Introduction

From the author of Shelter Me--a funny and poignant novel about having your heart in the right place.

Newly divorced Dana Stellgarten has always been unfailingly nice- even to telemarketers-but now her temper is wearing thin. Money is tight, her kids are reeling from their dad's departure, and her Goth teenage niece has just landed on her doorstep. As she enters the slipstream of post-divorce romance and is befriended by the town queen bee, Dana finds that the tension between being true to yourself and being liked doesn't end in middle school... and that sometimes it takes a real friend to help you embrace adulthood in all its flawed complexity.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

In jeans that fit about four pounds ago but now

squeezed her in a mildly intrusive manner, Dana stood at her

kitchen counter pinching foil over a tray of lasagna and waiting on

hold, the phone wedged against her shoulder. Her gaze skimmed

the obituaries in the local paper, but Dermott McPherson's name

did not appear--not this time anyway. Mr. McPherson was the rea-

son she'd made the lasagna, though it wasn't actually for him. He

probably wasn't eating much. It was for his family, who were under-

standably distraught over their loved one's terminal illness. Dana

didn't know them. She belonged to Comfort Food, a group who

cooked for families in crisis.

When it was her turn, Dana prepared meals that would, she

hoped, sustain them as hands were held and medication dispensed,

bedding changed and phone calls placed. She often thought of her

own mother's quick descent into a gray, fetid-smelling infirmity,

with lungs that seemed to shrivel almost visibly. Dana would have

appreciated a well-made meal. Nothing fancy, just something better

than rubbery pizza and half-flat soda. A small connection to a

world outside the thick humidity of death.

Her father's exit had been swift and clean by comparison.

There'd been no hospital stays or grieving friends, or even a casket

to chose. But Dana didn't like to think about that.

"Cotters Rock Dental Center," said a voice in her ear. "May I--"

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Startled from her somber reverie, Dana flinched, and the phone

clattered to the floor. She grabbed it up quickly. "Kendra, I'm so

sorry! I hope that didn't make an awful noise in your ear."

"That's all right," said the receptionist.

"I'm so embarrassed. I really apologize."

"I'm fine. May I help you?"

"This is Dana Stellgarten. Morgan and Grady's mom? I need to

make appointments for their checkups, if that's okay."

Out in the mudroom, there was a squeak of the door and the

thud of a backpack dropping onto the tiles. "Excuse me for just a

minute, please," Dana murmured into the phone, then covered the

mouthpiece with her palm. "Morgan?" she called.

"Yeah."

"I thought you were going to Darby's."

"Well, now I'm not." Morgan appeared in the kitchen and

opened the refrigerator door. She stood staring in, as if there were

some movie playing that only preteens could see, in among the

condiments and containers of yogurt.

"I'm so sorry, I'll have to call back," Dana said into the phone.

She focused on her daughter, backlit by the refrigerator light. "The

plans changed?" she asked.

"Darby didn't feel well." Morgan's fingers twitched abruptly

into little quote marks.

"Did you reschedule for another day?"

Morgan twisted toward her mother. "No, Mom, we didn't re-

schedule. It's just hanging out. You don't reschedule hanging out."

"You seem . . . Are you angry with Darby?"

Morgan closed the refrigerator door with a thump. "I don't get

to be angry. She didn't do anything wrong."

"How did she tell you?" Now that Morgan was in sixth grade,

Dana had learned it wasn't what girls said to each other anymore.

All the real information came from how they said it.

Morgan slumped into a kitchen chair, picked up a napkin, and

deep down true 3



twisted it into the shape and density of a swizzle stick. "She was

standing with Kimmi, and I was like, `Hey, I'll meet you after last

period.' And she looked at Kimmi."

This was bad, Dana knew. Their eyes were their weapons now.

"She looked at her?"

"Yeah. And she was like, `Oh, yeah, um, I don't feel good. I think

I should go home.' So I said, `Are you sick?' Then she looked at

Kimmi again and said, `I'm fine. I just need some downtime.' "

She would rather be alone than with Morgan? thought Dana. A

wave of protective anger swept over her, but she didn't show it,

knowing that it would confirm Morgan's suspicions and make her

feel even worse. Dana herself often needed to cling to the slim

chance that things weren't quite as disheartening as they seemed.

