Blind Item #1 - Reader Blind Item

 I was meeting a friend at my apartment complex on a cloudy Sunday in August of 2016 in the capital city of a very boring state that is neither southern nor western, when a rather impeccably-dressed chauffer had pulled up in a tall, 8-person minivan with tinted windows. He greeted me, and eager to help I went over. It turns out that he was driving a major celebrity around, but didn’t divulge who it was at first. He had asked me where the office staff was, and I told him that usually there was one person around on Sundays.  He told me that there was supposed to be someone to meet them and give them a key, and let them into the complex. I looked at the time and saw that it was just a little past 5:00PM, and I knew that the staff liked to lock the doors and run as soon as the clock struck 5. I pulled out my cell phone and proceeded to dig through my contacts to find the number for the maintenance line to let them know of the situation and perhaps they knew what to do.

 As I proceeded to give him the number, the large sliding door opened and a man who was trying to keep a couple of jumpy young girls (assuming they were his own twin daughters, dressed the same) inside, identified himself as her “manager” and asked what was going on, and the chauffeur said that there was no one here and he was trying to ask me who to call. Another, smaller figure was in the back, looking very subdued. The manager had looked a little irate and seemed that he had wanted to get settled down to some place to stay as soon as possible. After he went back in the car and shut the door, the Chauffeur said that he would call the number I gave him or else take them to a nearby hotel that his other past clients had preferred. He then divulged who the celebrity was, while going through his phone and proudly showing off who else he had driven. I looked again at the window and could not believe how skinny this celebrity (A+ list mostly movie actress) was in real life, but had even more questions about why she was here alone with her “manager” and his kids, and at the very least not with a few of her own.  There was definitely an air of sadness with her body language.

The chauffeur assured me things would be fine and said I could go off with my friend, and so we left. Later, I tried to find out who this manager was, and it in fact was not her manager, but I matched the face of this manager to be that of her lawyer. What was made even more interesting was that I know that her husband at the time had family that once had roots in the area but were no longer here. I could not for the life of me figure out what she was doing in this city, with her lawyer, and his kids (who I’m 99% sure were also not accompanied by their mother on this trip).

The next week I spoke to the complex manager and while I was told that even though they knew a guest was coming, it was handled through a third party agency who failed to show up to hand off the keys and the gate codes. When I told them who it was, they were shocked! They usually hear of some of the high-profile clients that stay there after they are gone but had they known that someone this big was coming, they would have arranged to have had someone there for a little longer that Sunday.

It was exactly a month later that a not-so-Nice trip pulled the trigger to cause the celebrity guest to file for divorce from her A+ list mostly movie actor husband at the time. I have no doubt in my mind that perhaps this visit might have had something to do with the planning of it, in the very least.