Chapter Eighteen

Katie knew that Wil's walk outside for the morning paper had precipitated a true crisis when Madelynn walked into Katie's house with what Katie called her "big bag"—a huge leather messenger that contained an oversized laptop, multiple files she didn't want digitized, and phones. Madelynn always had more than one phone.

Katie waved at her. Wil was in a chair in the back where they'd had breakfast, with earbuds in, taking a call about law school with one of the people she'd had a meeting with in Green Bay.

It seemed like a hundred years since Katie had called Beanie and asked her to set up that meeting on Wil's list. As though it had happened in a completely different life. That day with Wil, Katie had only been spending time with an old friend. Testing to see if it still felt the same as it used to. Thinking about paths she hadn't taken.

That wasn't what she and Wil were doing now.

Wil had been on the phone an hour and a half, making Katie a little tiny bit nervous, since this meant they hadn't talked since they talked over breakfast, and that was an intense conversation.

As Wil had correctly intuited, Katie's entire sympathetic nervous system had been hijacked by the run-in with the paparazzi and what it meant.

This beautiful, unfurling, delicate, dangerous thing they were making between them had just become global news at the same moment that April was talking to investors, to Marisol, to everyone, in order to convince them Katie would innovate the director's chair and make movies that changed Hollywood and keep it relevant for the next generation.

When she'd let Wil back into the house this morning, Katie's heart had broken to see Wil's panicked face. Ever since, she'd been trying to remember that there was nothing real or true about the idea that her relationship with Wil was scandalous. She'd been angry with April for suggesting that Katie's relationship with Wil diminished the power of the video Katie had filmed for Wil's channel.

But Katie was spooked. Worse than spooked. Petrified.

Until she caught a glimpse of Wil pacing along the pool, her earbuds in, her big phone in the back pocket of her jeans, gesturing to the person she was talking to, and she was so beautiful, Katie couldn't even take in a whole breath. Wil had always been beautiful, but Katie had only ever basked in it. She had never felt Wil's beauty could have secrets for her.

Like how her brows furrowed together when she came, lifting up the corners of her eyes and softening her mouth.

Like the way her wrist bent when she was sleeping.

Like how she bit the side of her tongue when Katie let her see how turned on she was.

Even the way her tiny patch of freckles faded in a pale flush when Wil was frustrated with Katie.

Which was new.

Like everything, everything else.

"Katie." Madelynn set up her computer on Katie's dining room table. "Nice to see you."

"Is it?" Katie sat down on a chair and crossed her legs, smiling at Madelynn. She had gotten herself in "Katie Price" mode, blowing out her hair, winging her eyeliner, and putting on her brightest pink lip. She'd dressed in tall jeans, tall shoes, and a sweater Harry Styles had sent her when she hearted it on his Instagram. "Because I'm conscious that Christmas is in two days, and perhaps you would rather be with your family than coming to my home to put out the fire I started."

Madelynn looked at Katie over her kelly green John Lennon glasses. "My family are all publicists."

"Right."

Having organized her secret files, Madelynn dug for a pen. "My dad's Linden, Webber, and Soh, and my mom founded Adelaide Communications, naming it after my sister, Addy Soh, who you may have heard of as the communications director for the governor of California. My brother is based in D.C., where he puts out fires for politicians, and my niece is an intern at Beeker International."

"Oh my God." Katie leaned forward. "I knew this, but I didn't understand how… a lot that really is."

"All of us will be working through the holidays. The holidays are traditionally our biggest billing days of the year. People get themselves into some things over the holidays." Madelynn smiled. "My family celebrates Christmas at the end of January. Always pretty quiet then."

"Wil's on the phone. She'll come in soon."

"Good. We can talk about you."

Katie blew out a breath. "I would love to fast-forward to the end of January. I'm really looking forward to finding out how nicely everything will have settled down by then."

