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DUTTON

Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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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.

 

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S
ix 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.”

T
he 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.