Chapter 1: La La Land

Sunday November 27
We had breakfast at Granny’s West. It gave me a chance to say goodbye to all my family and friends who had come to the State Championship game in support. The first person I saw when I came in was Tami, who’d been my best friend since childhood. Recently, we’d distanced ourselves from each other. She was with her mom and Tim, her boyfriend and one of my best guy friends, and his family. She got up and hugged me.

“I have to say I’m torn. My classmates thought they would win yesterday, but I’m happy you won. I might be one of the few people who can say that I saw your first and last game at Lincoln.”

In our freshman year, Tami’d had the opportunity to transfer to Wesleyan. It was a college preparatory boarding school that catered to the well-to-do. Tami had been awarded a scholarship to attend there. They were the team we played for the State Championship in football yesterday.

“It seems like that was forever ago, doesn’t it?” I asked, referring to my first game.

“It does. There’s something I want to say that I should have said a while ago: I’m proud of you. Sometimes I forget that you’re not the same boy who invited me to play softball at recess my first day. You’re no longer the one who let me boss him around and run his life for him. I see what you’ve done since I left and I’m simply amazed at what you’ve accomplished. I should have stayed out of your life sooner,” she said with a crooked smile.

“Maybe you should have, but what’s the old saying: ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’?”

“Come here,” she ordered and pulled me into a fierce hug. “I’ll see you at the first of the year when we come out to visit. Go be a movie star and have fun doing it. Just know, we’re all proud of you.”

That afternoon I was on my way to LA to shoot a ‘J-drama’ or Japanese miniseries. Apparently, I was big over there, and they loved the first one I’d done. My girlfriend, Brook, had arranged for our friends to fly out after New Year’s to spend a week with us.

My throat tightened with emotion, so I just nodded and moved on to talk to others. Sometimes my old feelings for Tami would come to the surface. To hear her say in essence that I was good enough hit too close to home. I hadn’t realized that old grievance still lingered, and how her saying we couldn’t date because I needed to grow up continued to make me a little crazy. It was funny how certain people found their way into your heart, and there wasn’t much you could do about it. The good news was that Brook found me and kissed me.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

I blinked and then shook my head to focus. She had started to figure me out, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or not. A guy wants to have some secrets.

“I am now,” I said, and it was her turn to squirm because the implication was that her presence made things better for me. “Come on. Let’s tell everyone goodbye.”

Before we could talk to anyone, Sarah came bounding up and also hugged me. Sarah was also a student at Wesleyan and a model. I’d met her at a modeling camp we’d both attended. She and I had a history, as we’d hooked up a time or two. She now dated another of my best guy friends, Wolf.

Behind her were Adrienne and Tyler. Adrienne was the Adrienne, the supermodel and my mentor. She and her life partner Tyler owned a modeling agency out of New York. Tyler handled the day-to-day, while Adrienne was the face of the agency. I gave both women hugs. They’d made the trip to our sleepy town to watch me play in my last football game. It meant a lot to me that they’d come.

“I take it that you found us work,” I said.

Caryn, the woman who ran my businesses, suddenly appeared and smiled at me. I was surprised when Adrienne nodded to her to tell me what they’d done.

“We’ve put together several deals. The first is a modeling gig with Range Sports that will feature you and Sarah. They’ll also be doing product placement in your J-drama.”

I’d wondered how they’d gotten me golf clubs so fast. I didn’t know that Range Sports even made them. It turned out that they had partnered with a well-known golf equipment company and had branded clubs of their own. Dad had been impressed with the clubs when they arrived. He ran the golf course at a local country club and knew about this stuff. It was all wasted on me because after the miniseries was shot, I doubted I would ever use them again. When I’d expressed my opinion on the matter, Dad’s expression seemed to say I would eat those words.

“We’ve also worked to get product placement for Jade and Dakora in both the J-drama and Halle’s movie,” Caryn said.

Jade and Dakora were two of the clothing lines, besides Range Sports, that I modeled for. Somehow that must have made me money, judging by the pleased looks I saw on everyone’s faces. I could only guess that they had gotten their foot in the door through my contacts on the productions. We had a ‘finder’s fee’ arrangement when business got generated that way.