Madelynn tapped her lip, considering Katie. "And I would have loved to hear, from you, that you'd known Wilifred Greene since you were children, since you were infants, and you attended the same schools, and your mothers are close friends. Best friends, according to my sources. Minimally. I might have spun such an excellent story out of that. Home for the Holidays meets Sweet Home Alabama. Perhaps then April's scheme to label your short film directing debut as a Banksy-esque art drop might have been embroidered with a little folksy lace."

Katie willed her pulse to slow. If it didn't, she was going to pass out. "Things got away from me. Events took a turn."

"Where we're at now, unfortunately, is in a defensive position. Not my favorite position."

"No," Katie agreed. "You like to play offense." She watched Trois leap down from the living room sofa and run at full speed down the hallway toward the conservatory. Trois and Madelynn did not enjoy each other's vibes. "You have in fact begged me to allow you to play offense, and I have turned you down over and over again, and here we are."

Madelynn's mouth twisted in wry acknowledgment. "Indeed. I expect we'll see press from Ben within the next thirty minutes. The photos of Wil in her robe in your driveway are already making their way around, and because the rumors were primed by your involvement with Wil's channel, this news is like pouring a ladle full of paraffin on a campfire."

Katie glanced through the glass door to the back patio, where Wil had stood up. She was smiling, nodding. Wil's body language said she was wrapping up the call.

"However, Wil's platform is sexy, popular, and that perfect blend of progressive and transgressive. We both know April's in meetings as we speak, and I trust her to keep the focus on the vision despite being forced to jettison our initial strategy of separating the obstacles of your professional future and your love life. Ben Adelsward is going to paint himself in a very unfavorable light within the hour. I would love, really love, to have your permission to make it clear to the public, minimally, that we have noticed he's a wankhammer, and our policy from now on will be one of zero tolerance. He is an obstacle that is best obliterated completely and forever."

Wil came through the door to the table and slid into the seat beside Katie, and Katie breathed in sun and vanilla and felt her pulse slow down. "You must be Madelynn." Wil held out her hand. "Wil Greene."

Madelynn gave Wil's hand a brisk shake and introduced herself. "I enjoy your TikTok. My niece sent me the link back in June."

"Oh! Thank you."

"You have four million followers and no publicist. I'm going to act as your publicist now." She reached into her big bag and handed a form to Wil. "Look this over and sign it. Give it to Katie or one of her assistants to get it back to me. I'll bill Katie."

Wil looked from Madelynn to Katie. "Those were all orders," she said mildly.

Madelynn placed her hands on the table and gave Wil a polite smile. "Would you like me to make them questions? I forgot you're from the Midwest."

Grinning back, Wil shook her head. "No, that's okay. I understand I'm out of my depth. I've been working as an insurance adjuster for years. The robe incident was a car crash. You're the expert. I assume you're going to solve my problems with knowledge and money. I'm also going to assume that Katie has read every word of this agreement, since you wouldn't ask me to sign anything she hadn't already signed. Yes?"

Madelynn nodded.

Wil glanced at the form, scanned the table until she saw Madelynn's pen, picked it up, and signed. She slid the form back across to Madelynn. "Save me from myself."

Madelynn smiled. "I'm good at that. I was just sharing with Katie that I'd love to use this opportunity to take a shot at Ben Adelsward."

Wil turned to Katie. "What do you think of that?"

Katie opened her mouth, then closed it again, suddenly adrift in feelings she hadn't planned for.

Her throat tight. Shame. Her chest too floaty. Humiliation.

Also, her stomach sick with guilt, because she hadn't told Wil anything about what she had planned with April, or anything about the stakes. Sitting at the same table with Madelynn and Wil made it obvious to Katie how many secrets she had been keeping. How many parts of herself she was protecting from Wil.

From Wil.

"I don't want anything to be about Ben right this minute," she said. "I need to tell you that there are things I haven't told you about that I don't want you to hear from anyone else but me."

