A Most Unusual Experience #Open Book Blog Hop

This week, I decided to participate in Stevie Turner’s Open Book Blog Hop. Her question is this. What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had, and have you incorporated that into your writing?

In 1980, when I was a senior in high school, I was the only girl in my class whose dad accompanied her to her senior prom. Did that embarrass me? Not at all, especially since no other boy in the class asked me.

At the time, I had a crush on a boy. Dad said that if I asked him, and he agreed to go with me, Dad would loan him his car. But I never worked up the courage to ask him.

So, my father, wanting his little girl to experience her senior prom, agreed to take me. It was fun for me but not for poor Dad. He was one of few adults in that gymnasium. To make matters worse, during a ceremony, all the girls had to remove the garters from their ankles and attach them to their dates’ shirt sleeves.

I didn’t exactly incorporate this experience in my writing, but Eve, the main character in my latest book, The Red Dress, had a much worse experience. In the following excerpt, she tells her story to her college roommate.

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“Mom made that dress for my senior prom. I had a date with Trent Boyer, the cutest boy in school.  He was the captain of the football team, and I loved watching him play.”

“Wow, just like Alex.”

“Yeah. Well, at the prom, we danced to that song, and I felt like I truly loved him, and I thought  he loved me. Afterwards, he said he had to use the restroom. Other boys asked me to dance, and I  got to talking with my friends, and when I looked around the gym later, I couldn’t find him. I  asked my friends if they’d seen him, and they just shook their heads.”

“Oh, gosh.”

“Like I said, I thought he loved me. I didn’t think he’d leave me. I decided to go out to the  parking lot to see if his car was still there. He’d dropped me off at the entrance, so I didn’t  know where he’d parked. It took me a while to find his car, but I did, in a dark corner up against  the fence by the football field. I looked in the window and saw two figures in the back seat.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I thought I was imagining things. I was on the driver’s side, so I opened that door, and of course  the light came on, and there they were, Trent and my best friend, Adele Matthews. Or at least I  thought she was my best friend.”

***

What did Eve do next? Who is Alex, and what dress are they talking about? Read The Red Dress to find out. By the way, for those in the United States, the book is available for download from the National Library Services for the Blind and Print Disabled website.

 

New! The Red Dress

Copyright July 2019 by DLD Books

When Eve went to her high school senior prom, she wore a red dress that her mother had made for her. That night, after dancing with the boy of her dreams, she caught him in the act with her best friend. Months later, Eve, a freshman in college, is bullied into giving the dress to her roommate. After her mother finds out, their relationship is never the same again.

Twenty-five years later, Eve, a bestselling author, is happily married with three children. Although her mother suffers from dementia, she still remembers, and Eve still harbors the guilt for giving the dress away. When she receives a Facebook friend request from her old college roommate and an invitation to her twenty-five-year high school class reunion, then meets her former best friend by chance, she must confront the past in order to face the future.

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