Chapter 10
Autumn
It wasn’t until stepping out of the airport and feeling the dry California air for the first time that I realized how much of a blur the past week was.
I still had no idea what happened. I’d spent days reeling over their decision and sleepless nights pouring over the medical bills that started coming in having no clue what we were going to do. I had started organizing my things to see what I could sell when they called me back saying they changed their minds.
It still hadn’t fully sunk in until the first fifty-thousand dollars of my advance showed up in the mail. As per the contract, I’d get the remaining one-hundred-thousand when I completed training. Seeing that much money made my head spin… It’d been almost a week and my throat still hurt from screaming.
I still hadn’t emotionally recovered from the whole thing. I’d never cried so hard for such opposite reasons before. I wasn’t a religious person, but if this wasn’t some kind of miracle, then I didn’t know what was.
I immediately bought Mom health insurance and set up a bank account for the rest of the expenses that weren’t covered. After an hour long argument Mom agreed to stop working under the condition that she could help me edit and post my videos. So in between the battery of tests and the beginning of her chemo treatments I taught her how to roughly edit and upload video files.
It was actually a great arrangement; working with her was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be! It also took a ton of stress off me, because I couldn’t go a full month without releasing new content or my audience might disappear. I had no idea how vigorous and time-consuming my training was going to be, but I doubted I’d have time for much else.
I hoisted my backpack higher up and rolled my suitcase to a well dressed man holding a sign that had my name on it. Part of me wondered if anyone had ever been abducted from an airport by some guy holding a sign with a common enough last name. That’s when I knew I was really nervous. I always crafted these ridiculous worst-case scenarios in my head when I was anxious about something.
And that something was spending so much time with Dante Marks for the next several weeks.
The driver introduced himself and it made me feel more comfortable that he was with Lionhouse studios, Then took my bags and led me to his waiting limo. I slid across one of the bench-style seats that lined both walls. The plush white leather absorbed my weight like I was sitting on a cloud. Monitors, speakers, and rows of dormant LED lights were affixed on the supports between each set of one-way windows. Cabinets of untouched alcohol and glasses were anchored at the far ends of each bench and the mirrored ceiling made the cab look even more enormous than it already was.
It felt like I’d broken into the hottest nightclub around, but at noon on a sunny Tuesday.
My first time inside one of these was senior prom when sixteen of us were stuffed into one of these like glamorous sardines. This time was much different. Something about being the only one in such a large empty cabin as we traveled a countryside that seemed to stretch on forever made me feel insignificant.
I settled in and rubbed my lucky ear stud as the chaotic din of Los Angeles melted into mountainous green swaths, then finally into unforgiving desert. The longer we drove into the middle of nowhere, the more apprehensive I became. The unchanging, barren scenery might as well have been the surface of Mars.
I was a long way from home.
During the drive, I tried to figure out what a training compound would even look like. Where would I spend the next four weeks of my life? My vivid imagination conjured up images of a joyless, metal and concrete prison filled with medieval torture devices. Or even worse, an endless Zumba class.
This was the right decision? I repeated like a mantra, reminding myself of how impossible this opportunity was. Being selected at all was like hitting the lottery after being struck by lightening. Everything else that happened was going to be easy comparatively.
It had to be…right?
In the three hours we’d been driving, the cracked earth and tufts of sun-bleached shrubs had given way to rolling hills and shocks of lush green trees surrounding a large pond. It reminded me of an oasis that a cowboy dying of thirst might hallucinate, while staggering through the Mohave Desert. We turned onto an upward sloping driveway and slowed to a stop in the paved loop that led to a stone walkway.
It was a private paradise.
Pretty scenery aside, what was I doing here? The Jenga tower of dread building inside me since I landed took on a bunch of new blocks all at once. This didn’t look like any Hilton I’d ever seen. This was someone’s house! Didn’t they tell me I’d be staying at a hotel?
“Where are we?” I asked the driver when he opened my door.
“This is the Teller family estate. This is where you’ll be living during your training.”
“Oh,” I said, stepping out, distracted with my avalanche of thoughts, fears and wonderment from looking around. Living my whole life on the east coast, this place wasn’t at all what I’d expected. It was gorgeous in a way I’d never seen before!