“Good job,” I said when I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I can’t wait to see the place you rented for the Japanese production,” Tyler said. “Thank you for allowing us to stay there for the photo shoot.”

I cocked my head and turned to my girlfriend. It was the first she’d heard of more house guests, and we both turned to my manager. Caryn at least had the decency to blush.

“I probably should have told you, but your dad said it would be okay since you had plenty of room.”

Before it got awkward, I smiled at Tyler.

“It’s my fault that I didn’t know you were coming. I made it clear that I wanted to back off from all the business stuff and focus on my last year of high school. But sometimes a heads-up might be nice,” I said to needle Caryn.

“Your dad knew,” she replied.

I was sure everyone knew, but I let it go. Brook and I then excused ourselves so we could talk to other people. I was surprised to find Dare and his mom there. Dare was new to our school and was our genius nerd. Our vice principal had paired the two of us up because Dare had been bullied in the past because he was different. Brook and I’d been working on getting him to come out of the shell that he’d developed to protect himself.

“Good morning, Darius,” Brook said sweetly.

If I’d said that, he would have given me a dirty look. I glanced over at his mom, and we both rolled our eyes when he lit up as my girlfriend teased him. Brook still didn’t believe he had a crush on her. He had a carrying case next to him that looked suspiciously like the drone case he’d had at Tracy’s, only smaller.

“I was able to get the new drone ready for your trip to LA. I showed your security guy, Fritz, how to work it yesterday,” Dare told me.

Something else I hadn’t known. As far as I knew, Dare was doing this little project on his own.

“I need to say goodbye to some people. Why don’t you tell Brook everything about it?”

He launched right into a detailed explanation as I slunk away. I might be glad, after all, that Brook and I wouldn’t see each other for a couple of weeks. She still had to finish out the semester, while I left early so we could fit in the filming schedule for the J-drama.

I told my family goodbye. I spent some time with my cousin El. She told me all about Tami’s brothers and how they’d just gone home. They’d wanted to see the football game and sat with her. I was devastated that I was no longer the object of her affection. She couldn’t decide yet, but one of them would marry her someday. Women are crazy, and somehow, I’d fathered one. Little Carol, my only daughter, would be the death of me when she was El’s age.

My cousins lived in Florida, and I never got to see them enough. I wished her luck with her new quest and moved on.

Soon Dad collected me and said we had to go to make our flight. I was happy to see he had a bag of food because I hadn’t had time to eat.

When we arrived at O’Hare, it was a zoo, as you can imagine on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We checked our bags, which now included a drone, and then got in line to check in. Our boarding passes were marked “TSA Pre-Check” and so we were able to skip the horrendous lines trying to get through security. I didn’t even get inappropriately groped this time.

We’d planned for long lines, so we were an hour early for our flight. I hooked up my phone to the airport’s Wi-Fi and started shopping for a book to download. Dad went old-school and found a bookstore where he paid a premium to get an action paperback to kill time. Fritz was busy watching our surroundings, as a good security guy should be doing. He caught my attention and then sat down between my dad and me.

“Something’s wrong with that girl over there,” he said.

Of course, we both snapped our heads around to stare at her.

“You both suck at this,” Fritz hissed.

I hated to admit it, but my first thought was that he might be profiling the girl, who looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. She had a darker complexion that I would place as having come from either the Middle East or South Asia. Her dress and hairstyle screamed ‘foreign.’ The problem was, my gut agreed that something was off about her. My uncle had told me that if you got a gut feeling something was wrong, not to ignore it. That was what made me check closer instead of dismissing him out of hand.

She appeared to be sweating, and her eyes darted around as if she were paranoid. She also was fidgeting, with periodic toe-tapping and fingernail biting. Just looking at her made me nervous.

“I’m going to go make some inquiries,” Fritz said and then gave us our marching orders. “Neither one of you move, and if you see her get up, text me.”

I thought about asking him about a hundred things but decided to let him do his job and kept them to myself. A few minutes later, he came back and sat between us.

