All the Things We Didn't Say by Sara Shepard Page A

overcast out. ‘Hope we get a day like this for the funeral. And I hope people bring over a lot of hot dishes.’ She leaned back. ‘Minnie Elkerson makes the best pierogis. And Marcy makes a good ham. And Liza makes cabbage rolls. You ever had a cabbage roll?’
    â€˜Nope.’
    â€˜What? No. Never? ’
    â€˜No. They sound disgusting.’
    She exhaled. ‘Ruth used to make terrible cabbage rolls.She was Suzy Homemaker, but her cabbage rolls smelled like shit.’ She leaned back into the cushions. ‘At least this holiday, I can make my own cabbage rolls.’
    â€˜Well, that’s good.’ It sounded as if Stella really hated her sister. She hadn’t said one nice thing about Ruth since we had arrived.
    Stella looked at me. ‘And you’ll come for Christmas this year, won’t you?’
    â€˜Sure,’ I said, but I didn’t mean it. Upstairs, Steven made an unusually loud clunk. There wasn’t anything wrong with exercising, nor was there anything wrong with wanting to enlist in the Marines…at least, I didn’t think so. But this had come on so fast, and Steven seemed so possessed. That was what made it so scary.
    â€˜You got a best friend?’ Stella asked.
    I thought of Claire. ‘Not exactly.’
    â€˜What does that mean?’
    I sighed. Every time I went along with Claire to the diner, Claire looked at me with pitying, questioning eyes. Are you having a good time? Are you having a good time? It was pathetic, how willingly she gave me the benefit of the doubt. All I thought of was how she’d told me my mother had resigned from her position at Mandrake & Hester. How plaintively she’d said, Maybe we could help one another. It felt like she continued to say it, inside, every time we were around each other.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ I mumbled. ‘We’ve grown apart. We’re into different things.’
    â€˜My husband was my best friend when we were growing up,’ Stella said. ‘But back in thirty-nine or forty-the twelfth grade, I guess-we went through a period of hating each other, too. He thought I was too coarse for him. He liked girls who were quiet, who didn’t swear. A year later, when we were nineteen, we fell in love again.’ She stubbed thecigarette out on a large, lopsided pea-green ashtray. ‘I guess you never met my husband before he passed, huh?’
    â€˜I don’t think so,’ I answered. ‘I mean, unless it was when I was really young.’
    â€˜His name was Skip. We got married six weeks after we re-met. He was a crane operator in a rock quarry.’
    â€˜Like Fred Flintstone?’ I blurted.
    â€˜Exactly!’ Stella grinned. ‘Only, working in the quarry didn’t make you much money. I had to take on all sorts of jobs to make ends meet. I was an assistant to a lawyer downtown-now that was a good job, but then he died. So I became a hair-washer at a beauty salon. It was my idea, you see, and, as far as I knew, no one else was doing it. There should be a girl who does the hair, and a girl who washes it. Now, everyone does it.’
    â€˜That’s true,’ I said slowly. ‘The last time I had my hair cut, there was a girl who washed my hair.’
    Stella shook her head. ‘I should’ve patented that idea. My life could’ve been so different. Anyway, I worked there until it closed. Then, I had a friend who was getting into the Jane Fonda workouts. She got me into them, too, and got me teaching aerobics at the Y.’ She leaned back into the couch. ‘I had a pink leotard and leg warmers and everything. That’s back when I was in better shape.’
    â€˜What did my grandmother say about that?’
    â€˜Oh, you know.’ Stella’s expression shifted. ‘She never came to any of the workouts or anything.’
    â€˜But didn’t you live here? In this same town?’
    She shrugged, ignoring me. ‘So