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contemptuous misgivings were forgotten and replaced with This could be it .

Yet there were classes like this all over town and through the Valley, and most of the aspirings were going to end up dying trying.

Each time Persephone saw an older student, an anxious voice cried out from the recesses of her brain: You haven’t made it yet?

And then she’d be twelve years old again, lying in that frigid hospital room, staring up at her mother as she stumbled through

It’s not good news, baby and something about having to pull her out of the School of American Ballet for good. Her mother had given up on her. Since

then, Persephone was in a perpetual state of desperation. Life was pulling away from her and if she didn’t pull back, she

would lose it.

Persephone jerked awake, panting and reflexively palming the left side of her hip. It was dark, and through the sliver between

the thin IKEA curtains, moonlight glazed the dark leaves of the trees out back. Probably two, three o’clock.

When was the last time she’d had the dream? Had to have been more than two years ago. Nightmare, really, because what else

could you call it when in one sick instant you went from being a nationally recognized, bona fide ballet prodigy to someone

to pity?

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake No. 29 and a constant flashing... Her cellphone lit up the bedroom.

Her phone was in her hand all of one second before she dropped it onto the bed.

She hadn’t answered a single one of Parker’s calls or texts or emails in two years, but still he tried. Her brother’s last

text, sent four months ago, said only one, very laughable, unbelievable thing: Mama misses you.

The cellphone kept ringing and Persephone lay in her bed, holding her breath tight as her past lit up the dark, the serrated

edge of an old shame slicing across her chest.

4

John spent the entire morning walking through the hotel room and smelling everything from the linens to the carpet to the towels to the sink to the remote control, waiting for some scent to trigger even a shadow of memory.

He had stared in vain at the ceiling until dawn, using the off-white space as a screen, encouraging his brain to prompt an image, a flash between moments.

When he’d told her his better idea , Hannah was bemused: A hotel? You can’t even open your own door. You can’t pick up a phone, can’t push an elevator button. And I’m supposed to

foot the bill, put you up somewhere. She’d given a slight, almost admiring laugh at that.

But John knew he couldn’t sit around this stranger of a woman’s house, even if she did have a Malibu beach house—perhaps especially because it was a Malibu beach house. And that went for her home tucked in the Hollywood Hills, as well. And neither would

John stay with Ruben. John required help, but what he absolutely refused to do was sing for his supper; he would not be Hannah’s

kept client, an otherworldly amusement to show off to her Hollywood friends, and he would not allow his head to be talked

off as Ruben spouted theories about everything under the sun. Hannah and Ruben were not his friends, but rather two means

to an end, and the sooner that desired end was met—with as little companionship and fanfare as possible—the better.

Now he sat in his hotel room with Hannah and co. (Hannah, William, Jin Mi, and Bean, John’s newly minted security guard).

They’d just finished bringing John up to speed regarding current events and how the world had changed since whenever he’d

last been here, which they placed, judging by his clothing, sometime within the last decade or so. William said there’d been

some hot messes , including a plague, and numerous geopolitical and socioeconomic meltdowns per usual, but nothing out of the ordinary if anyone’s been paying attention . They’d also discussed potential opportunities with various media outlets, as well as a few points in Hannah’s short-term

plan: staying relatively out of sight until the Big Reveal (the outlet for which was, according to Jin Mi’s green-Sharpied

scrawl, tbd ) .

“John,” William said, “you’re doing it again.”

John looked down at the chair. He’d gotten quite good at staying put, able to sit or lie upon any given surface for at least

an hour. “Doing what?”

“The stick up your ass,” Hannah said. “It’s back.”

John grumbled and relaxed his posture.

Jin Mi said, “I have a friend whose brother is dating a body-talk guru. I can set up a meeting.”

William shot her a look. “We already have John set up with Delia.” Part of Hannah’s short-term plan involved a famed acting

instructor who would coach him on body language, the idea of which John pushed back on immediately. He didn’t need a puppet

master.

He’d been scheduled to meet with a media trainer yesterday, at Hannah’s home in the Bird Streets ( the Bird Streets, the best streets , William had sung), but en route, Jin Mi explained to Hannah, We can’t.

