I saw, I wrote.
There are very few childhood memories of my father, a man who was already rushing towards old age by the time I was born. At 50, he was already overweight, working the graveyard shift at the old Joseph Magnin department store in San Francisco. He was always asleep by the time I got home from school, and I was ready for bed by the time he was getting ready for work.
The basic rules of romance novel writing is simple: The male should always be wealthy, stunningly handsome, driven with a purpose, prone to many mistresses and incapable of distinguishing between rape and forceing sex from a woman mouthing “NO!”. Once you understand these principles, the rest is as simple as filling in Mad Libs.
On Sunday early afternoons along San Francisco’s south of Market behind the Emporium, the bars open early enough to let in all the Saturday night drunks. That is the only sign of cognizant life until you get to the little corner shoe store, where boxes of poorly made girls footwear line a long table. My father came here armed with $20 and orders from my mother to find my next pair of school shoes, and he held my hand steady as I peered on tip toes to see rows of shiny black shoes, all with goldish buckles.
We moved from city to suburb, which was not an easy transition for me.
I used to live in a three-story brownstone in the Western Addition district of San Francisco.