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“Born and bred in Wisconsin,” Katie agreed. “They say everyone in Hollywood is really from the Midwest.”
Katie came home a few times a year on an unpredictable schedule. Wil almost never knew she’d been in town until afterward, so fiercely did Diana guard her daughter’s privacy.
It had always made Wil a little, just alittlebit, irritated that even though she had been to so many of Katie’s children’s theater performances, had shared an orbit with her growing up because their moms were best friends, and the two of them had spent almost every minute of their senior year together, Diana never invited Wil over.
As if Wil would disturb Katie’s privacy.
Maybe Katie wanted it that way. Her life had changed unfathomably, completely, almost the minute she left home the summer after high school. Wil had sometimes thought to ask Beanie about it, but Beanie protected Diana, and Diana protected Katie, and that was the way things were supposed to be.
It didn’t surprise Wil—not at all, not in any way—that Katie Price was one of the most famous women in the world. Wil hadgrown up believing that Katie’s success was a foregone conclusion. Katie would be a star. She would move to Hollywood. Wil would see her in the movies.
All those predictions had come true.
She slid off her leather jacket, the giant room warming up with the big audience and stage lights. Katie and Honor were obviously wrapping up their preliminary banter. Honor crossed her legs and leaned forward just as Katie smiled at her, and it must have been a signal, because Honor smiled back and asked her first real question.
“A lot of people considered the initial episode you directed ofMary Wants Itto be publicity for the show. But I would point out that no one wins an Emmy for publicity, and I was there. I visited the set to check you out. I’ve known a lot of actors who believe they’re directors, you see. I was pleasantly surprised to find youdirecting,in every sense of the word. You were behind the camera, you blocked every scene, you ran the crew. You were more than comfortable with the tech and the practicals. The shoot for that show was tight and, in many ways, groundbreaking. Where did you learn to do that?”
Katie nodded once. “You mean, because I hadn’t done it before.”
“Of course. Though I doubt that’s true. Perhaps because you hadn’t done it when someone else was paying for it and everyone would see the result.”
“And I’m not a product of a place like this—” Katie swept her hand in a circle to indicate the vastness of the studio. “Of the University of Chicago or UCLA or anything like that.”
“No. You are not.”
“And there isn’t anypossibleway that I would notice, take in, or observe how the tools and skills work and come together, as someone who was acting in front of a camera?”
Katie smiled at Honor, who smiled back. They were conspiratorial and very vicious smiles. A soft wave of mostly femininelaughter behind Wil told her others in the audience had noticed, too.
“No, of course you wouldn’t,” Honor agreed. “The lights are too bright, your makeup is too pretty, and your costars are too handsome.”
Everyone laughed.
Katie let it die down, making a knowing expression at the audience. “To be clear, your question is one reserved for a woman. A Black actor. A Latine actress. Maybe for someone very young. ‘What gave you the authority to decide to do this? Also, what’s his name?’”
Honor nodded, beaming at Katie as though she were Honor’s favorite protégé, and Wil leaned back in her chair, glad she had come. She liked this Katie—the Katie who spent the next hour talking about how to translate the technical into what the audience felt. The one who confessed she’d thought she would be terrified to direct a live episode but found that the pressure quieted her brain and made her vision easier to access.
Katie was getting an A from the hardest professor.
In all the hours Wil had spent watching Katie be interviewed, looking at clips on Beanie’s phone of the latest talk show appearance, or flipping through a story in the copy ofPeopleshe’d picked up while she waited to check out her groceries at Woodman’s, she’d never heard Katie talk about acting and directing like this.
The audience was riveted. And, Wil distinctly sensed, astonished. Because even though Katie didn’t say anything particularly outrageous—even though every word out of her perfect signature-pink lips could have been a six o’clock news sound bite—no one in the room except Wil, Beanie, and Diana had ever heard Katie Price take herself, and her work, so seriously.
“So what’s next?” Honor crossed her arms. “What is Katie Price’s next project? Acting or directing?”
There was a look Wil couldn’t interpret on Katie’s face, and Wil felt, rather than saw, the press lean in closer and focus their cameras for a tight view of her dark blue eyes fanned with impossible lashes and winged with sharp black eyeliner, looking for a flaw that Wil couldn’t imagine they’d find.
Wil glanced over at Diana, who had gone completely still in a way that was as noticeable as if she’d started dancing. She had hinted, in the car, that “dreammaker” Honor Howell might be considering making a dream come true for Katie, but Diana wouldn’t say much more than that.
“Something scary,” Katie said. “That’s all I can tell you right now.”
Honor raised her eyebrows and looked at the press, sending them into a sudden, buzzing frenzy that Katie silenced by nodding at the morning anchor Wil had recognized earlier, inviting her to ask the first question.
“Thank you, Katie,” the anchor said. “I have to say, the scariest thing I can think of for Katie Price is if you’ve finally considered the role of someone special’s girlfriend! We have to know, are you seeing someone?”
The smile that Katie plastered on her face in response to the anchor’s question made Wil’s neck tense.Thiswas one of the reasons why Wil watched Katie’s movies but only looked at clips of her interviews.
“May I have another question?” Katie’s voice remained scrupulously smooth and polite, as though she were asking a dinner companion to pass her the salt.