I have so much fun being Brandy. She’s a character who first appears in Missing Brandy, the second book in the Fina Fitzgibbons series. She makes subsequent appearances, and someday, maybe, she’ll have her own series. She deserves it. Because she’s given so much to me, and, I hope, to her readers.
Here’s an excerpt from the book which is about the abduction of a teen, Brandy Liam. It’s also about growing up with an unassuageable sorrow. For Brandy, at a tender age, has lost a parent. This scene is from Brandy’s diary.
After Dad died and Granny sort of went away, there was only Aunt Caroline, and at best she was a long subway ride away. Upper East Side facing the park where she lived with a rich guy named Rick. He invested in TV stations, whatever that means. Aunt Caroline took me to Central Park, and we’d walk, and she’d tell me stories about being in college and being with men and which men to watch out for. Most of it was boring. Aunt Caroline was not as good as Dad or Granny, but she was a whole lot better than Pah-tricia. But Caroline’s left me, too. London. Across the pond, that’s what she calls it. Tells me I should visit, but I don’t know. Granny shakes her head, and Pah-tricia says I have to be older.
Aunt Caroline sleeps around.
That’s what Granny told me once, and that’s why I love Granny, at least when she’s being herself. But sometimes she lies in bed and hugs her purse and stares at me, and I know she’s far away. “That’s what old people do,” Caroline told me once. But when she’s here, I mean really here, Granny Liam tells me stuff she isn’t supposed to. I can see her eyes getting papery and can hear her throat getting all whispery. “Now don’t tell your mother I said this.” That’s how she starts up, and a chill goes up my arms, and I know I’m going to hear juicy stuff. Ω
Photo: F Train Coney Island. Credit: bihphotography (Flickr), Creative Commons. For me, this photograph captures the beauty of light, like Brandy. And of course the photo expresses what it feels like to be on deserted Brooklyn platform on a beautiful day in spring.