I awoke the following morning at 10:00, lifted from my slumber by a faint heavenly aroma. What started as a sensation in a dream was transformed into a very real tumbler of coffee — sitting on a tray next to my bed — when my eyes opened.

Horrified by the realization that someone had entered my room while I slept, I was nevertheless intrigued. I took hold of the tumbler, popped open its spill-proof lid, and sniffed the contents. The scent was wonderful.

I put the tumbler to my closed lips and tilted it, so I could determine how warm the coffee was. The temperature was perfect.

I took a swig of the mystery brew. It was delicious.

I was no fool. I realized that it must have been my new personal assistant who had set the coffee in my room. I conceded that this Reggie character was off to an excellent start.

After consuming the surprise mugful over a pleasant half-hour span, nature came calling. I opened my bedroom door, bracing myself to run the gauntlet of influencers. To my surprise, the only person I saw in the hallway was a young man in a suit sitting cross-legged on the floor, working on a tablet computer. Seeing me, he set his work aside and rose to his feet.

“I’m Reggie, sir,” he greeted me enthusiastically. “I’m your new personal assistant. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I really appreciate…”

“No problem,” I interrupted him. “I would be happy to speak with you, but I need to use…”

“Of course!” Reggie interrupted me back, racing ahead to the bathroom and flipping on the light, before stepping out into the hall.

Whether I was weirded out by Reggie’s behavior or not — and for the record I was — my distress was only increasing, so I lurched past him and closed the door. A short time flowed past.

When I emerged, Reggie was waiting.

“Was the cup of coffee by my bed this morning your doing?” I asked.

Reggie nodded.

“Thank you. It was very good.”

“It’s a specialty Arabica bean I ordered from a contact in Columbia. I brought some of my personal supply, hoping you would enjoy it. Emily told me you are a very enthusiastic consumer of coffee.

“I live on the stuff,” I confessed.

Noticing the unusual scarcity of vapid influencers gathered in the hallway, I asked Reggie, “Where is everybody?”

“Ah, that,” he explained. “I hope I did not overstep my bounds, but I told your guests that the upstairs of the house is off-limits until you are awake. It is your home, and they should respect your privacy as their host.”

Waking up to coffee? Finding out someone has drawn a line with the influencers? My head was spinning. I wondered if Reggie could speak with my father for me.

“What does your agenda look like today, sir?” Reggie inquired.

“Agenda? I don’t have an agenda. And please don’t call me sir.”

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“Very well,” Reggie spoke agreeably. “Should I follow you around as you produce your livestream and take notes? I’m eager to see how you go about…”

“Reggie, look,” I corrected him. “I have nothing to do with my livestream, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it, o.k.? I just want to make that clear.”

“But your house is currently ranked twenty-sixth in the Los Angeles Tribune’s ‘50 pLAces to be Scene’ list. I recognize some of the people downstairs. Those are genuine D-list celebrities. Your channel's on fire!”

“You’re welcome to go join in the activities if you like.”

“Well, no. I’m here to assist you.”

“Right. Then I could use another coffee,” I suggested helpfully.

“I’m on it!” Reggie cried, springing to action. Soon he was back, and I, coffee in hand, reclined in my bed once more. Reggie disappeared back into the hall, closing the door behind him.

As I sipped from the second tumbler of coffee, I pondered my predicament. If I couldn't get my father to withdraw his financial support for Pamela’s movie, I would be forced to spend the next four months of my life going from one horrible Grensfeld Industries event to the next.

Or I could also work the other angle. If I could convince Pamela that she would regret giving my father even the slightest amount of control over her movie — I supposed it might be clarifying to relate the story about Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil down at the crossroads — maybe I could persuade her to take Dave’s money instead.

It was tough to decide where to begin. Both options seemed unlikely to succeed. I decided to put the matter before a higher authority.

“Why?” Emily asked, early in the phone call I placed to her, a touch of exasperation in her voice. “Why do you keep bothering me?”

“This is a crisis! You’re my conservator. I need conserving! You can’t let me be forced to spend every day for the next four months in a living hell. I’m staring down oblivion!”

“Aren’t we being a bit dramatic? A business trip is not ‘oblivion.’ And, besides, I don’t know what Dave was even talking about. There is a cap on the number of appearances you can be asked to make. I think it is ten. And you’ve already made a few. So you have about a week’s worth of appearances left. How he gets four months out of that, I don’t know. There isn’t a cap on travel time to those events, but how would you get to four months from…oh...oh, no.”

“What?” I cried frantically.

“Not many people hold corporate events in inaccessible places. Not many people even could hold such events. But Grensfeld Industries has projects all over the world, some in extremely remote locations. If Dave decided to make you appear…no, I shouldn’t speculate. I’ll tell you what. Let me contact Dave and find out what’s going on. In the meantime, don’t antagonize him again, o.k.?”

I gulped and told her that I wouldn’t.

I spent a nervous few hours drifting in and out of a nap. Finally, I received a call from Emily. I sat and listened, growing ever more numb, as she spoke.

“O.k. Here’s the deal. I spoke with Dave, and he told me they plan to use you in a promotional video they’re making for their investors. So the good news is, they’ve finally figured out not to put you in front of a live audience.”

“The bad news is that they were asking for exactly what I thought they might. Dave was intending to send you to a gold mine in the Australian outback, a pipeline in the Alaskan wilderness, a highway construction project in the Amazon rainforest, and to the Sahara desert, to a refinery they operate.”

“But I negotiated him down. You don’t have to go to the Sahara, only to the other three places.”

“Between the flights, the time spent traveling upriver by boat, delays caused by rebel activity, and the like, your total travel time should come to no more than two months.”

“You’re welcome,” she concluded, chastising me for not fawning over her.

“Rebel activity?” I bleated.

“Well, not in Alaska or Australia. And you will have personal security with you.”

“I don’t think it’s safe,” I observed.

“What do you think, Reggie?” Emily asked.

“Reggie?” I asked, stunned. “Is Reggie on the line?”

“Affirmative,” Reggie replied helpfully.

“What are you doing on…” I protested, before being interrupted by Emily.

“I asked him to join us. If I tell you both the details, Reggie will actually remember them. So you can go to him when you inevitably forget and want to bother me. Now, Reggie, can Terrence trust you to assist him in preparing?”

“Definitely, ma’am,” Reggie enthused. “I’ve always wanted to see a pipeline.”

“Well, I haven’t,” I announced. “And I’m not going!”

“I’ll email you the proposed event schedule, Reggie,” Emily announced, ignoring my protest.

And then she hung up.