Joanna Ellis

Chain Reaction

Prologue

Claire! Claire, can you hear me?

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Tuesday morning had started well. John woke up feeling refreshed and having no pressing desire to slap the snooze when the clock buzzed a quarter to five. He simply sat up, scratched his nearly defined stomach, stretched on his terrycloth bathrobe, and made his way to the kitchen for his daily ritual of black coffee and a whole-wheat bagel. Carrying his breakfast past the newly modernized den, he stops at the sliding glass door, opens it, but before stepping out, slips his feet into an old pair of sandals—something about walking around outside barefoot was unsanitary. Stepping onto his large cement patio John slides the door closed and eases himself down onto one of the four overstuffed lounge chairs that overlook the city. The sun has not yet made its way over the horizon; the moon and starlight bouncing off thousands of mirrored windowpanes downtown.

It was the view of downtown Chicago that possessed John to buy the overpriced condo three years ago. At thirty some thought he was going through an early midlife crisis, but they didn’t see what he saw—the view. John loved the way downtown Chicago looked at a distance. Sure the drive into work was long, but it was all made right when he stepped out on that patio after a long day in court.

Sipping the last of his coffee, John makes his way into the kitchen; setting his mug in the sink, John heads for the bedroom to shower and dress for work.

The water is the perfect temperature between warm and scalding, his dress shirt needs no extra ironing, and his favorite silk tie waits patiently on its hanger. Grabbing his briefcase, John locks his front door and pokes the button for the elevator that will take him to the parking garage, where his newest indulgence awaits. Electronically unlocking the door to his new Mercedes, John settles himself in for the forty-five minute drive into work.

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“Seriously! Come on! The light is green you idiot!” Claire has just dropped the twins off at Cliff High School—Kayla, a beautiful, blonde bookworm, and Kyle a hopeful Olympic soccer player. Everyday they reminded her that they could ride the bus like all their friends, but being an attorney was a constant reminder of the chaos that existed in society. Many people, unbeknownst to the rest, were crazed, and there something about having eliminated at least forty other unpredictable teenagers and one senile bus-driver that reassured her. All of this somehow makes tolerable the fact that she is usually late to work.

“Yes, pleeease come into my lane without any warning! How hard is it to use a freaking blinker!” Veering right onto the on-ramp of the freeway Claire slams her black pump on the break, nearly hitting the grey Toyota in front of her.

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“Good mornin’ foxy lady!” John teasingly whispers in Claire’s ear as he catches up to her in the hallway leading to their firm’s office.

“Not today. I just spent twenty minutes driving behind a blind man. I swear I almost rear-ended the guy like five times.”

“Hmmm. Bad morning, huh? Well, how about you reserve a long lunch for your big brother? I promise you can yell and scream all you want.”

“I don’t know. I have a lot to catch up on after taking off work yesterday.”

“Claire. Seriously. You can spare an hour. I’ll come by your office at noon, so be ready.”

“Alright, but we’re going to P. F. Chang’s and you’re paying.”

“Sounds great, and try and cheer up, okay.”

Claire walks to her office, sinks down into her chair, and breaths deeply as she prepares herself for the prep work she has to do in hopes of pulling together a winning argument for the ridiculous case she has just been assigned.

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 “Thanks for forcing me into going for lunch,” Claire says as her brother opens the car door for her, “I haven’t eaten like that in months!”

“No worries. We haven’t had lunch together in so long,” John says, sliding in the passenger seat, “Hey, how do you like the car?”

            “It’s sleek, but I figured you would have gotten a new car years…” Claire was interrupted by a familiar Beethoven classic coming from her brother’s coat pocket.

            “Oh, sorry,” John apologized, “Hold on just a sec. Hello?”

            “Hello, John,” said the deep voice coming from John’s ear-piece, “It’s time for a little rendezvous. Meet me at the Minute Bank five blocks south of your office. No questions and leave the sister in the car.”

