“I’d better be going now,” I said. “Your father’s probably getting nervous.”

“Yeah.”

Jane kissed my cheek and walked back down the campus drive.

“Have a nice life,” I called.

She turned. “Don’t say that. You sound like we’re never gonna see each other again. We’re just mothballing it for a while, right?”

I nodded and caught a final glimpse of her eyes.

I walked into town and started hitching. Put my bags down in the back of an old truck that was junked on the side of the road. Dozens of black-eyed Susans stretched through the skeletal remains of the wreck, reincarnating it into a wonderful flowerpot. No cars came along, so after a while I climbed into the rusty truck and waited to go home.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The following lent me encouragement, money, or cars: Bennet Yellin, Robert “Flats” Flaherty, Jackie Decter, Andy Fetler, Mark and Ellie Miosky, Charles Genovese, Paula Brennan, Brian DeFiore, Bill and Elaine Kerby, Robert Towers, Lini Lehman, Columbia University, Peter Benchley, Al Cerone Oldsmobile, John Solomon, Rick Solomon, Nick Ellison, my brothers and sisters, and especially Ann Godoff and Nancy Lewin.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PETER FARRELLY grew up in Rhode Island and graduated from Providence College and Columbia University. He co-wrote and co-directed the films Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary and co-directed Kingpin. He is also the author of another novel, The Comedy Writer.

Copyright

A MAIN STREET BOOK

PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036

MAIN STREET BOOKS, DOUBLEDAY, and the portrayal of a building with a tree are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

BOOK DESIGN BY LYNNE AMFT

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Farrelly, Peter.

Outside Providence / Peter Farrelly.—
p. cm.

“A Main Street Book”—T.p. verso.
I. Title.
PS3556.A7725098 1998
813’.54—dc21  98-15443
CIP

Copyright © 1988 by Peter Farrelly

eISBN: 978-0-307-53949-6

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