Susie & Rachel’s thoughts: 

A couple things we wanted to point out – first, note the changed hook.  Neither Rachel nor I like starting a book with dialogue or a full name.  First, with dialogue it often feels too jarring, we don’t know who is talking, and the reader feels like they can’t catch up.  Also, when we’re in deep POV, no one really thinks of themselves (usually) with their full name.  So, look for ways to work in the name, maybe by bringing another character on the screen.  We did it via Twila, the talk show host. 

 

I hope you can  see the difference in effect between the two pieces…

 

Again, if you’re interested in how to write a HOOK, go and read the past HOOK posts, or you can find a HOOKs class download via the My Book Therapy Shop. 

 

Okay, here it is…and look for Monday’s post – Chapter One, Scene two….our hero!

 

 

Chapter One            

 

Just once, MacKenzie would like to take the Oscar walk down Hollywood Boulevard in a pair of holy jeans, a blue devil’s tee-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. 

She pulled the pulled her wrap tight around her shoulders, even as the February chill found the liberal gaps in her dress and raised gooseflesh.  A thousand lights blinked down at her from the Kodak Theater, and exhaust mixed with the earthy smell from the palm trees lined up like sentries along Hollywood Boulevard watching the parade of limousine maneuvering to the end of the red carpet.  She looked for her driver in the mass of shiny vehicles. Hurry up, Tony.

            Sure, she liked her silver Christian Louboutin sling-backs, and the deep purple satin gown picked by her stylist from some new Australian designer, but MacKenzie could do without the ten pound emerald earrings pulling at her ears, and especially the fact that every flash, every pop of light, meant that some gossip rag had fresh ammunition to litter her shame across the newsstands of America. 

No, not her shame.  After all, she’d been half-way across the world, filming in the back alleys and dregs of Bangkok, trying to expose the underbelly of human trafficking.  While her husband – no, make that ex-husband as if two weeks ago — exposed his heart to the leading lady in his, yes, Oscar-nominated film.

“MacKenzie Grace!” A red carpet host for Hollywood Tonight – what was her name, Twila? — pushed a microphone in her face. 

MacKenzie just barely refrained from shoving her away.  No, smile.  Smile. “Twila.  You look gorgeous tonight.”

“And you should be the one earning an Oscar tonight for your magnanimous smile. How do you feel about your ex-husband being nominated for best actor?”

Twila’s question meant MacKenzie had managed to pull off a gracious smile tonight for the eternal three seconds the camera had panned to her and zoomed while Nils Bruno climbed to the stage. Still, it was long enough to drill a hole clean through her, leave her exhausted and raw as she watched Nils accept the award, nod to his new wife and cleanly excise from his life the woman who’d believed in him, the one who’d ran lines with him, and who footed the bill for his shiny white teeth. 

Now, she added a gracious tone. “The Academy clearly saw his talent.” 

Talent.  Like emptying half her bank account, and totaling her Astin Martin.  That took real talent.  Smile.  

“So, are you interested in co-starring again with him?  Now that’s he’s an Oscar winner? 

Translation: now that Nils Bruno, aka Robby Brunardo, former car-washing burger flopper from McDonalds had outshone her on the big screen?

“Nils is an amazing actor.  Anyone would be privileged to work with him.”

If she smiled any harder, she might grind her molars to dust.

            He used to wear male shaping accessories under his clothes for his publicity shots! she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.

But a woman trying to charm Hollywood into backing her recent Indy film, the one she hoped would launch her from action-thriller babe to serious actress, shouldn’t publically disparage one of America’s ‘sexiest men alive’. 

She still had his old ratty converse in a box at home.  Maybe she could sell it on e-bay, earn some cash to promote her new film, maybe raise some discerning heads in the industry… 

Oh, who was she kidding?  She’d been Hayes O’Brien, 006, international action heroine for so long, directors probably forgot she’d earned a degree in drama at Duke.  Or that, for a very short run, she’d even been courted by Broadway. 

Then again, maybe everyone had simply weeded through her airbrushed beauty to the truth.  She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag.

There went Tommy Nave’s nasally sixth grade voice in her head again.   She shivered. 

Greg Alexander wrapped his warm arm around her shoulders.  “Tony will be here in a minute. He’s about five limos back.”

She wanted to lean into him, but she hated to encourage the press.  They already had her dating at least three actors, two of whom she’d never even met.  The last thing she needed was a scandal about dating her agent.

“You’re doing great, Mackenzie,” Greg said, lifting his hand to wave to – oh it didn’t matter.  She looked away.   

            You’re doing great. 

            She managed a wan smile as another flash went off. 

He sounded like a doctor, just another pinch, and yes, this will hurt a bit.  Yes, just a bit.  Watching Nils walk the red carpet – without her — had filleted her insides. Drawing a deep breath actually hurt between her ribs.

Greg lifted his arm, and waved Tony to the curb.  “Okay, sweetheart, you go home, get changed, and I’ll meet you at the Vanity Fair party.”  He held out his hand to MacKenzie, as if to help her into the limo. 

She ignored it, let the footman open the door for her, gathered her dress and slid into the seat.  But before Greg could shut the door, she put her hand out to stop it.  “I’m not going.” 

