prologue
Hollywood Boulevard was aglow in brilliant, incandescent lights. Vibrant shades of indigo, gold, and electric azure melted the nocturnal shadows that plagued the city.
Trailing a delicate, drunken hand across a storefront windowpane, Amelia Von Ackermann watched her disheveled reflection follow her down the boulevard. Her bodacious rosy blonde hair was knotted, matted to her cheekbones. Hanging loosely from her thin frame was a silk, cherry colored slip dress; one strap long fallen from her shoulder.
Amelia Von Ackermann. Once she dreamed of it becoming a household name. One that was proudly engraved alongside her handprints, eternalized in the cement she now walked upon.
“Hey!” A shout pulled her from her intoxicated stupor. “How much for a quick one?”
Dull, mascara-smudged eyes absently searching for the voices’ owner, she answered hoarsely. “I’m not a prostitute.”
“Yeah, man,” Another masculine voice contributed in a satirical matter-of-fact tone. “Can’t you see she’s a well-respected sister of celibacy?”
His sarcasm flying directly over her disoriented head, she continued her stumbling promenade down the boulevard. Slipping a dainty hand beneath the collar of her dress, Amelia retrieved a small white capsule of ambiguous origins. After dry swallowing the pill, she murmured in a hushed tone to herself, “I’m an actress.”
