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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  DUTTON

  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First printing, June

  Copyright © 2010 by Allie Larkin

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Larkin, Allie.

  Stay/Allie Larkin.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-42751-4

  1. Young women-Fiction. 2. Separation (Psychology)-Fiction. 3. German shepherd dog-Fiction.

  4. Human-animal relationships-Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3612.A6485S73 2010

  813’.6-dc22 2009041437

  Set in Goudy Old Style

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Jeremy, Joan, and Argo.

  I couldn’t have done this without you.

  Prologue

  Six years ago, Peter and I were having one of our weekly dinners at this little Italian restaurant just off campus. The food wasn’t good and the service was awful, but they served us without asking for ID if we ordered by the bottle instead of the glass.

  We were halfway through our second bottle, because, hell, we’d walked, finals were over, and it was all on his dad’s credit card.

  We talked and laughed and the room got hot. Pete’s face was flushed and his hair was messy because he kept running his hands through it. “So, I think I got at least an A- minus in Poly Sci. Maybe an A,” he said, his hair falling back into his eyes again. He rambled on and on about his estimated grades for each course, and how they all fit into the greater plan of his law school application, even though we’d only just finished our freshman year. Peter liked to have every detail of his life planned out well in advance.

  I wanted to absorb his every word, but I was too busy studying the angle of his perfect square jaw and thinking about what it would feel like to press my lips against his slightly stubbly chin and work my way down his neck. I thought about his hands, strong from years of tennis, and how they’d feel against my bare back after he’d ripped my clothes off.

  “How do you think you did on the Rhetoric final?” Peter said, interrupting my pornographic daydream before I could even get to the part where he knocked our plates off the table and took me right there in the middle of the restaurant.

  “Okay,” I said, avoiding eye contact, like if I looked into his eyes he would somehow know what I’d been thinking. “It wasn’t too- It was fine.”

  “I was expecting worse,” Peter said, nodding, before he launched into a full description of his summer internship at his dad’s firm, and I went back to thinking about hands and chins and mouths and that perfect, perfect jaw.

  We finished our meal; we both ordered dessert and ate off each other’s plates until there wasn’t a crumb left. The other customers were long gone and the waitress kept clearing things off our table to get us to go. Even the sugar packets were gone. All we had left was our bottle and the glasses on the white tablecloth we’d splattered with wine and red sauce.

  “I always have such a great time with you,” Peter said, splitting the rest of the wine between our glasses.

  “I am a hell of a lot of fun,” I deadpanned, finally getting the courage to look him in the eye again.

  “I’d like to propose something, Van,” he said, raising his glass and pulling his chin in to his chest in an attempt to look formal.

  My heart thumped a loose drunken beat. I raised my glass. My hand wobbled.

  He smiled wide. His bottom lip was stained purple from the wine, but his teeth were as perfect as Chiclets. “Will you marry me,” he asked, clinking his glass against mine, “if we’re not married by the time we’re thirty?”

  My pulse spiked as elation crashed into the insult of being his backup plan. From fiancée to consolation prize in a matter of seconds.

  “Make it thirty-two,” I said, clenching my teeth into a smile. “At least give me a fighting chance.”

  Chapter One

  The wedding was more than I ever could have wished for. The church was dark and simple. White candles in glass sconces lined the gray stone walls, and a gigantic candelabra cast a golden glow on the altar. The pews were trimmed with sprigs of bittersweet and branches of Chinese lantern plant tied with brown and orange gauzy
ribbons.

  The wedding was perfect, except for two things. The satin bridesmaids’ gowns that were ordered in deep, rich cinnamon showed up two days before the wedding and were bright Halloween pumpkin. And instead of standing across from the groom, beaming, I was standing across from his first cousin, Norman, smiling a hollow smile like a jack-o’- lantern.

  That, and I probably wouldn’t have gone with brown roses. I tried to talk Janie out of them.

  “Brown is the color of dead flowers, Janie.”

  “But they don’t look like dead flowers, Van. They’re elegant.”

