Pug Hill - Alison Pace [1]
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Group 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), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, 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 ORL, England
PUG HILL
This 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. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not.assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2006 by Alison Pace
Title page photo © Ellen Weinstein
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / May 2006
eISBN : 978-1-101-00725-9
An application to register this book for cataloging has been submitted to the Library of Congress.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Mom and Dad
(Happy Anniversary)
acknowledgments
This book might never have been started without the enthusiasm of Allison McCabe, and it certainly never would have been finished without the endless encouragement and thoughtful advice offered to me by my agent and friend, Joe Veltre. Tremendous thanks to you both.
Endless appreciation goes to my wonderful, talented, and ever-patient editor, Susan Allison, who made revisions seem like a fun new adventure, and who was so available to me throughout the entire process with her invaluable ideas and insights.
I am very grateful to Jessica Wade, Julia Fleischaker, and everyone at Berkley Books for all their hard work on my behalf; and to Karen Schifano, Grace Shin, Mark Greenberg, Boris Sternberg and Simon Parkes at Simon Parkes Art Conservation for the glimpse into their careers.
For listening to all of my stories and for always making me laugh, special thanks to Cynthia Zabel, Joanna Schwartz, Christine Ciampa, Jennifer Geller, Sarah Melinger, Francis Tucci, Zander Byers, Kerry Dolan, Kimberly Bohner, Peter Bohner, Wendy Tufano, Jessica Good-man, and of course, Crankyface.
And most of all, always, love and thanks to my sister, Joey, who has never once said she’d like to join a commune; to Mom, for being much nicer than Hope’s mom, for instilling in me a great love of dogs, and for reading every last page of my early drafts; and to Dad, for always reminding me to stop and smell the roses, while wearing sunscreen.
prologue
Someday we’ll find it.
—Kermit the Frog
For Holly Golightly, there was always Tiffany’s. No matter what was going wrong in her life, she always had Tiffany’s. For me, there’s always Pug Hill. For as long as I’ve lived in New York, whenever I’ve wanted to think, or relax, or be happy, or even sad, my destination of choice has been, without fail, Pug Hill.
Pug Hill, if you haven’t heard, is a hill in Central Park, over on the east