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The night manager of the 7-Eleven on Palm Desert Drive has nothing much to do for most of his nights but mull over the state of his middle-aged life, the modern-age world, and the tabloids, which, aside from alien and dead celebrity sightings, just love to report on clapper carnage. Blood and gore at a fifth-grade reading level for your entertainment and pleasure. An office building taken out here, a restaurant blown sky-high. The latest clapper attack was at a freaking fitness club, for God’s sake. They just walked into the gym without as much as a hello-how’dya-do, and boom! Poor bastards working out didn’t stand a chance. Not much you can do to escape lead weights flying like shrapnel.
imo turns up the semicircular driveway of a plantation-style mansion that is either very old or very new but made to look old, like so many things are. Town cars and limos line the driveway. Valets scramble to park the cars of the nonchauffeured guests.
“You know you’re in the highest echelon of society,” Roberta remarks, “when having to valet park a car is an embarrassment.”
Their limo stops, and the door is opened for them.
“Shine, Cam,” Roberta tells him. “Shine like the star you are.”
She gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek. Only after they step out and her attention is on the path ahead of them, does he wipe off the remnants of the kiss with the back of his hand.
* * *
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* * *
“Is it true what they say about you?” the pretty girl asks.
She wears a dress that’s a little too short for an event filled with gowns and tuxedos. She’s one of the only people Cam’s age at the gala.
“That depends,” he tells her. “What do they say?”
They are in a den in the mansion, away from the hustle and bustle of the crowded party. There’s a wall of leather-bound legal books, a comfortable chair, and a desk too large to be of any practical use. Cam wandered in here to escape from “shining” for the various rich and powerful guests. The girl had followed him in.
“They say that everything you do, you do like no other.” She moves toward him from the door. “They say that every part of you was handpicked to be perfect in every way.”
“That’s not me,” he says slyly. “I believe it’s Mary Poppins who claims to be practically perfect in every way.”
She chuckles as she gets closer to him. “You’re funny, too.”
She is beautiful. Clearly she is also starstruck. She wants to bask in his light, and he wonders if he should let her.
“What’s your name?”
“Miranda,” she says gently. “Can I . . . touch your hair?”
“Only if I can touch yours . . .”
She reaches for him tentatively at first, patting his hair, then running her fingers through the varied textures and colors.
“You’re so . . . exotic. I thought I’d be frightened to see you in person, but I’m not.”
She smells of vanilla and wildflowers—a scent that pings his memories in several nonspecific places. It’s a popular perfume among popular girls.
“Risa Ward is a bitch,” she tells him. “The way she dumped you on national TV. The way she played you, then tossed you away. You deserve someone better. Someone who can appreciate you.”
“Lockdown!” Cam blurts.
