Girls Aloud

by Judith Arnold

Genres: Family Life; Women's Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Once Ellie Gillman waves her husband off on his grand adventure—a cross-country bicycle trip to publicize the perils of climate change—she realizes she's got her own environment to take care of: the environment of her home, her daughters, and her cozy New England town. While Scott Gillman pedals his way to fame and glory, Ellie mops up the messes of day-to-day living.

The house has a roof problem. The town has a litter problem. Ellie's boss is a walking, talking problem. Ellie's best friend has marital problems. Teenager daughter Abbie is turning rebellious, and younger daughter Misha is devastated when a good friend forms a club with a bunch of his buddies to celebrate her father's bike ride and forbids her from joining. Why? Because, he messages her, “No Girls Aloud.”

Forget about that. Ellie and her daughters are going to be “aloud.” They're going to make noise. As Ellie learns, if a girl wants to be heard, she has to speak up, speak out, and bang some pots and pans.

Release date: November 7, 2023

Publisher: The Story Plant

Print pages: 288

Sample

It had been a hectic day after a restless night. But how could she sleep when worry niggled at her? It was a faint white noise inside her skull, reminding her of everything that could go wrong on Scott’s trip, how far away he would be, how unreachable. Sticking to the back roads, he could have an accident and discover that he had no cell phone signal. Or the accident might break his phone altogether. He would surely encounter precipitation — he’d packed waterproof outerwear with that expectation — and the wet roads would be slick. Even worse, in those vast Midwestern states he might encounter tornadoes. She had watched The Wizard of Oz almost as many times as Field of Dreams, and the image of Mrs. Gulch pedaling her bicycle through a twister, while Dorothy’s house spun through the air before landing in Oz, had always made Ellie laugh. Not anymore.

She shook herself free of negative thoughts once the girls returned to the den. Abbie was still dressed, but Misha wore her jammies, the cotton worn nearly to transparency and the flowers in the pattern faded beyond recognition. The bottoms fell barely past midshin on Misha’s legs. She was definitely growing.

Ellie heaved herself off the couch and carried her magazine to the kitchen, where she added it to the recycle pile. Then she let Lucy out into the backyard for her final pee of the day. If Scott were home, he might have poured himself and Ellie a glass of port, a treat they often enjoyed at the end of a long week. But she wouldn’t drink port without him, especially not with the girls around. Most Sundays at this hour, Misha was asleep and Abbie was shut up inside her bedroom, texting with her friends.

Ellie had guessed correctly; the report about Scott’s bike trip didn’t appear until after the weather forecast at ten thirty, although the newscast showed several teasers about it, the anchorwoman gushing, “And coming up soon — this Shelton man is using his bicycle to spread the word about global warming!”

“Climate change!” both Abbie and Misha shouted at the television each time the anchorwoman said “global warming.” Scott had explained to them that not all climate change was about the planet’s growing warmer, although the rise in atmospheric temperature was the underlying cause of many weather disturbances. “When you say ‘global warming,’ someone always says, ‘If the planet is so warm, how come we got two feet of snow yesterday?’ or ‘Bring on the warming! I’m tired of these subzero temperatures!’ The problem is that weather extremes used to be aberrant, and they’re not anymore. Do you know what aberrant means?”

Scott had defined the word for them enough times that they knew it now. If it appeared in the vocabulary portion of Abbie’s SAT test next year, she would be prepared.

Finally, after the meteorologist described the upcoming weather for the week — no tornadoes forecast for the Midwest, thank God — Scott’s story came on. There was their house, their street, the children with the banner, the school choir, the trumpeter, the Girl Scouts with the cookies. There was Scott, looking remarkably sexy in his bright yellow RE:CYCLE shirt and snug biking shorts. He had been in excellent shape even before he’d started his training regimen for this trip. Now, his calves were even more contoured with muscle, his thighs taut beneath the shorts, his arms lean and sinewy; they were hidden by the long sleeves of his Henley shirt, but last night those strong, naked arms had held Ellie close. His hair danced gently in the breeze, mostly a dark blond with a few strands of silver woven through the waves. He squinted slightly in the bright sunlight, and his smile folded his lean cheeks into dimples.

“He looks good!” Abbie said. It was unlike her to be so enthusiastic about anything, let alone her parents. But she’d only spoken the truth. He did look good.

More than good, he looked amazingly confident. He looked like someone who intended to save the planet and believed he was capable of it. In the news feature, with the reporter babbling about his trip in a gee-whiz singsong voice and the school children cheering for him as if he were a pop music idol, he was getting a great deal of attention — which was what he’d wanted this trip to be about. At least on his first day, things were going precisely as he’d hoped they would.

“There we are!” Misha bounced on the couch, not the least bit sleepy despite the late hour. “Look, Mom!”

Indeed, there Ellie and Misha were. Misha looked as eager as her father did, but less squinty-eyed in the sun’s glare. In the background, on the front porch, Abbie was a faint silhouette, but she still cringed and covered her face with her hands as the camera panned the length of the porch. “Ugh,” she groaned. “I look awful.”

“You look beautiful,” Ellie argued, not adding that Abbie’s eyes were lovely without any makeup on them.

She remembered the pat phrases she’d said in answer to the reporter’s questions. Listening to herself speak in the broadcast, she decided she sounded articulate and knowledgeable, and while not as pretty as either of her daughters, she appeared reasonably presentable in her slim jeans and cotton sweater. But she wasn’t looking straight at the reporter, or at the cameraman directly behind. Her gaze angled a bit past the camera, settling on Scott. And her eyes appeared worried, her lips tense, her hands curled into fists. Loose fists, but fists just the same.

What had she been thinking when she’d talked to the reporter? That her husband would be riding off toward the horizon on a skimpy bike with little protection other than his helmet and that orange flag? That he would be gone for months?

Or that when he came home, he would be different? Not dirty, although she was sure he would be scruffy. No matter how many showers he took and how many loads of laundry he ran, road dirt would cling to him. He might decide, after a while, to forgo shaving. His hair would be even longer.

But those differences were cosmetic. What if he changed inside? What if he truly did believe himself worthy of all the attention he was receiving? What if he honestly was convinced that he had saved the planet?

What if he came home a saint? How would she be able to live with someone like that?