Wendy Markham - Slightly Single

is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling, award-winning novelist Wendy Corsi Staub. She has written more than fifty fiction and nonfiction books for adults and teenagers in various genres—including contemporary and historical romance, suspense, mystery, television and movie tie-in and biography. A small-town girl at heart, she was born and raised in western New York on the shores of Lake Erie and in the middle of the notorious snowbelt. By third grade, she was set on becoming a published author; a few years later, a school trip to Manhattan convinced her that she had to live there someday. At twenty-one, she moved by herself to New York City and worked as an office temp, freelance copywriter, advertising account coordinator and book editor, before selling her first novel, which went on to win a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award. Slightly Single was one of Waldenbooks’ Best Books of 2002. Very happily married with two children, Wendy writes full-time and lives in a cozy old house in suburban New York, proving that childhood dreams really can come true.

To my beloved husband and our two beautiful children.

And, in gratitude, to “Will,”

without whom this book wouldn’t have been possible—

and without whom I have lived happily ever after.

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This book wouldn’t exist if it weren't for my old and new friends at Silhouette, whose encouragement and enthusiasm made the writing and editorial process a pleasure. With warmest gratitude to everyone who played a role, especially Joan, Karen, Cristine, Margaret and Tara! I would also like to add sincere thanks to my agent, Laura Blake Peterson, for her constant support. And, of course, I must fondly acknowledge all the fabulous city gals who crossed my path during my own Slightly Single era, always there to share margaritas, cigarettes, dance floors and wee-hour cabs to the boroughs. Cheers to all, wherever you’ve landed!!!

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

Here’s how my life will turn out: I’ll marry Will. He’ll become a big stage star and I’ll give up my advertising career to stay home with our children. We’ll stay in New York rather than going South or West (because I desperately have to have all four seasons), and someday we’ll turn into the kind of senior citizens you see sharing the same side of the booth at Friendly’s. Not that I’ve ever seen a Friendly’s in Manhattan, or that Will and I have ever sat on the same side of any booth in any restaurant, ever.

Will, after all, needs his space.

In restaurants.

In general.

I, on the other hand, need no space.

Which is exactly what I tell my friend Kate, in response to her infuriatingly serene “Everyone needs space,” over Tall Skim Caramel Macchiatos at Starbucks.

“I need no space,” I tell Kate, who rolls her fake aquamarine pupils toward her dyed-blond hairline. Kate grew up in the Deep South, where it’s apparently best to be a skinny blue-eyed blonde. Actually, speaking as a well-padded brown-eyed brunette New Yorker, it’s probably best to be a skinny blue-eyed blonde any place.

“Yes, you do need space, Trace,” Kate insists, with only a hint of the antebellum drawl she’s worked so hard to lose. “Believe me, you so wouldn’t want Will in your face every second of every day.”

Okay, the thing about that is…

I so would.

Do I seem pathetic? I do, don’t I? So I’d better not admit the truth to Kate, who has already declared that she’s worried about me. She thinks my relationship with Will is one-sided.

“No,” I lie, “not every second of every day. But that doesn’t mean I want him blowing out of here for summer stock in the Adirondacks for three months without me.”

“Well, I don’t think you have a choice. I mean, it’s not like you can tag along.”

At that, I focus on my beverage, attempting to stir the sweetened foam into the darker liquid below. It refuses to harmonize, clinging in wispy clumps to the wooden stirrer like the cottony clusters of mealy bugs on my sickly philodendron at home.

“Tracey,” Kate says in a warning voice, clearly on to me.

“What?” All innocence, I toy with my yellow plastic Bic cigarette lighter, flicking it on and off, wishing for the good old days when you could smoke anywhere you damn pleased.

“You’re not thinking of tagging along with Will this summer.”

“Why aren’t I?”

“Mostly because—hello-o?—you’re not an actress. You already have a career, remember?”

Oh, yes. The career. My entry-level job at Blaire Barnett advertising, where thanks to a glorified title and my tendency to pounce on new ventures before thorough investigation, I didn’t realize I was a mere administrative assistant until a few weeks after I started, when my boss sent me a plant for Secretary’s Day.

That would be the aforementioned insect-infested philodendron. Like my position at the agency, it seemed so promising that first day, all shiny-leaved and cellophane-and-ribbon-bedecked, with a card that read, Dear Traci (note the misspelling), Thanks for all you do. Best, Jake. I got it home, made it cozy on my lone windowsill…and, a week later, the mealy bugs moved in for the kill.

“I could quit,” I tell Kate, still toying with my lighter.

“Smoking?”

“Good lord, no. My job.” I toss the lighter on the table.

Mental note: Stop for more cigarettes on the way to meet Will.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Kate, a refreshingly nonmilitant nonsmoker, smirks. Sips. Says, “So you’ll just quit your job after less than two months—”

“More than two months—”

“More than two months,” she concedes, “and—what? Follow Will to wherever he’s going to be? What will you do there?”

“Build sets? Waitress at some coffee shop? I don’t know, Kate. I haven’t thought it through yet. All I know is that I can’t stand the thought of spending the entire summer in this hellhole of a city without Will.”

“Does Will know this?”

There is nothing ambiguous about her question, yet I stall. “Does Will know what?”

“That you’re thinking of coming with him?”

“No,” I admit.

“When is he leaving?”

“In a few weeks.”

“Maybe he’ll change his mind between now and then.”

“No. He says he needs a break from the city.”

She raises an eyebrow in a way that hints at her suspicion: that the city is not all Will is trying to escape. If she says it, I will tell her she’s wrong.

But I won’t be sure about that.