Good Dog. Stay. by Anna Quindlen

Author:Anna Quindlen [Quindlen, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781588366665
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-11-20T08:00:00+00:00

Beau was a gift on my fortieth birthday from my closest friend and her husband. Every ten years my own husband gives me a surprise party, although, if life were a yearbook, I would overwhelmingly be voted Least Likely to Want to Be Caught Unawares. The idea that I have not seen the guest list, the menu, or the flowers throws me into a swivet, which may be why he does it in the first place. The year I turned forty was particularly bad in this regard, or good, depending on whether you were the gleeful architect of the surprise or the befuddled victim. Although the zero at the end of my age had put me on full alert, my mind abuzz with memories of a thirtieth birthday party held during a power outage on one of the hottest days of the year, I was thrown off by a request from my boss that I give a speech to a group of advertisers at a downtown restaurant. Even when all our friends appeared, grinning, from behind the double doors of the restaurant’s private room, I continued to repeat, “I have prepared remarks!” until someone told me to shut up.

But the year I turned forty was exceptionally good in most other ways, and so I remember that party with particular fondness. My work and my family were in full flower. I was no longer wrestling with the uncertainty of youth and couldn’t even imagine the challenges of age. I was fertile but not pregnant, busy but no longer crazed. No one was in diapers; everyone was in school. My hair had not yet begun to go gray. My life was in a kind of equipoise.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.