Charlize Theron was in a very bad mood.
She had spent most of the day arguing with her agent about her future direction, and the conversation had not gone well.
She was twenty years old now, no longer the naive girl who had been easily managed two years ago.
More than two years of grinding through the entertainment industry had stripped away whatever illusions she might have arrived with.
She had seen what the industry actually looked like up close.
For the past two years, the work had been print advertisements and small modelling jobs.
That was the reality.
But Charlize had a clear picture of where she was going.
Hollywood.
That was the destination.
Everything else was just the road getting there.
The problem was that right now she was not even a third-rate actress in Hollywood.
She was significantly further back than that in the line.
After the argument she had come straight to her newly rented apartment and closed the door harder than she intended.
She showered, poured a glass of red wine, and took it out to the balcony, hoping the night air and the city view would settle her mood.
She was just beginning to find her footing in that quiet when a greeting came from the balcony next door and interrupted everything.
She frowned and turned to look.
…
A noticeably young face looked back at her.
A teenager, clearly.
Rare black hair, likely of Asian or Eastern descent.
He was leaning back in a rocking chair with the complete ease of someone who had nowhere to be and nothing pressing to think about, holding a bunch of grapes and eating them one at a time as the chair moved gently back and forth.
It was, objectively, an enviable display of leisure.
“Hi, teenager.
How are you?” She returned the greeting, keeping it brief.
John Leighton looked at her and felt the tug of something familiar that he could not immediately place.
The night made it difficult to see clearly.
He stood up and leaned against the railing to get a better look.
Golden curly hair, not too long.
A beautiful face that still carried a trace of youthful softness.
A height that was striking, close to 1.8 meters.
She was looking back at him with the same evaluating directness.
“Hello.
I’m Saint John Leighton.
Fifteen years old.
I live here.”
“Hello.
I’m Charlize Theron.
I moved in two days ago.”
…
The name landed and John Leighton went completely still for a moment.
He understood immediately why she had seemed familiar.
In his previous life she had been one of the most iconic presences on the internet, photographs always featuring the striking, polished look of someone fully grown into her power.
The golden hair was the same but the face still carried the roundness of someone who had not quite left her early twenties behind.
No wonder he had felt the recognition without placing it.
“Hi.
Hello, Miss Charlize Theron.
I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before.” He said it with the slightly awkward honesty of someone who had just been genuinely caught off guard.
“Hehe.
Is that how you introduce yourself to girls you’ve just met, teenager?”
Looking at the young woman’s smile, John Leighton felt the full weight of where he was living sink in pleasantly.
The City of Angels.
Hollywood’s city.
And he had just met one of its future queens on his own balcony.
…
I truly have seen you somewhere.
I just couldn’t place it at first.
You’re a model or an actress.
And I’d guess Hollywood hasn’t quite opened its doors for you yet.
Mostly advertisements for now, probably.”
Charlize Theron looked at him with a narrowed expression.
Had he actually researched her, or had he genuinely seen her in some advertisement?
She could not tell which it was, and that bothered her in a way she did not entirely understand.
“You see.
I told you I recognised you.
I have an excellent memory.
Almost nothing I’ve seen slips past me.”
The teenager on the other balcony was praising himself with genuine enthusiasm and no apparent embarrassment.
Charlize found herself almost smiling despite her mood.
It was difficult not to.
…
“Alright, teenager.
I was in a terrible mood today.
Somehow talking to you for a few minutes has improved it, so I’ll accept that you’ve seen me somewhere before.”
“Which scoundrel dared to put a beautiful woman in a bad mood?
Point me in the right direction, Charlize.
I’ll sort it out.” He rolled up his sleeve with exaggerated readiness.
She laughed.
“Oh no.
Please don’t do that, Charlize.
A laugh like that is going to make it impossible for me to sleep tonight.”
“And what would you do instead?”
“What do you think a pure-hearted teenager is supposed to do after meeting someone like you?
Sleep is out of the question now.
This is your fault entirely.”