“When I say so, gather your bags and follow me,” Fritz ordered.

Soon after that, we spotted two Chicago police officers come into our area.

“Now,” Fritz said, and he hurried us away from our gate and into the men’s room where he put us into the handicapped stall together.

“Don’t come out until I get back,” he ordered.

Dad and I waited and tried to make small talk as the minutes ticked by. I became a little anxious when they called our flight for boarding. Finally, Fritz came back to get us. We noticed that the police had the girl off to the side, talking to her as we got onto the plane. We were seated in first class, and I’d scored an aisle seat. Fritz sat across from me on the aisle with Dad next to him in the window seat. I was happy to see that the seat next to me was empty. With me being six-four, flying could be a pain due to the lack of legroom.

It seemed to take forever for everyone to get settled, as the flight was packed. When we were ready to go, the last passenger got on. I looked up when the girl who had been talking to the police boarded and came down the aisle. Oh, great; she had a ticket for the seat next to mine. When the foreign girl took her seat, she collapsed into it and stared out the window. I was glad I hadn’t gotten stuck with either a kid or someone chatty.

We took off and were pushed back into our seats as we gained altitude. Then the girl sat straight up and grabbed my hand with a scared expression on her face. Our eyes locked, and her countenance changed from frightened to something weird. Either I was about to die, or she was. Then her head spun around as she projectile vomited.

I might have exaggerated about the head-spin part. The only good news was that the girl directed her spray towards the window. The smell alone almost caused me to lose my breakfast. I’m a sympathetic puker on the best of days. I surprised myself when I was able to swallow it back. Having a bunch of little ones may have toughened me up.

My first thought was that I no longer wanted to be seated next to her. I undid my seatbelt and stepped into the aisle.

“Sir, you must remain seated when the seatbelt light is on,” one of the flight attendants told me.

“I’ll trade with you,” I suggested.

She was in one of those flip-down seats by the cabin door.

The woman behind terrorist girl—I’d officially decided that puke was as bad as a bomb—freaked out.

“It’s running back here! Oh My God! It’s on my shoes!” she said and then puked.

Her seatmate, an elderly businessman, joined her. I’d read a Steven King book called The Body that fit this moment perfectly. In the book, one of the characters had been in a pie-eating contest. Long story short, one of the contestants pukes, and it causes a chain reaction. We were having our own chain reaction when three more people joined our pukers.

The flight attendant figured out what was wrong and didn’t order me back to my seat. Instead, she allowed me to take hers as she and other flight attendants dealt with the mess. They should have gotten hazard pay for dealing with that. Somehow the girl who’d started it all was sent to stand by me while they cleaned up our row. She swayed, and I caught her before I had a chance to give up my seat for her. Now I had a semiconscious terrorist sitting in my lap. My next fear was that she was contagious.

I asked a flight attendant for some help. Her solution was to get the girl a blanket. Then she handed me one of those little barf bags in case the girl needed to go another round, which of course, she did. I was ready to open the door and either get out and walk or toss her out.

The flight attendants did yeoman’s work to get everything cleaned up. Unfortunately, they had no way to get rid of the smell, and we were only thirty minutes into a four-hour flight. I helped the girl to her seat and got her a bottle of water. She looked at me sheepishly.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Tell me one thing: you don’t have the plague or something, do you? I can’t get sick right now.”

“No. It’s withdrawal from drugs. My mother passed away, and I promised myself I would be off them when I attended her funeral. Guess I should have waited until I got there to stop taking.”

I started to laugh, which caught everyone’s attention.

“It’s not funny. I feel like shit,” the girl complained.

“What were you taking?” I asked.

“Prescription painkillers. A friend of mine said it would take 24 to 48 hours to get over the worst of it. I thought I was fine today and decided to fly home. It probably wasn’t such a good idea to have eaten anything before the flight, but I was starved,” she said and closed her eyes for a moment.

I had my seatbelt off in a flash, ready to make a hasty retreat. She opened her eyes and gave me a wan smile. The girl looked wiped out. Then a look of determination suddenly appeared on her face. She reached over, grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and then fell asleep. I was happy she slept for the rest of the flight.

