Let’s get our writing engines warmed up this morning with a scene exercise. What story does this picture suggest to you? Who is this character, and what is she saying? If you’re feeling brave, give us a paragraph or a snippet of dialogue from this scene.
“Absolutely not, Dave,” Claire said.
“Why not? I think we’d be good together.”
“Why not? I’ll tell you why not.” Claire ticked off each point on her fingers. “For one, we work together. Two, I’m married. Three? Your wife is our boss. Four, I’m married. Five, I’m not even remotely attracted to you. And six? I’m fucking married. Do you get it now?”
Dave shrugged. “We’re separated. This is just for fun. So if we don’t let your husband find out, it’ll be fine, right?”
Claire sat, mouth agape. She pointed at the door and said, “Get. Out.”
Dave shook his head as he walked out of the office. “Your loss,” he said over his shoulder.
Claire tried to control her shaking hands. What to do?
A few minutes later, Wendy walked in, her face concerned. “You okay? Were the two of you arguing?”
Claire remained silent.
Realization flashed in Wendy’s eyes, and her demeanor changed to shock. “You mean you told him no? But it’ll be fun. Come on Claire, I promise it won’t get weird.”
Claire glared at her boss. “No thank you.”
Ooh, I like the twist at the end! These characters should be working in political Washington–nothing would surprise me there. 🙂
“I’d have to be pretty stupid to write a book about a killing and then kill him the way I described in my book. I’d be announcing myself as the killer. I’m not stupid.”
(Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct)
I loved that movie! Sharon Stone was like a cat toying with a detective mouse in that one.
“I’m trying very hard not to come across this desk and kill you with my bare hands. Do you get that?”
He responded with a shrug and a noncommittal nod.
“First, you’ve violated at least seven stated company policies, three of which are blatantly unethical. Second, you’ve BROKEN THE LAW by hacking into our competitor’s computer system. And third, you have seriously pi**ed me off!.”
“Dude, I do not understand why you’re making such a big deal of this.”
“Do NOT call me Dude. Do you have no concept of right and wrong?”
Another shrug.
“Why is it you can’t understand that you DO NOT have permission to essentially re-brand our company, nor is it okay to Photoshop our competitor’s CEO into a stripper and post pictures on Facebook? You’re a freaking junior IT associate!”
“Dude…”
“Get out. Right now. Before I kill you with my bare hands.”
She turned her gaze back to her computer screen. He stood and headed toward the door.
“HR will mail your final check to you. And do NOT call me Dude.”
Good one, Diane! She does look teed off. 🙂
Tee’d off? I’d say she looks borderline psychotic! My scene might start with her saying, “I’ve got the bolt cutters in my bottom drawer, and I’m going to start with your ring finger, since you don’t seem to care that it’s wearing a wedding ring.” Something like that.
The prominent wedding does suggest a personal discussion, doesn’t it? It’s interesting because the label for this photo was “Attractive executive having serious discussion with a co-worker.” And how!
This one’s got my vote!! Although, I thought she looked like an HR person. Not that there’s anything wrong with having that job. Or at least not all “that” wrong. Or…well, yeah, the job’s a bummer. So kill me.
The one-story building sprawled over acres of farm land, but there were no farm animals anywhere near. Too risky. The largest research facilities for genetic manipulation of crops and livestock in the world presented multiple risks to the surrounding communities. One these risks sat in the office of the laboratory director.
“First of all, Mr. Pennington, I do not work for you. You work for me.” Dr. Haverty said as she ticked off her list on her fingers.
“Secondly, I will not put up with your running your herbal supplement business while I am paying you a good salary to work full time in this laboratory.” Mr. Pennington sat slumped in the chair looking over Dr. Haverty’s left shoulder.
“I do my job, Shirley. And I’m damn good at it. In fact, my section chief says I am the best. I’m the one who got sheep to grow ham instead of mutton. You can’t argue with that.”
“Don’t call me Shirley. I don’t care what we do off this property, here we are formal.”
“It’s over. Got it? Finished. See this ring? That’s why it never should have started.”
The lawyer passed Lorraine a document. After the first page, she stopped reading it.
“I don’t understand. It says my husband had a son with some woman, I’ve never heard of. This belongs in somebody else’s file, another John Smith.”
She pushed the document back across the lawyer’s desk.
“Please continue reading, Mrs. Smith.”