Wil had been sitting with her arms crossed after signing the form, but now she leaned forward and planted her elbows on the table. She looked from Madelynn to Katie. "I've known that," she said, her eyes sad. "I did try to ask."

Katie straightened up so she wouldn't cry. "I have a professional goal I've been working on a long time, that you know parts of, but you don't know all the parts that have been working under the surface."

And then Katie told her. She told her that she had been counting on Honor Howell's money, but that didn't seem likely to come through. The photographs taken outside Wil's house had fanned the flames of the public conversation about Katie's personal life at the exact moment when Katie needed to reassure Honor that she would be a director and filmmaker who centered work above everything else. She explained that April had the idea to use the video Katie had directed to attract alternative, less conservative types of funding—a strategy that would work only as long as the video was disambiguated from Katie's love life, which wasn't supposed to exist.

She told Wil that this was the reason they had been secreted to Los Angeles. The real reason.

And Katie told her that they now had to pivot again, because there were pictures of Wil in nothing but a robe in front of Katie's house when Katie was supposed to be in Green Bay.

But also that Ben was likely to make it almost impossible to pivot, because Ben knew things about Katie and Katie's life, and the story he liked to tell about her was one that highlighted her incompetence, salacious drama, and insecurity.

Once she'd stopped speaking, Katie couldn't tell what Wil was thinking, only that the patch of freckles under her eye had become flushed.

One of Madelynn's phones lit up with a notification. When Madelynn slid it closer to herself, the second phone lit up, too. She swiped and frowned at her screen. "There it is." She put the phone down on the table and pushed it across to the space between Katie and Wil. "If you want to see it. Katie, I know you usually don't, but this might be a special circumstance."

Wil leaned forward to read the screen. "Damn," she said. "That is fucking cold." She swiped at the screen a few times. "Although I have to say, even though I hate the clickbait, I'm not mad about the pictures." She swiped again. "I should request a hi-res copy so I properly remember my own hotness."

Wil slid the phone back, pushed her hands into her hair, and sighed.

Madelynn watched Wil, her face perfectly impassive.

Katie didn't know what to do or say. She wanted to sink into the floor. The feeling of having disappointed everyone, everyone in her life, and having ruined everything, was so intense that it brought tears to her eyes, and her chest got tight, tighter, until she coughed, her eyes stinging, and realized she'd forgotten to breathe.

Wil turned in her chair, her hand on Katie's arm until Katie had taken a few slow, deep breaths.

The room was completely, totally silent when Wil finally spoke.

"When you went to summer stock," she said, "you were my best friend. More than that. You were mine. He took you."

Wil let her hands drop.

What she had said made Katie's heart feel like it would never land another beat again. There was color rising up Wil's neck into her cheeks, painting them scarlet, and Katie wanted them against her own so badly, she ached.

"My name's in his mouth."

Katie closed her eyes. "What did he say?" Her voice sounded small to her own ears.

"Can I ask you something first?" Wil revolved her entire chair toward Katie, so that their knees touched. When they got dressed, Wil had put on a different pair of tight black jeans, but these had holes slashed in them all the way up, revealing a mosaic of edible thigh and a black tank that Katie suspected Wil had spent not a little money on. She looked like something Katie wanted to press between the pages of her diary and keep flipping back to for the rest of her life.

"Okay." Katie took another deep breath.

"Wait. Before I ask you my first question, there's another thing, which is that I have to tell you I do feel sad and angry about what I didn't know. I know I'm not part of your professional life, but I feel like at some point there was an intersection of us with your professional life that I missed because I didn't have your help to know we'd gotten there. And that meant I couldn't do everything I might have done to help you."

The tears that Katie had been hanging onto started to fall.

"But I think we'll have to get to that when it's just you and me," Wil said quietly.

Katie nodded.

"Okay." Wil rubbed her hands together. She was making the face that Beanie called thinking face. "Second first of all is Mr. Cook."