The pueblo-style house was the highest structure on the tallest hill around, offering an unbroken panoramic view of the entire area. The house overlooked several smaller staging areas, garages, and equipment buildings, a paved quarter mile track, a few flatbed trailers and even a private airstrip!
“The Teller family?” The name only sounded faintly familiar.
“Ever heard of Crash Teller? He was that famous daredevil guy who died a couple years ago.” The driver unloaded my suitcase and backpack.
“That’s right!” Now I remembered. I didn’t follow it much at the time, but he was all over the news for a few days like three or four years ago. “Is there anyone else here?”
“Just his son Dante.”
“Dante? Dante Marks?” I swallowed hard, straightening. So his last name was really Teller. That explains why I couldn’t find out anything about him online.
The driver nodded before rolling my luggage up the stairs and disappearing around the bend of the tall, plant-lined path that presumably led to the front door of the house.
I knew he was training me, but I didn’t think I’d be staying in his house too. Oh, man.
“Do you need anything else before I go?” The driver asked briskly walking back down the path, checking his watch.
I paused for a moment, not wanting him to leave me alone here. “What do you know about Dante?”
“Not much.” He was caught off guard by the specificity of the question. “I’ve never actually met the guy before.”
“Haven’t you brought people to train here before? They told me it was a training facility.”
“Oh it is. All that stuff is mostly down there.” He pointed down the hill at the track and one of the buildings. “Lionhouse owns a place about an hour from here. The actors have always stayed there and commuted in. This is the first time I’ve brought someone to actually stay here during their training.”
“The first time? Ever?” The nervousness set back in. Why was I so special? “That doesn’t strike you as weird?”
“Weird?” The driver laughed. “I once had to drive three albino transvestite hookers, a donkey, five cases of vanilla pudding, and enough oxy to open a pharmacy, to and from an actor’s vacation home for the weekend.”
I stood there wide eyed, having nothing to say to that. Eventually I chuckled as well. Somehow hearing about that extreme end of the spectrum, and not being in it, put me at ease.
“All I’m saying is, in this line of work it’s hard to quantify ‘weird’”. The driver removed a sealed envelope from his jacket’s breast pocket and handed it to me. “Most of what they say about him can’t be true.”
“Thanks.” I turned the envelope with my name on it over in my hands. “What do they say about him?”
“The most recent theory is that he was a secret agent.” The driver shrugged, then winked at me. “Before that I heard he was werewolf that eats pretty young actress. Stay on your toes and you’ll be alright.”
I chuckled again. Finally finding my manners and ashamed I hadn’t given this any thought, I asked, “Wait! Do I…owe you anything? For the trip?”
“No ma’am. You’re all set.” A bemused look sparked across the driver’s handsome, young face as though I was wearing a sandwich board over my shoulders that read, Hi! I’m new here!
He glanced once more at the house before opening the car door and turning back to me with a renewed smile. This one was heavier and more knowing, and it came at the end of a deliberate exhale; it was something a doctor might do just before walking into a patient’s room with bad news. Good luck, the gesture said, you’re going to need it.
And with that, my last chance to go back home slowly vanished into the distance. I stood there with such uncertainty that a strong breeze might’ve pushed me in any direction. I was alone, several thousand miles from home at the beginning of a great and terrible adventure with nothing save a few bags and a letter from an intimate stranger.
I gathered my breath and all my courage, then took my first few steps up Dante’s walkway, towards my new life as an actress.
On the drive in, when I thought about where I’d be staying images of polished, contemporary monstrosities overlooking LA with those edgeless, infinity pools came to mind; like the LA mansions we passed on the way here. I dragged my fingertips along the interior curve of the chunky, battered archway that marked the beginning of the dusty, brick path to the front door. How wrong I was…
The house was large, but far from a mansion by any means. The blocky architecture with its stepped, segmented construction, massive window bays and irregular parapets was so different to the three-hundred year old, drafty, wooden, vinyl-sided colonials I had grown up seeing. Its stylish simplicity was so fascinating; the rounded corners and soft earthy tones reminded me of the sand castles I loved building when I was little.
