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Madelynn got up from the call, waving good-bye to Marisol, and then joined Katie, Honor, and Wil. She held a glass of the herbal tea Diana had no doubt made.
“Listen,” she said, and the grin on her face was one that Katie had never seen before. “I have an amazing idea.”
Chapter Nineteen
Wil waited in a metal folding chair in a dressing room in a TV studio. She’d been dressed and had her hair and makeup done. She was miked.
Beanie sat next to her, her hands clasped in her lap. Every time Wil met her eyes, she broke out into a huge grin and squealed, “Busy!”
Beanie Greene was agiantfan of Busy Phillips and her show. Whose greenroom Wil and Beanie currently occupied.
“You’re going to make me more nervous if you keep doing that,” Wil said. “You’re not a squealer.”
Beanie took both of Wil’s hands in hers and swung them from side to side. “Don’t make this less fun for me. I’ve never had the opportunity, in my motherhood, to be wildly worried and wildly excited at the same time.”
“I did go off to college.”
Beanie made a scoffing noise. “You went to Michigan and came home all the time. Your dad knew most of your professors, who treated you like a prodigal son. Your success was overdetermined.This”—she whipped her hand around the greenroom, and then opened her arms to indicate the general state of Wil’s life—“this, you could really fuck up. You could get your heart broken.You couldfail. And that is what I have been waiting for, Wilifred Darcy Greene, for so very long. My work is done.”
“Oh my God.” Wil glanced in the mirror at the room behind her. It looked like these rooms always looked on TV and in the movies—the long mirror surrounded by lights, a chipped white Formica countertop that had been through some things, a couple of folding chairs, black carpet. There was a flat-screen near the door that showed what was happening on set with a countdown to when they’d come for Wil.
Five minutes.
Katie had been here and was gone already, and so had Madelynn and a lot of studio people. Wil had briefly met Busy Phillips, who was gracious and looked like she did on Instagram, and they’d talked to each other for ten minutes while four different people listened and took notes so they could come up with scripted-not-scripted questions for Busy to ask later.
The hair and makeup and stylist people were familiar with Wil’s TikTok and had a clear sense of her personal style. They’d put her in tight black pants that had tucked seams sewn horizontally across the legs from midthigh all the way down below her knees, for an effect somewhere between “military uniform” and “kneepads.” Wil wanted to keep them. After the stylist showed her a bunch of different tops, Wil picked out a stretchy pullover made from multiple thin, semi-destroyed overlapping layers of gray and black jersey, with long sleeves that came down over her hands and drew attention to her new manicure.
They’d done her hair like she always did it but made it shinier, a little messier, a little spikier.
She looked like she was playing herself in a postapocalyptic zombie movie in which she had become, over the course of ninety minutes, increasingly jaded and fierce, having killed too many undead to keep count.
Beanie was right. Wil looked like she could fail.
She was into it. Lately, she felt like that version of herself a surprising amount of the time.
“Listen,” she said. “Since you’re here, I need to do a thing.”
Beanie clasped her hands together, her eyes wide. “Is this when you tell me I shouldn’t have come without warning or permission? Because obviously I should not have. It was a gross invasion of your adult privacy. But and however, I will say that Diana talked me into it by promising to put us up at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and you know I have always wanted to stay there.”
“You have?” Wil narrowed her eyes at her mother.
“I have always since Diana showed me the place online when we were on the plane, yes.”
Wil laughed. “No, I’m not going to give you a hard time forchasing me across the countrydue to your maternal misgivings—”
“Really Diana’s maternal misgivings,” Beanie interrupted. “I’m her ride-or-die, remember? I already told you how I feel about this absolutely wildly impulsive situation, which is positive.”
Wil felt her heart skip. “It’s not… wildly impulsive.”
Beanie smiled and kissed her forehead. “I know, Freddie. I do know. If I seem flip, it’s only to soothe myself. What I know about you is that you know you. What I know about Katie is that she will learnwhatevershe needs to learn to make a good thing work. What a beautiful place to start.”
Wil’s eyes had begun to burn. “Listen, I am wearing at least three layers of mascara.”
“Noted.” Beanie smacked Wil’s thigh. “Only squealing now.”
Wil took a deep breath. “I just wanted to say that I’ve been thinking a lot about how much Dad would really, really like this.” She gestured at the room. “All of this. I met Joe Starr, for example. I think we’re going to be friends. I can’t… like,right now,I can’t talk about Dad. But I wanted to tell you that I can. I can talk about Dad. If you want to. Really talk about him.”
“Stop,”Beanie said, and looked away, pressing her fingertips under her eyes. “My God.” She looked at Wil. “I wish he could see this. He wouldn’t just like it. He wouldloveit. He’d love it, Wil.”