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 a giant fan 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 could fail. 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 for chasing me across the country due 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 learn whatever she 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 would love it. He'd love it, Wil."

Now Wil pressed her fingertips under her eyes.

Lucía Gomez, a PA who Wil had met earlier who had a long, high ponytail, perfect deep red acrylics, and an earpiece, came to the door. "They're ready for you." She took in Wil and came to an abrupt halt, frowning. "Shit. Do you need makeup?"

Beanie and Wil laughed, and Wil sniffed and stood up, shaking her head.

Wil followed Lucía's swinging ponytail upstairs. There was a mark she was supposed to stand on. There were other marks taped to the floor to show where she had to walk, where she would pause for Busy to get up and hug her, and where she should stand for a minute for the first back-and-forth exchange of greetings and a joke before she sat down.

She'd been here all day. She hadn't been alone with Katie for longer than a minute since they were interrupted yesterday on their hike. There had been at least half a dozen people moving in and out of Katie's house at all times—Katie's personal staff, April's agency staff, Madelynn's agency staff, folks Honor sent over—and conversations Wil could only halfway follow about messaging, contracts, and unions, although she kept up the best she could, fascinated to have this glimpse of Katie Price's life in high gear.

Finally, Wil had wandered off to sleep in one of Katie's guest rooms when it became clear sometime north of 2 a.m. that Madelynn and April wouldn't be leaving, and Katie didn't intend to go to bed.

Tomorrow was Christmas. Wil couldn't imagine who watched late-night TV on Christmas Eve, but Madelynn said it had been one of the highest-rated nights the last two years on Busy's show, and the point wasn't the viewers anyway. It was getting Wil's story out there so that people could read the highlights and watch clips from the interview on the new phones and tablets and laptops they got for Christmas.

The biggest hurdle, according to Madelynn, was the sit-down between Katie and Busy that Wil hadn't been a part of, where Katie tried to make Busy understand what was at stake and asked Busy if she truly wanted to put her own capital into those stakes. Katie had chosen Busy over everyone else because she believed she would get it, even if she couldn't do it.

But Busy had wanted to do it, and Wil hoped that gave Katie some confidence in owning a big part of her own life.

She toed the mark on the floor. They'd let her wear her own motorcycle boots, although someone had whisked them away to be oiled and conditioned and shined up. The lights were hot. There was a studio band backing an extremely young singer-songwriter who'd already performed her single and was now covering Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" with a lot of style.

Wil really hoped this wasn't a mistake.

But as soon as she had the thought, she realized she would be okay even if it was.

It was a funny thing. She'd spent so many years nerving herself up to make any decision at all—big ones, small ones—but now that she had, she wasn't worried about what would happen next.

She was just so glad she'd gotten herself here.

The song finished. The audience applauded, and then Busy was saying her name, talking about her and her TikTok channel, and Lucía gave Wil a little shoulder push. Wil followed the tape path onto the stage, smiling at Busy, careful not to look at the floor, careful not to trip, careful to keep her hips loose and look casual and keep it cool.

Busy opened her arms. Wil hugged her. She smelled amazing. Wil hoped that when she inevitably sweated through this shirt, it wouldn't show.

Clapping and smiling, Busy bounced up and down. She wore an adorable short-sleeved green dress with a pink belt, and her blond waves were loose around her shoulders. "I'm so excited to meet you!"

"Thank you! I'm excited to be here," Wil said.

"I'm such a big fan! I follow your TikTok. I've watched your kissing movies a million times, like a million, million times. I have sometimes watched them in the bathtub?" She leaned closer to Wil and stage-whispered, "Do you understand what I'm saying? Am I being perfectly clear, Wil?"

"I get you," Wil said with a wink. "You're not the only one doing that, from what I hear."

Busy made her eyes big. "I am not. I did a poll of all of us on the set. Wil, I asked everybody. Everybody's doing that."

Wil laughed. She'd already heard this joke, but that didn't keep the flush from crawling up into her cheeks. Her heart was pounding. Busy pushed on her shoulder, a light tap like they'd just shared a funny moment together, and Wil remembered she was supposed to sit down. She flopped onto the blue sofa next to Busy.