            “Yes, Sir… One Grande vanilla latte and one Grande green tea. Is that all? Okay, well, we are on our way there now, so we’ll just run by Starbuck’s. Yep, no problem,” John recited into the phone—just one of his many lines that had been rehearsed and delivered countless times over the last four years.

            “Who wants Starbuck’s this time?” Claire asked.

            “…Mark and Christian, but we have to stop by the bank first. I need some cash,” John said as he coolly ran his long fingers through his dark brown hair—a nervous habit he’d developed about three years ago when he began working with a group of mafia guys after racking up twenty thousand dollars in gambling debt with them. Every other week he would get a phone call similar to the one he had just gotten. He’d meet the Boss at a random location, get an assignment, then fly out to wherever and do whatever he was instructed to do.

            “Sounds fine,” says Claire, he chin resting in her hand as she balances her elbow on the leather armrest.

            Sitting at the last light separating them from Minute Bank, John notices the silence that had filled the car.

            “You alright?” He asks, “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

            “Oh, yea. I’m fine. Just thinking…”

            “Well, okay. How about when I go inside you switch to the driver’s seat. You can test out the seat warmers and built-in massage system. That’ll relax ya’,” John offered, in an attempt to relieve his sister’s stress.

            John parallel-parked his polished black Mercedes in front of the bank, said a few reassuring words to his sister, then disappeared through the mirrored doors of Minute Bank. Inside he surveyed the customers at the counter, then the ones in the waiting area. John’s impatience was turning to anger as he made his way to the men’s restroom, having not seen the all too familiar face he was looking for.

            Punching open the door he hears a coy voice say, “Hello, John,” from the third stall.

            “What do you want?” John asks as he pushes the lock closed on the second stall. “I thought we were through. You said two-hundred grand and I’m done for good.”

            “Just wanted to give you a chance to make some extra cash…with you needing a new car and all.”

            “If you knew my sister was in the car with me, then you obviously know I have a new car already! What do you…” John’s words were stopped by a violent sound coming from somewhere outside the building.

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As John disappeared behind the bank’s mysterious doors Claire took a deep breath, and letting it out slowly, she let her mind escape to the time she spent in solitude last weekend. Marjorie, her best friend, had taken the kids to the beach for a few days. It was perfect timing; the week before had been the longest she’d had in months. Kayla came down with a nasty respiratory infection and Kyle, after months of practicing into the night, was the only Junior still listed on roster for the JV soccer team. Aside from her children’s problems, Claire had been assigned a case defending a man accused of molesting his two nephews countless times over the course of three years. The trial date was only four weeks from the day she was assigned, which was completely inadequate for proper preparation. The worst of it all was not the lack of time, but the fact that the man was blatantly guilty.

            “Humph,” Claire unconsciously sighs in frustration. Embarrassed, she quickly opens her eyes to see if anyone could have heard. Realizing how irrational this thought was, she moves her eyes from the passenger window forward into the rear-view mirror where she notices a large white truck, about the size of a large moving van, coming up behind her. Though, when they had first arrived at the bank John had to parallel park, the two spaces behind the Mercedes had long since cleared leaving the right side of the road looking like a third driving lane.      

            “Surely it will see that I am parked…” Claire whispers to herself as the truck drove through the light that she and John had caught only minutes before, “Surely…”

            Continuing at a forty-five miles an hour, the driver did not notice the Mercedes parked in front of Minute Bank. It plowed into the rear bumper of the car, sending Claire’s face, like a rocket, into the steering-wheel. Unconscious and bleeding severely, Claire was left for dead as the van reversed, peeling itself from the Mercedes, and drove off.

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Practically flying from the restroom, John headed for a scene that had already, having not even seen what had happened, made him sick with fear.

“Oh, no! Claire!” John cried as he flung open the door of the bank. Running around to the driver’s side, John caught a glimpse of the disaster reflected in the building’s mirrored windowpanes he’d grown so fond of.

“Claire! Claire, can you hear me?”

