Excerpt from Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Unlike me, Rose was thinking about the war, and she'd started growing vegetables in a victory garden in our backyard. Every time she harvested something, she was immediately ready to give it away to help people less fortunate than us. At lunch she'd been going on about her peas.

"Daisy Fay!" Mother's voice again. The snow goose was louder.

"Coming," I called back, weakly.

I sighed, got out of bed, and swiped my hairbrush through my hair, setting each side behind my ears and in front of my shoulders. I grabbed my fan, and walked carefully down the steps, trying not to break into a sweat from the exertion.

Just as I'd expected, Rose and Mother sat at the dining table together, co-conspirators, Rose's heavy wicker basket sitting in front of them. When I entered the room, they both offered me a frown.

"Daise, what took you so long?" Rose exhaled.

"It's too hot, Rosie," I protested, fanning myself, causing a swirl of hot air to press against my face, making me flush.

"You promised," Rose said. She wasn't pouting exactly. Rose never pouted. Instead she turned her heart-shaped face in such a way that it was clear I'd disappointed her. She expected better from me. Why, I didn't know, because I was acting the same way I always did. Petulant.

"Mother," I tried. "Don't you think it would be better if we go when the weather breaks instead? Next week, perhaps?"

Mother wasn't a bleeding heart like Rose, and God knows where Rose got it from, because Daddy certainly wasn't either. But Mother and Daddy adored Rose. Everyone adored Rose. I was the beautiful one, and she was the good one. That's not to say that Rose wasn't pretty in her own quiet way, too. But her beauty was her goodness. And the fact was, I loved her for that reason too. But not when it meant I had to suffer in the heat.

"Daisy Fay," Mother said. "Help your sister with that basket and stop complaining. You're not going to melt."

"Aren't I, though?" But it was too hot to argue. I sighed and picked up the heavy basket, then held my other hand out for my sister. "Come on," I said, wearily. "There's a party tonight at the Wrights' house, and we're not going to miss it. We'll have to be back in time to freshen up."

Rose laughed weakly. She hadn't attended half the parties I had this summer. She liked to blame it on the polio that had nearly killed her last summer and left her with a slight limp, but we both knew it wasn't that at all. Rose was well now, thank god. But Rose no more liked parties than I liked going to feed the poor. We balanced each other out that way. The good one and the pretty one. That's how all of Louisville knew the Fay sisters back then.


IT REALLY WAS too hot to walk, and as Rose and I stepped out on the street I wished I could take Daddy's Roadster. The problem was, Mother didn't know I knew how to operate it.

If there's two things I want you to know before you get married, Daddy told me, it's how to drive an automobile and how to shoot a gun. He'd taught me to do both by the time I was Rose's age. But it was with the understanding that Mother should never know about either one.

Now Daddy was off in Chicago on business, and his Roadster was sitting idle, parked out front. Rose and I walked past it and made it only two blocks before she looked like she truly was melting. Her limp grew more noticeable when she was tired, and I hated seeing her have so much trouble. Hated remembering the way we worried about her so last summer. What would the pretty one be like without the good one? Vapid and useless. Vain and sour. I hated even the very idea of myself without her.

"Rose, we really could take this food when the heat breaks," I said gently.

Rose shook her head and kept walking, taking all her effort to go faster, push ahead of me. I had to skip to catch up to her.

"Would you ladies like a ride?" I'd been so focused on Rose and her trouble that I hadn't noticed a shiny black car had pulled up next to us, that a soldier sat behind the wheel calling out to us.

Excerpted from Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor. Copyright © 2022 by Jillian Cantor. Excerpted by permission of Harper Perennial. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.