Foxglove
Lee interviews Millie from Truth and Other Lies
Foxglove:
Before we get started, I want to say a big thank you our hosts. It was most
gracious of A Passion for Romance to invite me here today to talk to my good
friend Millie, who stars in the new book Truth and Other Lies.
Millie: Ha! I star in it? Yeah right! You killed me off in the first chapter.
Foxglove: True… but it was kind of necessary. I hope you understand.
Millie: *shrugs* We all gotta go some time, I guess.
Foxglove: This leads in nicely to my first question, actually, because I was going to ask you what it’s like to be a ghost.
Millie: Don’t get crafty, sister. You know I can’t answer that.
Foxglove: Why not?
Millie: Vow of silence.
Foxglove: You’re talking right now.
Millie: Vow of secrecy, then.
Foxglove: I think we’re getting off track. We’re supposed to be talking about this book I wrote, Truth and Other Lies. Maybe we should say… hmm… do you want to tell the people how you died?
Millie: I had the cancer. It was no fun.
Foxglove: I am truly sorry, Millie. I’m being serious right now. I’m sorry for all the pain you went through.
Millie: Meh, my whole like was pain. It helps to have a sense of humour.
Foxglove: But when you were alive you never really told anyone how bad things were. You went through a lot of rough times and you kept it all to yourself. That must have been hard.
Millie: That’s just how I was raised, I guess.
Foxglove: And you’re a lesbian…
Millie: Whoa! Wow! That came out of nowhere.
Foxglove: Sorry, I lost my place with these questions, but I know that was leading to something. Oh, right, I wanted to talk about how you came out to your parents when you were fifteen and they promptly kicked you out of the house.
Millie: Kicked me out? They disowned me, told me I was dead.
Foxglove: And that’s when you went to live with your good friend Kenny.
Millie: His mom took me in like I was family. They made it so easy. This probably sounds weird, but it was almost a relief. I needed to get out of my parents’ house. Things were not good there. Kenny and his mother were like the family I never had, or the family I wished I’d had all along.
Foxglove: You and Kenny were really close all through high school. Did you ever feel like maybe he had a bit of a crush on you?
Millie: Oh, don’t ask me that.
Foxglove: Why not?
Millie: Because it’s weird. I mean… I know he did, but he was like my brother. And anyway, guys never really did it for me.
Foxglove: Kids at school thought Kenny was gay.
Millie: Yeah, I knew he wasn’t. But I knew he wasn’t straight, either. It’s weird because I was always comfortable keeping secrets. Kenny’s secrets made him so angsty, like his truth might burst out of his mouth at any moment.
Foxglove: But you must have wanted to tell your story in some way, because at the end of your life you wrote “Truth and Other Lies.”
Millie: “Truth and Other Lies” is Kenny’s title for it. I just called the book “My Memoir” because that’s what it was. One day I started typing and my whole life spilled out onto the page.
Foxglove: You typed out your memoirs and you sent them to Kenny because he’s the writer of the house, right? He’s been self-publishing sci-fi stories since you were both in high school.
Millie: Right.
Foxglove: And you didn’t tell anybody else you’d written this huge book?
Millie: Right.
Foxglove: Why not?
Millie: *shrugs* Who would I tell?
Foxglove: Did plan on publishing your memoir?
Millie: *furrows brow* I was on my deathbed. I knew I’d never live long enough to see that happen.
Foxglove: So when your best friend Kenny slapped his own name on the story of your life and published it as fiction after you’d died, how did that make you feel?
Millie: You make it sound like he stole from me.
Foxglove: Well, didn’t he? It’s not like he attributed your work to you.
Millie: I would never in a million years want the
whole world knowing all those things happened to me. I’d have been madder if he’d published it
under my name!
Foxglove: You sound upset.
Millie:
Yeah, but not with Kenny! With you! For asking these questions that make it sound
like my best friend screwed me over.
Foxglove:
Didn’t he?
Millie:
You really expect me to waste my valuable ghost time listening to this? Nope.
Good luck with your book. I’m outta here.
*poof*
Foxglove:
Hmm… I thought this interview would go a lot better than that. Sorry to Ghost
Millie, wherever you poofed off to. Didn’t mean to upset you. I really just wanted to give readers some
background on “Truth and Other Lies” but it looks like I messed up my opportunity.