Sit up straight. Sit at the edge of the cushion. Face your body forward, but keep your torso angled toward Busy. Keep your chin up. Don't fiddle with your clothes or your hair. Don't interrupt. Wait for the audience's reaction. Smile.

"Okay, so, Wil." Busy gave her a coy look. "You're from Wisconsin."

"I am. Green Bay."

"You're from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and so are most of these people you're kissing, so that's my first question. Where are you finding all these hot people in Green Bay, Wisconsin? Should I be moving there? Should America be paying attention? What's going on with that, Wil? It's almost alarming."

The audience laughed, and Wil held her smile and didn't rub her sweaty palms on the thighs of her designer army uniform kneepad pants. "I wouldn't have thought so when I started my project, but coming up with two people to kiss every week makes you look around at other people in a very different way."

"Yeah, I can feel that." Busy flattened her hands over her chest, her blue notecards with her prompts and questions stuck between her fingers. "Tough job."

"Interesting, too, because it turns out when you're really looking, there are a lot of completely, incredibly kissable people where you least expect them. I asked my hairdresser to kiss me. This guy who cleans gutters. I even propositioned a dude at the DMV, although he turned me down."

"He turned you down?" Busy made her eyes wide again. "He turned you down?"

"He did. Told me he was happily married. I get turned down a lot. But that's important, too, right? Asking the question and being okay with hearing no."

Busy leaned close and grabbed Wil's arm. "I'm just going to say before I lose my nerve that I would not turn you down, Wil Greene."

"Let's put a pin in that," Wil said, because that's what they had planned on her saying when Busy told her she wanted Wil to kiss her.

With Busy so close, though, Wil did take the opportunity to really look at her. Not like a famous person, but to connect with her.

She had really good eyes. There was a lot of Busy in her eyes, and a steely kind of centeredness that told Wil the woman sitting beside her was more than on board for the places this conversation would go.

That felt good.

"Okay," Busy said, smiling again. "Because there might actually be someone who hasn't seen what you do—though I'm guessing there are a bunch of people who are on their phones right this minute trying to get a peek—we do have a couple of your videos to share. Wil, can you tell me about this one?"

While soft transition music played, Wil and Busy turned their bodies toward an oversized screen on the set. One of the PAs near the cameras in front of them blinked a small light to cue that the video was starting. The position of the lights meant that Wil couldn't see what was on the screen, but a prompter played the video next to the camera, where she had been told to look.

It was comforting to see Molly on the prompter screen in the familiar video. It grounded Wil in the moment.

"This is Molly," Wil said. "She's a vet tech who specializes in elderly cats, and she does checkups for my Almond Butter, who's sixteen."

A picture of Almond Butter flashed up on a different screen right behind Busy, and the audience gave Almond Butter her due.

"Molly had seen what I was doing with the TikTok, and she'd just gone through a breakup, and she told me she wanted to remember that she knew how to feel something."

"That's kind of amazing," Busy said. This part wasn't scripted. Busy hadn't wanted it to be. She'd wanted her reactions to the video and what Wil said about it to be a surprise to her so that it could elicit genuine emotion. "I love that. I love that this could be that for her, because it can be so hard to identify what you need when you go through something like that. Okay. Let's watch."

There had been an argument about how much of the video would be aired, because a minute was a long clip for live television, but Madelynn had been very firm, and ultimately Busy's team agreed that it would be worthwhile to show the whole thing, in part because of how it began. Which was with Wil and Molly sitting across from each other on stools, and Almond Butter in Molly's arms, and Wil telling her, smiling, You have to let go of Almond Butter now.

Molly glanced at Wil from beneath her full eyelashes. She was a tall woman with broad shoulders, brown hair, and brown eyes, one of these Germanic Wisconsin white women who was built to survive the woods and the prairie. She had blunt-cut bangs and huge eyes and those unfair eyelashes that Wil had thought were fake, but up close she'd seen that they weren't.

But she's doing such a good job of protecting me from what I've gotten myself into,Molly said.

You don't have to kiss me if you don't want to, Wil told her. There's no point at which it's too late to say no. Even with the video rolling, you can say no. You can always say no.

She'd waited until Molly met her eyes.