Katie gave a faint laugh, surprised by her own shaky amusement. "Oh my God. Our very important investigation."

Madelynn had startled at Katie's laugh and was now poised to take notes. "Who the fuck is Mr. Cook?"

Katie and Wil answered her question at the same time.

"A bigamist."

"An adulterer."

Wil gave Katie an amused look and tapped one fingernail on the table. "Yep. In other words, Mr. Cook is like the most impossibly average white man in America."

"We could literally swap him out for another completely different middle-aged white guy and no one would notice," Katie said. "And for the last thirteen years, he has maintained a relationship with two different, objectively banging women."

"Which should be impossible," Wil said. "Right? Can we agree on that? Impossible. My guess is we would like these two women. They're probably interesting and do amazing things. The ass on that brunette is a poem. I caught myself nodding along to all of Official Wife's Facebook reposts, and some of her self-generated content made me cry. These are objectively powerful women. Tell me, Katie."

"Yeah?" Katie said, leaning forward.

"What has Mr. Cook got that they even need?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing," Wil concurred. "Absolutely nothing. Say it again."

"Nothing. I love that song." Katie couldn't help but notice that some of the dark despair had lifted out of her voice. Wil was purposely cheering her up.

Because Wil was a lovely, generous person who deserved someone who was just as generous. Someone brave who didn't keep secrets.

"Me, too," Wil said. "My point is that we're interested in Mr. Cook not because we're interested in Mr. Cook. No one cares about him. No one. We care about these women. Our fantasy, when we were kids, was to figure it out and then tell the women. Right? We didn't even care what happened to him as a result of our intrusive meddling. Probably he would disappear, or die. Whatever."

"Any recent meddling?" Madelynn asked. "Do I want to know?"

"Definitely not," Katie said. "We're safe. People only get worked up about men who randomly show up on their doorbell cameras after dark. Plus, I wore a wig."

Madelynn's eyes had gone wide, but Wil kept her attention squarely on Katie. "The thing is, Ben Adelsward is essentially just Mr. Cook, scaled up. In Mr. Cook's classroom, you were the most interesting thing. You. He used you, in the sense that he accepted your flattery even though he'd done nothing to earn it, in the sense that you made his class work for him, and he got all the credit. Ben used you, too, to scale up. He still is. All Madelynn wants to do is point this out. You don't even have to tell the whole story. It's the chance to say to Ben, and to all the Mr. Cooks out there, ‘Oh my God, just fucking find something else to do! Be worthwhile! Why are you? You think you're so great, but you keep harassing girls and women so that everyone else thinks you're great, too!'" Wil looked at Madelynn for confirmation.

"That's a version," Madelynn agreed.

Katie barely heard her. She wanted to understand what Wil meant, but the comparison of Ben to Mr. Cook only made her notice that she couldn't think about either of them without feeling failure and loss.

Wil's blue eyes narrowed. She seemed to understand that Katie wasn't with her yet. "So, here's an observation. In high school, you started with the goal to distract Mr. Cook from being a bully in class with your overly interested questions and compliments. But it wasn't long before you were making sure everyone in that class had at least one good hour in their day."

Katie frowned. "I don't remember it like that."

"I do. Before that class, no one we went to school with had really known who you were. I had known you since I was born, and I didn't really know you. You'd been so preoccupied with acting and singing and dancing. No one has the kind of passion you did in high school, and when kids don't understand something or someone, they avoid it or lash out against it."

Madelynn had stopped taking notes and was listening, not like Katie's publicist, but like a friend. Katie made herself take a deep breath and tell herself that right now, she was safe.

"But there you were in that class," Wil said, "with this objectively bad person at the front of the room who had all the power, and you stepped up to him. You met his power with your power. And what you did was show us that you were this person who wanted to know everyone's story. You wanted to hear what they had to say. You wanted everyone to have an experience. You made it so it wasn't Mr. Cook's class anymore, and that was important. That's why people still talk about it. Every class get-together, every reunion you're not at, they come up to me, they sit down, and it turns out they want to talk about Katie Price in Mr. Cook's class. Even before they talk about your career. Because it meant something."

