Sutton Von Hunt works with fruit.
This isn't where the character of Fair Finley's best friend started out, though. Well, since Sutton burst into being -- and she really seemed to burst into being for me, where Fair more twirled -- she's always worked at the world-famous Farmers Market, which is a real place not far from the real Los Angeles intersection where the fictional Wilfair Hotel sits.
But Sutton was a butcheress in Wilfair's early days. Then fruit took a front seat in the stories -- in the cherries in Fair's favorite drink, the Shirley Temple, in the oranges of The Wilfair's famous citrus topiaries, in the fruit baskets our hotel heiress can't stop giving away, in the ripeness of the moment these people find themselves in -- and I knew Ms. Von Hunt needed a slightly different occupation.
Enter the fruitcheress, which is someone who creates art out of apples and crafts out of kiwis. One of the unexpected joys of writing the Wilfair stories has been thinking up random things people might request at Sutton's grandma's fruitcher shop. A honeydew handbag? A grape necklace?
Most of all, I liked a delicate calling paired with Sutton's not-so-delicate nature. She has to do precise work even as her true nature is to rail and flail. She's large and in charge, even as she's slicing the smallest of gooseberries.