Revision Account

I have never really written a fiction piece before, so I didn’t quite know where to start. After writing and submitting my poetry I began playing around with several ideas for a fiction piece. I went from a heart warming storyline to somewhat of a sci-fi idea, but in the end I decided that I wanted to write something that I would want to read. I love twists and thrillers, so I thought I would try my hand at it.

            I did a draft exchange with Ron and Theresa, who were wonderful. They both had a hard time deciphering a few things which helped me realized what needed to be changed. For instance, in the beginning where I am talking about John’s breakfast of coffee and a bagel I say that “He carried the two past…onto the porch”. Both of my readers were unsure what “the two” were. I then had to go back and reword it to what I have now, which is “He carried his breakfast…”

            Ron also made me aware of the fact that that I needed more detail and transitions. I used stars (*) to identify scene shifts from Claire to John; however, I switched scenes without much warning. It seemed that I expected my reader to know what I was thinking, and, of course, this is physically impossible! I went in and added to several scenes:

• When Claire was driving to work after having dropped he kids off at work—I had originally had it ending after her second verbal reaction to the “blind man” driving in front of her. Ron noted that I should add more of a transition, thus I elaborated on her driving experience as she got on the freeway, and what the man’s car was like. I didn’t want to go into too much detail because it is a Prologue, and I don’t want to tell the whole story before the true story ever begins. This is the idea I started off with, which was what left the story needing more transitions, but I tried to make it such that I added enough transitions to make it work without giving everything away.
• In the scene following this last one, I only had dialogue. Ron thought that it would be more effective if I added a bit of Claire going to her office, and what her job entails. I already knew I needed this, but I didn’t know where or how to put it in. Ron’s suggestions really helped me to figure out what to do and how to do it. I, of course, added a bit of her going to her office, sitting down, and getting to work on a case that she was not at all looking forward to.
• Right after this last much needed transition I, again, had only dialogue for a many lines. It seemed as though I was trying to tell the story through dialogue alone. I had no transition between scenes and no identifying words or phrases to show that Claire and John were going back to the office. I added “I haven’t eaten like that in months!” to show that they had already eaten, hopefully making it clearer by Claire having said “eaten like that”.

The point in the story where John seems nervous and worried that his sister has found him out was unbelievable to my readers. They thought that he would not have “sweat begins to bead at his hairline” because he has been doing this work for 3 years, thus he would be less concerned for being found out. I wanted readers to wonder whether he is really just an honest brother who got caught up in a line of work that wasn’t very honest. As a result, I did take out the “sweat begins to bead” line, and added the nervous habit of running his hands through his hair. I also added, in an effort to give more detail in an offhanded way, an explanation of the work that he is doing. I had originally left it up to the reader’s imagination, but after getting feedback, I realized that more explanation was needed.

One thing that I had a hard time with was figuring out how to write a “sound” word—“Humph” as Claire sighed. The draft I sent my readers said “Umph”, which left them both thinking “why ‘umph’?” So, I said the word to myself a great many times to try and figure out what it sounds like when you sigh to yourself. This word “Humph” was what I was left with. I am still not sure if it works.

Lastly, I began the prologue with the line “Claire! Claire, can you hear me?” After the feedback I got from my readers about why she would be on a cell phone made it quite clear that my ending was very unclear. I originally ended it at her saying “Surely…” Post-feedback I added on a few more scenes, hopefully making it more obvious that the van did, in fact, hit the car with her in it, and that she was unconscious with her brother crying for her in desperation.

I am pleased with the result of my effort; however, I would love to see myself improve as a writer. I listen to the stories that have been written by people who have been writing for years, longing to have that kind of talent. I know that everyone starts somewhere, and this is my start, which I am pleased with. I hope to develop this prologue into a complete novel or novella when life slows down a bit over the holidays. I feel that the dialogue is strong, while the inner-working of detail is not. I hope to learn how to better pepper my writing with the details of a person’s appearance, personality, job situation, and life.