Deb Caletti - One Great Lie

Deb Caletti

That one summer can change everything.

One Great Lie

The Queen of Everything

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

Wild Roses

The Nature of Jade

The Fortunes of Indigo Skye

The Secret Life of Prince Charming

The Six Rules of Maybe

Stay

The Story of Us

The Last Forever

Essential Maps for the Lost

A Heart in a Body in the World

Girl, Unframed

AND DONT MISS

Hes Gone

The Secrets She Keeps

Whats Become of Her

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text 2021 by Deb Caletti

Jacket photograph of dress by ariwasabi/iStock, of clothesline by Brad and Jen Butcher/Stocksy, and of Venice canal by Joanna Nixon/Stocksy

Author photograph by Susan Doup

Jacket design by Laura Eckes 2021 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Interior design by Tom Daly

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Caletti, Deb, author.

Title: One great lie / Deb Caletti.

Description: First edition. | New York : Atheneum, [2021] | Summary: Charlottes dream of a summer writing workshop in Venice with her favorite author brings the chance to investigate the mysterious poet in her family's past, meet fascinating new people, and learn truths about her idol.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020037539 (print) | LCCN 2020037540 (ebook) | ISBN 9781534463172 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534463196 (ebook)

Subjects: CYAC: Foreign studyFiction. | AuthorsFiction. | BetrayalFiction. | SexismFiction. | Venice (Italy)Fiction. | ItalyFiction. | Mystery and detective stories.

Classification: LCC PZ7.C127437 One 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.C127437 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037539

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037540

For Charlie Zephyr

Lucchesia Sbarra, poet.

Published Rime, and possibly another volume, both lost.

(1576unknown)

Picture itthe exact coordinates where Charlottes life will change and never change back: a table in the Seattle Public Library. On itthe book Biographical Encyclopedia of Literature: Sixteenth Century. Abovean angled ceiling of enormous glass panes, which makes the library feel like a space colony of the future. Just aheadyellow escalators and green elevators, shades of disco-era neon that sometimes give Charlotte a migraine.

Now picture Charlotte herselfher long dark braid is over one shoulder. Shes wearing a sweatshirt, zipped all the way up, which looks kind of goofy, but who caresshes always cold. Shes trying to write a report on a long-ago female Renaissance poet Isabella di Angelo but can only find information about the guy everyone already knows about, Antonio Tasso. Theres tons and tons of stuff about Tasso and his poetry. But all shes been able to unearth about Isabella di Angelo is this one fact, repeated again and again. Charlottes brown eyes stare down at it: Tassos longtime paramour. Paramour: old-fashioned word for someone Tasso had sex with.

Charlottes good friend Yasmin is across from her, studying for her macroeconomics test and sucking on sour apple Jolly Ranchers. Yas loves those. Whenever she leans over to talk to Charlotte, her breath is a great burst of fake-apple sweet. Charlottes boyfriend, Adam, is there too. He sits to her right, his knees touching hers under the table, the sleeves of his hoodie pushed up to his elbows. Hes always touching her like this, like shes his lucky rock, or like hes worried shell run off if he doesnt hang on.

Nate sprawls in the chair next to Yasmin. Theyve been together since sophomore year, and Nate has stopped working out, and he has a little splootch of belly over his stomach, and hes on his third day in that Kurt Cobain T-shirt, and this bothers Yasmin because he doesnt seem to be trying anymore. Also, his pits have a slightly tangy odor, which is a constant problem for Yas. Its the end of spring quarter, right before break, and Charlotte and Yasmin have serious stuff to do, because theyre perpetual overachievers with lots of AP classes, and graduation is coming. Charlottes got this term paper, which is going nowhere, and Yasmins final is going to be brutal.

Adam and Nate are just fucking around, though. Nate made a triangle football out of a note card, and Adam has his hands up like goalposts, and theyre flicking it back and forth and making whoops of victory and Aw!s of defeat, and theyre basically being way too loud for a library. A guy with a big beard and a backpack scowls at them. A little kid stares, wide-eyed, like theyre a riveting puppet show, maybe wishing he could get away with stuff like that.

Guys, stop, Yasmin says. Show some maturity. She sounds like her mother right then, Charlotte thinks. Yasmins mom is very serious, and always on her case about her grades even though she gets straight As. But Charlotte wants them to knock it off too. She and Yas are both the polite, anxious sort of people who worry about getting in trouble. She wishes she werent, but she cant help it.

Nate tries to grab Yasmins butt, and she pulls away, annoyed. Charlotte looks up to see if the librarian is watching.

And thats when it happens: Charlottes eyes scoot in a fateful arc, from Nates hand on Yasmins butt, across the space of the library, stopping just short of the librarians desk, because there it is, that flyer. Its posted on a noticeboard hanging on the wall by the bank of escalators. Shes not sure why she didnt see it before, because the words practically call out to her now, which is a clich, but true.

Anything about writing calls out to her, though. Short-story contests, ads in the Stranger for writing classes, articles online. New notebooks, packages of pens, fat blocks of printer paper. Anything that has to do with writing has drawn her since she wrote her first story, The Land of the Mixed-Up Animals, when she was seven. Wait, no. Anything about writing has pulled her in probably since she was five and read this line in Where the Wild Things Are: That very night in Maxs room a forest grew. Is that beautiful or what? Words were forests to explore in your very own room, warm tents to hide in, and magic cloaks that transformed you. ILL EAT YOU UP! Max shouts to his mother, so words also let you be what you wished you could beimpolite and bold, someone who could talk back and get into trouble and not care.