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This had backfired. When Beanie and Diana asked questions of twentysomething film students, it did not come across the same way, apparently, as when Wil did it in her leather jacket and new boots, leaning in close and smiling.
Sometimes she didn’t realize she’d activated her flirt mode until things had gotten to wrist touching. Her moves had become habitual.
“I’m so completely flattered. I’m—”
“Don’t even. You don’t have to.” Sasha’s voicewasvery bravenow, her eyes big and serious. She moved her hand away from Wil’s wrist. “It’s just, I was thinking, you probably have some really great party to go to after this.” Sasha pointed at Wil’s VIP lanyard. “I know there’s that meet and greet with Katie Price, or you have something, I mean,somewherebooked in the city.” Sasha nudged Wil’s shin with her knee. “And unless you also have asomeone,I’m a really good date at fancy parties.”
Wil had to laugh. Sasha had some moves as well. “I have no doubt. Actually—”
Sasha waved her hand in front of her face, grinning. “Listen to me, oh my God. But I had to shoot my shot, right? Or I’d regret it forever. Also, you need a better camera person, becausefuck me,you are hot. I knew you were hot, but TikTok is not doing this justice.” Her hands flapped at Wil’s body, her neck bright red now, while Wil slowly caught on to what was happening, which was not, in fact, a direct consequence of her game.
She’d beenrecognized.
Despite having well over a million followers on her channel, Wil-You-Or-Won’t-You, it didn’t happen often. Maybe because she rarely left Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she’d lived most of her life. It wasn’t unusual for Wil to be recognized in Green Bay, of course. She got recognized for all kinds of things. The scandalous cheer routine she’d choreographed in high school to Ke$ha’s “Take It Off” that nearly cost her her spot as valedictorian, for example.
Sometimes, driving her Bronco around town, she’d get a familiar wave from someone she didn’t recognize and then wonder if the wave was actually for her dad, who’d driven the Bronco before her, or if the person waving was someone she’d met through work and forgotten. Wil had taken a lot of reports of trees falling through the roofs of garages in her job as an insurance adjuster.
But also, Wil suspected that even when shedidget recognized in Green Bay for her TikTok, most everybody in her hometownwas too Midwest polite to mention where they knew her from. Not least of all because it would mean they’d have to admit they followed her channel.
Green Bay was really Catholic.
She turned her attention back to Sasha, taking a breath so she could be completely present in the moment. The huge studio and the lights, the slight fug left over from the three-hour car ride from Green Bay, and her jumble of unlabeled feelings about being here at all had shattered Wil’s usual focus on one thing at a time.
She looked—really looked—at Sasha, who was definitely a little bit nervous after hitting on Wil, but still meeting her gaze. She noticed the way Sasha’s eyes watched her face for changes in expression, which told Wil that Sasha wasn’t shy, but she wasn’t indiscriminately extroverted, either. Wil realized Sasha was most likely being humble. There would be good reasons why she had this coveted internship, and also why she’d recognized Wil right away in a sea of strangers, placed her, and felt confident enough to approach her.
Sasha was smart. Really smart. And she took in details, and she knew she wasgood.
In any other circumstances, Wil would have absolutely asked Sasha to kiss her.
“Honestly, it’s not that I wouldn’t seriously consider the offer if I were able to.” Wil kept her voice matter-of-fact, because no one really liked being treated gently or condescended to. “And it’s not because I have any kind of glamorous commitment after this. It’s just that my ride here was my mom and her best friend, so this is strictly a family outing today. To see Katie.”
Just in time, Wil stopped herself from looking toward the back of the stage again.
She hadn’t expected to feel such a pull.
“You’re big Katie Price fans?” Sasha asked. “What am I saying? Of course you are. You’re humans in the twenty-first century. Well, I can tell you that she only got here thirty minutes ago, but I caught a glimpse of her going into what we set up as the greenroom, and she looks like she’s had twelve hours of sleep and has strolled off the runway for Ralph Lauren’s fall sportswear collection. No kidding, it’s unreal. Stars arenotlike us.”
“Yeah.”
Her answer didn’t even make sense, but when Wil tried to think of something else to say, she couldn’t.
WhatwasKatie like now? That was the question Wil kept circling back to in the car on the way here, tuning out Beanie and Diana’s chatter to look out the window at the farm fields rushing by I-43 and wonder if becoming a star had transformed Katie Price into someone completely unfamiliar, or if she would stillfeellike Katie.
Like the Katie who Wil had once known better than anyone.
A bar of lights hanging from the three-story ceiling flashed twice.
“Five minutes,” Sasha said. “You should go back to your seat. Hey, could I get a selfie?”
“Yeah,” Wil said again. She took Sasha’s phone, since she was so much taller, and pressed her cheek to Sasha’s while firing off a bunch of pictures. Sasha gave her a hug. Then Wil was weaving around bodies to go back to her seat. She made it just as the lights over the audience lowered.
Wil glanced behind her at the endless rows of filled chairs that went all the way to a huge garage-style door in the side of the soundstage. There had to be at least five hundred people here. For Katie. At an event so elite, it wasn’t even public. Today’s viewing and the interview to follow were restricted to invited film students, industry professionals, media, and people like Wil who’d been put on a list by Katie or Katie’s inner circle.
In this case, by Katie’s mom, Diana, who’d been Beanie’s best friend since kindergarten.
Diana leaned forward, her ash-blond hair slipping over the shoulder of her sweater set. Diana’s skin, direct from her Norwegian ancestors, was struggling under the intense lights. Even the tip of her nose had turned a startling red. “Katie just texted me to make sure we’d been well taken care of. She said to tell you hi.”
Katie said to tell you hi.