He’d turned away, migrating toward his next client.  “What?”  Now, he looked as if she might have been speaking Bengali.  “Did you say you weren’t going?” 

MacKenzie began pulling off one of her shoes.  “I’m tired.  I have jet lag, and I’ll just be followed around all night with microphones and cameras, gossip magazines wondering if I’m pining after Nils.”

She waited for a response, but Greg just stared at her, as if still trying to comprehend her words. 

“I just want to go home, soak in a bath, maybe eat some pizza.” Or pie.  Yes, a creamy – maybe coconut cream, or…yes, banana cream! pie.  The closest thing she was going to get to banana  puddin’ this side of the Mississippi.

Greg finally stirred to life – probably at the thought of her reckless consumption of calories. “Kenzie, hon, you need to schmooze, get some face time with the right people if you hope to get backers for your film.  Tonight is the perfect night to generate some buzz. You’ve been laying low for –”

“I’ll call you later.”  She pulled the door closed and leaned back, thankful for the silence embedded in the plush seats.  Tony, his dark hair slicked back and a silver earring in his left ear glanced up at her in the rear view mirror.

“Home, Miss Grace?” 

“Please.” 

She watched the crowd wave as her limousine pulled away. 

Home.  Home was a tidy double-wide with brown shag carpeting, a weather-bare pink velour sofa, and an irritable tabby named Boss probably running its claws down her mother’s orange polyester drapes. There’d be a bowl of cold grits in the fridge, and possibly a container of store-bought animal crackers on the counter with the lions missing, of course.  And her father slumped asleep in his ripped vinyl recliner waiting for mama to get off her shift at the rayon factory.

Longing curled through her they passed the luminous red pagoda of Mann’s Chinese theater, lit up for the Academy Awards, and across the street, Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, its neon red-sign an icon of the silver screen. 

Places her parents had never seen.

Never would, thanks to the fact that Mama couldn’t figure out how those “tin cans stay in the air.”

MacKenzie eased off her other shoe, and brought her foot up to rub the stress from her cramped toes.  “Could we stop by Patrick’s Roadhouse, maybe pick up a banana cream pie?”

Tony flashed her a smile, again in the mirror and it was the first genuine thing she’d see all day.

She closed her eyes, forcing herself not to see Nils with Isobel. 

“A whole pie, or just a piece, ma’am?”  Tony said, pulling up to the Roadhouse.  The place teemed with people, some eating out on the patio, and hers wasn’t the only limo in the parking lot. 

“Just a piece would be perfect.” 

It wasn’t her mama’s banana puddin’, but then again, the roadhouse didn’t have her mama’s secret ingredient, the taste of love, in stove-top cooked cream, stirred with a wooden spoon, her mama’s hand cradling hers.

Oh brother, she was turning into a country-song right before her eyes.  Next thing, she’d dissolve into a y’all while she was fixin’ to dive into her paeh.

Tony returned with the pie in a Styrofoam container and she didn’t bother to wait until she’d changed out of her dress to dive in.  She did manage to restrain herself from licking the cream from the container with her tongue.  She used her finger, instead, just for Mama. 

They pulled into her winding, Cyprus-tree bordered drive and stopped at her front portico.

The lights sprayed down from the hovering palms as she stepped out onto her terracotta-tiled porch, and handed Tony the empty container and her fork in a bag.  Then she scooped up her shoes, dangling them from her fingers and tiptoed up the walk.   

The front door opened without pause – Tony must have unlocked it remotely — and she dropped her shoes onto a padded rattan bench, flicked on a light.  “Marissa?” 

No response from her housekeeper.  Tony walked in behind her, carrying her purse.  “Everything okay, Miss Grace?” 

She glanced at him, and something about the way he looked past her, to her open living room made her pulse turn to slurry.  “What?”

The light pressed away the shadows of the main room, glaring on the white leather sofa, the mahogany side tables, a shiny bookcase filled with souvenirs from Paris, Monaco, South Africa.  Overhead, the fan stirred the smells of the freshly potted  gardenias, brought in for her arrival home yesterday.  Beyond that, the dark bank of windows lead to the pool area, but her gaze fixed on the center of the room, at the white, misshapen mass atop the glass coffee table.

“Did you have that shipped, because it wasn’t in your luggage.”  Tony touched his hand on her arm ever so briefly, then moved past her, toward the object. 

“No…I’ve never—“

He reached it, and yanked the cover off.

MacKenzie fought the swirl of delight.  Nils hadn’t forgotten.  No, he’d remembered their joke, her first red-carpet appearance when she’d nearly ended up on her face in front of Meryl Streep.  MacKenzie the Elephant.

So, he’d given her an elephant for the Oscars every year since.

An elephant in bronze on her coffee table.  A china elephant in her kitchen.  An impressionist print of an elephant over her fireplace.

And this year, a nearly life-sized stuffed baby elephant, wrapped in a magnificent yellow bow. 

Oh, Nils. 

So, maybe she’d forgive him for not mentioning her tonight in his litany of thank-yous.  He clearly remembered what they’d had together, knew what she’d meant to him.  “I can’t believe – “

But Tony had finished reading the card, and when he turned, his expression stopped her cold.  Chilled her to the bone. 

No – not again —

And that’s when she heard the ticking. 

Tony had slapped his arm around her waist and was already tackling her to the floor when the bomb exploded.