I remember turning points in my life when I take a look back. They are times when my path altered direction. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
This is the turning point in my new book, Blue Moon. It’s the moment my character picks up something she shouldn’t and changes the course of the future . . .
Vanessa sat on her bed and plotted. She mentally accounted for her grievances. It galled Vanessa that Luis could not call her Mama.
She’d come to terms with her lot in life as ‘auntie,’ but M. Bellevue had shown up last August, and every day since, something in her had grown.
In the recesses of Vanessa’s mind, she didn’t know what to call the little seed making her sour. She did realize, however, it had been planted long before she’d given birth to Luis, and her empty arms had caused her anguish. It had started when Felix had entered Valerie’s universe, and Renault had left Vanessa’s. She remembered the night she’d met Renault, and Valerie had met Felix. How fitting that she and her sister would meet the men they fell in love with on the same day.
Vanessa remembered how they’d whispered and giggled like girls, lying in the same bed. They’d shared their hearts and disclosed how the two men had caught their attention . . .
After the gala ball, Vanessa lay in her shift next to her sister on the bed in her room. “He is very handsome. I thought him conceited at first, but now I am not sure. I find conceited men talk more about themselves than they do anything else, and I didn’t catch him expounding on his qualities. In fact, what he talked about most was me.” Vanessa turned her head to see her sister. She blushed and smiled as she disclosed her heart. They both giggled like girls. The sisters lay shoulder to shoulder on Vanessa’s bed. Vanessa grasped Valerie’s hand and urged her, “Tell me about your man.”
“Oh, all right,” Valerie shyly conceded. “He is tall, kind, handsome of course.”
“Of course, and . . .” Vanessa affirmed and waited for more description.
“His eyes are blue with a ring of hazel around the edges, but his mustache is my favorite feature. On some men, mustaches sit on their lips like furry caterpillars, but on Felix, it is ‘the piece de la résistance’.” I cannot imagine him without it. It tickled when he kissed me, deliciously so.”
“Valerie! You let him kiss you, and you just met? How shocked I am!” Vanessa feigned disapproval but confessed, “Renault kissed me too, although, I can’t say his mustache tickled so much.” They dissolved in more giggles and turned a bit serious.
“What do you think of him, Val?”
“Handsome for sure, and he treated you like a queen. I can picture him with you. Can you picture Felix with me?”
Vanessa thought a few seconds. “You . . . I don’t know . . . click together. You fit together as if you have always been. Sounds strange, I suppose.”
“No, it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.”
The sisters grew tired and drifted off to sleep, dreaming their own dreams with their own handsome men.
That next week, they both had been busy with their beaus and spent every available moment with them. However, at the end of the week Felix had proposed and Renault had left. Vanessa had held out hope of his return for a couple of months as they corresponded, but her hope died with his last letter to her . . .