Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

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”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’.”

I blinked, looking down at her. ”Management? For who? The husband? The wife?”

”A personal secretary. For their son.”

I almost laughed. ”A secretary? For a kid? What, does he have a very busy playdate schedule?”

Deborah didn’t laugh. She adjusted a pin near my waist with a sharp, warning tug. ”The boy is... different. Gail wouldn’t use the word ’exceptional’ if he was just some spoiled brat with a trust fund. She said the family is ’Serious.’ Capital S. The father is J.P. Morgan. The mother is a big-shot professor at USC. But the boy... he’s the one driving the need. Apparently, he’s just signed a massive book deal with Random House, and there’s talks with Disney.”

My heart did a strange, syncopated little skip. Disney? Random House? In theses times, that wasn’t just success; that was a lunar landing.

”They aren’t advertising,” Deborah continued, her eyes locked onto mine. ”They don’t want a temp from an agency. They want someone ’vetted.’ Someone who ’presents well.’ Gail asked me if I knew any girls in theater—girls who were smart, organized, and wouldn’t be starstruck because they were too busy being hungry for their own break.”

’Presents well.’

I’d been presenting well since I was thirteen. I knew how to wear a mask. I knew how to walk into a room and make people believe I belonged there, even when my stomach was growling from a lunch of ramen and tap water.

”Why me?” I asked. ”Why not post it?”

”Because people like this family don’t post things, Amy. They ask in their circle until someone asks in their circle until eventually it finds the right person.” She turned back to the hem. ”I am just a tiny part of a much bigger network. Yet, here we are. Hollywood operates in a chaotic web of connections..”

”And because you’re the only one in this building who doesn’t gossip, and you’re the only one who looks like she knows how to handle a contract without blowing up, you are smart and beautiful enough.” Deborah said bluntly. ”And because Gail said the family understands this person would have their own aspirations. They’re looking for a ’Professional Associate,’ not a nanny.”

She straightened up, pressing her hands into the small of her back. ”You’d have to fly out there, Amy. On your own dime. For a face-to-face. People like the Meyers don’t hire over a phone line. They want to see the ’Edges’ of a person.”

I looked at my reflection in the tall, cracked wardrobe mirror. I saw a girl in a half-finished costume, standing in a basement in Minnesota. I had exactly four hundred and thirty-seven dollars in my checking account. I knew that number the way a soldier knows the number of bullets in his clip. A last-minute flight to LAX would take almost all of it.

If I went and failed, I’d be broke and back in the parking lot. If I didn’t go... I’d just be in the parking lot.

”Is the son... okay?” I asked. ”I mean, is he a ’difficult’ kid?”

Deborah shrugged. ”Gail said he’s the most charming person she’s ever seen. She also said he makes her feel like she’s the one who’s ten years old. Take from that what you will.”

I thought about the cold air outside. I thought about the twelve-percent tips.

”Can you get me Gail’s number?” I asked.

Deborah was already reaching into her apron pocket for a scrap of paper. Her smile was small, knowing, and entirely devoid of the usual Midwest ”niceness.” It was the look of a woman who had just handed a weapon to a soldier.

”I already have it ready,” she said. ”Call her tonight. Tell her I sent you. And Amy? Wear the blue suit. It makes you look like someone who can keep a secret.”

I took the paper. My fingers were trembling, just a little. I just knew that for the first time in twenty-two years, the silence after the show didn’t feel like an ending. It felt like a prologue.

---

I called Gail from my apartment that night.

”Apartment” was a generous word for what was functionally a rectangular box situated directly above a 24-hour dry cleaner’s. The street below smelled permanently of industrial solvent, burnt coffee, and the kind of old, stagnant ambition that clings to people who have stopped checking their mail.

Gail’s voice was warm and efficient in equal measure—a velvet-covered hammer. It was a voice that told me everything I needed to know about the household she managed: it was a place where things worked, where chaos was not permitted, and where the word ”discretion” was probably etched into the silver.

She didn’t give much away. She confirmed the position existed, confirmed the staggering seriousness of the family, and confirmed that Deborah’s word carried enough weight to keep her from hanging up on me. Then, she moved into the interrogation. She asked me four questions with the clinical precision of a surgeon:

* What was my organizational experience?

* Had I ever managed confidential materials?

* My background in education—which was, admittedly, my weakest point for a ”secretary” gig, given that my degrees were mostly in stage movement and vocal projection.

* Could I travel to Los Angeles for an interview at my own expense?

I said yes to all four.

The first two were true enough; in theater, if you lose a prop or a script, the world ends. The third—well, I figured my ”theater education” meant I could learn a script, and a job description is just a script you live. The fourth was technically possible only if I moved some meager savings around and committed to a strict diet of lukewarm tap water and air for the next month.

