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******
"And John, if Potter opens his mouth again, you don't beat him in the mud where the faculty can see. You make him a ghost. I already told the eighth-grade girls to completely freeze him out. By Friday, no one will even look at him. I've got the hallways locked down for you, Marvin."
She shot a sideways, triumphant look at Lindsay, making it very clear that she was the only girl strong enough, and ruthless enough, to stand beside him.
Lindsay scowled, her fists clenching at her sides. She might not have been a bully, but she wasn't going to back down. She stepped right up to challenge her. "Marvin doesn't need a bodyguard, Dorothy! He's going to be exhausted when he gets back from London. He doesn't want to deal with your weird turf wars! He needs to relax and have fun with people who actually make him smile!"
"He's a leading man and a published author, Lindsay," Dorothy countered coldly, her eyes flashing with territorial warning. "He needs a girl who can protect his work, not a cheerleader who just begs for souvenirs."
Marvin watched the dynamic unfold with absolute, internal delight.
The group had nearly zero chemistry with one another. Mark, the digital genius, thought John was a neanderthal; John, the muscle, thought Mark was a weak nerd. Lindsay, the radiant sweetheart, and Dorothy, the ruthless schoolyard war queen, were locked in a vicious, unspoken cold war for his romantic attention. The only thing tying these four vastly different teenagers together was their complete, inescapable orbit around him.
They were his friends. And their desperate, vying desires for his validation, his attention, and his affection flowed directly into his Incubus core like a rich, steady stream of pure, intoxicating mana.
"Alright, everyone, calm down," Marvin chuckled smoothly.
His voice was a dark, resonant hum that instantly silenced the brewing argument. He raised a hand, dispensing his self equally among them. "You are all my friends, and I value each of your unique contributions. Lindsay, I won't forget the souvenir, I promise. Mark, keep that code ready for debugging. John, stay sharp, but let Dorothy handle the social exile. And Dorothy... thank you. I appreciate you keeping bullies in order."
Dorothy's tough exterior visibly shivered with delight, a proud flush spreading across her cheeks at his praise, while Lindsay beamed not at the promise of her gift but the gift from him.
"But for now," Marvin announced, his eyes catching sight of a familiar black luxury sedan pulling up to the edge of the courtyard, "let's drop the school books. Let's have some pizza!"
"Yay Pizza!" Everyone screamed together.
Right on cue, Mrs. Aranda, the Meyers' warm and bustling housekeeper, stepped out of the car. She was balancing four massive, steaming boxes of deep-dish pizza from Marvin's favorite local parlor.
Seeing her brought a genuine, uncalculated smile to Marvin's face. He had just spent the entire morning at the San Marino estate with his parents. Grant and Linda had taken the day off from their respective jobs just to be with him.
Having not seen their son in a month and a half while he was locked away in the San Bernardino mountains, they had practically smothered him in affection. Linda had held him tight, fussing over his hair and his diet, while Grant had proudly clapped him on the back, marveling at how much he had grown. The sheer, overwhelming warmth of his parents' unconditional love had filled a void in his soul that even his Incubus magic couldn't touch. It had grounded him.
Now, fueled by that familial warmth, Marvin gestured for his friends to follow him to a cluster of shaded picnic tables under the massive oak trees. Mrs. Aranda set the boxes down with a beaming smile, handed out thick stacks of napkins, and discreetly retreated to the car to give the teenagers their space.
As Marvin opened the boxes, a cloud of steam billowed out. The rich, mouth-watering aroma of melted mozzarella, roasted garlic, and savory pepperoni filled the California air.
As the minutes turned into an hour, the tense, competitive atmosphere of the schoolyard grew relaxed. They settled down together at the table, each of them eager to dive into the feast Marvin had thoughtfully arranged. It was a delightful reunion that held the promise of rekindling their bond, one that had been slightly affected by time and the vast distance of his Hollywood schedule over the past month and a half.
Marvin, finding himself in the warm, uncomplicated company of his friends, felt a wave of profound relief wash over him.
He made a conscious, deliberate choice. He reached into his mind and temporarily shut off the work. He pushed aside the stresses of the film set, the weight of his future corporate plans, the upcoming Random House publication battles, and the multi-million dollar pressures of the Yahoo options market. For this one hour, he chose to immerse himself fully in the simple, mortal joy of the present moment.
They ate, the gooey cheese stretching from the slices, sparking conversation and genuine laughter. It was fascinating to watch them interact with him and each other. They rarely spoke to each other; all their energy was directed at him. Mark animatedly explained his logic loops between bites of crust. John mumbled about his gym class records, seeking a nod of approval. Lindsay and Dorothy were in a subtle, hilarious race to be the one to hand Marvin a napkin whenever he needed it, their knees occasionally bumping his under the table.
Together, they chatted animatedly, their voices blending into a harmonious tapestry of youth. Laughter filled the shaded courtyard, a vibrant reminder of the connections he was building. For Marvin, it was a rare chance to let go of the work and simply have fun, embracing the joyful, entirely human experience of being surrounded by friends.