Fritz had arranged for a town car to pick us up and deliver us to the house in Malibu. I’d seen pictures, and they didn’t do it justice. This would be the perfect place to stay for the next several weeks while I shot the J-drama. The house was owned by a researcher who worked at a local laboratory. He and his wife were on a three-month assignment overseas.

I let my head fall back as we waited for the driver to open the trunk. Through my closed eyes, I could envision the glorious sun that beat down on us. It wasn’t what I would call hot out, but it was much more pleasant than the weather we’d left. I could get used to this.

Dad and I grabbed our bags and were met at the front door by Lexi Andon. Her father was a studio exec and in charge of the Star Academy movies. Lexi had helped us get a meeting with him to pitch moving Halle’s film to his studio. The filming of Love Letters was in full swing.

“Welcome, Mr. Dawson, David. I trust you had a good trip,” she greeted us.

Dad and I looked at each other and decided the less said about the trip, the better.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

When I first met Lexi, I didn’t like her. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I liked her or not because she’d been such a bitch back then. She and her friends had started a fight. Then again, the girl throwing the party might have clouded my judgment when she filled me in on what an evil person Lexi was.

When the accident happened, she’d been nothing but helpful and had asked to work for us. Caryn had hired her with the intention that she be my personal assistant for the Star Academy movies.

“I’m here as your PA for Campus Firsts.”

“So, they finally named it,” I said.

“I saw the first marketing piece, and it sounds lame. ‘First friends, first clubs, first love, first everything,’” she recited.

I groaned because it sounded like a sappy love story. Lexi took us on a tour of the house. Mom and Dad would take the master bedroom while they were here. I decided that the other side of the house was my best bet until I found out that Lexi had the room next to mine.

“I’m sorry; you’re going to be staying here?” I asked.

She looked hesitant and then slumped.

“It’s a two-hour drive from my place, and I figured if I was your PA, you might need me more than just during working hours. It’s my job to make sure everything goes well for you,” she said in a rush.

Lexi showed me she’d already moved in. I figured it wasn’t worth possibly upsetting her dad, and she might be right. She lived in LA and would help us figure everything out. I decided to let her stay for now and see how it worked.

“I’m sure it’ll be more convenient for you to stay here,” I agreed.

She gave me a big smile. As rotten as I suspected Lexi was on the inside, her outside was more than okay. If I’d just met her, I would have been very interested. I liked tall, athletic types, with model-quality looks. The problem was that Lexi knew she was good-looking and had a daddy who was part of the Hollywood power structure. The impression I’d gotten when I first met Lexi was that she used that to rule her high school clique. So, I was a tad suspicious of the change that seemed to have occurred since she graduated.

I went to my room and unpacked, and then to the kitchen to see if there was any food. I stuck my head in the refrigerator.

“Stay out of my stuff,” said a man who I’d never met before.

He was well built, easily topped 250 pounds, and was around six feet tall. I slowly stood up and wondered how he’d gotten in here. I was preparing to remove him from the premises when Fritz walked in. He took one look at me and stepped between me and the man who was about to be asked to leave.

“David, this is Manaia Matua, your security while you’re here.”

By his name, I would guess he was Samoan.

“Why does he have food in my refrigerator?” I asked.

Fritz turned around and looked at Manaia, who seemed to rethink the situation.

“What happened?” Fritz asked.

“I saw the kid looking at my food and told him to back off. No big deal.”

“Actually, it is a big deal. I think we need to go have a talk in private,” Fritz said as he guided my new security guy out of the kitchen.

I heard them go into the garage, and voices were raised. Dad came into the kitchen.

“Is there any food?” he asked.

If you couldn’t tell, we were related.

“No. We need to make a run to the grocery store,” I said, and then gave him my one-raised-eyebrow look. “Did you know Lexi planned to stay here?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It’s okay. I just wish you would put me in the loop about things that affect me. Not that I want to be involved in figuring out how it all works, mind you.”