"I don't…" Katie's chest felt warm and tight. She reached for words but couldn't find any.

Wil smiled. "So that was my long-winded way of saying that you have to remind everyone, exactly the way you would, and not like anyone tells you to, that your own story belongs to you."

Then, Wil gave Madelynn a look that meant, I'm more right about how she should do this than you could ever be.

Which Katie loved, because Wil was establishing the dominance of her love with one of the most powerful publicists in California, and she made Madelynn smile with approval while she did it.

Katie loved Wil.

Wil had come to California. After all these years. She'd come here. Beanie and Diana and the whole entire world, including Katie, had been uncertain, but Wil had come, and she'd brought Almond Butter with her, even. She'd bedazzled Cy Newhouse and Joel Starr, admired herself in a paparazzi photograph, had a mysterious meeting with law schools, charmed Madelynn, and gotten the truth out of Katie.

God. God.

What if Katie let the people who loved her love her?

"I need some air." Katie looked at Madelynn, who nodded agreement. Then she reached out her hand to Wil. "Walk with me?"

She was relieved when Wil took her hand.

She took Wil outside, along a brick pathway that wound behind the pool house and terminated at a gate in the wall behind her property.

"There's a trailhead a few yards from here. It's a three-mile loop, but sometimes I just follow it for the first mile, then take a cut through that's a quarter mile. It's steep but very pretty. Is that okay?"

"Sure."

Katie put in the code for the gate. She sent a message to her security and turned on tracking on her phone so her people would know where she was.

She stepped out with Wil under a huge desert willow and crunched through some gravel to the trailhead.

For the first half mile, they just walked. The trail was narrow and steep, sometimes with a few wooden stairs. All the trails near Katie's property had a lot of trees, which she'd learned the names to after a whole life in Wisconsin, where a stand of birch trees was exotic. If she didn't need forgiveness, she would have pointed them out to Wil and showed her all her tiny favorite places along the way.

Katie moved her hair away from her ear and around her shoulder. Then she did it again, moving her hair to the other shoulder. All of her muscles felt a little too big and hot. She was glad for a cool breeze. California was making itself pretty for Wil.

She looked at Wil's curvy, muscular arms in the tank top and her artfully shaggy hair. She'd put something in it this morning in front of the mirror in the bathroom, pulling it and twisting it this way and that, and Katie had nearly tackled her to the floor in a sharp fit of lust and wanting and aggressive possessiveness.

"What did he say?" Katie finally asked. Out here, with the big sky and the trees and Wil's strong body, she felt fully accountable to her own life.

"I was just thinking about that," Wil said. "I haven't been with you, or here, for even, like, a minute, so I can't comment on what Ben said except to say what we already know. But that's because I know the real story. No one else does. Also, I have just learned firsthand that holding on to helpful information in a bid to protect yourself or other people is something you do, and I have to ask, is that working for you, Katie?" Wil looked at her. Her eyelashes had gone pink in the golden sun.

Katie didn't gasp, but it felt like all the air in her lungs disappeared from her body. "I thought so," she said. Katie let go of Wil's hand and stopped by a cairn of stones, some of which had been colorfully painted by other hikers. "Until I wanted more."

"You want more, but how are you going to have more? Because I'm interviewing with Pepperdine after the New Year, and I have a good feeling about it. I'm empathetic to your predicament, since I did something similar, which was tell myself I was fine with what I had until I really, really wasn't, and then have to change everything all at once instead of in more manageable increments."

"Pepperdine is in Los Angeles," Katie said.

"Yes. It is. But unless you want me, unless you want us, want this, all of it and its mess—because it is going to be so messy, Katie—and you want it out in front of everyone, without holding back, I'll only be one of your four million neighbors. Who used to know you. Way back then."

No.

For a long moment, her hands balled into fists, Katie could only think of one angry syllable, no, just no, not again, not ever. No.

She'd already lost Wil once. She'd lost Wil's bracelet. She'd lost her way. She would not be neighbors with Wil Greene. She'd burn down the whole world before she allowed that to happen.

But Wil was right. She had to make a choice, and it wasn't about keeping Wil or giving her up, it was about whether Katie would ever, ever decide that she was allowed to have her life.

Now. She was allowed to have it now.

She wasn't here to make room for other people to have the life she'd wanted but failed to earn. She wasn't alive—her heart beating hard in her palms, her mouth full of cotton and her throat so thick, she couldn't swallow over how scared she was—in order to make one safe choice after another until she died. Her life was not an apology. Her heart, her body, were not an apology for what had been taken from her.

Wil had asked her if she was making or breaking things.

Yes.

She was making and breaking things. Or at least, in her heart she was, but with her life, she hadn't yet.

But she had everything she needed. And so she could.

For the first time, Katie felt it—a delicious kind of anticipation and eagerness and urgency of ideas that made her want to open her laptop and write an original screenplay, that made her want to fly to Mexico and have strong coffee with Marisol and talk all night long, that made her want to tell Honor Howell to go fuck herself if she couldn't let go of her money so that Katie could make the greatest movie of all time. So that everyone in her studio could make the greatest movies of all time. So that she could break it all down and make it all back up again.

"Wil," Katie started to say, grabbing her hand tight.

"Wil!"

"Katie!"

Wil looked at her. "That sounded a lot like Beanie."

"And Diana," Katie said. "But I am not done having my moment!"

They turned around and, yes, it was Beanie and Diana, a little pink-faced, wearing ugly Christmas sweaters that were much too hot for midday in Los Angeles.

"We're here for Christmas," Beanie panted. "I flew first class."

"We wouldn't have come after you on your hike, but there are a lot of people in your house, sweetheart," Diana said. "April and Madelynn. And Honor Howell, with her dog. The cats are unhappy."

"The babies," Katie whispered. She turned and put her forehead against Wil's. "I'm making and breaking. We will never be neighbors. More at eleven."

Wil laughed and pulled her down the trail toward their mothers, who were already bustling toward the gate, and when they stepped into the house, yes.

There was April, beaming, sitting with Madelynn on a FaceTime call.

Diana was in the kitchen, pulling a pitcher out of Katie's fridge, directing Beanie to retrieve glasses and a silver serving platter from the cupboard.

Sue sat on top of the credenza with the communication buttons, pressing the same button over and over again. No. No. No. Phil and Trois were on the floor in front of the credenza, looking definitely freaked, hiding behind Almond Butter, who was nonchalantly grooming a front paw.

And there was Honor, in tapered jeans treated with something silvery so that they shone, paired with a crisp white blouse, tucked in, but open to her belt. She wore her hair in a natural style Katie had never seen before, and when she saw Katie, she stepped toward her and Wil, huge diamond hoops gleaming, and took off her glasses.

"What the fuck is this I hear about you counting me out?" For the first time, Katie noticed the Chihuahua Honor held under one arm. The dog looked just as pissed at Katie as Honor did. "Do you know who I am?"

"Honor Howell," Katie said over the parched lump in her throat. "You're in my house."

"Only way to get your attention, it seems." She gestured over to where April and Madelynn were still on FaceTime, which Katie could now see was connected to Marisol and a slim man in dark glasses whom Katie had met several times. Diego. Marisol's companion. He never spoke, but Marisol never made important decisions without him. "Have you not even rented a space? What is this? You can't run a production studio out of your dining room! You need a receptionist." She pointed a finger at Katie. "A cold one."

"I thought…" Why couldn't she complete a sentence? Katie was an actress. She couldn't recall ever being at such a loss for words in a professional situation.

