Tag: hollywood

The sun slid behind the palm trees of Beverly Hills, painting the sky with a lavender glow. Sam Leeds sat alone in his late father’s office, its tall windows letting in the final light. The room smelled of leather and cigar smoke, and it was eerily quiet.

John Leeds had been a towering figure in Hollywood, an old-school film producer who still used handshakes to build his empire. Now he was gone, dead at eighty-nine, leaving behind a legacy of memories. His mansion, surrounded by manicured lawns and marble terraces, felt deserted without his booming presence.

Sam rubbed his forehead. He was there to sort through his father’s effects, and as he sat at the massive mahogany desk, his eyes scanned the walls. They were covered with photographs, some black-and-white, others in color. John laughing beside Bogart, leaning close to Elizabeth Taylor, and raising a glass with Jack Nicholson. More recently, John sharing a joke with Tom Cruise, standing at the Oscars with Scarlett Johansson, and shaking hands with Liam Neeson.

The old man had churned through three marriages with younger women. The second one—Sam’s mother—wouldn’t return for the funeral. She’d negotiated a hefty divorce settlement, then emigrated to France. Sam rarely saw her. His only sibling had died years earlier of a drug overdose, so he was the sole heir at age forty-eight, a middle-aged man with graying hair and a slim physique, quiet and reserved with those who knew him.

When a friend asked, “What are you going to do with all that money?” Sam barely flinched. The real question that gnawed at him was, “What will you do now that your father’s voice is no longer in the room?” For decades, John Leeds’s disappointment had been like gravity pulling Sam down. His father never softened his disdain for Sam’s role as a Human Resources Director at a nonprofit. “Why don’t you just take the opportunities I’m offering?” he said with bafflement. “Step into the film business and claim a piece of Leeds success!”

Sam knew one thing for sure. Enduring his dad’s expectations was hard enough. Working with the old man would have been deadly. Over the years, Sam told himself he was immune to all the judgment, but the truth lingered in the wreckage of his own marriage and the erosion of his self-worth. His father’s shadow was stitched into the fabric of his life, a constant reminder that he had failed to measure up. Now, with John gone, he felt unmoored, like an orphan in middle age. He wondered if this freedom from criticism would mean new possibilities or just remind him of how broken he had let himself become.

He turned on the office lights and resumed his task, which felt like rifling through the nation’s cultural history. File cabinets stretched wall to wall, neatly labeled in his father’s blocky handwriting. The folders inside held contracts, letters, and correspondence from other titans of cinema. His father had been a hoarder of paper, distrustful of the digital world. “Computers crash,” John had once said. “Paper endures.”

Sam had been at it for hours, sifting the trivial from the historic, setting aside documents the Academy Museum might want. The work was tedious, but he knew it was important. He was about to shut one drawer when his fingers brushed a plain manila envelope wedged in the back. The only word on it was “PERSONAL.”

Even with his father gone, it felt like an invasion of privacy as he pulled it out and spread its contents on the desk. There were notes and letters, some yellowed with age, others crisp. Many were from celebrities expressing gratitude for their roles. One was written on a cocktail napkin, sealed with a kiss in red lipstick.

But then Sam found a single slip of paper addressed not to John, but to him.

Sam, if you ever find this, call this number.

Beneath the line was a phone number.

Sam’s brow furrowed. The handwriting was unmistakably his father’s. The number had an unfamiliar prefix, so he googled it on his phone. New Orleans.

He shook his head. What had his father been hiding in Louisiana?

He stared at the note, the air in the office heavy and still, until curiosity overcame his hesitation. He dialed. The phone rang once, twice, then clicked. A recorded voice said: “Leave your message at the tone.”

Sam froze. After a short silence, he hung up and resumed his work, wondering what to do about this strange twist of events. The faces on the wall seemed to watch him, asking the same question.

Hours later, as he stacked folders into boxes, his phone buzzed with a text from the New Orleans’ number.

Meet me here on the night of Mardi Gras.

Below was an address, which Google showed him was in the famous French Quarter.

What the hell?” he thought. Mardi Gras was only a few weeks away. His mistrust of his father’s motives made him want to destroy the note and block the number. Why leave this cryptic message in such a secret place? Why not share it sooner?

Sam’s curiosity was certainly piqued. Should he risk keeping the appointment? Would it reveal something he needed to know? He sat in the hush of his father’s shrine and whispered aloud, “What the did you leave me, Dad?”

__

Mardi Gras was chaos incarnate. Brass bands blared from balconies, floats crawled down Canal Street, and crowds surged shoulder to shoulder in beads and sequins. Masks grinned at Sam from every corner, and feathers brushed his arms as revelers shoved past. The humid air was thick with the smells of sweat, alcohol, and fried food.

Parking had been sold out, so Sam used an overpriced Uber to get close to the scene, walking the remaining distance. The streets narrowed as he entered the French Quarter, the music a dizzying roar. He felt absurdly out of place—sober, wearing khakis and a conservative blazer while people of all ages danced around him in neon wigs and painted faces.

