The title of this book in a sense more or
less tells you exactly what will be the center of the novel. If you look at the
cover, you will probably also know that this is clearly a teenage lesbian love
story. Some will rage against it just by seeing the cover without even reading
it. Some will think by seeing the cover that they have no need to read it. Both
of these groups are horribly wrong.
Now, to be fair, much of Six Times follows
the tropes of so many love stories, either YA or adult. It involves the story
of two people who have known each other their whole lives, are simultaneously attracted
to each other but can’t be around each other, are thrown together because of
conditions beyond their control and finally admit they love each other.
The fact that the story involves two
teenage girls gives it a wrinkle of sorts, but not much of one even for YA
novels. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this as aspect of Six Times
is that not only are both Penny and Tate out of the closet for a while but
no one in their circle – not their friends or family – has any problem with it.
Indeed, much of the confusion in this novel comes from a scene when Penny and
Tate are caught walking into the house late at night by Tate’s mother basically
undressed and everybody assumes that they have gotten together and everybody’s
fine with it except Penny and Tate. In other circumstances that would be
grounds for a romantic screwball comedy.
Well there is comedy in this novel and
there’s definitely romance. But there’s a lot of dark stuff to that makes Six
Times well above the standard YA romances, regardless of sexuality. Tate
and Penny have been dealing with this close proximity to each other because their
mothers, Anna and Lotte have been best friends since childhood. They call each
other “ride or die.” They have needed each other through good times and bad and
its pretty clear early on there’s been mostly bad the last few years.
Anna, Tate’s mother, has spent much of the
last several years suffering from cancer and they barely have had the money to
cover it. Tate, who is a great swimmer, now knows that the only way she is
going to get to college at all is on a swimming scholarship. She has devoted half
her childhood to swimming and the other half to every aspect of her mother’s
well-being; she has sacrificed so much of herself financially and emotionally
that’s its hard to blame for being so acerbic throughout her life. Tate has
also spent much of her teenage denying her fundamental attraction to Penny as a
result, constantly: “Some girls, they don’t get some things” is a phrase she
utters to the reader over and over throughout the novel as she tries to
convince them – and herself – that she will never get what she wants.
Now there is another crisis with Anna’s
health and Lotte, Penny’s mother has agreed to step in and give her part of her
liver. This is a noble and wonderful thing to do. The way she and Anna choose
to tell their daughters – when neither has any say in it – is not the best way
to do so. The fact that Lotte has made this decision without even hinted at it
to Penny would be shocking, but as we quickly learn, that’s been how Lotte has
been living the last few years,
Penny was close to her father. The two of
them loved outdoors and her father was an expert white water rafter and she was
on her way to being nearly as great at it. Then when she was fifteen, she and
her father were on the rapids and things went horribly wrong. Death was certain
for both of them and then her father made a split second decision to sacrifice
his life to save his daughter. Penny suffered horrible injuries but she
survived. She then spends much of the next two years wishing she hadn’t, and
her mother is big part of that reason.
We are frequently told that there is never
a wrong way to grieve and that we all must deal with it in our own way. The
problem is Lotte’s grief becomes so utterly all-consuming that she chooses to
do so by fundamentally rejecting every aspect of her daughter. It’s not just
that she clearly blames Penny for what happened, it is that she basically
decided that her life and her needs will take priority. On the day of her
husband’s funeral, Lotte and Penny get into a horrible fight in which she says
something so offensive Penny’s grandmother slaps her grieving daughter-in-law
full in the face. She essentially abandons her home for Anna leaving her grandmother
and Penny completely on their own to mourn.
She makes no effort to reach out to Penny, completely subverts her needs
in order to her own and in ways that are truly horrific. At one point Penny is
seeing a therapist and when she begins to get somewhere, Lotte is inviting into
a session and pulls Penny out because she is appalled at the idea that any of
Penny’s problems might be deeper than simple PTSD. She decides to sell the
business that Penny’s father intended to pass on to Penny without any
consideration for her. By the time the novel begins Penny is at already at her
breaking point, and this just seems like it will tip her over.