I knocked, then tried the front door. It was locked. No one was here. I tore open the letter. “Zero four one five. Yours is the eastern most bedroom. Set your alarm for six A.M.”
Six in the morning? I groaned. Even with the three-hour time difference grace period I wasn’t an early bird by any means. This was going to suck!
Despite the code obviously working it still felt uncomfortable walking into a stranger’s house for the first time. Did Dante live with anyone? I really hoped I wasn’t about to startle a family member. As the door swung open a ridiculous scenario played out in my head where I had to explain what I was doing here to the cops. I wasn’t breaking in, I was invited! I swear.
“Hello?” I took a hesitant step inside. “If there’s anyone in here, promise I’m not breaking in. I mean, illegally breaking in!”
What if he did live all alone?
Before closing the door behind me I glanced out over the near-empty horizon and realized it’d take police forever to get here. That realization gripped me with a different fear.
What if I needed help?
Seeing how charming the inside of the house was put me a little more at ease that I wasn’t going to be murdered. The many floor-to-ceiling windows didn’t have any shutters or blinds so warm ambient light flowed in from every direction. It gave everything a welcoming, nostalgic feel.
The interior was an open floor plan, reminiscent of an uppercase L. My luggage noisily rolled through the dining room’s stone floor until it hit the cream carpet of a cozy living room at the house’s elbow. Looking around I could see most of the first floor from where I stood. I loved that.
I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply and imagined for a just a moment that I lived here. Because we never had much money growing up, the apartments we had were basically, claustrophobic little cubes. Exhaling, I opened my eyes and smiled.
I could get used to this.
Looking down I saw that the wheels of my luggage left dusty, brownish tracks on the carpet. “Crap.”
I carried my bags back onto the stone floor, and slipping off my shoes, I searched for some paper towels behind the room’s attached wet bar. After cleaning the mess I decided to explore a little. I called out a few more times just to be sure no one was here.
I drifted through the house like a slow breeze. There was a family room, an enormous marbled kitchen with an island large enough to land a small boat on, a quiet office nook, mud room and even a private library with so many books that it would sate even the most voracious readers. That was all to say nothing of the many expansive window views, half and full baths, walk-ins and fireplaces that were as common as smoke detectors. Each room cascaded seamlessly into the next and they were all gorgeous in a relaxed, uncluttered sort of way. The house felt lived in and comfortable.
The more I wandered the more curious I became. There were so many fully furnished rooms for just one person. This was definitely a family home, but where was that family? If I was staying in his house why weren’t there any family photos? That was another thing that struck me as kind of weird. There were no vacation pictures, or gray portraits of great grandparents, no awkward school photos, or newspaper clippings of the late great Crash Teller. Nothing.
This place felt more like a hotel and an IKEA showroom than a childhood home.
“Eastern most bedroom…” I said, scouting out the second floor. This was where most of the bedrooms were. Even thinking about bed came with a wave of jet-lagged exhaustion. Despite it still being light out that three hour time zone difference from the east coast was definitely catching up to me. I was quickly powering down.
“Ok. So… Where the hell is east?” I checked the app store for a compass I could download, but it wouldn’t load. “Great. No data reception out here. Perfect.”
Eastern most? C'mon... What was he a wizard? Nobody describes anything like that. Dante had to be messing with me.
The WiFi was locked too. But Why? There couldn't have been enough traffic way out here for that to be a concern. I hoped Dante had a land line because Mom was going to kill me if I didn’t let her know I made it alright.
Quickly scanning each open room as I walked by, an errant sunbeam through the skylight caught my eye; it bathed a simple wooden stool by the hallway's one closed door in bright, yellow warmth. On that stool was a tiny, glass vase big enough for only the one fresh desert flower it held.
The delicate, lilac-colored bulb was unlike any flower I’d ever seen before. The open, yet slightly curved-in petals revealed a white-bottomed cup with five, burning crimson spots rounding a ring of pink stigmas.
The golden sunlight filled up the fragile bulb like water in a cup, giving the flower an ethereal glow. It was the most beautiful flower I’d ever seen. I leaned forward and breathed in its subtle sweetness. A warming, smile crept across my heart.
