Chapter 2.1 Rough Draft Final

 

“Leaving L.A. just feels like running away to me, Greg, and the truth is…I never run away from trouble.” MacKenzie walked to the railing of the rooftop porch, overlooking Manhattan Beach. Greg didn’t exactly have a sandy front yard, but from three stories up on his Mediterranean-style home, she could see the Pacific Ocean surfing up the shore past the last gilded rays of the day into the shadows of twilight. Palm trees and volleyball nets along the shore shivered in the wind, and the sun iced the roofs of the neighboring homes with hues of gold.

“No, Hayes O’Brien, 006, never runs away. You, MacKenzie Grace, are allowed to run. To hide, to go far, far away and lie low while the media forgets.”

She glanced at Greg, who hadn’t risen from the lounge chair behind her. “If I do that, I’m liable to never return.” Her wrist still hurt, despite the brace, and she babied it as she pulled her sweater around her. The night crept through the holes and prickled her skin.

“I’m just so tired of being the top headline where everyone is deciding how I might resurrect my career, or declaring my career’s over, or even questioning why I would make an indie film, as if that might be some sort of desperate attempt to show that I can act. Did it ever occur to them that I wanted to make this film? Because it’s an issue that matters?” She shook her head. “I’m just…tired.”

Bone tired. The kind of tired that came from running too long without stopping to rest. Or even to figure out where she was headed. “I just feel like everyone else has control of my life but me…”

“I know the press hasn’t been kind—”

“Not kind?” MacKenzie shot him a look over her shoulder. “They’ve practically eviscerated me. It’s not enough that my home is half-torched and that my bodyguard has second-degree burns from protecting me, but now Nils has me practically framing him for the attack!”

 “I told you not to talk to the press. You were upset, and no one handles their words well when they’re upset.” Greg’s tone was so quiet, she turned just to make sure she heard him correctly.

“Are you blaming me for the media’s feeding frenzy?”

“I’m just saying that maybe you shouldn’t have given a statement right afterward. Especially one that implicated your ex-husband.”

“I did not implicate him. I said that every year Nils sent me a gift–and someone figured that out and used it to get into my house.”

“It clearly made it sound like Nils was out to get you. You can’t expect his camp to sit on that without responding. And the Star’s headline certainly didn’t help.”

MacKenzie cringed. MacKenzie Grace suspects ex-husband, Academy Award winner in attack.

Yes, that was an unfortunate piece of newsprint.

“Okay, I can admit that I should have just ignored the flashbulbs and mikes – but frankly, I’d had it with being the victim. It was time to show I wasn’t beat, that I wasn’t going to let Hollywood, or my ex-husband, or some crazy stalker take me down. I just wanted to fight back a little…like Hayes.”

      “Maybe a little less Hayes would’ve been good. Especially since Hayes doesn’t have an ex-husband to indict.”

“I didn’t blame Nils!”

“I know that, but next time you feel the need to fight back, wait for me. I was on my way—”

“You were at the Vanity Fair party, talking to Posh Beckam, if I recall. I was surprised you even bothered to show up.”

“That’s not fair, Kenzie. You’re my girl. I don’t care if I had been having a rousing chat with Steven Spielberg– you needed me. And I’m here for you.”

Yes, he had been there for her—from the very minute he showed up at the hospital. He’d arranged transportation and security, and a hotel to stay in, and finally a room in his own digs just because she couldn’t stop shaking.

 “This is why I think you should go away. I’m telling you, Kenzie, it’s not cowardice to leave and hide out somewhere. Heal a little bit. You can’t exactly throw yourself into another role with a broken wrist.”

 “Cracked. And I’ll be as good as new in no time.” Well, okay. She might never be as good as new. A week later, she still needed a sedative to sleep, still heard Tony’s moans, still smelled the acrid nose-curling smoke of the elephant and all her mementos burning. Most of all, she still tasted her own fear welling in her mouth as she helped Tony from the house.

      “I just want them to find Leon, put him back behind bars.” She couldn’t believe that her most famous stalker, crazy Leon Hicks, had found her again.

Three restraining orders and finally a stint in prison – wouldn’t the guy give up? She returned to the table, picked up the cup of chamomile tea Greg’s housekeeper had prepared for her, and sat on the lounge chair next to Greg.

“LA police picked him up yesterday. Unfortunately, he’s lawyered up, but they’re still holding him while they track down his alibi.”

Well, at least she wouldn’t have any more exploding elephants on her doorstep. MacKenzie took a sip of her tea. Her cup rattled as she set it back into the saucer. She ran her thumb down the handle. “Poor Marissa. She didn’t know the elephant wasn’t a gift – she thought it was from Nils.”

As did the entire country, thanks to her babbling.

She just wanted to grab those hours back, not only the ones outside the hospital, when she accompanied Tony into the ER, but going back further, before the elephant, before even Nils, maybe all the way back to the day she’d packed up her Ford Escort and headed to Duke University, riding high on her academic scholarships. Maybe a look backward—to the world she’d left — her mama pressing a paper bag lunch into her hands, and her daddy, hands thick with grease, standing in the door of the barn, pride beaming from his eyes as she drove away from the mountain would help her remember who she should be today.

Whether she should run and hide, like Greg wanted, or stand her ground.

“Listen, we both know the press is having a heyday with your run of bad luck.”

 “It’s hardly bad luck to have someone try and kill you.”

Greg held up his hand. “Agreed. But negative press of this kind isn’t going to help you raise funds to promote your film. The press will only predict that the film is a flop, and you’ll be getting negative reviews before it’s even screened. You’re better off laying low for a while. Take a look at those scripts I left on your bureau—”

“Stop! Can you hear yourself? I have a stalker after me – and all you can think about is what bimbo part I’m going to play in my next movie. I told you – I don’t want to do those kind of films anymore. I want to be more than Hayes O’Brian, super spy. I want to be taken seriously and offered roles that will impact people, change lives.”

“Like your indie film?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. Hopefully. People need to know about the horror of human trafficking. To know what it feels like to have your identity, your choices, your life stripped from you.”  Sort of how she felt right now. No, she’d seen the truth in the empty eyes of twelve-year-old girls. Her life wasn’t anything like the terror of victims involved in human trafficking. But, she had a glimpse, and that made her even more resolute. “Yes, I want my film, my roles, my life, to make an impact for good.”

Greg’s mouth tightened into a grim line. He wasn’t that much older than her—maybe ten years, and despite his efforts to shave the good-ol’-boy persona from his demeanor, he still emitted a certain Southern that netted him the right tables, and handshakes from top-level studio execs. That down home charisma had been exactly what made her trust him when she’d arrived in LA, her Escort packed to the roof, his name scrawled on a strip of paper.

He wielded his inner gentleman now as he gave her a sad look. “Sweetheart, those kind of films pay your bills. And, right now, unless I’m mistaken, producing your film has sucked every morsel of cash from your account. You need a so-called “bimbo” part if you hope to fund any more deep, probing, life-changing movies, or even promote this one.” He touched her hand. “Kenzie, I’m on your side. You need money, and I know how to get it for you. You’re a good actress, and directors are lining up for you.”

She couldn’t help the harrumph that burped out at his words. “Then tell me why my ex got the academy nomination, and I got ‘best dressed of 2008’ by Hollywood Tonight.”

“Because you are beautiful.”

“I want to be brilliant.”

“I think you’re brilliant.”

“I pay you to say that.”

He smiled. “Whatever you say, honey. I call it like I see it. The fact is you have plenty of roles you can choose from—just not with the parts you want.”

She stared out at the sky, the sun just a rim of simmering light along the black horizon.

 “I get it, Kenzie, I do. But give it time. Right now, you’re broke, you have no place to live, the cops are trying to nail evidence on your attacker, and it doesn’t take a therapist to see how badly you need R and R. I know you’re roaming my house at night. I also know how much warm milk you’re going through—”

“My mama’s favorite recipe.”

He smiled, and she warmed to it.

“Why can’t I just go home? Back to North Carolina?”

“For the very reasons you’ve never told anyone your real name or the truth about your parents. The press could so easily track you there, and then what?”

Mackenzie closed her eyes. Yes, that would be the last thing her parents needed. A convoy of vehicles tearing up their front yard and the gladiolas along the side of the trailer. She couldn’t bear for anything to happen to them. Childhood habits weren’t easy to escape.

“Where do you suggest I go?”

Greg finished his drink then balanced it on the arm of his chair. “My family has a little cabin, set back in the woods in Tennessee. It’s clean and safe, and no one would suspect it.”

“Aw…”

“Listen, you love the Blue Ridge Mountains, and this place is right on the Appalachian Trail. Gorgeous. Fresh air, magnolias, and the song of mourning doves.”

“Oh, you make it sound so romantic.”

“Could be. You never know. That wouldn’t hurt you either.”

MacKenzie shot him a thin smile then set her own half-empty cup on the ground. “I don’t know. What about my film? What about Tony? And Marissa is scared to death, not to mention jobless while the house is repaired.”

“I’ll check in on Tony and Marissa. And I’ll keep an eye on your house. Most of all, you’ll be out of the way. Safe. Which will let the cops nail Leon for his crime.”

“And it’ll keep me off the front pages.”

The sun had shuffled below the horizon now. The black, tufted outline of palm trees scrubbed the twilight.

 “We’ll tell the press you went to a private spa in Turks and Caicos.”

“Couldn’t I go there instead?”

“The best part is, I have a cousin who lives out that way. He’s former military. I’m going to ask him to check in you now and again – “

“Greg—”

“Don’t give me that tone. You do as I say. Let me straighten out things here, while you read through those scripts and decide which one you want to do.”

“What if I don’t want to do any of them?”

He sighed. “Then maybe you need to figure out who you are—actress or broke producer. Because at this point, you don’t have enough money to do both.”

Oh.

“Get away, sweetheart. Back to the life you know. Eat some grits, drink sweet tea, swing on the porch swing, walk Roan Mountain. Relax. Leon Hicks won’t track you to the hills of Tennessee. And if he does, I promise, my cousin Luke will know exactly what to do.”