The Adventures of Miss Vulpe: Book Blog Tour Guest Post #LoneStarLit

My Inspiration

Guest Post by Maria Elena Sandovici

This is very personal and I have only shared it with friends until now, but it’s the story behind the book:

My mother was like me. She had too much imagination. When I was a teenager in Bucharest, only slightly younger than Miss Vulpe (and for the record, I am not Miss Vulpe and her adventures are her own not mine), my mother showed me a diamond pin in her jewelry box. She said that it was worth a fortune. She said that should something bad happen to her and my dad, an accident of sorts, I should sell that pin and the money would be enough to get me to New York to live with my uncle. That was preposterous; my parents were in good health, not prone to accidents, and if they did by some freakish twist of fate meet an early death, I would have moved in with my grandma or maybe with my old lizard, grandma’s sister who practically raised me while my mother built her career. Anyway, a creepy thought is a creepy thought, and I enjoyed taking my mother’s imaginary tragic scenario and running with it. I ended up writing. In ten lined notebooks I circulated to all the girls in my class, I wrote the story of a girl whose parents died under mysterious circumstances. When I grew up, I found the notebooks embarrassing and ripped them to shreds. I never did forget the story though. And one day, in my thirties, after my mother was indeed taken from me by an early death, I open her jewelry box that smelled like her, Magie Noire, musky and dark, and took out the diamond pin. I was unhappy in Texas, I decided. I’d sell the pin and move to New York, my mother’s gentle guidance helping me even from the other side. I took the pin to a jeweler in Houston; I know he is legit. My friend is a gemologist; she recommended him. He made an offer. Seventy-five dollars. Mom, were you kidding? What on earth? I took the pin back home, stuck it in my own jewelry box. It smells like me now. Angel perfume. Vanilla and neurosis. My perfume costs more than the jewelry in the box. Eventually I sat down and rewrote the story. Also, it’s good I didn’t have enough of a diamond windfall to move to New York. I fell in love with Houston. It’s such an underrated metropolis with such good energy. I’ve a good life here. And a pin with a tiny dented diamond.