The Dreamer

“Kyle! Get off my bed!” Maddie groaned for the fifth time as she spun around on the chair to glare at him. Kyle grinned smugly back at her as he held the duplicate of Mr. Bean’s Teddy, making the bear clapped its small paws. “Come on, Maddie! You wanna play with me?” Kyle asked in a small, childlike voice.

Maddie rolled her eyes. “You said you were going to be serious, Kyle,” she sighed defeated. Kyle continued to play with her soft toy as he sat up on her now messy bed. “Don’t get mad, Maddie-Waddie. We’re still going to learn,” he said with the same chirpy voice.

Maddie watched him cautiously as he climbed off her bed and brought the bear closer to her face. He poked the soft toy’s nose against hers. Once. Twice. And the third time was the charm. Maddie chuckled and took the bear from his grasp. “You’re such a kid, Kyle,” she smiled.

Kyle’s smile widened. “Alright, let me see what you’ve got,” he said. Maddie inched away from the laptop for Kyle. He clicked on the mouse and watched the video Maddie had come up with from the past hour. Maddie bit on her lower lip as she tried to catch a glimpse of his reaction on her work. Even though he was only teaching her basic things on some video programming but she took it seriously and whenever they had their tutorial sessions Kyle was her tutor and she was his student.

“It’s great,” Kyle beamed after the video ended. “You edited it well, and somehow managed to put every single effect into it. Well done!” he congratulated. Maddie smiled. “Thanks to you.”

Kyle shrugged modestly and leaned back on his chair. “Well, I guess we’re done for tonight.”

“Yup,” Maddie nodded and hugged the bear closer, satisfied with what she just learned. Kyle stood up and took his heavy bag of cameras and notebooks and slung it over his shoulder. Maddie returned her bear onto the bed.

“Wait! I have something for you,” she said and ran out of the bedroom, downstairs towards the kitchen. She grabbed the small box from the refrigerator and sprinted back up the stairs and into her room. “This is for you,” she smiled, breathless.

Kyle glanced at the silver box questioningly and raised an eyebrow. “What’s this about?”

Maddie simply shoved it into his hands. “Just take it. It’s for all the kindness you offered to teach me things for free and for being a friend,” Maddie said.

“Aww… Maddie…” he took a glimpse on the box before turning his attention back to her. “Thank you,” he pulled her in for a friendly hug. “I knew you’re special from the day I met you.”

Maddie could only froze the smile on her face. She couldn’t be any more luckier to have a friend like Kyle. Though she hated his profession but he was a good person.

“I better go now,” Kyle said. Maddie led him out the room and towards the front door of the house. “Goodnight, Kyle.”

“Night, Maddie. I’ll see you next Thursday?”

“Yup.” She watched him walked towards his car in the driveway. He loaded his gear and the box into the passenger seat and flashed another smile at her.

“Oh yeah! And don’t stick too close to that jerk, Shia LaBeouf! He’s not a good person!” he shouted and with a small wave, he got into his car and drove off. Maddie shook her head and locked the door, walking back up the stairs. She was about to take a shower when she noticed the light peering under the tiny gap from Joanne’s door. She knocked on it before turning the knob.

“Hey,” she poked her head through the small gap. Joanne was on her laptop, eyes squinted at the screen. Maddie slipped into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “What are you up to?”

Joanne heaved a loud sigh and turned to face her. “Just another assignment. That was Kyle?” she asked. Maddie nodded and fell onto the bed. It took less than a minute for her to realize how tired she truly was. It had been a long day and it was one plus in the morning.

“So, anything special happened today?” Joanne asked, retying her ponytail again. Maddie recalled the events of her day and sat up slightly too excited. “Shia LaBeouf was in the shop again today!” she revealed.

“Really? Why was he there?” Joanne asked, curious.

“That’s the surprising part,” Maddie grinned. “He actually came in to ask me about the book he bought.”

“The Pooh book?”

“Uh-huh. Cool, right?” Maddie exclaimed. Joanne simply smiled and nodded. Maddie narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Why are you giving me that look, Jo?”

Joanne continued to stare at her funnily. “Because I think someone has a crush on a certain celebrity,” Joanne revealed. Maddie gasped and shook her head vigorously. “No, I don’t! What kind of nonsense is that?! The reason I’m excited cause Shia, an A-List actor came to look for me for some sort of a guidance on a book! I mean… that don’t happen to anyone on a daily basis. How can anyone not get excited on something like that?!”

Joanne chuckled. “I was only joking, Maddie. You don’t have to overreact,” she grinned. “Plus, so what if he’s a really famous celebrity? He’s still just a normal human being. Remember, Maddie? You told me that yourself. That’s why you hate the paparazzi and gossip columns.”

Maddie nodded. “I remember. It’s just…”

Joanne waited for her to continue but Maddie seem to be stuck in a trance. “Never mind,” she muttered and left the room. She took a quick shower and brushed her teeth, changed into her pajamas and sat in her room. Silence filled the air as she studied the condition of the place. Everything was neat and tidy except for the bed. The thoughts in her mind swam around in circles until she turned to her laptop and went on to Google.

Shia LaBeouf

She went onto his IMDB page first, reading on the list of movies he worked on and the brief biographies written by fans and random trivial facts about the actor. She then explored a few of his fan sites and ended up looking at some candid photographs taken by the paparazzi who followed him on a daily basis. She even watched a video captured by Hollywood.tv on YouTube. It scared her. It reminded her why she hated paparazzi and the gossip columnists. They were the people who caused these celebrities who had opted for a career in the acting or singing field to seemingly lost their privacy.

Maddie leaned on her chair and thought for a moment. Why was he crowned a jerk amongst them? Was it because he always seemed to ignore the paparazzi that followed him around? Always protected by a bodyguard who swatted them away from him? He was portrayed as a bad boy in the media. The one who got drunk and drove his car with a fellow costar beside him. The one who partied away at nightclubs. The one who smoked almost everywhere he went.

But was that really who he was or was it all the power of the media?

Maddie thought back to the first time meeting the man and their meeting that evening. Nothing seem to be clicking to the image she had just read except for maybe the slight air of arrogance he had around him sometimes. But she was the one overreacting. So, she might have read that wrongly.

She wasn’t sure why she was so intrigued in the matter. It could have been her Sociology background. It could have been her fandom kicking in. Or pure curiosity. She closed all the windows and opened the file she had stored on her laptop. She read through the twenty pages of writing before she placed her hands on the keyboard. She relaxed her muscles and breathed a few times, clearing her mind before she started typing.

Maddie wasn’t only interested in being a director; she was also interested in being an author. She had worked on countless ideas that popped into her mind randomly but none of it was ever fully completed or up to her own satisfaction. Every time she read through her own work, she felt like something was missing and she still couldn’t pinpoint what it was. It annoyed her at times at how much she was a failure. She didn’t seem to be able to do anything right.

Ten minutes into banging on her laptop, she surrendered and switched it off before jumping onto her bed. She buried herself under her duvet and was about to get comfortable when she realized her lights were still on. With a loud and frustrated groan, she leaped out of bed and switched off the lights before climbing back into bed.

That night, she snuggled Teddy as she let her frustrated thoughts faded to the back of her mind and tried to think of something else. Then, the list of things she wanted to do since she arrived in LA popped into her mind. She really had to take the weekend off to do these things. She promised herself to talk to Desmond tomorrow evening and prayed to God, the studios were off this weekend as well.

With her fantasy, she imagined herself in the streets of LA, taking photographs of random people and beautiful sceneries. She imagined herself going to visit the places she always wanted to go but missed. And eventually she found herself in a dreamless sleep.