Word Gets Around by Lisa Wingate

"Word Gets Around" by Lisa Wingate

Excerpts from Chapter 1

Lauren Eldridge

They say you can’t go home again, but the truth is, if you’re a small-town Texas girl, you can never really leave. The town travels with you like an extra layer of skin—something flamboyant and tight-fitting. Even though you may hide it beneath the trappings of sophistication, it’s right there under your clothes, your secret identity. Whether you admit it or not, you have an affinity for big hair, shirts with pearl snaps, cowboy boots, and faded blue jeans. Even in the most upscale restaurants, you secretly search the menu for comfort foods like chicken fried steak and catfish, especially on Fridays. Any Texas girl knows it’s not Friday without all-you-can-eat catfish.

The world would be better off if everyone ate fried foot at least one night a week, and drank coffee you could cut with a knife, and lingered with their neighbors. We’d understand each other a little better, and maybe we’d understand ourselves. Perhaps we’d ponder, over the plastic basket with the grease-stained tissue paper, the need to run so far, so fast—to have, to do, to achieve, to gain, to win—to be all that and make sure everybody knows it. A pecan pie does not toil, nor does it spin, but it sure tastes good, and it makes a fine conversation piece.

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