"Honey, maybe she's just overscheduled," she offered.

"We're not preschoolers, Mom." Morgan rose and went up to

her room. Dana let her alone. She knew that Morgan would open a

textbook and curl over the page, narrowing her focus until all that

existed in the world were Figure A and Subsection B.





" I'm taking Grady to practice!" Dana called up to Morgan a little

while later. She loaded Grady and all his gear into the minivan and

made a detour to drop off the lasagna, Caesar salad, Italian bread,

and brownies at the McPhersons' house.

"Ca' I shay inna car?" asked seven-year-old Grady, sucking on

his mouth guard.

"What?" Dana struggled to pick up all the containers of food.

"I could use some help here."

He yanked out the mouth guard. "I don't wanna go to the door

with you. It's all, like, sad in there. And if a kid answers, he's gonna

hate me because my dad's not sick and I don't have to wait for some

lady to dump off my dinner."

Dana sighed and went to the door. No one answered. She

4 J ULI E TTE FAY



placed the food on the front step in the cooler labeled Comfort

Food and went back to the car. As she was pulling away, a woman

in jeans and a T-shirt came out with a toddler on her hip, glanced

down at the cooler and then out toward the street. For a brief mo-

ment, she met Dana's eyes and raised a hand in thanks. Dana waved

back.

So young . . . she thought as she drove away.





Dana tried to attend as many of Grady's football practices as

she could. The coach scared her. He yelled at the unruly posse of

second-graders as if they were candidates for the Navy SEALS.

Dana wasn't used to this. Until football, Grady had been coached

mostly by weary fathers who sped down Interstate 84 removing

their ties as they drove, trying to get to practice on time. They had

no interest in yelling at other people's children--they yelled enough

at their own. They just wanted the kids to learn a few skills, have

fun, and avoid bloodying each other.

Coach Roburtin--Coach Ro, as the kids called him--espoused

a less limited philosophy. Football practice doubled as his own

workout, and he charged around the field running laps with the

boys and doing push-ups. He slapped the tops of their helmets

when they weren't listening, their little heads bobbing into their

shoulder pads, a sight that made Dana's own neck hurt. She'd heard

he was unmarried and childless, had grown up in town and played

football for Cotters Rock High. He was now a car salesman in nearby

Manchester.

"Stelly! Where's Stelly? Get your butt over here, son! Did you

come to play or knit mittens?"

"Mitten knitting" was a catchall phrase for Coach Ro, indicat-

ing anything that wasn't football. A boy ran over, his bright blue

T-shirt dangling down from under his practice jersey. That was

Grady's shirt, Dana was sure of it. Coach Ro was so busy roaring at

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the boys he hadn't learned their names! Maybe Coach Ro had had

his own helmet thumped a few too many times. Then it occurred to

her--Stelly was short for Stellgarten.

"All RIGHT, now." He grabbed Grady's face mask and posi-

tioned him next to the quarterback. "Timmy's gonna take the snap.

And he's gonna hand it off to YOU, and you are NOT going to drop

it. You are going to run like your PANTS are on fire to the end zone!

You with me?" Grady's helmet bobbed up and down. "Lemmeheary-

ousay YES!" bawled the coach.

"YES!" came Grady's high-pitched howl.

Then the play was in motion, and the disorderly gaggle of

youngsters suddenly transformed into two focused, goal-driven

teams. For about six seconds. And then Grady's blockers seemed to

forget they had anything else to do but ram their friends or straggle

toward their water bottles. The opposing team swarmed toward

Grady, who'd been running back toward his own team's goal line.

One boy yanked at his practice jersey, pulling him down from be-

hind. Then boys from both teams began leaping on top of them

until there was a pile of bodies about three feet high. With Grady

at the bottom. Dana let out a panicked, "Oh, my God!"

"Get up, you baboons! Get off him!" boomed Coach Ro, grab-

bing players by their shoulder pads and heaving them to the side.

"Stelly, you okay? You're fine, right?"

