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

"I think I'm in love," she said, her silken voice suddenly huskier than usual.

I stared at her for another moment, not saying anything. Her pale blue eyes matched the opal she wore on a chain around her neck, a sixteenth birthday gift from her parents. "In love?" I repeated her words, my own voice breaking in disbelief. Sure, I'd seen her around, laughing with the soldiers, but that was just flirting, nothing serious. Love?

She sat up suddenly, and I let go of her hair.

"I met him at the end of August, Jordie. His name is Jay. Jay Gatsby. He's at Camp Taylor. I didn't mean to love him. I don't want to love him ..." She held her hands up dramatically, then flopped back on her pillow.

"So don't," I said softly. As if it could be just that easy. Was there a way to change your feelings, to stop yourself from loving someone? I wish I knew.

"I want you to meet him," she said. "That's why I'm telling you. You're the only one, Jordie. The only one I can trust."

"Me? Not even Rose?" I asked.

"Especially not Rose." She shook her head. "Rose is too good. She wants me to be good, too. But I don't want to be good. I want to be happy." Daisy sounded petulant, but oddly, it was the first time it had ever occurred to me that there might be a difference between the two, that it might be impossible to be both good and happy. "I want you to tell me the truth about him." Daisy was still talking. "You're the most honest person I've ever known, Jordie."

"The truth?" I asked, meekly. Deep down, I wasn't sure I'd ever fully told Daisy the truth about anything.

"The truth about whether he's worth it." Daisy got out of her bed and gestured around her beautifully furnished room. "Whether he's worth giving up all this."

"Daise," I said, and this was maybe the most truthful thing I'd ever tell her, "no one is worth giving up all this."

"But Jordie," she said, "I think Jay is."


AS IF ADELAIDE Cummings's engagement party weren't bad enough, now I had to worry about meeting this soldier Daisy was infatuated with. No, in love with. Jay. What kind of a name was that? It didn't sound like a real name, a man's name, a soldier's name. It sounded like a bird and not even a full bird, half a bird at that. Blue Jay. Magpie Jay. Ground Jay.

"Jordie." Daisy grabbed my arm and motioned with her head across the dance floor. The music was so loud that I couldn't hear the rest of what Daisy was trying to tell me. Or maybe it was that I wasn't listening. I watched him instead. He was tall with cropped blond hair. His green uniform fit him well and matched his eyes. He had a serious face, until he saw Daisy, and then all at once, his face changed. He looked younger, a little boy playing dress-up in his army uniform, not a man.

"Isn't he a dream?" Daisy murmured. Then he reached her, grabbed her fiercely, kissed her too brazenly on the mouth. He pulled her away from me, onto the dance floor.

I watched them for a little while as they danced. I imagined him whisking Daisy away from Louisville, and from me, the same way he'd just whisked her onto the dance floor, and the thought of that made me queasy. He clung to Daisy in a possessive way, like he was claiming her, controlling her, taking her all for himself. And I couldn't understand it; what made him so great in Daisy's eyes. What made Daisy think he was worth giving up everything?

They danced for so long and then I lost them in the crowd. Daisy had forgotten I was even here. I left the party early and went home and got into bed. But I tossed and turned all night, caught up in half dreams where Daisy faded into an apparition, disappearing right in front of my very eyes no matter how hard I tried to hold on to her.

The next day I avoided Daisy for a while. I got to the club early and drove golf balls, one after another, out onto the range. Farther, harder, faster.

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.