The afternoon sun began to dip behind the school buildings, casting long shadows across the grass. Suddenly, the school bell rang in the distance—a harsh, mechanical screech signaling the end of the lunch period and shattering the idyllic bubble.
The four teenagers groaned in collective disappointment, wiping their hands and grabbing their backpacks.
"I have a flight to London to catch, and you all have your afternoon classes," Marvin smiled, standing up and taking a step backward away from the table. "But I promise you this: when I get back from England, I'll treat you all to a massive dinner. On me. Keep the school standing until I return."
"We will, Boss!" John promised.
"Have a safe flight, Marvin!" Lindsay waved frantically.
Dorothy just offered a fierce, determined nod. "It'll be handled."
He waved casually, turning his back and walking toward the administrative building to finalize his extended leave of absence paperwork. He didn't need to look back to know they were all standing there by the picnic tables, completely ignoring the warning bell, watching him leave with absolute, undivided devotion.
He would finish his paperwork, climb back into the sedan with Mrs. Aranda, and spend the rest of the day bathed in his parents' love. Tomorrow, he will cross the Atlantic. London, and the second half of his cinematic empire, awaited.
---
The thing about dinner theater is that nobody warns you about the silence after.
Not the silence during—during is fine. During, you have the spotlight, the orchestrated swell of the orchestra, and that particular, electric warmth of an audience that has eaten well and desperately wants to be charmed. During is the reason you put on the tights and the heavy stage makeup. It's the silence after that gets you. It's when the last table has been cleared of cheesecake crumbs, the kitchen staff are pulling on their coats, and the stage manager is killing the house lights one by one from the back.
You find yourself standing in the gravel parking lot of the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres in suburban Minnesota. It's a biting, cold September night, and your breath makes small, ghostly clouds in air that has already decided it is practically winter. You stand there, leaning against a rusted sedan, and the thought hits you with the weight of a falling curtain:
"Is this it?"
I wasn't a cruel person—not to myself, anyway.
It was just an honest question. The kind of honesty that only visits you in parking lots at eleven o'clock at night when your arches ache, your smile muscles are twitching from four hours of relentless perkiness, and you've just performed your heart out for a room full of retirees who tipped twelve percent on the early bird special.
'Is this the shape of my life?'
I was twenty-two. I was good—genuinely good.
My director, Michael, had seen "it" in me during a showcase in Denver. He'd plucked me out of Colorado and transplanted me to Minnesota like a cutting he was sure would take root. And I had. I worked hard. I was never late, never underprepared, and I could wait a table with a tray of four prime ribs while humming the opening chorus of Anything Goes without breaking a sweat.
But Chanhassen was not Los Angeles. A stage in the Midwest was not a set in Hollywood. And twenty-two wasn't forever, though it felt like a terminal diagnosis on nights like this.
I heard about the "Opportunity" the way you hear about everything in this business when you're grinding at the bottom: sideways.
Obliquely. Through a human chain that, if you tried to diagram it, would look like a map of a spiderweb drawn by a caffeinated toddler.
It started with Deborah Reyes.
Deborah was our wardrobe mistress—a small, precise woman in her late forties who smelled perpetually of lavender starch and sewing machine oil. She'd spent fifteen years in regional theater and knew approximately every person worth knowing in a three-hundred-mile radius of any city she'd ever set foot in. She had fingers in more pies than a bakery and a memory for faces that I found genuinely predatory.
She knew who was casting commercials in Chicago, whose nephew was an AD in Vancouver, and which producers in Burbank were currently "on the hunt."
It was a Tuesday afternoon. We were doing a late fitting for the upcoming November production of The Sound of Music. I was standing on a low wooden platform in my socks, my arms outstretched, while Deborah moved around me with a mouthful of pins, adjusting a hemline with the grim intensity of a diamond cutter.
"Hold still, Amy. You're swaying."
"I am still, Deb. The floor is crooked."
"You're thinking too loud. It moves your shoulders." She tugged the fabric of the bodice, her eyes narrowed. "You get a call back from that local car commercial?"
"No. They went with a blonde. Apparently, I look 'too urban' for a Ford dealership in St. Paul."
Deborah made a sound—a mix of a scoff and a sigh. She extracted the pins from her teeth and held them in her palm. "You need to get to the West Coast, mija. This air is too thin for you. It's drying out your potential."
"I know, Deborah. I just need the bank account to match the ambition."
"I'm not just flapping my gums," she said, looking up at me. Her expression shifted, becoming uncharacteristically serious. "I talked to my friend Gail this past weekend. In Los Angeles."
Gail was a recurring character in Deborah's lore—a "High-Level Executive Adjacent" who worked for the kind of families whose names were etched into the foundations of the city.
"Gail who works for the 'People'?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
"Gail who knows someone who works for a rich family," Deborah corrected, her voice dropping an octave. "She has been in charge of their household for eight years. She reached out to Gail, who then contacted her connections; I was one of those people she called on Sunday night. They're looking for someone specific. Someone... discreet. Someone with a background in the arts who can handle 'Complex Personal Management'."
*****
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