When Hannah demanded Why the fuck not , Jin Mi replied with a pointed Because , to which Hannah growled something-something blood-sucking husbands before directing the driver to head not for the Hollywood Hills, after all, but for Malibu. John said to Jin Mi that he was

fine, that he could see the media trainer on his own time, at the hotel, to which she answered, Oh, it’s not you.

He’s just holed up at the house with one of his girlfriends.

John couldn’t hide his confusion well enough and Jin Mi added, It’s been over ten years but they’re never getting a divorce.

At the beach house, as he sat with the media trainer, John became peripherally aware of William’s and Jin Mi’s movements,

of the way they slipped through the house as if they lived there. Then it turned out that they did live there, each with their own room. There was an appalling lack of delineation between their professional lives with Hannah

and their personal lives without her. There was no life without her.

Hannah must have sensed something in his demeanor, because after the training session, she explained, We’re family here. A pretty modern one . He guessed that she meant diverse and not her estranged husband and his girlfriends. There didn’t seem to be any children,

any young ones anyway, and John wondered if that was what William and Jin Mi amounted to: Hannah’s Black and Asian, bow-tied

and bowl-haircut pseudo-kids. That’s why , she went on, I have a better understanding of what the hell’s going on out there.

Most companies lack insight. But we know what it is to be gay, to be Black, to be Korean, to be Asian, to be Latinx, to be nonbinary.

Because that’s who HJPR is. And we care.

John really did not know what to say to all that, but his gaze went unconsciously to William, who looked a little embarrassed.

From the hotel room’s sofa, Hannah nodded approvingly at John’s posture. “You’ve got it.”

From the corner of the room, Bean sniffed.

“Bean, you should eat,” said Jin Mi, swiping across her mobile. “Joan’s on Third?”

Bean gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. He’d been installed in the room next door because although you’re literally untouchable, he’s good for your image. John had yet to hear the man say a word.

“You’ve got to remember your body language,” Hannah said. “Everyone’s going to want to talk to you. Politicians, religious

leaders, gurus, self-helpsters. Charity organizations. Scientists are going to want their moment, too, but we’re going to

keep you away from them for the time being. Don’t want you to end up in some Ecto-Containment Unit. Kidding.” She gave John

a once-over. “You’re going to need a girlfriend.”

“What? Why? Is she supposed to remove the stick from my ass?”

“I’m hoping for her sake that you can do that on your own. But you do need a girl.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Look, it’s one thing, people projecting onto you, thinking you just might literally be a saint or an angel or a Second Coming.

It’s another for you to project that yourself, which means it won’t work at all.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning if you don’t want people turning on you because you’re playing the part way too close to the script, which will come

off disingenuous, you need to get a girlfriend. Or a whiff of one. And before you suggest it, boyfriend won’t work. America’s

progressive but it could still prove to be contentious, and definitely too contentious for the global scene. And even if it

were widely accepted, it could end up being The Story. We need to let people see one of your many wonderful angles, a facet,

not a sinkhole that becomes all that you are. Anyway, in the end, you can’t be a dead guy and Black and gay. It’ll be too much.”

William sighed.

“You know it’s true,” she said unapologetically.

The very thought was exhausting, yet another person with whom John would have to spend time. “Don’t celebrities say they’re

too busy, schedules, et cetera?”

“No one buys that anymore. It doesn’t even work for K-pop artists these days, and they’re supposed to be chaste as shit. And

in your case, you’ve got that real-deal holy shine. We need to mattify you by a few degrees.”

“And here I thought you wanted to make me a quasi-Jesus.”

“Everyone loves Theoretical Jesus,” she said. “Son of God, can-do-no-wrong perfection. But if Real Jesus walked through the

door? He’d just piss everyone off.”

5

“Remember what Delia said. Don’t clench your jaw—you have a habit of doing that. It makes you look angry.”

John raised a brow. “Quintessential Angry Black Man?”

“I didn’t say that. But nothing’s wrong with not giving people an excuse to levy that one at you, right?” Hannah leaned into

the arm of John’s armchair in the greenroom, the stack of diamond bracelets on her wrists jangling as she shifted. “Just relax.

Smile. Women have to do it all the time.” She straightened and placed a hand on her hip. “You’re ready.”

A balding, middle-aged man in headphones walked into the room. Upon seeing John, he staggered back a step, as if seeing John