Excerpt from The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Darci was staying with a man named James, but she hadn't seemed entirely sure where he lived, even as she tried to explain it to me. "On paper," she kept saying, sounding drunk. "I'm only staying at that address on paper. Do you understand?" I didn't.

The road at the top of the mountain, rocky and heavily rutted, looked as though it hadn't been graded in decades. If I'd met another car coming the other direction, I would have had to pull over into the ditch to let it pass. Knee-high, weedy grass lined the edges of the road, and brown vines covered the barren trees like a wintry jungle. I got no cell reception, and my Google Maps app gave me up for lost. I could only surmise from the mailboxes that someone lived back here. I pushed forward, despite my fear of damaging the two-year old Buick SUV I'd just helped my mom buy. It wasn't fit for such a road.

The first house I saw, James's father's, was a double-wide trailer, blue with neat trim. Behind it was James's little single-wide. It was small and weather-beaten, with corrugated metal walls that would not resist a strong wind, and like so many trailers in the area, it had a wooden porch and a wood-frame exoskeleton, all working together to prop it up. Four dogs ran up to greet my car, and when they wouldn't move, I parked along the road, far from the house. Getting out, I was thankful I'd worn my boots and old yoga pants, which I didn't mind getting dirty. There was a camper off to the side, beneath a garage-size wooden shed, and muddy yard. Two lawn chairs had been set up around a meat smoker that smelled of chicken. A path of stones led me to the trailer.

A man I took to be James opened the door. He was a couple of inches taller than my own five foot five, thin and wiry, with the kind of tanned, rough skin white people get after years of outside work, and a mop of dirty blond hair. He was wearing a Budweiser T-shirt and holding a Budweiser can. "Are you Darci's friend?" he asked. "She should be ready any minute." He turned, and I followed him inside.

The trailer was gloomy, with dark, fake-wood paneled walls and too few windows curtained with dark sheets. It had a kitchen on one end, with cabinets of particleboard and laminate and a little kitchen island stacked with papers and food and beer.

The living room was big enough only for a couch and a TV. A Great Dane– size mutt lifted its head in excitement. A man who was older than James, with pale skin, dark hair, and a moustache, was sitting there, and I introduced myself.

"Was Billy Potts your daddy?" he asked.

I said yes.

He looked at me with eyes that were watery from beer. "I knew him. He was a good man." Both he and James were working on the forty-eight pack on the counter.

Darci emerged from the only bedroom, holding a mason jar that smelled strongly of apple wine. "Give me a minute, I just need to find my makeup bag." She brushed her fingers through her curly black hair.

She had been straightening her hair since we were kids, but now she seemed to be getting the job only half done: she'd pulled it back into a headband, but pieces kept popping out like unruly twigs. She wore wide, flowing multicolored, multipatterned pants and a tank top. Her voice was raspy, her speech punctuated with quick staccato laughs. She'd always liked to laugh and to make people laugh and often wore half a smirk, as if she were entertained by the world. Whenever I saw her, it felt like we'd never stopped knowing each other.

I followed her into the small bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. She kept turning around, forgetting from one minute to the next what she was doing. Pieces of hair would pop up; she'd smooth them down, then put on makeup, then look for something, over and over again.

The dogs tumbled into the bedroom, and I patted them while fending off offers for beer from the men. "We need to get on the road," I nudged, and we finally made it out of the bedroom. Darci stuffed her cigarettes and lighter into her purse, set down her mason jar, and went up to James, who was pulling food out of a decrepit fridge. "I need some money," she said bluntly. He gave her a twenty, and she gave him a kiss.

From the book The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts. Copyright © 2023 by Monica Potts. Published by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.