  It was a lost cause. Martha Stewart Weddings had a spread of fall bouquets, and Janie’s mom made a ton of trips out to Connecticut to exactly the same florist to have exactly the same bouquets made for Janie’s wedding.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Janie’s cousin Libby standing next to me, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. Not only did she have the teary smile down, but she somehow managed to look fabulous in bright orange. I couldn’t see Bethany, Janie’s college friend, from where I was standing, but I was sure she was crying appropriately as well. She seemed like the type. At least she looked awful in her dress too.

  I spent the whole ceremony with my hands wrapped around my bouquet of bittersweet and Janie’s brown roses, digging my nails through my orange satin gloves into the back of my other hand.

  I missed the part about anyone having any reasons as to why these two blah blah blah blah blah . . . I missed the “I do’s” and all that crap. I just stood there and concentrated on pressing hard enough to feel pain through two layers of thick satin.

  I tried not to look at Peter, in his slate gray tuxedo and shiny shoes, as perfect as the porcelain groom Janie ordered for the top of their wedding cake. And I tried not to look at Janie, glowing in the reflection of candlelight sparkling off of the crystals hand-sewn along the neckline of her dress. I stared at the brown roses and tried to make it look like I was solemnly meditating on the meaning of marriage and the serious commitment being made before my very eyes.

  Then they were kissing and the whole deal was done. Janie pressed her hand against Peter’s chest to keep him from kissing her too long or too hard or in a way that might be inappropriate for the photographer to capture. I would have held him as close as I could for as long as I could, but I tried not to let myself think about it. I put the jack-o’- lantern smile back on my face and handed Janie her brown flowers.

  Norman and I followed them down the aisle, my hand positioned just above the crook of his elbow the way Vanessa, the wedding planner, showed me. We walked in “step-pause” time. Norman reached across with his other arm and put his hand over mine. I kicked him in his calf during the pause part of our procession walk, and hissed, “Don’t get ideas, Normy,” through my smile. He dropped his hand back to his side.

  At the reception at the Kittle House, Norman rambled through a long and painful toast that started with how he and Peter used to think girls had cooties and ended with a diatribe about his divorce and how he couldn’t have gotten through it without Peter. We raised our glasses of champagne before switching over to spiced wine for the traditional Thanksgiving feast, spread out across the tables like a picture of gluttony from the time of kings and knights.

  I was thankful that Janie’s father decided it was tacky for the maid of honor to toast the couple. This was a rule he probably made once he realized I was going to be Janie’s maid of honor, no matter what he had to say about it. Charles Driscoll hated me ever since I taught Janie the f-bomb in fourth grade. Janie got sent home from school for saying it in front of her teacher, leaving a permanent mark on her pristine school record.

  Charles will always blame me for Janie not getting into Harvard and having to go to Brown instead. He will forever be convinced that the f-bomb blemish on Janie’s permanent grade school record had kept her out. In reality, she stuffed her application in my book bag instead of the mailbox. Every time I see him now, I want to scream, “It’s not because I taught your daughter to say fuck, it’s because she didn’t want to go to Harvard, you dumb ass!” but in honor of the wedding, I resigned myself to, “Mr. Driscoll, you must be so proud.”

  After the first course, Peter stood up to say a few words about his lovely bride and the joyous occasion. He described Janie as angelic. He kept calling her Jane. He used the word joyous more than once, and quite frankly, it was overkill.

  Just when I thought he was finally done, he said, “I also want to thank Savannah Leone for being such a wonderful friend to me and my wife.” He laughed softly and looked into his champagne flute. “Wow, my wife. It’s so strange and amazing to say that word.” He reached over and kissed Janie on the cheek. The wedding photographer had a field day. “Anyway,” Peter continued, “as I was saying, Van is the real deal. She’s a true friend, and I would have stolen her for my best man, if Jane had let me- no offense, Normy-but I think Van would look far more stunning in that tux, don’t you?” He laughed again and waited for the crowd to laugh too. “The truth is, if it weren’t for Van, Jane and I never would have met. So if we’re going to raise our glasses to toast to this union, let’s also raise our glasses to Van for starting it all.”

  The room filled with clinks and the murmur of three hundred of their closest friends saying, “Cheers.” Janie clinked her glass against Peter’s and then turned to tap mine, but hugged me instead. “I love you,” she whispered into my ear. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Her ribs pulsed against mine and her breath quickened.