He used his phone to navigate until he found the address. It was a two-story Creole townhouse freshly painted in pastel green and lavender. Its wrought-iron balconies were strung with Mardi Gras lights and silk streamers.

Above the front door hung a painted wooden sign:

MADAME LEEDS — Psychic Readings by Appointment.

Sam’s chest tightened. His last name in bold letters in a city where he’d never lived. He climbed the steps and knocked. Once. Twice. Three times.

At last, the door opened.

A woman stood before him. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, tall and striking, her long black hair threaded with silver. She wore a fitted gown of emerald and gold, the kind you might see on a Mardi Gras queen. Her face was handsome, almost regal, her eyes piercing and familiar in a way that Sam couldn’t place.

“You must be Sam,” she said with the trace of a Creole accent. “Come in. I’ve been expecting you.”

Sam hesitated, then stepped inside. The door closed behind him with a decisive click. The hallway smelled of incense and old wood. Candles flickered on small tables, casting warm shadows on the walls.

“Follow me,” said the woman, parting a beaded curtain that led to a back room. Its walls were like a gallery. Paintings of saints hung beside voodoo masks, crucifixes, and heavy tapestries of red and purple. At the center stood a round table draped in velvet, with two chairs opposite each other.

The woman gestured. “Please sit.”

Nervously Sam lowered himself, his heart beating fast. “Who are you?”

She took the opposite chair, her dark eyes never leaving his. “My name is Samantha. And I know why you’re here. Because of our father.”

Sam blinked. “Our… father?”

She smiled and nodded. “John Leeds. He was my father also. Which makes me your sister.”

The words hit like a fist.

Sam shook his head. “That’s impossible. My father—he never—”

“Never told you? No surprise. That wasn’t his style.” She leaned forward, her voice calm and deliberate. “My mother was Flora Toussaint. She was a working girl here in the Quarter, back in the early fifties. John met her while producing a film in New Orleans. One night turned into many during the production. When she became pregnant, she wrote to him—not for money, but simply to tell him that she would be keeping the baby. That baby was me.”

 Sam swallowed hard. “You expect me to believe—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Look at me. Really look.”

He did. And there it was: his father’s jawline, the same sharp cheekbones, even the shape of her nose. It was unsettling but unmistakable.

“My mother was proud. She asked for nothing,” Samantha continued. “But John sent money anyway. Every month. The sums grew larger as he rose in Hollywood. He quietly visited us when he could. He made sure we were comfortable, but always in secret. He gave me the Leeds name, but it’s common enough that he knew people wouldn’t connect the dots.”

Sam’s mind was racing. His father, who had guarded the Leeds reputation so fiercely, had kept a daughter hidden for decades. It seemed preposterous. Then his eyes fixed on a photo on a shelf behind Samantha. There was his father standing beside a woman and her child. Documentary proof.

“What happened to your mother?” Sam asked.

“She died ten years ago. Your father came to the memorial service since it was small enough to avoid publicity.”

Sam shook his head. “Why now?”

“Obviously, he wanted you to know. He asked me to speak to you only if you made contact. And don’t worry. Long ago, my mother signed a legal document saying that neither she nor I would make any claims on the estate. I will honor that agreement.”

Sam rubbed his temples, trying to take it all in. The noise of Mardi Gras thudded faintly outside, a reminder of the world still spinning while his own tilted on its axis.

Samantha studied him. “You look pale. Would you like a glass of water?”

“No,” Sam muttered. “I just… I don’t understand any of this.”

“You don’t have to. Yet.” She reached across the table, palm open. “There’s more you need to hear. Our father came to believe in my abilities, and he asked me to give you a reading if we ever met. I can already sense things about your future.”

Sam scoffed. “A psychic reading? You claim you can pick up vibes from me already?”

“You can believe it or not, but it’s what I do. It’s a gift. And being near you, I can sense that you have held yourself back from the real adventure life holds for you.”

Sam shook his head and chuckled. “Me? An adventurer? You’d have to know me to see how odd that sounds.”

She smiled. “You came here because of a dead man’s note. You walked through this city on faith. You already have more courage than you admit.”

He stared at her hand, hesitating. Something about the room—the charged air, the flicker of candles—made his skin prickle. Perhaps this was the final act of John Leeds, the master producer, drawing his son into a story larger than himself.

Slowly, he reached across the table and placed his hand in Samantha’s. Her grip was firm and warm. She closed her eyes as incense curled around her like smoke from an unseen fire. Outside, the revelry of Mardi Gras roared, but in the back room of Madame Leeds studio, there was only the sound of two siblings breathing.

Samantha spoke again, her voice a whisper.

“I can see it now. Your father’s revelation to you is only the first secret. Your future will seem even stranger.”

Sam swallowed. If his future held something stranger than this—sitting in the dim backroom of a New Orleans psychic shop, holding the hand of a sister he’d just discovered—then maybe strange would mean liberating, even wondrous. He began to lean toward a belief that his life could truly change.           

“Go ahead,” he said. “Tell me everything you see.”