Do you want to say no, Molly?

But by that time, she hadn't meant the question seriously, and you could hear it in the video and see Molly's gaze lock with Wil's, and the way her lips parted just a little bit, and she leaned closer and set Almond Butter gently on the floor. Wil's cat trotted obediently out of the frame.

Then, when Molly sat back up, she grabbed the stool between her own legs and yanked it closer to Wil's, and put her hands on Wil's shoulders, smoothing her palms down Wil's arms.

I want you to show me how you do this,Molly said.

Like I'm teaching you?Wil put her finger on Molly's knee.

Molly shook her head. Like you're—like you're seducing me.

That was what the rest of the film showed. Wil figuring out what seduction looked like, felt like, sounded like to Molly. How she wanted to be touched. How she liked to be kissed. The way she hummed her approval, her hand at the base of Wil's throat, her head tipped to the side, her eyes closed, and her knees locked onto either side of Wil's thigh.

It was a good kiss. It had felt good, but mostly Wil remembered it had made Molly feel good, which was why she'd picked it for Busy's show.

Wil had also picked it because she remembered that on the morning when she filmed herself kissing Molly after breakfast, before she had to go to work, she'd understood for the first time that something was happening with her project that she hadn't expected, and she liked it.

"Um. So. Wow," Busy said, as music played as an outro when the video faded to black and the audience reacted. "I mean, of course it's sexy, right? But really, I'm thinking that it's powerful. Tell me why you decided to do this project, this channel, this thing."

She and Busy had also talked about this question, and Wil felt like it was incredibly generous of Busy to throw herself under the bus by asking it.

"There isn't a why, and there doesn't have to be," Wil said. "I had an idea, and it was obviously a good one, because millions of people have seen these videos. It's powerful because good ideas are powerful, and because I'm real, I'm a real person, doing something vulnerable and real that happened to be a fuc—an effing good idea."

Busy leaned forward and laughed. "Such an effing good idea. And good ideas don't need a why, do they?"

"They don't. No one needs permission for a good idea. Honestly, cis white men have a lot of bad ideas, and they don't ask permission, either. Maybe they should." Wil crossed her legs as the audience hummed with approval and scattered applause.

Busy reached out across the sofa and took Wil's hand. "With that in mind, let's watch the video everyone's talking about."

"The one that Katie Price filmed."

The audience went quiet.

"Yeah. The one I have bookmarked in a special secret folder of bookmarks." Busy said this with a laugh in her voice, like a close friend sharing an inside joke.

The video came up, and even though Molly's video was powerful, was hot, was interesting, was in every way a good idea, it was immediately clear on this big screen and in this context that there were many more layers of talent, vision, and gifts on display in the video Katie had filmed.

It wasn't just that she had the right equipment, whereas Wil just had her phone and a fifteen-dollar phone tripod she'd bought online. It was that you could follow Katie's eye. You could see and appreciate the very heart of Wil's project.

Katie had asked the audience to focus, in this video, on what Wil was doing. What Wil was giving Noel. On what Wil wanted the audience to believe about themselves.

In one minute, that was there. Which meant that Katie had, of course, always understood what a minute of film felt like, what it could feel like, and what it could do.

Wil hadn't expected it, but as she watched it from the stage, the hot lights burning into her scalp, she cried.

Busy and Wil looked at each other at the same time after the video ended, now without any outro music in order to focus the audience at home's attention on the reverence in the studio. Busy had tears in her eyes, too.

"That's just so incredibly beautiful, isn't it?" Busy asked. "It's like I'm looking at this incredible thing you're doing, Wil, and at the same time, I'm seeing the birth of one of the most important filmmakers ever. I can't even with it. It's so big, and I'm so honored that you and Katie would come to LA and come to me and share this with everyone."

This was, Wil knew, an important part of the messaging that Katie and Madelynn and April had hashed out—the idea that Wil and Katie had flown to Los Angeles together to share Katie's video with the world in an expansive, generous way. It was a message to counter the competing narrative, forwarded by Ben, that turned Katie's video into a pathetic bid for attention.

"Thank you."

This felt good so far. Wil tried to imagine Katie in the greenroom, where she'd said she would be watching with Madelynn. She hoped it was good for her, too.