“I agree. Brook might have an issue with Lexi running around here 24/7.”

“No, Brook would be fine with it. She knows I’ll be on my best behavior.”

I pulled out a garbage bag from under the sink and began to put all the food that was in the refrigerator into it. I expected that would be the last I would see of Manaia and wanted to have his food packed for him. Dad ignored me as he sent Fritz a text to let him know what we wanted to do.

Lexi came down in a swimsuit and walked out to the pool. Damn!

“Best behavior,” Dad reminded me.

“You might need to worry about what Mom thinks,” I shot back.

“Yep,” Dad said as Fritz came in with Manaia.

“I packed your food. It was nice meeting you,” I said to Manaia.

Fritz looked like he might have a migraine. Dad looked at me and sighed.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“David and Manaia didn’t hit it off. He’s David’s security while you’re in town,” Fritz said when neither of us would speak.

“We’re going grocery shopping. You can either figure it out or give me the keys so I can drive,” Dad said.

It didn’t make me happy when Fritz put the trash bag into the refrigerator and handed the keys to Manaia. There were two Range Rover SUVs in the garage that looked like the ones Rita James had. These things were luxury with a capital ‘L.’

Walking into the grocery store was a revelation. I’d thought things might be different out here, but I hadn’t realized just how different they were. I discovered I was in for a treat. We were in La La Land, that’s for sure. My first clue was when I entered the deli and found that their special of the day was a yellow and red tomato, fresh mozzarella, and spinach sandwich. You had to try something like that. They also had pizzas that you could take home and bake. You told them what you wanted on the pie, and they made it to order. I told the girl to surprise me. The dough was made from scratch daily with roasted garlic and tomato oil. There were so many things that I had to try that I ended up spending more at the deli than we usually spent on food for a full week. Then I discovered they had sushi!

Dad found me and was grumbling about the prices, and his cart was empty. He looked at mine and sighed.

“I was about to suggest we go somewhere cheaper. These prices are outrageous, but it looks like you’ve decided to embrace the madness.”

“Live a little,” I suggested.

“I’m telling Caryn it was all your fault.”

She had decided that I should have to live on a budget. What Dad forgot was that I only had a few expenses each month. A big chunk had gone into learning to fly. Other than that, I’d behaved myself. I wasn’t happy when Caryn had reduced my monthly allowance when I agreed to give Ashley and Scarlet child support. I think she’d seen my bank account balance growing and decided to slow it down. So, I figured the old saying about ‘when in Rome’ applied. If we were in Malibu, we should live like we were here.

Dad got with the program and began to spend money like a drunken sailor—his words.

The bakery could have been my downfall. One could only conclude I was about to go off my diet if what I’d put in the cart was any indication. When I saw all the goodies they had on display, I had to force myself to walk away. I was sure my blood sugar was low, so I did have to buy a dozen white chocolate, cranberry, and pistachio cookies. I’d made the mistake of sampling one. Yeah, it was low blood sugar that made me buy a dozen.

When we got home, I was happy to see my dad take control.

“We won’t be going out tonight. Your bag of food is in the refrigerator. Collect it and have a good day.”

Damn! Manaia seemed to realize that this might be his last day.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said what I did to David. I’m not a bad guy. Give me a chance to prove myself,” he said.

I believed in redemption, but this guy had rubbed me the wrong way. When Dad looked my way, I just shrugged.

“Okay, we’ll see you first thing when David runs.”

I kept a straight face until he gathered his garbage bag of food and left. Then I was all smiles. I would run this guy into the ground.

Hana Yamamura, my Japanese tutor and interpreter, arrived in time for dinner. We had my mystery pizza and a large salad. Hana, Lexi, and Dad split a bottle of wine between them. The pizza was a true California creation. It had artichoke hearts, green olives, roasted red peppers, and a mixture of goat and Asiago cheese for toppings. If the opportunity arose, I might order that again. The kicker was the garlic-and-tomato-infused oil they’d added to the crust. It was much better than it first sounded when the girl explained how they made their pizzas.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Dad asked as I shared my cookies.

