Chapter 139

The expected cavalcade of limousines that many Heilman students expected didn’t materialize. Instead, three SUVs drove past campus in the middle of the afternoon without much fanfare at all.

Only Hailey was at the house when Phil showed everyone inside. Even those with millions of dollars in their bank accounts – and millions of fans to their credit – stopped inside the doorway to look around.

“See?” Grace said. “This is how I expected a corporate executive to live.”

She spotted her hostess coming into the room and headed toward her.

“It’s is so nice to meet you!” Grace said effusively. Hailey extended her hand but Grace slipped inside and gave Hailey a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Skyler was only a few steps behind. Chris settled for the offered handshake.

Randi Raver was the next through the door. She spotted Hailey instantly.

“Hey, Girl,” Randi said. “Did you hear? Merie had the baby – a little boy they named Sam after her father.”

“Phil told me and I sent her a Heilman onesie,” Hailey confessed.

“Cool!” Randi said. “Damn, this is a kickin’ joint you got here.”

“Thanks,” Hailey said. The young singer-actress was exactly how she remembered her from the summer. “I should really go help Phil.”

“Oh, sure,” Randi said. “My bad.”

Hailey knew Phil didn’t need any help. But she wanted to give him a hug and a kiss. It had been two weeks since they’d seen each other. She offered him a chaste kiss on the cheek and he kept his arm around her as the rest of the group came in.

The next car contained two stars from one of Lambswool’s TV shows, and two stars from “Kismet,” Rafe Costas, the male lead, and Ella DeLoach, one of the main co-stars.

“I wish I would have talked to Dr. Fayez about Courtney,” Hailey said with a sigh.

“She’s doing ‘Weekend Live’ this weekend,” Phil said. “She understood but I know she was a little hurt. I’m going to petition the college to let her back on campus. It’s as much my fault as hers and they still claim me.”

“And I claim you, too,” Hailey said as Anna Goldblum walked through the door. The last person through the door almost caused her heart to stop. Jenvieve Borchard was just as graceful in person as she was on the movie screens.

“You have a lovely home, Miss Warren,” Jenvieve said when she was in front of Hailey. “Or should I say, soon-to-be Mrs. Warner?”

Hailey tried to speak but found her mouth was too dry.

“She answers to either, I think,” Phil said. “Hailey, I’d like you to meet Grace’s mother, Jenvieve Borchard. As I might have mentioned, she is the reason I get to come home next month.”

“It’s really nice to meet you,” Hailey said in a rush. “I ... I thought I was immune to celebrities. When I met Randi last summer, I almost peed myself. Now I think I might have gone past almost.”

Jenvieve laughed and put her arm around Hailey’s shoulder.

“You have a fiancé that adores you,” she said, moving the conversation away from fame to someplace where Hailey was more comfortable. She saw Hailey’s eyes drift to where Phil stood and recognized the emotion in them – love.

“He is the best thing that ever happened to me,” Hailey admitted.

“He says the exact same thing about you,” Jenvieve replied. “I’ve spent much of the past two weeks with him. He is really looking forward to the day when he comes home and never has to leave again.”

“Three weeks,” Hailey said.

“Yes,” Jenvieve confirmed. “And he’s made me promise that if he has to come out to deal with anything, it has to be when you are free to join him. I believe he might go crazy if the separation were any longer.”

“I know I would,” Hailey said. “It’s ... I got a look at exactly what he brings to the relationships here. Over the last few months, we’ve all had to chip in to do the things that he does all by himself. He’s just so easy going that it’s sometimes easy to take him for granted. I’ll never do that again.”

Jenvieve found herself chuckling.

“Yes, the people here know he is a very kind and generous man,” she related. “But do not let that information become widespread. Fear of him keeps a great many people in line out there.”

“Anna told us that when she was here,” Hailey agreed. “It was hard for us to understand. I mean, yeah, we know he’s got a backbone. He doesn’t let people walk all over him – not even us. But some of the things she’s told us were foreign to us. We’ve never seen him go out of his way to antagonize someone. Well, not since Courtney Hollings made a run against our friends. He didn’t really antagonize her. He just put her down like a lame horse.”

“I heard about that,” Jenvieve said with raised eyebrows. “The tabloids picked up some of it. They reported that she was arrested for cyber-bullying and had her probation revoked. Phil told me the rest of it. It’s sort of amusing. No one linked the release of her medical records to the arrest. They ran the information, of course, but they were all silent about where it had come from or how they got it. I have to say, that was particularly vicious, even by Hollywood standards.”

“Did he tell you about what she planned to do?” Hailey inquired.

“In general terms,” Jenvieve said. “I could see it still made him angry so I didn’t press. He told me that I should accept that he had his reasons and let it go. He has never lied to me so I did as he asked.”

“She had doctored some really disgusting pictures of our friends,” Hailey said.

Jenvieve raised her eyebrows. Photoshopped pictures were a way of life in Hollywood.

“Having sex with children,” Hailey whispered.

“No!” Jenvieve said with wide eyes. Her hand shot up to cover her mouth in shock.

Hailey simply nodded.

