Where to go to see the book

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056A56X0

What do you see for you?

Today, The Lemon Meringue Pie Lie went live on Amazon.  Stunned by the very convoluted, UN haphazard chain of events that brought me to this place in my life, I look forward to still more successes.  I hope for them for you too.  There is room here for all of us, we truly are, one.

Buttons

Still working on the Lemon Meringue Pie Lie, but I took a little break and wrote this instead...

**Any likenesses to persons living or dead is unintentional… this is a work of fiction.

Shiny Buttons

...I am grateful for the lesson in unconditional love.  I hope that one day Judas will realize that the only thing missing was his own understanding of himself.  We cannot be transparent with others if we do not first tell ourselves the truth.   I love me enough to go from here and only put myself where I am cherished, respected, and protected... unconditionally.  I leave Tinytown holding a new me.  I may have walked through fire, but I picked myself up out of the ruins.  Some days I use my fingers to cut through the soot on my face and some days I just blow like you would when teaching a baby to swim. The grime doesn’t stay long.  Once the dusting off is done, I am a shiny new button attached to a universe of abundance.

2011  Julie Fowler


p.s.  If you would like to read the full story(7 pages that came before this), drop me a line and I will send you a pdf copy.

Frozen Lie

     Rather than admit the truth, she panics as a frozen lie creeps past her lips.

      She chirps, "No sir, I don't know who ate your pie, but let me go down to the Rio Vermelho to Aninha's house and I will ask her if she did."

     Recklessly, she runs down the alley to her best friend’s house.  She trips over her vira lata dog, Chiquinha, who lopes ahead, left ear flopping.   Phoebe’s bare toes sift copper-rich street dust.   Aninha, is sitting on the front steps of her house.  She calls inside to her Dad who invites them in for midday feijoada.  Phoebe plops onto a chair at the table with An-inha’s family.  They offer her a plate, she accepts, but only picks at the pork foot, snout and linguiça bobbing in the drowning bowl of rice.  After ten minutes, she excuses herself.  She must figure out what to do.

     Phoebe chooses to detour atop the banks of the muddy Rio Vermelho.  She searches for a magic escape via the frothy ripples in the red, red waves, but still she finds no courage to tell the truth. The lump in her throat is suffocating. She secretly wishes a favela rat would jump from the water, bite her, give her rabies, and send her to the hospital so that she won’t have to tell.  Phew!  Instead, she whispers a prayer to São João and swats at a lazy fly with the back of her sweaty hand.

What pie?

     Her father questions her mom, "Did you eat my pie?"

     "No, I didn't", comes the reply.

     He quizzes her little brother, "Kyle, did you eat my last piece of pie?".

     "What pie?!"   Her brother’s dark eyebrows furrow question marks on his six-year-old forehead.  Her dad confronts the maids Angelinha and Bettinha, "What do you think happened to that last piece of pie, ladies?"   They murmur, "

Não sabemos".   They shake their heads, their brown eyes wide.  Their faces wrinkle up at the kitchen ceiling which is the floor to Phoebe’s bedroom.

His blue eyes pierce hers when he finds her on the veranda looking out at the sea.  He growls, "Phoebe, do you know who ate the last piece of lemon meringue pie?" 

Anticipating the Interrogation

     For a split-second, Phoebe is satisfied, full, and happy.   Just then a wave of disgust and fear makes her feel as sorry as a favela rat.  This humid terror grows worse at noon when she hears her father’s booming call, "Where’s my lemon meringue pie?!"  Soon afterward, he begins the search for his pie, and for the empty culprit who ate it.

     Phoebe knows that her father will be furious with her if he finds out what she did.  She imagines his rage, and hides in her room behind the bed.  She sends magic thoughts to him, asking him not to use the belt if he finds out.  It leaves bruises.  When he uses the belt on her brother, it makes her so angry that she bunches up her fists until her knuckles turn white.  Her anger surges like a tsunami tide.

     Then she hears laughter from outside.  The laughter gives rise to drum beats with a rhythm for dancing.  The Festa do São João offers a distraction, while the Forró drummers gather below her balcony window.  Music changes her mood, reducing her anger to tears of regret and fear.     

     Downstairs in the kitchen, the interrogation begins…

Macriacao - bad behavior

On the morning of the Festa do São João, filled with angry macriação, and burning, mindless loneliness, Phoebe eats that very last hidden piece of lemon meringue pie. She peers through the front yard fence at the pile of wood for the festa bonfire. Forgetting her sad feelings for a moment, she slurps, "Tonight’s bonfire is going to be white hot." After eating the forbidden treat, her mind dances along the street by the fire with a donkey, a furry lop-eared donkey. He runs alongside her, his tiny hooves keeping time with the music that she wishes would fill her heart.