Yesterday I took my daughter to the Spring Bulb Show at Smith College. After having lunch in the student center (tuna melt, as always) and buying yet another Smith t-shirt for my collection, we headed to the Lyman Plant House for the festivities. Now, in my four years at Smith, I never so much as stepped a foot into the plant house. As a matter of fact, the only time I remember even pausing briefly in front of the beautiful glass conservatory was my senior year, around 1am, when my boyfriend and I were heading back to my apartment from the senior weekend dance - and even that brief pause wasn't so much to admire the flora and fauna as it was to keep from falling down in my high heels after several hours at the keg.

In any case, the blub show was beautiful, and we spent a while wandering through the conservatory, checking out the "jungle" room, which was delightfully warm and humid, the cactus room, and all sorts of other plant rooms. At one point I turned to my daughter and said, "You know, in my new book a character breaks into the plant house in the middle of the night."

I'd totally forgotten about that! Even though I never went to the plant house in college, there is a character in INSIDER DATING who does, in fact, break into the Lyman Plant House during college. I couldn't tell my daughter what the character really does in the place after she breaks in, she's still too young for that, but I gave her a G-rated version. After the realization that I'd written the scene without ever having been there, it was fun to see it all in person. And to magine Maggie sneaking in there in the middle of the night, doing something that would make even the bolded tulip turn a scarlet shade of red.