You Never Know

Excerpt from the novella, You Never Know, from the short fiction collection, You Never Know and other stories

Listen to the author reading an excerpt from You Never Know:

In the title novella, Peggy and Sadie, who are as different as they are alike, share a friendship that endures adolescence, independence, marriage and motherhood until devastating tragedy takes them in different directions. Reunited twenty-six years later, will they still recognize each other? How will they re-connect? What more will they have to share than their scars?

Excerpt:

It’s lunchtime, and Debbie Morrison and I are crossing the schoolyard on our way to have a cigarette. That’s when I notice Carol-Ann Wilcox and Betsy Pfeiffer with Sadie backed up against the school.

“Didn’t you ever hear of deodorant?”

“Ya, and doncha know how to brush your teeth? ‘Cause your breath stinks!”

“Ya, you stink all over like skunk cabbage. Ugh!”

Sadie never cried or complained to the teachers. Either she was used to kids tormenting her where she came from, or she knew better than to let idiots get her goat. The kids I hated most were the brainless, stuck-up ones from so-called better families who looked down their snotty noses at kids like me who were poor and couldn’t help it.

“Hey, you two witches, hop on your brooms, why doncha, and fu-,” I say just to make their eyes bug out and their jaws drop, “fly off.”

They look at me, like what right do I have to talk that way to them, and strut off, but not without muttering something about my big, fat ass and floppy boobs.

“At least I have ‘em,” I shout and stick out my chest, “which is more than I can say for you scrawny, flat-chested turkey vultures!” Then I turn to Sadie. “You OK?”

“You didn’t have to, you know,” Sadie says in her small voice.

“The hell I didn’t. Snotty bitches like those two,” I yell for the whole schoolyard to hear, “can dry up and blow away.” I ask if she wants to come along because I can’t just leave her standing there helpless.

“Where to?” Sadie asks.

“For a little walk,” I say. Which is when Debbie pokes me with her elbow.

“I’m going back,” she says and unhooks her arm.

“Suit yourself,” I say and lead Sadie out of the schoolyard and down the street that runs behind the school to a patch of blackberry brambles on the other side of Wexler’s garage where patrolling teachers and passing cars can’t see us. I pull two flattened cigarettes, stolen from my stupid brother, and a half-used book of matches out of the back pocket of my pedal pushers. Stick one cigarette between my lips and offer Sadie the other one.

“No, thanks,” she says, and crosses her arms behind her back. “Cigarettes are hazardous to your health.”

“Ya, well.” I light up and take that first long drag that always makes me a little light-headed. “Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or hazardous,” I say just to show her that I know a few big words myself.

“Smoking causes lung cancer,” Sadie says.

“What are you, some kind of expert?”

“No, but it’s scientifically proven.”

“Then how come you always smell smoky?”

“’Cause B and G smoke.”

“Who’s B and G?”

“My parents.”

“And what’s B and G stand for, bossy and grumpy?”

“Bertram and Goldie.”

“So you don’t call them Mom and Dad?”

“Nope.”

“Really? My mother’d kill me. She’d skin me alive,” I say, forming a series of perfect smoke rings, “if she saw me right here and now!”

“They don’t care what I do,” Sadie says.

“Wanna trade?”

Sadie looks at me like one of Bo Peep’s lost sheep.

“Just kidding,” I say and flick my cigarette. “So how come your parents smoke if smoking can kill you?”

“They don’t smoke cigarettes.”

“What then? Cigars?”

“Weed.”

“What?”

“Pot. Grass. Mari—“

“Ya, I know what weed, pot and grass are.” A glance at my watch tells me I’ve got five minutes to take one last drag, stomp out my cigarette and make it back to school before the bell rings. And that’s hardly enough time to find out all there is to know about this strange, new girl.

Coming next: An excerpt from the short story, Lost and Found

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