Page 9 of The Mayor and the Mystery Man

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So how dida forty-two-year-old (not fifty!) guy wind up having to live in a tiny room in a tiny apartment with three of the grossest, most entitled twenty-something roommates?

I asked myself that question every goddamn day. What were the chutes and ladders of life that brought me here?

Some people, like my friend Leo, knew what they wanted in life and attacked their goals with a single-minded focus. In college, he talked about being a lawyer with his own practice. He made Dean’s List, studied like a madman for his LSATs, busted his ass through law school, got recruited by a firm, then broke off on his own. He then wanted to become mayor of his hometown. And by golly, he made it—straight, clear path.

Not all of us were lucky enough to have that kind of internal compass.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I went to college to figure it out, but after four years, I remained without an answer. So I went to law school but barely survived my first year before bailing. In the first of many examples of my awful timing, I had this epiphany after I’d taken out boatloads of student debt.

I’d bounced around from job to job, trying to figure out what fit. Pharmaceutical sales was too soul-crushing, running a restaurant was too stressful, working on a cruise ship was too nauseating. Managing rental properties meant getting shit from landlords and tenants. I started a business selling energy drinks, which fizzled quickly, much like the drinks themselves. Each failure added more debt to my life. There were women along the way, but whenever I thought things were going well, they’d bolt.

It wasn’t until I reached my mid-thirties that I realized I wanted to work with my hands. My favorite memories were going with my parents’ church to build houses for underprivileged people. I got back into carpentry; I’d always done some kind of woodworking or building throughout the years—helping friends repair tables, building cute wooden signs for nurseries. I scraped together all of my remaining money to build spec houses. Then the market crashed. I had to sell my own house to cover the losses.

I was forty years old, single, and homeless.

And now I was woken up by the sounds of masturbation andRoman’s Choice.

To make money, I built sets forOcean City. The huge bright side was meeting Audrey, one of the stars of the show. In typical Hollywood fashion, she played a seventeen-year-old but was actually thirty-three. We’d been flirting with each other around the set and finally consummated at the wrap party last spring. We had an amazing summer together but agreed that we’d be professional once the new season started up last month.

I arrived at the soundstage in my loud, rattling car that, after 150,000 miles, wasn’t long for this world. I constructed a set for a new pizza parlor hangout where Audrey’s character would work after school and eventually have a flirtation with her married boss.

Are you filming today?I text.

I took a quick break and meandered around the set until I found Audrey rehearsing a scene in the school hallway set. I waved, which I knew she saw, but she didn’t reciprocate.

After a few hours of working on the pizza place and repeatedly checking my phone, I hopped over to her trailer.

“Yeah,” she said when I knocked on the door.

“It’s me.” I waited a few agonizing seconds before she let me inside.

Her trailer was bigger than my bedroom, a fact I ignored as I kissed her. It was an oddly one-sided kiss. She pulled away.

“What’s up, Dusty? I have a big scene I’m trying to prepare for.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Lena is finally losing her virginity to Adam.”

“Wow.” It was a storyline that’d been building up since last season, but it tightened my chest knowing she’d be in bed with that admittedly hunky actor this week. “Congratulations. For you and Lena.”

“It’s something they’ve been driving toward since the start of the show. The fans call us LenAdam, which doesn’t have the right ring. Marketing is working on a new name to feed the fan sites.” Audrey checked her makeup in the mirror. They had to put it on thick because high-definition TVs made it harder to hide her real age.

“Whatever it is, it’s going to be great. What’s in a name, anyway?”

“I mean, everything. We need to keep the fans engaged so they keep watching.”

I put my hands on her shoulders, and she froze under me. I nearly got ice burn.

“The fans love you, almost as much as I do.” She tensed under me, but she was probably nervous about nailing her scene. She was also one of those people with a clear, straight path to their goals. “It’s going to be great.”

“I know. We’ve been practicing.”

“Practicing?” My stomach dropped into my feet. What the hell did that mean?

“Our lines. Blocking the sex scene. We’re working with an intimacy coordinator.”

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