Lorraine’s hands trembled when she read the part that stated John agreed to financially provide for the child until he turned twenty-two.
“This is some kind of scam that targets widows. What are you, an obituary-chaser?”
“No, your husband signed it…”
“Anybody could have copied his signature. Anybody.”
“… in the presence of two witnesses and a notary public.”
“I know—knew—my husband. This can’t be true, it can’t.”
“It is true, Mrs. Smith.”
Lorraine grasped for a loophole. She spoke through tears and nodded repeatedly.
“My lawyer can void this. I won’t have to pay anything, or get involved with-with those people and-and my daughter won’t ever find out about this.”
The lawyer rose, put a hand on Lorraine’s quivering shoulder, and gave her a tissue.
“Mrs. Smith,” he said gently, “Your husband arranged for a pro-rated payout from his estate in an amount equal to your daughter’s share. The document states…”
Anger built within her, reinvigorated her.
“I don’t care what the document states!”
She shoved him away.
“My daughter has rights and this bastard child will never get one penny of her money. I’ll make sure of that.”
“I used to have all my fingers, but then I got hungry,” she said.
When the maniacal woman dropped her gaze to stare at my pinkie, I blurted the only thing that came to me.
“But I thought you were a vegetarian.”
Mine is based on a real case from back in the day.
Scene: The witness room at the Tulsa County Courthouse. Books on the wall, a big table. Light angling in through the tall old windows competes with the harsh internal lighting.
“Listen up, you are not his first wife or his only wife. In fact, by my calculations, you’re number seven. I know this because my client is number six. You can have him when I’m done. However, I wouldn’t dawdle, because number eight’s mother called me this morning.”
Terri
Eight of ’em, eh?
“I don’t care what it costs,” Karen said. “I want him dead and I want him dead by tonight. I’ll not live under the same moon with that bastard another night.” She scooted her chair closer to the kitchen table. “Do you hear me. He dies today. I don’t want him to come here again.”
The man sitting across the table from her wore a dark suit and a Rolex. He looked like a banker or maybe a salesman. Maybe he was both. He crushed out a cigarette on the saucer she’d served cookies. “It doesn’t work that way, Lady. I’ve done this a lot of times. You’d be wise to rely on my expertise. You and I have to work out how to… terminate your problem, when to do it, and a decent alibi for you. But most important, I have to know that I can trust you to keep your mouth shut.”
“After what he did to my daughter, I want him dead, even if I have to go to jail.”
The man lit another cigarette. He reached for his coffee cup, then paused,“Then, kill him yourself.” He leaned back to see how she took the challenge.
“Will you or will you not kill my husband?”
He stood up. He knew he’d won the argument. “Yeah, but we do it my way. The first step is five thousand bucks up front. Agreed?”
She leaned back. “You’ll kill him?”
“That’s what I said.”
She stood. “Marcus Cato, you’re under arrest.” She held up her badge, then watched three other FBI agents, guns drawn, enter the small kitchen.
“Why do you keep calling me that name?” Her palm itched, it always did when she got nervous. She scratched it with metallic blue fingernails, a color chosen by the twins the night before. Misty’s nails were painted identically, but her Michael smirked at the idea, “I am Catherine Bates, from Columbus Ohio. Not this other woman from…from where ever you think I’m from.”
“Oksana,” the tall muscular man across the table spoke in a calm, familiar voice as if he’d known her for her entire life. He placed his hands, palms down, on the polished wood surface. He fingered the salt and pepper shakers shaped like a little Dutch boy and girl then flicked a quaint clay candy dish obviously made by a young child’s fingers, “They must have done a very thorough job that you would so willingly forget everything, even your own name.”
“I need to go pick up my children,” Catherine said. She started to rise from the chair. A firm hand pushed her back down. Fear percolated up her spine, bubbling out through her trembling voice, “What are you doing? My husband will be home any minute.”
“Oksana Petrov,” the man stared unblinking, “wife of Alexi Petrov. Mother of Andrei age twelve, and Alaina age eleven.”
“Look, you are really starting to scare me,” her eyes flitted nervously from the man across the table to the enforcer standing beside her. “My name is Catherine, my children are in pre-school and my husband’s name is Paul. I…”
The man slammed his hand onto the table. A swipe sent the shakers and the clay dish clattering, bits and shards tinkling noisily across the marble floor. His voice boomed like thunder against the stainless steel appliances and tiled walls of the middle class kitchen.
