And eventually, yes, the ambience lulled her, and she slept, but not for long, because the sun had barely colored the horizon before she was woken by crashing and thumping sounds from across the street. Kitty rolled out of bed and staggered to the window, where she saw the actor Luke Kingsley, emptying his garage.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

6:53.

She longed for Kentucky.

There was no orderliness to Luke’s process. He just threw shit onto his lawn. Boxes, flowerpots, recycling containers, a push mower, a faded yellow cooler. Kitty thought that, maybe, with times being hard, he was prepping for a garage sale. But when the framed Ventura Knights poster—signed by the whole cast, including Travolta—came crashing out, she knew he meant to kill himself.

Kitty had revisited a couple of Luke Kingsley’s movies when she discovered he lived across the street from her. She’d also dug around online, and beyond all the vicious Reddit threads and bloodthirsty sensationalism, she found a 2018 HFPA red carpet interview, in which Sonny Mankowitz candidly asked Luke which beloved thing he would rescue first from his house in the event of a fire. “Wow, a fire?” Luke had replied, flashing the smile he’d purchased from Dr. Rick Glassman, dentist to the stars. “Not to tempt fate, but I’d have to say . . . yeah, I have a custom-framed one-sheet for Ventura Knights that’s probably my most prized possession. It’s signed by everyone—J.T., Emma, Reese, even Jimmy, the director. And sure, I own more expensive items, but Ventura holds a special place in my heart. Maybe because I had such a great time on the shoot. Maybe because it was my first big picture.” By big, Luke meant that it was his first movie with an eight-figure budget. Ventura Knights underwhelmed at the box office, though, marginally recouping its costs.

The question was a setup, of course, because Hollywood dined on fresh meat, and Luke’s stormy relationship with his soul singer wife, Lisa Hayes, had recently furnished the gossip magazines. Having received the kind of reply he expected, Mankowitz followed with: “A poster? Really? Most people say their partner.”

“Right,” Luke said, looking momentarily uncomfortable. “My wife. Yeah. Absolutely.” He rolled back on his heels and brandished Dr. Glassman’s smile again. “I’d probably grab her next.”

The Ventura Knights poster exited the garage in spectacular fashion, bouncing off one corner, the glass exploding from the frame. It traveled end-over-end a couple of times before settling facedown on the lawn.

At this point another neighbor blustered into the street, dressed in boxers and flip-flops, his face a struck match.

“Hey, motherfucker. What the fuck?”

A box torpedoed from the gloom. It hit the lawn and split open, spilling paperbacks and comics.

“You want to quit with the goddamn noise?”