As a presidency unravels and the fight for women’s rights intensifies, a teen girl’s future will be determined by her willingness to seek the truth, in this stunning work of historical fiction perfect for fans of Monica Hesse and Malinda Lo.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from L.M. Elliott’s Truth, Lies, and the Questions in Between, which is out January 14th 2025.
Patty Appleton is making history. As one of the Senate’s first female Congressional Pages, she’s not only paving the way for other politically minded girls, she has a front-row seat to debates dividing the nation, especially around women’s rights and roles. The battle between the old ways and the new polarizes the women in Patty’s life, and she finds herself torn between traditional expectations—to be anobedient daughter aspiring to become a perfect wife—and questions new friends like fiercely feminist Simone encourage her to ask.
But the questions don’t stop at women’s rights: The Watergate scandal is intensifying. As evidence mounts that the White House engaged in crimes, smears, and cover-ups to manipulate an election, Patty worries her dad, a fundraiser for President Nixon, could somehow be involved. Determining truth from lies becomes ever more essential for the nation’s future—and for Patty’s as well.
Illustrated throughout with remarkable real-life images and headlines, this timely exploration of 1973—the year of Watergate hearings, the Equal Rights Amendment, and Roe v. Wade—unfolds through the story of a young woman driven to question everything as she learns to think for, and rely on, herself.
JANUARY
She’d give just about anything for that boy’s socks. What was his name? Patty glanced at the teenager sitting to her left and smiled.
He grinned back. It was a good smile—big like his voice was loud, honest, the corners of his mouth disappearing into those ridiculous, curly sideburns he kept stroking.
Abe. That was it.
Embarrassed that she was wondering how big a smile she’d have to bless him with to get those socks, Patty abruptly turned back toward the parade route. When the heck would things get rolling? She tried to wriggle her toes that prickled sharply from the cold. Were they actually moving? Or had they frozen into immobile chunks of flesh?
Don’t be so melodramatic. One of her parents’ favorite reprimands
filled Patty’s mind.
Patty looked down at the black patent-leather go-go boots Simone had lent her the night before. As if the thin, slick-shiny plastic was any kind of protection against winter temperatures. Her godmother’s daughter had meant well, of course. Her attempt at the friendship being forced on them. Or maybe it was pity at Patty’s mother insisting she wear L’eggs pantyhose instead of the cream-colored, cable-knit, knee-sock-warm tights Simone had offered. They were very hip—like the type Twiggy wore under her miniskirts in fashion magazines. Patty had almost drooled at them.
“Certainly not. Ladies wear stockings—especially to important ceremonies,” Patty’s mom said as she looped the last loose strand of Patty’s dark hair around a pink curler and thrust a bobby pin into it to hold her hair taut, so tight her scalp throbbed and ached. “Tomorrow, nothing but ladylike deportment. Make your father proud.” Then she’d doused Patty in a fog of Final Net hairspray, adding, “And remember pretty is as pretty does.” The gospel according to Dot Appleton.
Easy enough for her mother to say, Patty fumed. Because her father was a high-profile Republican fundraiser for Nixon’s campaign, her parents had been invited to the glassed-in VIP reviewing stand to watch the inaugural parade. Where her mother could easily back her slim, meticulously maintained size-four tush up to a heater.
Another blast of wind gushed up Patty’s A-line skirt to her girdle, saturating her own butt in icy cold. She clamped her teeth against their chattering in the ripple of shivers that followed. She should have sat on a lower rung of the metal bleachers, where these constant frigid gales would have been less likely to storm straight to her underwear. But this is where other congressional pages had wanted to sit, so they could better view the horse cavalries, marching bands, and floats passing along Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House.
She’d just joined their ranks the previous week. Most of the teenage pages had been working the floor of the Senate and House since September, coinciding with the school year. Watching the parade among them had seemed a good way to get to know more of them quickly.
Patty looked back to Abe. Bet his socks were wool, thick, cozy. But what she really wanted—after that last wind gust—were his corduroy pants.
Abe frowned. “You okay?”
Oh God, caught lusting after slacks. If only nice girls could wear them and still be considered “nice.” Patty forced the bright smile she’d flashed at countless cocktail parties her parents hosted. “Oh yes, just excited. I feel like I’m part of history!”
Squinting a little, Abe cocked his head in a really? expression. So, he was the cynical type. Or pretended to be. Surely he wouldn’t give up the usual all-American adolescence to be a page, working ridiculous hours to run notes back and forth from the Senate floor to congressional offices in service to his country if he was truly some Doubting Thomas.
But Patty adjusted her wide-eyed patriotism accordingly, trained to shift, chameleon-like, to reflect the hues of opinion of people around her, especially that of boys. “Maybe not part
of it exactly. A witness to history.” She paused. “My godmother’s daughter is actually in the parade, though. She’s the one I’ll be spending my weekends with—in Old Town Alexandria. My parents didn’t want me in D.C., unchaperoned at my residence hall, when Congress wasn’t in session. Her high school marching band has been mixed in with a bunch of other local schools to create a band of 1,776 players. To match the theme for today’s parade. You know, the spirit of 1776.”
Abe snorted. “Leave it to Tricky Dick to exploit the feel-good imagery of a bicentennial that’s not even happening until three years from now,” he muttered. “Given Watergate, I wonder how George Washington—Mr. I-Cannot-Tell-a-Lie—would feel about Richard Nixon being sworn in again as president.”
“Hey now,” the boy sitting on Patty’s other side said, leaning forward to speak around her toward Abe. Friendly, earnest. “Don’t be badmouthing Mr. Nixon. Not today, roomie. Today’s sacred! When our government resets in a peaceful transition of power. Accepting the vote, the will of the people, even if our guy loses. That’s democracy!” He grinned. “Besides, it’s clear the president didn’t know anything about the break-in. It was just a
bunch of overly enthusiastic campaign knuckleheads.”
Abe shook his head in mock sorrow at what he clearly viewed as his friend’s naivete. “The whole thing reeks of dirty tricks, buddy. The more they dig, the more they’re going to find, mark my words,” he concluded.
“But . . . but he’s saying precisely what my father does,” Patty surprised herself by jumping in. “That there’s no way President Nixon can know of everything going on during a campaign. Too many workers all over the country. Daddy handled contributions from hundreds of people in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri—way too many to keep track of.”
“That’s right. Listen to the lady,” the boy beside her spoke in a soft drawl. Like Abe’s slightly brassy northeastern accent, Will’s southern intonation was another distinctly regional way of speaking Patty had never heard in person before, growing up in the Midwest. “Don’t forget, the indictments stopped with the five burglars.”
“And their two wacko handlers,” Abe countered. “Calling themselves anti-communists. Seriously? Some are ex-CIA. Experts in lying and hiding things. Doesn’t that tell you something? Plus, a couple had direct ties to the White House. Don’t you read the Washington Post?”
“Naw,” said the boy with a mischievous grin. “Vice President Agnew calls those reporters ‘nattering nabobs of negativism.’ I go for the Evening Star.”
Abe rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ve obviously got my work cut out with you.”
“And I with you,” the boy answered good-naturedly. He elbowed Patty. “I pray for his sorry atheist soul all the time. I’ll get him before we graduate.” He extended his hand. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m a House floor page—”
Abe interrupted, “The lesser chamber to yours and mine—”
“—Will Ferguson. And that depends on how you look at
things,” he tossed back at Abe.
