Dog Ears and Happenstance

I give my son my favorite books to read, and I find them, months later—beneath his bed, stuck in his pile of first-draft screenplays, in among his paycheck stubs—with all the stop pages turned back like some kind of origami.

When I read the books again I find myself following his trail—the parentheses he placed around the chapters, the suspense he held back for himself. The reading mind in action.

P.S. A shout out to someone whose new book I'll soon be reading—Melissa Walker, whose VIOLET ON THE RUNWAY shares pick of the month space with my own UNDERCOVER in the current issue of Family Circle. I love the way seeeming happenstance brings people together. I'm not just reading Melissa's novel because she's an extremely generous person. I'm reading it because I am a fan, why, yes I am, of America's Next Top Model, and because I suspect Melissa has a lot of insight into that whole gorgeous-on-the-outside-but-what-about-the-inside world.
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