Brenda’s 9/11 Dream

This is one of my favorite passages in my novel, Brenda Corrigan Went Downtown — a dream of 9/11 in Washington, DC:

Awash in the news, her former neighbors would converge on the lawn in front of their building, consultants wandering off to Café Deluxe to nurse a cappuccino; retired foreign service officers entrenched, waiting for official word of what to do next. The Romanov heir would twist his rings and murmur memories of his Paris boyhood. The General from the Shah’s army would pierce the air with his foul cigarettes, his wife silent at his side. Nannies would comfort toddlers alarmed by the sudden roar of an F16 . . .

All true and exactly how it happened in real life, when I was a Washingtonian.