaps it in my direction, then proceeds to wipe down the bar.

  “You know, Malcolm’s looking to put a new band together. You play drums right?”

  “I play drum, Liam. Drum.”

  “Oh, come on. I see you tapping out rhythms and working that fake kick drum with your foot when you watch the bands here.”

  My face heats up. He noticed me playing air drums?

  “Liam, I do not—”

  He puts up a hand.

  “Bup bup bup. Don’t try to deny it. My point is, snare is the hard part. It probably wouldn’t take you long to learn to play a full kit.”

  I’ve been teaching myself to do that very thing (you could learn how to run your own island nation with YouTube), but I haven’t told anyone.

  “If he needs a drummer, he can find a better one than me.”

  Liam winks.

  “But maybe not one he likes more than you.”

  I punch him in the arm. Kiddingly. Sort of.

  “Ouch. I’m just saying. You should talk to Malcolm. We both should,” Liam says.

  Liam plays guitar, and from the way he talks about Malcolm and his legendary brush with fame, I know Liam would love to hitch his wagon to Malcolm’s star, or whatever that saying is. But me playing drums in a rock band? Pfff. Yeah, right. I shake my head and snap out of it. Mom said I needed to come up with a solid life plan by the end of summer, not join a rock band.

  “Liam!” Caleb calls out. “Watch the board.”

  Liam holds the dishrag in my direction.

  “Can you please finish up for me?”

  “All right. But only because you asked nicely.” Please and thank you are the magic words.

  Liam hustles toward the soundboard. In addition to barbacking, he took over sound duty from his friend Andrew Clark. Before I started here, Andrew quit Keegan’s to be a counselor at a sleepaway camp. I hear about him a lot. How Andrew is the funniest person Liam knows. How Andrew once dated his sister. How Andrew was supposed to go to Rutgers with Liam, but decided to take a gap year until he decides what he wants to do. I know everything about this guy but his shoe size. Oh wait
, I do know his shoe size. Nine and a half.

  I get it. Liam misses his best friend. We have that in common, and it makes him seem like less of a know-it-all jerk.

  I finish cleaning the bar and move out onto the floor to take drink orders from customers sitting in the booths. They each have faux portholes, remnants of Keegan’s former life as a seafood restaurant.

  Malcolm is all set up on the “stage” made of milk crates and wooden pallets. It’s tucked in the corner under a ship wheel chandelier. I try not to let my eyes stray as I jot down orders, but my ears stay tuned to his frequency. Malcolm strums a few chords, then taps the mic and sings the line about a tired dream from The Replacements’ “I’ll Be You.” I didn’t know anyone under forty knew that song. Lucky for me, I’m my aunt’s ’90s alt-rock disciple. After the obligatory “check, one, two” into the vocal mic, he plays snippets of songs I’ve never heard before while Liam makes adjustments.

  The standing room in front of the stage is filling up, mostly with underage kids. Kiki, Liam’s sister Lucy, and Lucy’s boyfriend Connor are among them. Big crowds are unusual for us. Keegan’s is across the bay bridge from the barrier island, landlocked in a residential neighborhood without a tiki bar or water view. We appeal more to pale-skinned misanthropes and music snobs, who scorn sunny beaches and tourists in equal measure.

  Guess Malcolm still has a lot of fans.

  The excited chatter gets louder and the room hums with electricity like the air before a thunderstorm. My pulse kicks up a notch and my breath quickens. I don’t know why, but I’m nervous for Malcolm.

  Finally, Caleb steps up to the mic. He’s got a few grays in his sideburns, and a slight paunch, but his cargo jeans, Converse high tops, and black tee camouflage his age well.

  “It’s been a while since he’s been here,” Caleb announces “But it’s nice to have him back. Welcome, Malcolm Trent.”

  The brief intro is met with a round of ear-piercing whistles and applause. Malcolm doesn’t wait for the noise to subside and just gets right to it, launching into a song everyone seems to know.

  To be honest, he starts off a bit rough. Malcolm’s voice is pitchy at times, his guitar playing not so smooth, but the crowd is behind him, singing along to every word. There’s a sincerity about Malcolm, an earnestness, which makes him captivating to watch. I sneak peeks while scrambling to settle tabs at some tables and delivering hot wings and fresh rounds to others.