And Plaid All Over

By Foxglove Lee

Marco's a gay stereotype: he loves show tunes, writes fan mail to the actor he's got a crush on, even skips school with his best friend Anna to catch their favourite musical, Forever Plaid. Anna's happy to have a gay best friend, but here's the thing: Marco isn't gay—he's bisexual. He isn't shy about correcting people's misconceptions, but guess what? Nobody believes him! Even Anna doesn't want to consider her best friend bi, and Marco's beginning to realize how important it is for her to see the real him. What will it take to convince her?

 

Previously published as Gayboy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rainbow Crush
• Release date: Aug 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201892890

Foxglove Lee

Foxglove’s fiction has been called SPECTACULAR by Rainbow Reviews and UNFORGETTABLE by USA Today!Foxglove Lee is a former aspiring Broadway Baby who now writes fiction for children, teens and young adults. She tries not to be too theatrical, but her characters often take over. Her debut novel, Tiffany and Tiger’s Eye, is set in the 80s and features an evil doll!

Book preview

And Plaid All Over

Teen Fiction

by

Foxglove Lee

THE 800-YEAR-OLD TICKET-seller at the New Yorker Theatre regarded Marco and Anna with her usual suspicion.  She’d never voiced her misgivings before (except with her eyes) but she did today (with her mouth):

Shouldn’t you kids be in school?

We are, Anna said, because she was the better liar (she could do it with a straight face, whereas Marco couldn’t do anything straight).  We’re doing a project for music class.

Oh yes? the woman behind the glass asked (she obviously wasn’t buying it).  What sort of project, then?

"A project about boy bands across the ages—from The Four Tops to Boyz II Men."

The old woman raised an unruly brow.  That’s not exactly across the ages, is it?

Marco didn’t possess Anna’s level of patience, much less her delight in tormenting the elderly.  He slapped his ticket money down beside his best friend’s and said, Look, we’re paying customers—

Patrons, Anna corrected him.

—so maybe you should think about treating us with a little more respect.

We’re also level-five members of the Frequent Plaid Club, Anna added.  Which means we’ll be taking home our complimentary Forever Plaid cast recording after the show today, thank you very much.

The ticket-seller didn’t seem as impressed as she should have been that two fifteen-year-olds were seeing a show featuring four-part harmonies from the 1950s (for the fifth time).  In fact, the old woman huffed as she took their money.  She slid their tickets through the slot and said under her breath: The nerve...

Marco and Anna were the youngest people in the New Yorker Theatre by at least fifty years.  It was really noticeable, too, because the New Yorker wasn’t like the Royal Alex where you could catch Les Mis, or the Pantages where Phantom would probably be playing to sold-out houses at least until the new millennium.  The New Yorker was tiny by Toronto theatre standards.  Some people had never even heard of it, even though it was right there on Yonge Street.  True, it didn’t stand out like the others.  If you weren’t specifically looking for a theatre, you could easily walk by it without even noticing it was there.

Why’s it called a Plaidbill? Anna asked as they took their seats in the third-last row.  She was looking at the program they’d been handed when they entered the theatre.

It’s a Playbill,