Sarah Dessen - Along for the Ride

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First published in the USA by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009

This edition published in Great Britain by Penguin Books 2010

Text copyright Sarah Dessen, 2009

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-195740-1

Right after I had my daughter, I often found myself up at all hours as I fed and soothed her, seeing parts of the day that Id only ever slept through before. Sometimes, at three or four a.m., Id look out the window and see a porch light, or a car going by, and wonder who else was up, and what their reasons were. I hadnt planned to write a book anytime soon. But before I even knew what was happening, a story began to come together, so when I could carve out a moment here or there, Id sit down to tell it.

To me, Along for the Ride is a book about second chances, and how with family, friends, and even in love, it can take more than one try to get it right. Its also about summer, and coffee, and bicycles, and babies and thats only part of it. Suffice to say that the title fits: its not only a story, but an experience as well. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Happy reading!

Read her once and fall in love

For my mother, Cynthia Dessen, for helping me to learn
almost everything I know about being a girl

and my daughter, Sasha Clementine,
who is teaching me the rest

Books by Sarah Dessen

J UST L ISTEN

T HE T RUTH ABOUT F OREVER

L OCK AND K EY

T HAT S UMMER

A LONG FOR THE R IDE

sarahdessen.com

The e-mails always began the same way.

Hi Auden!!

It was the extra exclamation point that got me. My mother would call it extraneous, overblown, exuberant. To me, it was simply annoying, just like everything else about my stepmother, Heidi.

I hope youre having a great last few weeks of classes. We are all good here! Just finishing things up before your sister-to-be arrives. Shes been kicking like crazy lately. Its like shes doing the karate moves in there! Ive been busy minding the store (so to speak) and putting the final touches on the nursery. Ive done it all in pink and brown; its gorgeous. Ill attach a picture so you can see it.

Your dad is busy as always, working on his book. I figure Ill see more of him burning the midnight oil when Im up with the baby!

I really hope youll consider coming to visit us once youre done with school. It would be so much fun, and make this summer that much more special for all of us. Just come anytime. Wed love to see you!

Love,

Heidi (and your dad, and the baby-to-be!)

Just reading these missives exhausted me. Partially it was the excited grammar which was like someone yelling in your ear but also just Heidi herself. She was just so extraneous, overblown, exuberant. And annoying. All the things shed been to me, and more, since she and my dad got involved, pregnant, and married in the last year.

My mother claimed not to be surprised. Ever since the divorce, shed been predicting it would not be long before my dad, as she put it, shacked up with some coed. At twenty-six, Heidi was the same age my mother had been when she had my brother, Hollis, followed by me two years later, although they could not be more different. Where my mother was an academic scholar with a smart, sharp wit and a nationwide reputation as an expert on womens roles in Renaissance literature, Heidi was well, Heidi. The kind of woman whose strengths were her constant self-maintenance (pedicures, manicures, hair highlights), knowing everything you never wanted to about hemlines and shoes, and sending entirely too chatty e-mails to people who couldnt care less.

Their courtship was quick, the implantation (as my mother christened it) happening within a couple of months. Just like that, my father went from what hed been for years husband of Dr. Victoria West and author of one well-received novel, now more known for his interdepartmental feuds than his long-in-progress follow-up to a new husband and father-to-be. Add all this to his also-new position as head of the creative writing department at Weymar College, a small school in a beachfront town, and it was like my dad had a whole new life. And even though they were always inviting me to come, I wasnt sure I wanted to find out if there was still a place for me in it.

Now, from the other room, I heard a sudden burst of laughter, followed by some clinking of glasses. My mother was hosting another of her graduate student get-togethers, which always began as formal dinners (Culture is so lacking in this culture! she said) before inevitably deteriorating into loud, drunken debates about literature and theory. I glanced at the clock ten thirty then eased my bedroom door open with my toe, glancing down the long hallway to the kitchen. Sure enough, I could see my mom sitting at the head of our big butcher-block kitchen table, a glass of red wine in one hand. Gathered around her, as usual, were a bunch of male graduate students, looking on adoringly as she went on about, from the little bit I could gather, Marlowe and the culture of women.

This was yet another of the many fascinating contradictions about my mom. She was an expert on women in literature but didnt much like them in practice. Partly, it was because so many of them were jealous: of her intelligence (practically Mensa level), her scholarship (four books, countless articles, one endowed chair), or her looks (tall and curvy with very long jet-black hair she usually wore loose and wild, the only out-of-control thing about her). For these reasons, and others, female students seldom came to these gatherings, and if they did, they rarely returned.