“She and Phil ... I’m not sure what happened,” Hailey said. “They met when she was down here. He was ... oh, he was investigating the purchase of this house. Get this: Phil had no idea who she even was. He just saw another student who didn’t know the town so he took her out for pizza. I’m not sure if she misread the situation or if he said or did something. He sometimes says things that don’t seem bad to him but do to other people. Anyway, she tried to get at him and then at me. She started a rumor that I was pregnant, for instance. None of it worked. See, Heilman is a pretty affluent college. She didn’t like the fact that she was pretty far down on the popularity scale here – and that Phil was at the top of it. When she couldn’t get to us, she took aim at a couple of our friends. She sweet-talked a computer geek into hacking everyone’s campus e-mail and sending them a link to the photos.”

“Dear Lord,” Jenvieve said. “And she is still alive? I have to tell you, if someone were to try that with Grace, I would ... I would not be content simply to ruin them.”

“One of our friends alerted Phil almost immediately and he got the site blocked,” Hailey informed the older woman. “He said less than a dozen people managed to access it. He got the IP addresses from those people and they got a really nasty letter telling them if they downloaded anything it better go into their trash immediately or he was coming for them next. It was pretty effective.”

“Does Phil know computers, too?” Jenvieve wondered, glancing back over her shoulder.

Hailey laughed.

“Well, he can usually find the on and off button,” she said. “What Phil knows is a bunch of people with a bunch of skills. Don’t mention this to anyone but he got Courtney’s medical records from a server at the campus medical center – and a dozen other people had accessed them before he did.”

“I believe it is fortunate that I have minded my manners around him,” Jenvieve said. “Lord knows that I have a ton of skeletons in my closet that I would not wish the world to know about.”

“We all do,” Hailey said. “But Phil is a live-and-let-live guy. It’s only if you make a run at someone he cares about that things can turn ugly. He told me once that his mother has a list of people that she will protect at all costs. Phil hasn’t said it but I know he has the same sort of list. I think it’s safe to say that you and your daughter are firmly on it. If anyone were to start poking around for your secrets, he would take it personally. He might be young but I don’t think anyone will ever underestimate him again.”

Phil stepped up on stage at Heilman’s CACC and looked at the sea of students, faculty and their children.

“My name is Phil Warner,” he said into the microphone. “As some of you might know, I am a junior here at Heilman.”

A good portion of the group was freshmen who might have heard of Phil Warner but had never seen him. The older students knew him, though.

“I am working an internship this semester at Lambswool Studios,” he continued. “I have arranged to present my class project to the students here – in the hope that Dr. Andruzzi will accept this in lieu of a paper on what I’ve learned.”

“Fat chance, Mr. Warner,” Victoria Anduzzi called out from the second row.

Phil snapped his fingers in disappointment.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Phil said. “Anyway, without further ado, I give you a Lambswool Studios production of a screenplay written by Jerome Hastings. It is based on a novel of the same name by LeeAnn Jennings. Ladies and gentlemen, showing for the first time anywhere, I give you Courtney Hollings, Rafe Costas and Ella DeLoach starring in ‘Kismet!’”

Phil stepped off the stage as the house lights lowered. He saw several familiar faces – including the manager and coaching staff from the baseball team. He gave the manager and his wife a nod. He noticed they had a teenager sitting with them but the movie was starting so he didn’t stop to talk. He saw no one was talking and most were paying rapt attention to even the opening credits. He thought that boded well.

He realized he was nervous. He found the seat Hailey had saved for him and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“I can’t watch,” he said. “I’m going outside.”

Hailey nodded and started to stand.

“You should stay if you want,” he told her. “I think you’ll really enjoy it on a larger screen.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” Phil told her. “I’m just a little scared people will hate it.”

Hailey watched Phil as he headed down the aisle toward the doors. He slipped outside the curtain and disappeared.

“They won’t,” Emma leaned over to tell Hailey. “They’re going to love this.”

“I know,” Hailey said.

Phil wished he’d been smart enough to pick up his overcoat as he walked along the deserted campus. It was the first time he’d been there since he’d left in May. He found himself just walking around and taking in the view. The campus was almost deserted. A fifth of the students were in the CCAC and another fifth would be showing up at nine o’clock for the second showing that started 30 minutes later. The other 60 percent were studying, partying or home for the weekend.

Phil was standing in the middle of the quad when a man approached him.

“Hello, Mr. Warner,” the man said.

“Dr. Fayez?” he asked. He’d seen pictures of the man but had never met him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir.”

“The pleasure is mine,” the school president said. “I thought you would be inside.”

“I’m a bit leery of the reaction it might get,” he admitted. “I ... I put a lot into this.”

“I know you did,” Dr. Fayez said. “From what I understand, you’ve done very nice work out there. Victoria tells me you’ve exceeded even her lofty expectations.”

It took Phil a moment to understand that “Victoria” was Dr. Andruzzi, who was supervising his internship.

“Thank you,” Phil said.

“I should thank you,” Dr. Fayez said. “Having your premiere here has done wonders for the college. We have taken a fair amount of lumps over the past few years. Academia is changing and I’ve been slow to catch up. But I recognize that students are different today than they were a decade ago. I had expected them to change to meet my expectations. I realize now that is folly. I must change my expectations to meet current standards. But the fact that you have constantly played up your ties to Heilman in the media has helped us. Having your focus groups here is another boon for the college. We really needed a boost and you’ve provided it.”