"There's this other thing that I don't even want to talk about," Busy said.

"Yeah. Why would you? Why would I?" Wil smiled so the audience would know it was okay.

Busy took a deep breath. "Like, there's some bullshit? Out there? Namely from the ex types? About your project, and your coming to California, and of course, Katie Price. Do you want to talk about that?"

Wil did. It was a big part of why she'd agreed to do this, that she would get to talk about Katie from her own perspective. "A lot of it isn't even my story, but I'll tell you what is. I've known Katie since we were babies. Our moms are best friends. They're out there right now."

Wil grinned into the audience. She couldn't see anything but lights and cameras, but she knew Beanie and Diana were there, and the cameras would find them.

"Katie was always around," she continued, "but she and I weren't, like, best friends, because let me tell you, just from my perspective, Katie was working so hard all the time. And it was all her. Katie's mom, I think, would have loved it if Katie did what I did, play some high school sports and be a cheerleader and date and have a lot of fun. But Katie wanted acting and voice and dance lessons. She watched movies—No. She studied movies. She messed with cameras. She was always making movies and putting on plays and being in plays. She traveled and did this stuff that to me was unimaginable. So it wasn't until our senior year of high school before she went to Chicago to do summer stock—"

At that, the audience interrupted Wil, not with applause or anything loud, but with a kind of hum that meant they knew what had become the apocryphal story of Katie Price.

Summer stock. Ben Adelsward.

"It wasn't until our senior year that we became friends," Wil continued. "Best friends. We were doing everything together, and in so many ways it was one of the highlights of my life, because I don't know if anyone's noticed, but Katie is incredibly compelling."

The audience laughed.

"Right? And I was compelled. On the surface, it didn't seem like we did a whole lot more than ride around in my Bronco and eat Twizzlers, but we were telling each other stories about ourselves and each other. She was so excited to go to summer stock. To go to this elite acting program in North Carolina. The rest of that story doesn't belong to me, but we reconnected recently, and you know those people you can just pick up with where you left off?"

"Yes," Busy said. "So much of me depends on those people."

Wil squeezed Busy's hand. "Yes. You know, I think. And we've been doing a lot of riding around in that same Bronco and talking about why neither one of us should have to ever answer the question ‘why.'"

"Because you're allowed to just have ideas and to do them."

"Yes. And because we both are powerful women with our own stories."

Wil wished she could see her mother in the audience then, just because it felt good to say it. She was a powerful woman with her own story. It was what Beanie had raised her to believe about herself. It was the only thing Diana had ever wanted for Katie.

And here they were.

Then Wil thought of the dozens of people who'd been in and out of Katie's living room and kitchen last night, talking animatedly, waving their arms around, strategizing and arguing with each other as they worked toward this moment that would, they all hoped, make a change.

"I'm wondering if I could do something on your show," Wil said. This was a little off-script, and Wil hoped she didn't fuck it up.

What Busy and Wil were supposed to be talking about right now was what was next for Wil. Everything that had happened so far was what the team had set up to make a favorable foundation for what Katie wanted to say in a statement or other interview. Also, to make something worth talking about to take over the commentary about Ben's statements and Wil's pictures. All of that was Madelynn's idea.

But Katie had shared an idea with Wil that was entirely her own.

"You can do whatever you want on my show," Busy said. "Right?" She asked this of the audience, and they whooped and cheered. "Like"—Busy squeezed Wil's hand—"for real, for real. Whatever you want. It's Christmas."

"I wanted to give someone a kiss. On your show." Wil watched a flush travel up Busy's neck. Wil was thrilled to give Busy's show what were going to be stratospheric ratings, and she was glad Busy was catching on.

The audience lost their minds.

"Like, someone from the audience?" Busy asked.

But she knew.

The audience lost their minds some more.

"Like, this would be my last kiss," Wil said. "My retirement kiss, really."

The audience rose to their feet.

"You're killing me, oh my God."

"Merry Christmas, Busy." Wil winked. Then she stood and looked at the wings, and she smiled.

Katie smiled back.

Wil was going to kiss the love of her life on national television, and for whatever reason—or for all the reasons—it felt exactly right.