Did Dante set this flower out for me to mark the room I'd be staying in? That was much sweeter than a post-it note.
There were no other room markings so I guessed this had to be it. I went back downstairs and grabbed my things. The shining flower seemed to light my way back to the closed door, giving me more and more confidence that this was the right room.
When I opened it I was greeted by what had to be the master suite. The room was huge! It had both his and her bathroom sides, a walk-in closet the size of my bedroom back home, a fireplace, and a plush king-size bed set beneath an angled half-wall of windows. There were also a few odd decorating choices which proved to me that at one point someone did actually live here. One of the shelves held a mean-looking, yet jovially dressed stuffed gecko wearing a tiny sombrero.
I shrugged. Who was I to judge?
“Ok. This is officially my dream house!” I said, collapsing onto the most comfortable bed in the world. A sudden, giddy burst of laughter erupted within me, as I thrashed around like little girl. I wished Mom were here to see this, she’d be freaking out as much as I was! The excitement was soon strangled by jet-lagged drowsiness, which smothered me like a warm blanket.
I woke up an hour later. The relentless sun was dying, but it was still too bright to get back to sleep. I sat on the heated toilet seat in the her side of the bathroom until the daze of just waking up from a nap subsided. It was impossible to keep myself from imagining what a domesticated life with Dante would be like.
After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I found a phone and called Mom. Despite her well-meaning lies, the grogginess in her voice told me I’d just woken her up, so I kept the call brief. I wanted to tell her about this amazing house, but settled with letting her know I was alive and telling her that I’d call her tomorrow.
Time zones, stupid! I scolded myself, hanging up the phone. I needed to remember that we were three hours ahead here. It was nearly midnight back home!
I laid back down, but after awhile I realized that sleep had abandoned me. Instead of staring at the still bright ceiling I decided to try out the balcony and clear my head.
It was still deceptively comfortable when I stepped outside; the cool stone felt nice on my bare feet. Spaciously-set wooden beams jutted out over the door as if they were the skeleton of some bulky, forever unfinished awning; the sunset made their shadows into long, grasping fingers lazily clutching the balcony’s solid adobo railing.
I placed a hand on a cushioned, wicker lounge chair and looked out over the wild, untamed landscape that didn’t seem like it could ever end. Sunset stabbed across the impossibly vast blue sky bleeding it a shade of mustard yellow, possible only at the onset of summer’s death.
Overlooking the estate made me feel a bit like a queen surveying her kingdom. I breathed in deep, letting the dry air lick at my lungs. The earthy breeze tasted like buttery sunlight. Every window, skylight, patio and even the swimming pool in the back yard seemed designed to steal as much of the view as possible, but none more so than the master bedroom's balcony; that was positively drenched in it.
I could see everything from here.
The four-car garage directly below me was full of toys that little boys dreamed off: Dirt bikes, three and four-wheelers, trailers of various sizes, a corvette, and of course a beefy-looking pickup truck to lug everything around. A paved trail splintered off from the garage and led to a few smaller buildings and the long oval of a race track. The prop jet was housed in a large storage tent at the center of the oval. Peeling off the track in a straight line was a full length airstrip.
Just past all that was one last building. It was an L-shaped structure made of stained, wood. Some kind of barn, maybe? Attached to it was some sort of wood working area and an empty bay long enough to house a trailer. Above all that was a landing for an office or some other small room.
That was the one building the studio told me was off limits.
Dante struck me as such a brutally efficient man in many ways. The utility throughout the rest of the property made sense to me, but seeing the aesthetic flourishes in the house didn't. They didn’t serve any practical purpose. But the fact that he kept them all, down to the sort-of-creepy, festive gecko, made me smile for some reason. It was like getting a peak behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz.
Was there more than just a stuntman behind those scars and sexy, brown eyes?
“Guess I’m going to find out,” I barely got the words out before movement in the distance stole my breath away. A dozen nearly-silhouetted forms cut streams of rolling dust across the plains. I gasped, covering my mouth.
Real life wild horses chased one another across the horizon!
It was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen.
Maybe this whole thing wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought.