My second novel, Happy Endings, will be released on August 15th and so I thought I'd give you a third excerpt to get you in the mood.
The book is written from four first-person perspectives. The main characters are Kate, Ed, Emma and Jack. This week it's the turn of Emma.
Emma was one of my favourite characters to write. Emma is engaged to Jack and is an aspiring actress. She's beautiful, talented and from an affluent family in Oxford. On the outside she has everything and it seems like the world is at her feet, especially when at the beginning of the book she gets offered the acting role of a lifetime. However, as the story unravels so does Emma and suddenly the girl we thought we knew becomes someone else.
I think of all the characters Emma's story is the most heart-wrenching, but also the most beautiful. Her story arc goes from one extreme to another and I think it's one of the stories I hope people will relate to and be excited to read. Here's her opening chapter.
The eBook of Happy Endings will be released on August 15th. The paperback will be released on October 10th. Enjoy.
Emma
Something was definitely wrong with
Jack. Ever since our dinner in Soho, he’d been super quiet, wrapped up in his
own thoughts and even more engrossed in his writing than usual. It’s not hard
to tell when something’s on his mind because he shuts down – a
typical bloody man I suppose. I asked him several times if he was all right and
he gave the bog-standard reply with the mandatory furrowed brow, ‘Fine, Em.’ But
he wasn’t. He wasn’t fine.
I would have been
more concerned, but I just didn’t have the time. Matt had sent over the full
script for The Hen Weekend and I’d
been at Starbucks ever since. God, it was so bloody brilliant. There I was,
drinking my café lattes, cracking up and feeling for the first time in my life
like a proper actress. I’m absolutely in love with it. It’s funny, touching,
thought-provoking and just a great romantic comedy. And I was going to be in
it!
I also got to work
with Matt and Rhys, who were both so generous with their time and ridiculously
talented. It was surreal at first, calling Rhys with a question. Rhys Connelly,
a world-famous film star, on the front pages of national newspapers, and I had
his phone number. We were mates, sort of, and soon we’d be naked and
kissing. I hadn’t told Jack yet, for obvious reasons, and also because I
wasn’t sure how I felt about it myself. It was Rhys Connelly for God’s sake!
Britain’s sexiest man and I was going to be canoodling with him. Millions of
girls throughout the land would no doubt swap places with me in an instant, but
it just made me uncomfortable and I felt awful for Jack. It was just another
part of the job and it meant nothing, but it was hard to wedge into a
conversation that, oh, by the way, in the middle of the film Rhys was going to
be kissing my breasts and, shortly after that, most of the English-speaking
world was going to see me completely naked, but it’s nothing, really … more
tea?
I was at Starbucks
having another read through, but I couldn’t focus. Outside, thick black clouds
made everything gloomy and dark. I was annoyed Jack had to work like he did
every bloody Saturday. It was better when Kate was here because we’d often go
shopping, get a drink or just wander around London, but she was gone and I was
at a loose end. I’d never thought of myself as a loose end sort of person
before. I was the end people generally hung on to. So, with nothing better to
do, I decided to pop in and see Jack at work. Perhaps we could have lunch and
maybe, away from the confines of our cramped Notting Hill flat, he’d tell me
why he was acting so un-Jack-like.
To Bean or Not to
Bean was a shoddy place a few streets away from the Globe theatre. It was
decorated like an old Shakespearean set and filled exclusively with tourists. When I walked in the café was in the
middle of an influx of Japanese tourists, all shouting their orders in broken
English and pointing at the menu. I looked around until I saw Jack, hastily
trying to get his apron on and take orders. He looked tired, miserable and
irate, but still bloody gorgeous: short blond hair, slightly sad blue eyes,
cheek bones to die for and those arms, so big and safe. The sexiest thing about
Jack though, and one of the things that had attracted me to him in the first
place, was that he didn’t know it.
I waited for the
queue to die down before I found him behind the counter.
‘Bit busy now,
love,’ he said as soon as he saw me.
‘Time for a quick
Taming of the Brew?’
I smiled. He
looked annoyed.
‘I’m rushed off my
feet. We have two staff members out and we’re expecting half of Texas any time
soon.’
‘Five minutes and
I’ll even buy you a coffee. What’s the special of the day?’
‘Our famous Bard
Blend.’
‘Famous where
exactly?’
‘I don’t know.
Five minutes,’ he said tersely.
He poured us two
cups of the Bard Blend and we sat outside. The streets were buzzing with people
as we sat in the small area on the pavement where if you craned your neck and
looked really hard you could just make out the top-left-hand corner of the
Globe theatre. Inside, the horde of Japanese tourists were busy drinking their
coffees, eating their traditional English scones and reading their Shakespearean literature
diligently, while outside Jack was giving off a distinctly cold and unloving
air.
‘Are you going to
tell me?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘What’s on your
mind and why you’re acting like you hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you,
Em.’
‘Then why are you
being all weird and quiet? Is this to do with the film?’
Jack did this
thing when he was nervous. He would chew on his lip and his right eye would
twitch ever so slightly.
‘Of course not,’
he said, but I could tell he was lying.
‘Then what is it,
Jack? I need something,’ I said, reaching across and placing my hand over his.
‘It’s …’ He
looked at me for a moment and it seemed like he was going to say something, but
then he stopped himself. ‘It’s nothing, love, just tired.’
I didn’t know what
to say. I didn’t want to push him, but I knew something was wrong and it
annoyed me that he couldn’t tell me. It was the one thing about Jack that really
pissed me off. I wouldn’t have cared if it was about the film or whatever it
was, I just couldn’t handle the pent-up silence, the mawkish refusal to talk it
out. To me feelings were like rubbish in a bin. If they weren’t emptied
routinely they would start to overflow and make an awful stench. Jack would
keep stuffing them in, pushing them down deeper and deeper, never giving them
the chance to clear out and start over fresh and clean.
I was deciding how
far to push him, but before I could say anything else, a stream of loud, brash
Americans flooded around the corner and swamped us. My moment had come and
gone.
‘I really need to
get back,’ he said, giving me a quick kiss before disappearing back inside.
I was left alone,
still no wiser as to why Jack was behaving like a spoilt child and with half a
cup of famous but foul-tasting coffee. I cursed Kate for being gone, but then
my phone buzzed and when I looked down it was Matt.
***
I was four when I decided to become
an actress. According to my mother, I ran into her bedroom dressed up in a
wonderful jumble of costumes and said, ‘Mummy, I’m putting on a play, five
minutes please,’ and then I acted for the first time. It probably wasn’t very
good. I was four and I had made the whole thing up, but after that day I was
always playing dress-up and acting out scenes from television. I was quite a
precocious child, probably very annoying, but I always knew what I wanted. I
wanted to act, to perform, to have hundreds, thousands and, maybe one day,
millions of pairs of eyes just on me.
As a child I just
needed my mother, but as I got older and began acting in school plays, I craved
it more and more. I studied drama at university in Bristol and when I left I
thought it was only a matter of time before I got my big break. That’s the
thing about dreams, you think because you’ve wanted it for such a long time
that it will just happen. It has to. You forget, of course, that a million
other people are thinking exactly the same thing. I got a couple of jobs here
and there, but eight years later I was still scratching around the dregs of the
acting world.
When I was offered
the lead role in The Hen Weekend, it
was like every moment of my life, every second of doubt, regret and uncertainty,
was justified. It all meant something. My biggest fear had always been that I
was so focused on acting that if I didn’t make it my whole life would have been
a waste. However, getting that role vindicated every single thing I’d ever
done.
So why when I was
so deliriously happy about it was Jack so miserable? Was it something I did?
Said? Didn’t say? Could he be jealous that I’d finally achieved my dream and he
hadn’t? We met as struggling artists, both intent on making it in our chosen
fields and somehow one of us achieving it broke the balance and sank the ship.
Our joint failure had been the glue that kept us together, but maybe now it was
tearing us apart.
‘A whole week?’
‘I do it for all
my projects. It’s fun. We stay at this incredibly old mansion in Berkshire. We
get to bond as a group and start working on the connections between the
characters. It’s a good chance to have a few beers and relax before the hard
slog really begins,’ said Matt.
‘I understand. It’s
just, Jack, I …’
‘We need you
there, Emma. We can’t do it without you.’
‘Of course I’ll be
there.’
‘Great, fantastic.
I’ll email you the details and travel arrangements. We’ll send a car to pick
you up on the day. It’s going to be wonderful. Trust me, yeah.’
‘I do,’ I said,
and then we hung up.
A
week away from Jack was going to be tough. Since we’d started dating five years
ago, and moved in together a year later, we’d barely been apart. I was excited
though. A week with the cast at a mansion in the Berkshire countryside, it was
the stuff of dreams. A week to bond, drink, talk about acting and finally,
after all the years of struggle, be an actress. A tear suddenly leaked out and
down my face. It felt like my life was just starting and the first person I
wanted to tell was also the person I was most afraid to. Jack would be fine
though. He knew what it meant to me and what it could mean for us. He would
come around. He had too.
Until next time.
Hugs,
Jon X