She said she would pass my name along with the resume she got from the guild and ”someone would be in touch.”

That was it. No promises. No glowing welcome.

Just the hollow click of a long-distance line. I sat with the phone in my lap, looking around my room. My eyes settled on the secondhand furniture, the stacks of scripts on every flat surface that represented every ”almost” and ”next time” of the last three years, and the headshots I’d printed at Kinko’s because a professional photographer was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Through the single-pane window, the Minnesota wind rattled the glass, mocking the weak heat coming off the radiator.

Someone would be in touch.

I gave it three days before I let myself think about it again. I had learned early on that in our business wanting something too much was its own kind of jinx. You had to manage the wanting. You had to keep it on a low flame—hot enough to keep you moving, but not so hot that it scorched your dignity.

On the third day, the phone rang. A 310 area code. Los Angeles.

I answered before the second ring. But I let a full, agonizing beat of silence pass before I spoke. I needed my voice to come out level. I needed to sound like a woman who was already in high demand, not someone who was currently counting her quarters for the laundromat.

It worked. I was in. They had all my information my whole life on pages.

I bought the cheapest flight I could find: a red-eye connection through Denver that left at six in the morning. I arrived at LAX at noon, looking like I had been dragged through a jet engine, but I had forty minutes to execute a miracle. In a cramped airport bathroom stall, I performed a transformation. I changed my shirt, scrubbed the travel grime from my face, and ate half a granola bar over a sink while staring at my reflection.

I had packed exactly one ”Power” outfit: the navy blazer I’d scored at a thrift shop and tailored myself, dark trousers, and the heels that made my legs look like I’d had a significantly better year than I actually had. I’d pressed everything the night before with an iron I borrowed from the woman in the apartment next door, using a damp towel to get the creases sharp enough to cut paper. I’d done my hair in the Denver terminal. I’d done my makeup on the second leg of the flight, applying eyeliner during a bout of turbulence that would have terrified a lesser woman.

I looked good. I knew I looked good. Not in a vain way—in a practical way. In this industry, looking the part was fifty percent of the battle. If you looked like you belonged, people usually didn’t bother checking your credentials.

The cab from the airport drove west and then north, winding into neighborhoods that didn’t look like any version of reality I had ever inhabited. The houses grew behind their iron gates, shielded by lush, deliberate greenery. The air smelled different here—it was warmer, drier, and carried the faint, intoxicating scent of jasmine and salt air. It was as if this part of the world had simply opted out of autumn by mutual agreement.

I looked out the window and whispered to myself, ”Pay attention. Remember all of this. You’re going to want to remember the moment everything changed.”

I still didn’t know what I was walking into. I knew the name Meyers. I knew there was a son. I knew that something inside one of these impossible houses had sent a shockwave of whispered interest all the way to a wardrobe room in Chanhassen, Minnesota. That alone told me the ”son” was the center of a very powerful gravity.

I straightened my blazer. I checked my reflection in the dark glass of the cab window—it gave me back a young woman who looked calm, capable, and entirely in control.

’Good,’ I thought. ’Look like that. Be that.’

The cab turned onto a long, quiet street called Tremblin Drive. The houses here didn’t just have yards; they had estates. We slowed as we approached a Baroque-style villa that looked like it had been transported brick-by-brick from a high-end European countryside. Marble columns gleamed in the midday sun.

The cab stopped. The meter ticked. I stepped out, the California heat wrapping around me like a heavy silk blanket. As I walked toward the iron gate, I felt the shift. This wasn’t just a house; it was a fortress of a burgeoning empire.

I was led through the house by a woman I assumed was Mrs. Aranda, who reached out to Gail—she was as polished as her voice had promised. The interior was a masterclass in ”Quiet Wealth.” There were no gold-plated toilets, but the art on the walls was real, and the silence was deep and expensive.

—

The heavy, persistent drizzle of a London winter battered the tall, leaded glass windows of the elegant Knightsbridge townhouse. Inside, the set was bathed in the warm, artificial glow of tungsten lights, perfectly mimicking a cozy British afternoon.

Marvin sat perfectly upright on a plush, velvet chaise lounge. He wasn’t wearing the baggy hoodies or sneakers of his Californian alter-ego, Mike Parker. He was dressed impeccably as Baker James—wearing a tailored, charcoal-grey school uniform, his posture rigidly straight, his chin lifted with the subtle, ingrained arrogance of the British upper class.

Across from him sat the legendary Natasha Richardson, playing his elegant, fiercely protective mother.

The cameras rolled silently.

Marvin looked up at her, his ocean-blue eyes catching the key light. The transformation was absolute. When he spoke, the vowels were clipped, precise, and entirely free of his natural American cadence. He delivered a flawless, upper-crust London accent, dripping with Received Pronunciation.

*****

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