Excerpt from, "How To Ruin a Pearl"--- a Novel

In the late summer of 1971 I was about to enter fourth grade. I was eight years old that day. The sky was a clear blue, the summer air was calm, we were in a high, with a slight breeze that blew west to east.

My mother stood before me and held in her hand, a book. Mom stood 5’5” or so, hips, and shoulders with curves that killed. Back then she had recognized something about me that I was uncertain of. She held out a book, it was five inches in height by seven inches in width approximately. The book was pink with gold lettering in script, written on an angle. The word said, “Autographs” .

As she handed me the pink, hard, yet cushioned covered book to me; a second later she asked, “May I have it back?”

I wondered why, yet I slowly handed it back to her. After she received the book back from me, she then looked me in the eye and asked, “Is it okay that I write something in it for you?”

I responded, “Yes Mom.”

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