I have completed my debut fiction manuscript, LEFTOVER LIFE, a suspenseful romantic comedy that salutes the ways we make and break families. It's an exciting time as I find myself able to devote my days to writing. Soooo many books have been spinning in my head for decades - just begging to come out, but family and music has always taken front seat ... until now. Please stay tuned as I actively seek the perfect agent to guide me in my endeavor to be a new voice in the world of fiction:
I hope you enjoy the following sample:
CHAPTER 1
BEGINNINGS
Some might claim my life began the day my birth mother abandoned me as a newborn on the steps of a Catholic church in St. Pete Beach, Florida, with a note declaring me to be Ruben Isaac. Others might say it began the day my adoptive mom-to-be dropped dead of a stroke in Chinatown in New York City…with four-year-old me on her back. Then again, there are others who would argue my life began when I was placed into any one of the numerous foster homes I got to sample in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. I, myself, for years thought my life began when I arrived in New York City as a newly minted, emancipated eighteen-year-old adult. Even I was wrong. My life began twenty-one months, four days, and six hours ago, to be precise.
It was no ordinary day to begin with. My former foster mom, Marion, and foster sister Tracey were visiting from Arizona. They were my last official foster family before I aged out of the system. Ironically, their last name is Foster—and foster me they did. They’re the ones I considered to be “family” in the loosest of terms at the time. But their visit during that hectic holiday season felt like an invasion: forced into unwanted social interaction, forced into taking an extremely rare day off. Being the sous-chef at the posh, modern-meets-old-world-charm Ciel Noir, a five-star megahit restaurant on Wall Street, was and is kind of a big deal—a position for which I live, eat, and breathe. Vacations and personal days simply don’t mesh with up-and-coming chef status in the cutthroat culinary world of the Big Apple.
My training actually started years ago with another foster mom, “Mom Eileen,” a self-professed modern-day witch who taught me about spices and herbs, not necessarily for cooking, but more for tonics, creams, and things I didn’t want to know about. Since those pimple-faced tween days, I’ve worked in the restaurant industry in one way or another. I am confident and strong in the confines of a kitchen, but that’s about the only place I’m confident.
After my visitors and I attended an admittedly delightful Broadway matinee, Tracey’s choice for a late lunch was Ellen’s Stardust Diner, where the waitstaff sing and entertain as well as serve food. I held the door, trying hard to mask the irritation that stemmed from “life interrupteth” by a past I wanted to “forgetteth,” when out of the blue, all the irritation, all the obsession with work, all thoughts of the musical we’d just sat through, and all the incessant chatter between the Foster females vanished as our waitress arrived at the table. For there before us stood an angel. It probably helped that with the Christmas holiday one short week away, she wore an actual ostrich plume halo. But halo or not, Melissa, as her name tag spelled out, was a golden-haired, walking, talking, breathing angel.
“Ruben.” Tracey bent low to talk over the table, “She’s a little hottie, don’t ya think?”
“Mom Marion, will you tell Tracey to stop playing Cupid?”
“Tell her yourself. She’s right here. And anyway, Ruben, it wouldn’t hurt for you to have an occasional date. You’re in the prime of your life, dear.”
I dismissed the fact they were ganging up on me, their yenta skills wasted and unnecessary, because my pounding chest said it all. I’d love to ask the beautiful waitress out…if only I could.
I’m not sure why she, this “Melissa,” out of all the females that seemed to be showing up in my path at the time, caught my eye. An eye that couldn’t focus directly on her magnificence because I’m socially awkward, to put it mildly. Yet it was as if there was an instant familiarity. So my peripheral vision went into overtime while my brain split in two: one half continuing appropriate human mannerisms and the other half performing an Olympian gymnastic routine over my every move. But when Melissa came down our aisle singing a sexy Christmas duet with her co-worker, I couldn’t not look directly into her pool of long-lashed sapphire-blue eyes. I will forever pinpoint that moment. A freeze-frame in time. The moment I decided to change.