The Game

look at your watch; they see how people respond to you when you talk, they listen for indicators of insecurity in your speech. These are the signals that PUAs call subcommunication.
    Gabby belonged to the less tactful of the species.
    As she washed her hands, she opened the medicine cabinet and inspected the contents. Then she stepped into my room and continued her exploration. “Are you a writer?” she asked. “You should write about me. I have a really interesting story. I want to be an actress. And you know how some people are just born to be famous.” She snatched a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses from the top of my dresser and put them on. “Well, that’s me. Not that I’m special or anything. It’s just something you know from a very young age because people treat you differently.”
    A rich man doesn’t have to tell you he’s rich.
    As she chattered away, she grabbed a muffin from a plate on my desk. Today had been muffin day. Courtney had run around the house giving everyone plates full of more muffins than they could eat.
    Gabby took a bite, then dropped the muffin back onto the plate. I couldn’t figure out who had invited her into the house. Maverick wasn’t around, and she wasn’t friends with anyone else here.
    “I have to do some work,” I told her. “But nice meeting you.”
    I figured she could find her own way out of the house. But she must have taken a wrong turn. Mystery later discovered her sitting on his toilet.
    Both were such narcissists, I thought they’d repel each other like two positive ends of a magnet. Instead, they ended up having sex.
    She spent the next week at the house, sleeping with Mystery and catfighting with Courtney after borrowing her clothing without permission. Like Mystery, Gabby’s biggest fear in life was having no one around to hear her talk, so she was constantly running around the house, gossiping, complaining, and getting on Courtney’s nerves.
    One afternoon, as Courtney stood in the kitchen digging into a jar of peanut butter with two spoons, she asked Gabby, “Aren’t you ever going home?”
    “Home?” Gabby looked at her funny. “I live here.”
    It was news to Courtney, to me, to Mystery. The house attracted people like that. Eventually, it would expel them all.
    Twyla was the next victim of Project Hollywood. She first apperared at the house when a stripper Mystery made out with several years ago was going through a major depression. Having some experience in the matter, Mystery offered to give her advice one night while Gabby was out clubbing. However, the stripper came over drunk and with Twyla in tow.
    Twyla was no prize. She was a tattooed thirty-four-year-old Hollywood rock-and-roller with weathered skin, a body as hard as her face, black hair in a bird’s nest of dreadlocks, and a heart of gold. She reminded me of a Pontiac Fiero, an old sporty model liable to break down at any moment.
    When Mystery and Twyla started flirting, their drunk, depressed friend burst into tears. She cried in the pillow pit for a half hour, until Twyla and Mystery finally scampered off to his room. Gabby returned home that night and, without a word of objection, crawled into bed with the two of them and promptly fell asleep. Gabby and Mystery weren’t in love; they just wanted each other’s shelter.
    That morning and the morning after, Twyla cooked pancakes for everyone in the house. Since she didn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon, Mystery hired her as his personal assistant for four hundred dollars a week.
    The more Mystery neglected Twyla, the more she began to believe she loved him. He hurt her over and over by chasing different women, and she kept coming back for more. Mystery seemed to enjoy the tears; they made him feel like he mattered to somebody. If Twyla wasn’t crying in the house, it was Gabby. If it wasn’t Gabby, it was someone else. From the chrysalis of Mystery’s latest depression, a monster was emerging.
    Project Hollywood was supposed to be a way to surround ourselves with healthy, helpful influences to better ourselves, our career, and our sex lives. Instead, the house had turned into a vacuum for needy males and neurotic females. It sucked in anyone with mental problems and scared away anyone of quality. Between permanent guests like Courtney, Mystery’s women, and Papa’s revolving door of new trainers, employees, and students, it was impossible to tell how many people were actually living in the house.
    However, at least the