"I can guess what you thought." Honor reached her hand toward Wil and smiled warmly. "Honor Howell. It's nice to meet you, Wil Greene."

"I'm honored." Wil said this with a wry, teasing tone that Honor picked up on and winked at, and Katie watched Wil shake the hand of one of the most important people in Hollywood like she'd been doing it her whole life, with an easy grin, and one muscled arm running her hand through her hair at the same time.

If Katie hadn't already fucked Wil Greene, she'd do it right now. She'd kick everyone out, Honor included, and do it right here on the dining room floor.

Wil's grace gave Katie her spine back.

"Who told you I was counting you out?" Katie asked. "Because I don't remember calling you."

Honor raised an eyebrow at Katie. "I have a feeling you misapprehended me in Chicago, and I know I have a reputation for pulling my investment when people misbehave. But tell me, Katie Price, how have you misbehaved?"

For some reason, the question made Katie think again of the white cardboard Priority Mail package that had come to her in Chicago, the box Wil had sent with her Katie Kat bracelet, and how she'd had to open it in front of the theater nerds who she'd hoped would be her friends but who hated her because she'd captured Ben's attention.

Even though Katie had never been able to control Ben Adelsward.

She hadn't been able to keep him from paying attention to her.

She hadn't been capable of telling him no.

She hadn't been in charge of him in any way through the entirety of their relationship, and after she left him, she couldn't stop him from talking about her however he wanted, whenever he wanted, forever.

She hadn't been able to understand, because she was a child—because she was a child, as Wil had pointed out, with passion and ambition—that Ben was wrong. What he did was wrong. What he wanted was wrong. How he treated her was wrong. And because she couldn't understand, she'd done the only thing she could do, the only thing that was in her control.

Katie had made herself responsible for all of it.

She'd never, ever done anything wrong, which she knew, but she hadn't let herself live her life like she knew.

She hadn't let herself live. She couldn't, in the shadow of carrying guilt that wasn't hers.

She was done. She was fucking done.

"I am not a dog." Katie glanced nervously at the Chihuahua. "Or a naughty cat. Or a man with too much power and not enough good ideas. I don't misbehave. Everything I do is either what I wanted to do, or it's my own mistake. Which you can believe I am learning from. I'm not chasing fame. Everything I said on that stage in Chicago is true—I'm in this for the work. I'm in it to tell stories that need to be told. I'm in it to center and lift up other storytellers so the world can see them. And if it's time for me to speak up and advocate for myself to finally put a dart through Ben Adelsward's ridiculous obsession with me, then that's what I will do. I tell stories, Honor. I can certainly tell my own."

Then Katie looked at Wil, who had leaned against the counter, and who was smiling at her.

Wil didn't look worried, not in the slightest. She looked incredibly, extremely cool.

Because she was Wil Greene, everywhere, forever.

"You'll be all right," Honor said. "I was hoping you'd get to here"—she gestured at Katie, a sweep of her hand seeming to encompass Wil and Diana and Beanie, Madelynn and April, and most of all what Katie had just said about herself and the strong, proud way she'd said it—"because I couldn't genuinely believe that all of the folderol about Ben Adelsward was something you wanted. But all I've ever seen you do is dodge it, and I did need to see that you're a fighter, Katie. I wish I didn't. There simply isn't a way to make films in Hollywood that lift people up if you're not willing to go to the mat. Particularly when your mission is to include artists Hollywood has counted out." She scratched gently behind her Chihuahua's ears. "You and Wil should come to my house and have dinner with Melinda and me before the New Year. We'll tell you both all about the mistakes you can make when you fall in love and have no sense."

Katie smiled, finally, and then realized her mom and Beanie were talking to Dale, her landscaper, in the entryway, and then realized they weren't talking, they were helping him haul in a truly giant Christmas tree.

"Oh my God," Katie said.

Diana looked up, changing her grip and getting needles all over the floor. "Well! You didn't have one. Where are all the presents supposed to go?"

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."