At this point Tate and Penny know that in
order for their mothers to get through this, they have to get along and that
relies on them calling a truce to the feud they’ve had their entire teenage lives.
It’s worth noting their mutual friends are very familiar with the dynamic
between them and know very well that Tate is in love with Penny and that Penny
cares very deeply for Tate. The problem is, given all the stress that has been
going on before and now, this would be the last time to start dealing with it –
which is nice to say until you’re forced to share a motel bed with the girl you’ve
been crushing for so long.
I suppose I should at least go through the
motions of telling you about the six times they almost kissed but since we
learn about them out of order, there are spoilers involved. What I will tell
you is that when the two girls draw up a ‘truce agreement’ the last line is
called simply: ‘No talking about Yreka.’ This is emphasized a couple of times
by both girls and at one point, Penny texts it back with it underlined to Tate.
The novel wisely saves that particular almost
for last, and for good reason. It comes at a critical moment in both girls
lives after a swim meet where Penny is particularly vulnerable, partially from
a break-up, mostly from everything going on at home. The two of them end up
curled up in a bed together, and no there is no sex involved (like you might
guess from the title, the kisses are what is important). Tate is feeling
particularly raw and is finally beginning to feel how much she has cared for
Penny all this time. There is a moment where it seems just maybe things might
change for both of them, and when it passes, both of them are more broken.
It's probably not a spoiler that yes this
novel does end with Penny and Tate finally kissing but in a way, that’s not the
most important part of this novel. What is more important is that Penny and Tate
are forced to deal with all of their baggage in a way that they would not have been
able to had Lotte and Anna not made this decision in the first place. In a way,
the story that is more important is how Tate realizes how much Penny needs somebody
and that she might be able to fill that role.
The romance in the novel is important to be
sure because that means that for two of the characters there’s a happy ending.
The major conflict in the novel – between Penny and Lotte – is so utterly
messed up that no one thinks there is any chance to repair. Lotte is an artist
working in abstract sculpture and has spent much of the time since her husband
death working on a piece that she has managed to sell, but no one has seen. At
a critical point in the novel, Penny does see what her mother has been working on
and while I won’t tell you what it is (words couldn’t do it justice anyway) she
clearly sees it for what is. Tate sees at the same time and turns on Lotte even
more angrily than Penny is capable of doing at the moment. The fight that they
have at that moment has the bitterness and hostility of years of baggage with
Penny revealing something to her mother that she has been holding on to since
the death of her father but her mother has never even asked about it. When Penny
runs off into the night, we almost question whether she will return and it is how
Tate manages to talk her down, using a gesture that she really thinks Penny can
appreciate that truly demonstrates the depth of their love for each other. We
know when the novel ends that Penny and Tate will be fine; at the end of the
novel Penny thinks it might be better for her if she and her mother never talk
again. This is a harsh thought, but Six Times makes you really think
this might be the best for everybody concerned, maybe even Lotte.
The novel, as you might expect, does end
with the time they did and there’s enough trauma and humor both to make it
complete worth the fact that it was spoiled. Sharpe is smart enough to only argue
that this is a happy ending for Penny and Tate, maybe not for anyone else.
Maybe Anna’s cancer will come back. Maybe Lotte and Penny will never work out
their relationship. Maybe the two of them will move to a community that will
never respect them the way that the one they live in right now does (at least
on paper). But the thing is, Penny and Tate clearly know that. The last page of
the novel deals with a much simpler revised truce agreement that is a declaration
of love. The last two lines are: “It might be hard some times. But we’ll be
happy most times.” And given everything we’ve seen Penny and Tate go through
between the six times they almost kissed and up to time they finally do, I
think that you might say that yes, some girls do get some things and that’s a
happy enough ending for the lives they’ve lived.
No comments:
Post a Comment