Finding Charlie - "This isn't like her"

When Olivia goes to Carmen's house, she gets a few clues about Charlie's disappearance. For one thing Charlie has left her car in the driveway. Carmen tells Olivia that Charlie was at her house the night before and had been up talking with her new boyfriend, Isaac, when Carmen went to bed. Olivia didn't know Charlie had a boyfriend, so this is news.

            I looked at my watch. My father would have gotten home by now. No phone call. “This isn’t like her.” I said it like a statement, but I was looking for reassurance.
            “I know.” Carmen wrapped her bare arms tightly around herself. “She always texts me back. Even if I text her in the middle of the night. She always keeps her phone with her while she sleeps and she will just text me back a smiley face so I know she’s listening.”
            Among a group of framed photographs on the surface of a dresser, there was a shot of the two girls with their faces pressed together, grinning. They were both missing their front teeth, which would make them, what, six or seven? Their faces were painted like butterflies, caterpillar middles along the bridge of their noses, antennae on their foreheads. It had been taken at the 4^th Avenue Street Fair; there was a copy of that photograph at my dad’s house.
            I turned back to Carmen. “How well do you know this Isaac?”

If you'd like to read more, come back tomorrow. And, if you'd like to start this blog feature from the beginning, go here.

Finding Charlie - She's Missing!

Olivia continues with her normal day, going to the office where she works as a physical therapist. It isn't until she leaves that she learns that this may not be a normal day after all:

            My father was in the waiting room when I left for the day. He looked so out of place- my big, strong dad in a room of broken, old people- and I realized he’d never visited me at work before. As I got closer, I saw he hadn’t shaved, which was abnormal for a week day.  And, come to think of it, he was not dressed for work, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that promoted a political candidate who had run and lost years ago.

            “Daddy?”

            He looked up as though he’d forgotten where he was, lost in the pattern of the carpet. “Olivia.”

            He wasn’t smiling to see me. I touched his arm. “What’s wrong?” I felt like I was bending over him, a little boy cowering over a broken toy. But he was taller than me.

            And then he stood up straighter and put his arm around me and was in charge again. I was relieved to be ushered out the woosh of the automatic door and into the warm evening air under his direction.

            Once outside, in relative privacy, he stood me in front of him and gripped my upper arms. “Charlie’s missing,” he said, ripping the band-aid off.

            “She’s what?”

            “She didn’t come home last night. I can’t reach her on her cell.”

            I let out the breath I’d been holding, smiled warmly, condescendingly. “Daddy. She’s nineteen. I’m sure she just stayed out with a friend. Maybe she turned off her phone.”

            He let go of my arms then. “That’s what the police said.”   

            “The police?”          

            “They aren’t taking it seriously because, legally, she’s an adult.” He said “legally” like it was a made up word. Clearly, she wasn’t really an adult. Unfortunately, I tended to agree.

And so it begins. I'll share more on Monday as Olivia begins to lose her cocky certainty that Charlie's fine. If you want to start this blog feature from the beginning, click here.

A Long Thaw - Preorder Now!

My second novel, A Long Thaw, is now available to pre-order on Amazon! It will be released January 16th.

Cousins Abby and Juliet were born into one big, close family. But when Juliet's parents divorce, it tears the family apart and sends the girls in very different directions.

Juliet grows up too quickly, forced to be responsible for her younger sisters as well as an alcoholic, single mother. Abby grows up a pampered, sheltered only child.

As women, they try to mend the rift and come to terms with the way their shared history connects them, in spite of the years apart.

Told in alternating narrative, A Long Thaw explores how the two women are shaped by the traumas and triumphs of childhood. It's a story about the power of secrets and the unbreakable bonds of family.