The compliment was delivered with such a straight face that Charlize felt warmth rise in her cheeks before she had quite decided how to respond.
She glanced at him sideways.
…
“Alright, teenager.
Are you here alone?
Where is your family?”
“Just me.
I moved out of St.
John’s Welfare Institute at the beginning of the year.” He said it easily, looking out at the city lights, shrugging with the manner of someone who had long since made his peace with the fact.
It was, in truth, the one consistent absence across both of his lives.
He had grown up without parents in his previous life, raised by his grandfather until even that was gone.
In this life, he had woken up already in a welfare institute.
It was simply the shape of things.
“St.
John’s Welfare Institute.
The large church-affiliated one in Los Angeles?
Oh.
I’m sorry, John.”
The institute was well known in the city.
The church’s presence in Los Angeles made it a recognisable landmark for most long-term residents.
…
“It’s alright.
I’ve been used to it for a long time.
I have a temporary guardian in apartment 01, but I prefer my own space, so I rented separately.
We’re neighbours on the floor but live apart.”
“You seem remarkably self-sufficient for your age.” Charlize said it with genuine curiosity, though something in her expression suggested she was not entirely sure what to make of him.
“Of course.
I’ve been building things since I was young. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
By my early teens I was already worth several hundred thousand.
Now I’m worth tens of millions.
I’m a multi-millionaire, Charlize.”
She looked at him the way someone looks at a person who has just said something improbable but not impossible.
“I know that expression.
I’m serious.” He said it with a calm smile.
…
“What?”
“You heard correctly.
Multi-millionaire.
I do venture capital.”
Charlize Theron was quiet for a moment.
Anyone would have been.
An orphan who had come out of a welfare institute at fifteen, worth tens of millions, doing venture capital.
It sounded like the synopsis of a film.
John Leighton gave her the brief version.
Moving out of the orphanage with Zach at the start of the year, the internet café across the street, stumbling onto the predecessor of Yahoo on his first day online, and immediately convincing Zach to drive to the airport for a flight to Silicon Valley.
Finding Jerry Yang and David Filo on the Stanford campus.
Investing five hundred thousand dollars as an angel investor for twenty-five percent of the company.
And then, just a few days ago, the first round of financing closing at a four hundred million dollar valuation, leaving his stake worth tens of millions.
Charlize listened to the whole thing without interrupting.
…
When he finished, the way she was looking at him had changed completely.
The slight amusement at the teenager on the balcony had been replaced by something closer to genuine respect.
“John.
That is extraordinary.
Your five hundred thousand dollars returned nearly a hundredfold in two or three months.
I need a moment.” She paused.
“You really do not come across as someone who is underage.”
“Finally.
You were looking at me like a child before, which I found quite insulting.
But since you are a beautiful woman, I forgive you completely.
You can think of me as a thirty year old mind in a fifteen year old body.
I don’t mind at all.”
Charlize rolled her eyes.
John Leighton watched her do it and felt the full force of what she would eventually become already present in the gesture.
She had not yet grown into the commanding presence that later generations would know.
But the foundation was entirely visible.
The quality was already there.
“Charlize.
Please be careful with that.
A pure-hearted teenager can only take so much.
If you keep being this captivating I will have serious trouble finding a wife in the future and it will be entirely your fault.”
“Hmph.”
She lifted her chin with the dignity of someone who had decided to be offended and was going to commit to it.
John Leighton grinned.
Neither of them noticed that the distance between two people who had been strangers an hour ago had already shortened considerably.
…
They stayed on their respective balconies and kept talking.
Charlize shared pieces of her own situation in return, her ambitions, the gap between where she was and where she intended to go, the particular frustrations of today.
John Leighton, drawing on the instincts of a soul that had lived through decades the young woman beside him had not yet seen, found angles and observations that made her laugh more than once, and then more than a few times.
By the time the conversation had found its rhythm, it was genuinely lively.
John Leighton watched her talk about her future with the kind of clear-eyed certainty that only someone who has not yet experienced failure carries, and smiled to himself.
It was a wonderful night.