Dana began to rush toward Grady but got only a step or two

before a hand grasped her forearm. "You know you can't go to him,"

said the voice behind her. Dana turned to see Amy Koljian, Timmy

the quarterback's mother. "Coach will wave you over if it's bad,"

Amy said with a knowing nod.

"But he could be hurt!" Easy for Amy to be calm. Her son was

now sitting off to the side, chewing on his mouth guard like he hadn't

been fed in a week.

"No parents on the field unless Coach says," Amy chided.

"Grady'll be embarrassed if you go."

6 J ULI E TTE FAY



"Coach says?" said Dana. "Coach doesn't even know his first

name!"

Amy motioned toward them. "See?" she said smugly. "He's fine."

Grady was sitting up now, air heaving in and out of his little body.

Dana willed him to look at her, to assure him of her presence. His

helmet turned in her direction, and then he slowly got up. Coach

thumped him on the shoulder. "All right, you knuckleheads, what

the heck was THAT?" he yelled.

"God, I hate football," Dana breathed.

Amy chuckled beside her. "New football moms are always so

skittish." Timmy was the youngest of Amy's boys, and Amy enjoyed

being the superior, experienced mother.

Dana attempted a grateful smile. Grady certainly would have

been embarrassed, and in the end he hadn't been terribly hurt. His

spine was still intact, his teeth still fit snugly in their gums. And yet

Amy's self-satisfaction made Dana want to wring her neck--or, bet-

ter yet, mention the girls' night out her friend Polly was throwing,

knowing that Amy was not invited.

This uncharacteristic surge of vindictiveness surprised Dana.

This was not her. She never purposely hurt people's feelings. And it

was the very thing she'd drilled into her children since the forma-

tion of their first friendships: Do not discuss invitations. Do not

mention that Cassandra is having you over after preschool today

and you might finger-paint with chocolate pudding if her mother

remembered to buy some. Do not announce that you're going to

Owen's birthday party at Laser Tag Rumble and you thought all the

boys were asked. Don't even squeeze your host's hand behind the

monkey bars at recess and whisper, "I can't wait!"

Practice was over, and Grady walked toward her--was that a

limp?--grabbed her thumb, and began towing her toward the car.

"Are you okay?" she asked him. "That was heck of a pileup."

"Yeah," said Grady. "Can Travis come over tomorrow?"

"Sure, I'll call his mom when we get home."

"TRAVIS!" bellowed Grady across the parking lot. "WANNA--"

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Dana clamped her hand over Grady's mouth, a lightning strike

of parental correction. "What have I told you about that?" she mur-

mured at him tightly.

"No one cares, Mom," he insisted squirming away from her.

Everyone cares, she thought. Even if they don't want to go, every-

one wants to be asked.

... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Dana’s husband tells her that the divorce is his “best chance for happiness.” What does this statement say about him? What is Dana’s best chance for happiness?

2. Throughout the book, Dana struggles to allow herself to feel anger. Is this emotion productive for her, and if so, how?

3. Sometimes Dana learns about herself through her children’s observations. How do her children perceive her and how are their insights helpful to her?

4. In times of stress, Dana turns to food to comfort herself. How might her behaviors have directly or indirectly influenced Morgan?

5. For Grady, his dad’s golf ball is a precious gift. What does it represent and how does it comfort him?

6. There are many parallels between Dana’s social life and her daughter Morgan’s middle school lunchroom as they jockey for position among the seemingly popular, more powerful people. How do the Kimmis and Noras of the world shape who we are?

7. Dana must eventually confront the unspoken truth of her past and what really happened to her father. How has this event affected her and her sister? How are they similar or different as a result?

8. Dana eventually begins to regain her sympathies for her ex-husband, even as she continues to cope with her own disappointment and anger. Why does she start to see his point of view, and how does this change her behavior?

9. As Dana’s relationship with Tony blossoms, it becomes clear that he is giving her something that she doesn’t get from other people in her life. What is this quality, and how does it bring out the best in her?

10. By the end of the book, Dana’s life has changed significantly. How is it different and which of these changes surprised you?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Juliette Fay's Web Site
»	Book Trailer

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