“You can pretend all you want Oksana! But we will destroy this family just like we did your last if you do not tell me where you hid the map!”
She stared wide-eyed, unable to breathe. Finally sucking in enough air to speak she squeezed out a whispered plea.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But you do, Oksana,” the man calmed and leaned forward. “The map your first husband stole from us.”
She shook her head in confused bewilderment.
“The suitcase nuclear devices, Oksana,” he looked at her with an expression that begged her to answer before he was forced to do something worse than yell. “Alexi hid the bombs for us, then he foolishly made a copy of the map. He admitted to its existence under torture.”
Catherine looked at him like he was insane, “My husband’s name is Paul Bates.”
“Alexi confessed before he died,” the man spoke as if to a slow learning child. “He said you had the map. But you ran away Oksana. You did not even love your own children enough to bring the map to us in exchange for their lives. Not even enough to give them quick deaths after all those days of pain.”
Catherine’s eyes shut, squeezing back the terror as tears welled and overflowed her eyelids.
“Please don’t hurt my babies,” her voice choked in muted sobs.
The man motioned with a finger and the enforcer produced a dark wooden box with a hinged lid. He put it on the table in front of Catherine and undid the latch, then withdrew his hand leaving it closed.
Catherine’s eyes darted fearfully to the box, then back to the man.
“It is no longer a question of hurting your babies, Oksana,” the man said. His voice low, almost reassuring. He reached across the table and pulled the lid up, then nudged the box closer for her to look inside.
Sunlight streaming through the window sparkled against five tiny round spots of metallic blue at the end of five stubby appendages. Catherine’s eyes stretched and she felt the earth stop spinning, nearly throwing her from its gravitational hold. A scream balled tightly in her chest but stuck half way up her throat, strangling her with invisible talons that refused to release the sound that would acknowledge the horror of what lay in the box.
“No,” the man watched her with a detached, almost sympathetic expression, “not if. But for how long. How long will you let your pretty little babies hurt before you give us the map Oksana?”
Was I distracted? Sure. She was pretty and being way too serious. Murphy’s Law at work one more time. A few crude jokes in the office and here I sit, yet again, pulled into another sexual harassment refresher from human resources.
So what if the jokes are ‘off-color’? All the guys think I’m funny and I bet the women, including the ones that call HR, still go home, tell their spouses or boyfriends, and share a giggle or two, before having….
It’s my true craft really. Born from bartending in college. You needed to have at least fifty jokes on the tip of your tongue to cover any situation. Make the customers happy, buy more beer, and drop more tips in the jar. There no outlet for my prowess sitting in a maze of customer service cubicles.
Wait. What did she say? This isn’t an harassment seminar to help me become a better employee? It’s my exit interview and I can clean out my desk.
I’m not upset. Hell, it’s 3 o’clock – nearly happy hour! I can take my act down to Grogan’s Pub and an apply for a job using only one-liners.
“Mr. Bell, the principal and I are in agreement. If Charlie’s behavior doesn’t improve by the end of the month we’ll have no choice but to expel him. These most recent incidents are more in a long pattern of unacceptable behavior….” Ms. Jones droned on.
Was she wearing a bra? Hard to tell. I chanced another peak at her chest. Were those her nipples poking out from under the ruffles? They sure aren’t making teachers like they used to. No wonder the boy can’t behave himself.
“Mr. Bell? Are you listening to me?”
I looked up. Busted. “Uh, yeah, sorry…..umm, what was it that he did this time?” I asked.
“He was showing a Hustler magazine to the other boys during recess.”
“Oh….well, boys will be boys, won’t they? I used to sneak peeks at my old man’s Playboys when I was a teenager.”
“Yes, Mr. Bell, but Charlie is only nine.”
“OK, OK. I’ll talk to him,” I said.
“One other thing Mr. Bell,” she said. Her cheeks flushed and with her voice lowered she said “When I took the magazine away from him and asked him where he got it, he said it came from a stack in your bedroom. Then he slapped me on the backside and said ‘No Sweat Toots’!”
Ha! That’s my boy. I held her stare until she looked away, clearly uncomforatable. Maybe I was starting to get to her.
“I’m sorry Ms. Jones. I’ll definitely have a talk with him. Say, you aren’t free for dinner tonight are you?”