QUOTE : After she found out Aurelie was a Negro, Mama became obsessed with the color of my skin, as if Aurelie's hidden blackness had been contagious and I might have caught a touch of it. Whenever she saw me, she stared at me with furrowed brow and complained that I was losing my "bloom." To protect me from the sun, she gave me a parasol to carry when I went out with her, and a straw hat to wear in the convent garden. Still, she worried.