“That’s the best news I’ve heard all summer.” I’m not even exaggerating. My grin is so wide, my face hurts.
“Okay, good.” I hear a car door open and close. “I have to get off the phone now because I don’t have my hands-free thingy. Stay at Chris’s house. Do not go anywhere, do you hear me?”
I laugh. I’m actually going to see Gretchen again. To be in the same physical space as her. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Okay, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you soon, though. Bye!”
“Bye,” I echo. The phone clicks off.
I stare down at the blank screen. The phone is warm in my hand. I feel more awake than usual. More alive.
I need to go tell Chris she’s coming over, but I stay where I am for now, letting my eyes fall closed. It’s too much to take in.
This is really happening. Gretchen will be here soon.
I don’t know what’s going to happen when she gets here. But not knowing is okay.
Actually, the not knowing might be the best part.
*
Keep reading for an excerpt from LIES WE TELL OURSELVES by Robin Talley.
Acknowledgments
Sometimes there are characters you know so well you forget they’re fictional, even if you’re the one who made them up. That’s how I feel about What We Left Behind. Toni and Gretchen have been living in a corner of my brain since I first decided I wanted to be a writer. Their story changed and evolved over the years, and so did I. But I never stopped loving them, just as they never stopped loving each other.
I can’t quite believe it’s time for these two to climb outside my head and live on a printed page, but here we are. And we all had a lot of help getting to this point.
Thank you to Jim McCarthy, agent extraordinaire, who gives wise advice at every turn, and who simply got this book and these characters in a way that meant so much.
I’m so grateful to my amazing editor, T. S. Ferguson, who always asks the right questions, from the big ones (“Is there enough closure on this plot thread?”) to the little ones (“Are you spelling this Clueless reference correctly?”) and knows how much every question matters. Thanks, too, to the whole Harlequin team that made this book a reality—Natashya Wilson, Lauren Smulski, Emma Alpern, Emily Krupin, Jennifer Abbots, Lisa Wray, Jennifer Stimson and so many more, plus the UK folks—Anna Baggaley, Elise Windmill and the rest of the fabulous Mira Ink crew.
Thank you to all my amazing writer friends who offered beta-reader notes, moral support and wine-drinking assistance while I worked on this book. Anna-Marie McLemore, aside from being the best Lambda Literary Writers Retreat roommate ever, you were one of the very first people to read this manuscript, and your notes on it helped to make it what it is. Thanks to the DC/environs writer crew—Lindsay Smith (thank you so much for thinking up the awesome title!), Jessica Spotswood, Caroline Richmond, Miranda Kenneally, Andrea Colt, Kathleen Foucart, Tiffany Schmidt and many, many other awesome people—for your notes, your advice, your friendship and your tips on staying sane. And thank you to the Fourteenery and the DC MafYA, aka the coolest kids on the block.
Thanks to Erica George for showing me around and letting me sleep on her futon when I came up for my Harvard research trip, and to Georgiana Konesky, my Harvard beta reader, who told me no one calls it Wigglesworth (it’s just Wigg, you guys). Thanks to Sarah Schrag for letting me steal the croissants story, and to Nadine Heyman and Jennifer Brody for the NYU and Harvard inspiration, and the olden-days fun.
Thanks to my family—Mom, Dad, Mary, Steve, Matthew, Josh, Aaron and the whole extended clan—for supporting me through this crazy writerly life.
And thank you most of all to Julia, for all of the things. I <3 you.
If you enjoyed What We Left Behind, don’t miss Robin Talley’s thought-provoking and critically acclaimed debut, Lies We Tell Ourselves!
“A piercing look at the courage it takes to endure.”
—Kirkus Reviews on Lies We Tell Ourselves
Lies We Tell Ourselves
Set in Virginia during 1959 school desegregation and told through dual perspectives, Lies We Tell Ourselves follows Sarah, one of the first black students to integrate into a white school, and Linda, the white daughter of the town’s most vocal opponent of desegregation. Forced to team up on a school project, Sarah and Linda’s feelings toward each other are mutual distrust and loathing. But as they spend time together, each of them is forced to confront not just their own limited notions about race and politics but also deeper truths about themselves, including the fact that they may be falling for one another.
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Lies We Tell Ourselves
by Robin Talley
LIE #1
Jefferson High School, Davisburg, Virginia
February 2, 1959