“In the morning, they plan to do a read-through of the script for this week,” Lexi said. “Then David has to go to wardrobe and makeup to get the look they want. The camera crews will be out doing establishing shots and b-roll while he does that. Then everyone will come together, and they’ll start shooting in the afternoon.

“Mr. Dawson, you’ll work with the different actors who will play golf in the production. Your first task is to assess their strengths and weaknesses. The director, Daisuke Otsuki, will take your recommendations and incorporate them into scene selection.”

Lexi had an updated script for this week, and I spent a couple of hours working with Hana on the Japanese portions. If it hadn’t been for Hana helping me, I would have never learned it. Japanese uses kanji characters that give you little clue as to their meaning. Without her, I would have spent the majority of my time looking words up to try to figure out what they meant. The other problem with most kanji was that they had several meanings. Many common kanji have obscure meanings that only appear in particular words.

They’d sent the script in both an English phonetic format called romaji and in kanji. Hana used both to discover when the phonetic was wrong. I was starting to learn to speak the language but wasn’t sure I would ever be able to read it.

Something else that I had a hard time grasping was that the language was spoken differently for different situations. It was very contextual. You said things one way when you hung out with your friends, another way at home, yet another way man-to-man. And you spoke still another way to children and even to seniors. Most of a quality performance was to understand your character, and I had to use a different mindset when I spoke Japanese. When I recognized the context of the conversation and my role in it, I was able to deliver my dialogue in a manner that didn’t make Hana cringe. Between her coaching and me being a good mimic, we thought I could get by.

By eight o’clock, we called it a night. The time difference had caught up with us, and we had to be on set early tomorrow.

Monday November 28
I knew I should have hidden them. Someone—or more likely someones—had taken my cookies. Maybe Fritz would pull the security footage so that we could uncover the culprits.

I’d unpacked the drone Dare had fixed up for me. He’d made it so it would follow me via the Wi-Fi on my phone and act as a bodycam. As I walked outside, I found Lexi and Manaia stretching in the driveway.

“Is it okay if I run with you?” Lexi asked.

“For today, sure. I plan to go out and get a feel for the local layout. I’m not sure you can keep up when I run seriously,” I said, and cringed when I realized I sounded like a dick.

“We’ll see,” she said cryptically.

“Oh, good. You have your drone. Fritz said that I should link up to it so I can keep track of you,” Manaia said.

I bit my tongue because he made it sound like he needed to babysit me. I showed him where he could download the app that would allow him to see what the drone saw. Once I flipped it on, my phone pinged to let me know the drone had found me. It rose into the air and did a quick sweep around us. Manaia got a big smile on his face.

“This could really be handy,” he said.

“I’ll show you around,” Lexi offered. “Do you want to end your run going down or uphill?”

“Let’s end on down today. I need to get used to hills again,” I admitted.

From where we were, it was a steady climb up the hill to Pepperdine’s campus. Lexi was in better shape than I expected. She was able to offer a commentary of what all the buildings were and pointed out different ones we would shoot in or around.

Manaia was drenched with sweat, and I could tell he was feeling it. I was impressed that he pushed through it and kept up with us. When we turned to go back home, I stopped, worried he might drop. I glanced at Lexi, and she agreed he looked like he was in trouble. We stopped and got our water bottles out to have a quick drink.

“Didn’t you bring one?” I asked Manaia.

He looked at me a sheepishly, so I handed him mine. He sucked it down and looked embarrassed. Lexi gave him hers, and he drank that one too. As much as he had sweat to this point, he needed it. We started to walk back to give him a chance to recover. Okay, I may have wanted to run him into the ground for being a jerk yesterday. But I didn’t want to have to tell Fritz that I killed one of his guys.

We came to an intersection, and my drone took off ahead of us and rose higher. I’d never seen it do something like that before and was worried I might lose it. I looked at my phone and turned on the video so I could see what the drone saw. The drone had spotted movement and flew over to investigate. I would have to hug Dare when I saw him next: my eye in the sky had found two paparazzi setting up to ambush us at the next corner. I showed Lexi and Manaia.