Well, thanks again to A Passion for Romance for hosting this interview. I’m
sure they’ll never have me back now. Oh dear…
* * * * * *
TRUTH and other lies
by Foxglove
Lee
An Evernight Teen ~ Alternative
Young Adult
Blurb:
Have
you ever wanted to get noticed? Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you
worked or how hard you tried, nobody in the entire world cared what you did? Well,
what if someone famous—and we’re talking Oprah-famous, here—noticed you for the
one thing you wish you could hide? For your one big secret…
That’s exactly what happens to 18-year-old Kenneth McIntyre when
television guru Prahna Mehta hails his self-published novel as the next
bestseller. Little do his new fans know Truth and Other Lies wasn’t
written by Kenny at all… and it isn’t fiction. Kenny’s been keeping secrets for
years. Sometimes he feels like he’s lying to everybody he loves.
When Kenny gets swept into stardom, how will he hide the secrets
he’s kept for years? And, if his lies are exposed, will anyone stay by his
side?
Buy Links:
Excerpt:
Nobody cried more than
Kenny’s mom. Not even Kenny.
He
started to understand that saying, “he was beside himself,” because that’s
exactly how he felt. At Millie’s funeral, he kept glancing at the empty
seat beside him—one of five they’d reserved in the front row for Millie’s
family—because he felt like the real Kenny was sitting in the next chair, and
his body was just an empty shell.
Millie was right, all
those times she’d said her parents wouldn’t come to her funeral. She’d
told Kenny and his mom, “You don’t understand, guys. I’m already dead to
them. Why would they go to my funeral when I died three years ago?
I died when I came out.”
Kenny didn’t believe
that, of course. When he and his mom made the funeral arrangements, they
even asked to have some of the readings done in Chinese. If her parents
did come—and Kenny really and truly believed they would—they’d certainly
appreciate the scripture in their mother tongue. They were very religious
people, from what Millie said.
He stared at the grey
chair beside him while the funeral people played one of Millie’s favorite
songs. Any other day, he’d have been fuming that her family hadn’t shown
up. But today? Today he didn’t have enough energy to feel
anger. He didn’t have enough energy to feel anything, not even
sadness. It was like a total absence of emotion. He was an empty
shell.
The funeral went by in a
haze. As they drove to the cemetery, all he could think about was the
look of serenity on Millie’s face as she lay in that coffin. That
gleaming white coffin, like Liberace’s piano. She would have laughed at
it. She would have thrown her head back, cackled, and said, “You’re gonna
bury me in that?”
Kenny could still hear
her laughter.
When his mother pulled
into the cemetery parking lot, he pressed his head against the cool glass and
cried. More than cried. Sobbed. He felt like his heart had
been ripped out of his chest. It was an actual, physical pain, and it
hurt so badly he worried that, when he opened his jacket, his crisp white shirt
would be stained in blood. He almost wished it was. He wished his
wounds could be obvious to the world. He wanted everybody to
understand. Nobody did.
Except his mom.
She squeezed his hand so hard she jammed his knuckles together. That was
a good pain, a useful pain. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, but
he gripped her hand, trying to show some support. Because she was hurting
too.
“Come on, buddy.”
Mom snapped a tissue from the box and blotted her face, wiped her nose.
“Let’s get out to the gravesite.”
Millie would have
thought all this grief was hilarious.
Plenty of people from
school had come to the service. Far fewer had come out for the
burial. Kenny’s mom had paid for everything—the funeral, the coffin, the
plot—and it didn’t come cheap. In all, she’d spent nearly ten grand, most
of it on credit. But Millie was worth the expense. She was the
daughter Mom never had.
Kenny felt old before
his time, having to deal with all this death stuff. But there he went,
thinking about himself again. If Millie were there, she’d tell him to be
happy. “Be happy you’re still alive. Be happy the sun is shining and the
birds are chirping. Be happy spring is in the air.”
Well the sun wasn’t
shining and the birds weren’t chirping, not for Kenny. And spring?
Spring was just a pile of mud. Slick mud and stinking dog crap under a mound of
melting snow.
That’s all Kenny could think of
during the burial: how Millie was going underground, under all the mud and crap
and snow. She’d never feel the sunlight on her skin. She’d never
hear the birds. She’d died in the springtime of her life.
Author bio:
Foxglove Lee is a former aspiring Broadway Baby who now writes
queer fiction for young adults. She tries not to be too theatrical, but
her characters often take over. Like Noah from her OmniLit Bestseller
"The Secret to a Perfect Latke" who comes out in the most
unforgettable way imaginable. Or Stefani from "Token Lesbians"
in the "Year's End" horror anthology (Untreed Reads), whose defiance
incurs the wrath of the subway system. Or Mila and Laura, who make each
other laugh a bit in "I Hate Love" and a lot in "Happy Birthday,
Klutzface!" And who can forget her debut novel "Tiffany and Tiger's
Eye"? It's set in the 80s and features an evil doll!
Twitter: @FoxgloveLee
Giveaway: $10 Evernight Teen Gift Certificate
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