  “I love you too, but nobody likes a weepy bride,” I said, pulling away, trying my best to smile. “Pull yourself together, lady!” I picked up my napkin. “Look up.” Janie looked to the ceiling and I used a corner of the white linen to soak up a tear that was balanced on her lashes before it could make a mess of her makeup. “We can be sappy another day.”

  I wished I could vanish, just melt into the floor, leaving behind nothing but a puddle of orange satin and shoes dyed to match.

  When Janie and Pete got up to get ready for their first dance, I started seriously contemplating hiding in the coat closet with a bottle of champagne and an armload of Jordan almonds wrapped up in that stupid white netting. I was supposed to be happy for them. I was supposed to be cheering them on. That’s what it means to be a maid of honor-it’s about being eternally excited and supportive for every single little second of the wedding, and I couldn’t even bear to watch them dance.

  “Well, Vannie, I haven’t seen you in ages.” Peter’s aunt Agnes sat down next to me. She never had her own children, and as far as she was concerned, the sun rose and set around Peter. Peter worshiped her, but I called her Aunt Agony. She took us out to dinner a few times up at school, but a good meal was never worth listening to her talk. “We have to catch up. Tell me everything about everything, dear.”

  “First dance.” I pointed to the dance floor as Peter and Janie walked toward each other and met in the middle. “I’d better go. Maid of honor.” I gave her a big closed- mouth smile and got up to stand at the edge of the dance floor. I wasn’t sure which form of torture was worse.

  While I stood with the crowd, watching the happy couple dance to “The Way You Look Tonight,” Diane Driscoll came over and put her arm around my waist. She leaned against me and rested her head on my shoulder.

  “We did a good job with our little girl, don’t you think, Vannie?” she said.

  I didn’t know if she meant tonight, or in general. And I couldn’t tell if I was included in the “we” or if she just meant her and Charles.

  But then she said, “I wish Natalie could see this,” and I knew the “we” meant her and my mom. “You know, you look just like she did the first time I met her,” she said, and lifted her head to kiss my cheek. She put her head back on my shoulder, and I felt her tears run down my arm while we watched Janie and Peter finish their dance with the complicated turn Vanessa taught them.

  She wiped at her eyes quickly and turned
toward me, grabbing both my arms. “You’re coming back to stay at the house tonight, right?” she said. “I set up the carriage house with junk food and movies. I thought we could celebrate like old times.”

  My mom and I used to live in the Driscolls’ carriage house, which was two hundred and eighty- two steps from the front door of the main house ( Janie and I counted the summer before we started fourth grade) on their sprawling property in Chappaqua. It was weird to think of Diane commandeering it for her own celebration. Even though it was technically her carriage house, I always thought of it as mine and my mom’s.

  You can’t substitute me for my mom, I wanted to tell Diane. But I didn’t. “I have to go back up to Rochester tonight,” I said. “I’ve got a big grant due next week, and I didn’t bring my laptop.”

  “Oh no you don’t. No one works on Thanksgiving weekend, Savannah Leone. Not even you.” She patted my arm, and then squinted up her eyes like she was staring into the sun. “That dress is unfortunate,” she said, grabbing a handful of the skirt of my satin dress and letting it fall again. “I can’t believe those idiots at the bridal store got the color so wrong! Why would there even be an option for bright orange? Who would choose this on purpose?”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said, trying to downplay the error. We’d already been through hours of dress drama prior to the ceremony. Diane was livid. Phone calls were made, threats were screamed. There were tears. There was cursing. And none of it made the dresses any less orange.

  Diane let out a disgusted sigh and shook her head. “You look like a pumpkin, dear,” she said, flatly. Then she kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see you back at the carriage house. We’ll have fun.” She gave me a broad smile and a nod like it was decided, and ran off to hug Janie.

  I missed the way Diane’s eyes used to crinkle at the sides when she smiled. My mom nursed her through her face-lift and a few months later Diane nursed my mom through all the chemo.

  I stood there, watching Diane brush a curl of hair off of Janie’s cheek. I wished for a way to clean out my head so I could just be happy for Janie instead of thinking about Peter, or about how even if I did get over Peter and found someone else to fall in love with, my mother would never be there to fix my hair at my wedding.