She paused, and I could tell that sharp, intelligent Cate Collins was debating what she would say next. She cracked a knuckle and kept going. “Peter Jackson directed five movies before his vision for the Lord of the Rings films was green-lit. I directed sixteen feature-length films before Vantage Pictures would meet with me about discussing the possibilities for an Elementia movie.”
“That doesn’t sound quite fair.” Eamon’s innocence shone when there was a camera on him. Maybe that’s what had drawn Cate’s eye during casting.
“My gran had a saying. Fairness is fantasy. That’s rather apropos, come to think of it.” Cate smiled; she wasn’t looking at me, but it felt like she was. “But you were asking how the books saved my life. Well, in film school, I had a mentor, a wise, talented man who had been in Hollywood for decades. He has since passed.”
“I’m sorry,” Eamon said.
“Don’t be. If he were still alive, I doubt I’d have the courage to tell this story.” She rubbed her hands together. “Straight out of film school, he selected five of us as interns. I was honored because I was the first woman he’d ever picked. We all worked our asses off. For years. The boys kept getting promoted. They got their own productions. I did not. And one day, I marched into his office and demanded to know what I was doing wrong. He gave me a glass of water and asked me not to get hysterical—as if that were something I often did. ‘You’re the most passionate director I’ve ever met,’ he said. ‘But you’re a woman, and the studios don’t want women. They’re too emotional. Too unstable. I’m sorry.’”
She paused. “So I quit.”
Eamon had gone downright green, and she patted him on the knee. “I felt dead after that. I was broke and living on a friend’s couch. She put a copy of Elementia in my face and said, ‘This is a story about girls kicking butt. Read it.’ And I did. And it inspired me to fight back.”
“How?” Eamon asked. “What did you do?”
“The first thing I did was change the name on my résumé to C. Collins. Like M. E. Thorne or J. K. Rowling, I hid my gender with my initials, slipping past that hurdle. I immediately started getting calls from producers who assumed that the C was for Charles or Conor. After all, my résumé was impressive. Sometimes the producers were pleasantly shocked when I walked in the door. Sometimes they pretended like the position was already filled.”
Cate turned her face toward the rising sun, basking in the gold glow. “I made ground an inch at a time, shooting indies for peanuts. Living on nothing. I kept going, like Sevyn. I didn’t let anyone stop me, and I called down the lightning when I needed to. After all”—she turned, pinning me with her sharpest look—“courage is quite simple. First, be honest. Second, don’t back down.”
• • •
I slumped back to the trailer by myself only to find Ryder on the phone.
There was only one person he’d be talking with.
“Iris is back. Yeah, okay.” He touched the mute button. “Dad wants to talk to you. He knows what happened, and he doesn’t think we should come home.”
“Okay.” I took the phone.
“I don’t want to leave either.” He sat on the edge of his bed and tied his sneakers.
“Where do you think you’re going, Ry?”
“I’m going to help the food people. Dad already said it’s okay, so don’t try to stop me.” He slipped out the door like he did this sort of thing all the time, and I stood with the phone in my hand, racking up a bill I couldn’t even imagine.
I touched the mute button to disengage it. “Hey, Dad.”
“Your brother says you want to come home. I’m going to finish my draft in the next day or two. I’ll fly there and take your place. You can come back.”
What?
“Iris?”
“Well…” The words piled fast. “Cate gave me a job. I think I should see it through.” Granted this was about Julian Young, but I also thought about Eamon sitting next to me on the picnic table last night, his shoulder bumping mine.
“Are you scamming money? The production is skin and bones, from what I hear.”
“No, of course not!” I snapped. Dad didn’t like it when I spoke sharply, and I pictured him in his pajamas—writer’s uniform—standing with the phone outstretched. “Sorry.”
He sighed, and I swear I felt it gust across the Atlantic. “I’m about to finish my draft.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I’ll come relieve you. I’m sorry I sent you into that Thornian hell in the first place. Has Ryder been listening?”
Apart from getting lost and nearly dying yesterday?
“He got himself dressed this morning. No hassle.” I reached for the cup of toothbrushes by the tiny sink and felt Ryder’s. Wet. “He even brushed.”
“You should email his therapist. Mark the achievement. Or I can do it later.” He paused for a long moment, and I remembered that it was midnight back home.
“How’s Mom?”
“She’s still green. You’re better with her than I am when she’s like this.” Green was the term we used for the weeks or months when Mom went into her greenhouse and didn’t come out. She had an apartment in there; she didn’t need to come out.
“I see.” The situation now made sense. Dad was about to finish, and Mom was in her own world. He was lonely. “Maybe you could come see this with us. It’s…something
