In Search of Rhett Butler

Book excerpt: What typical Southern girl who grew up in the decades of the 40's and 50's hadn't wanted to be Scarlett O'Hara - especially if she happened to be the namesake of that character? Born on the very day and at the precise time Gone With the Wind premiered in Atlanta, Scarlett Harwood's destiny had simply collided with the stars, or so went the thinking of her dreamy-eyed, melodramatic young mother whose address was Cloud Nine. It was on her fifteenth birthday that Scarlett Harwood finally saw the movie from which her name had come. From the moment Vivien Leigh's character materialized on the screen until the credits rolled, the girl was mesmerized, dumbstruck by the twinship she saw between herself and that young belle. It felt to her like someone had crawled inside her head, excised her brain, and planted it in the head of Scarlett O'Hara. She left the theatre that day still dabbing her tears, convinced that she was the reincarnation of the heroine - with one exception. She was smarter. She would never repeat O'Hara's mistakes. Never. Neither would she repeat those of her mother, Tessa. She would get it right. Unlike both Scarlett O'Hara and Tessa, once she found her perfect man, she would never let him go. That was the plan. Then came Jacob Stevenson.