Elise pumped her fists in the air. “Five days till takeoff!”
A few execs clapped, which was enough for Tom. He kicked his feet in the air. “Good work, everybody!” He was gone before anyone could say thank you.
* * *
“Now the Internet’s going to be flooded with hypothetical stories about my wedding, when it’s supposed to be flooded with news about my movie,” Elise complained in the car.
“Better than the Kitty talk,” Rebecca said.
“Which they tap-danced around, even though that’s really why they called the meeting.”
“Right.” Rebecca went back to her phone.
“It was disrespectful of them to pretend to ignore it. They could have at least extended their condolences.”
“No one knows how to handle it,” Rebecca said.
The death of eighty-one-year-old Kitty Karr Tate had dominated that week’s news. It was no easy feat competing with politics, and the pause in presidential tweet reports spoke to the breadth of Kitty’s legacy. She was an American icon, an Academy Award–winner, a writer, television star, and philanthropist. The tributes were numerous, and her films and decade-long-running television show shot to the top of digital sales.
With the praise came theories about her mysterious life and the circumstances of her demise. Kitty had become an urban legend postmortem, a Sunset Boulevard caricature who, rumor said, had committed suicide after years of seclusion. Kitty quit acting in her early fifties and, aside from a few rare public appearances, hadn’t been photographed in more than twenty years.
Public conspiracy theories had exploded after news leaked that Kitty bequeathed her entire fortune—about six hundred million dollars—to Elise and her sisters, Giovanni and Noele. Really, it was closer to a billion; the reports got it wrong because the leaked documents only listed Kitty’s personal assets. Her estate also included the inheritance from her late husband’s parents and her husband’s studio stock and royalties and real estate.
The St. Johns had issued a statement asking for privacy, but interest in the notoriously private family only quadrupled.
The world danced around the one question burning holes of curiosity in everyone’s minds: Why had the White Hollywood icon given her fortune to the Black (“Black” being the key word) daughters of her costar in a sitcom that first aired almost fifty years ago? Some came right out and asked it, and social media was a cauldron of racist epithets; it was Meghan Markle hysteria times three. None of the sisters had been on the Internet in days because of it.
They didn’t know what they were going to do with the money and, yes—thank you, Internet!—they all knew they didn’t need it. Each daughter had been a multimillionaire from birth.
“So, did you know my grandmother is coming to Kitty’s memorial?” Rebecca asked. At Kitty’s request, the St. Johns were hosting a memorial and private auction the next evening at her home.
Elise shook her head. “I told you, Sarah took over the guest list.” Her use of her mother’s first name spoke to Elise’s frustration.
“Kitty invited her. She got one of the cards. Isn’t that funny?”
Kitty had written out twenty-five invitations to her own memorial service for her lawyer to mail after her death.
Elise looked at her now. “Why funny? Your grandma had to have been running in the same circles as Kitty.”
“Funny she’s never mentioned it to any of us before now. She told my mom they met back when Kitty was acting.”
“See, there you go.” Elise pushed open the car door as they stopped in front of the house. “Tell Vogue I’m sticking to the wedding and the film.”
* * *
Elise paused at the kitchen door, surprised to see her sisters had already arrived. Their luggage littered the space as they munched from the charcuterie tray on the island. Giovanni, happy to flee cold Canada, had donned Bermuda jean shorts and a cropped, open-backed fuzzy violet sweater that displayed her ebony skin. Noele was in a royal-blue sweatsuit, more appropriate for the fickle October weather in LA.
Sarah was talking, accentuating every word with her hands. She’d been awake almost twenty-four hours, and Elise could see the rhythm of her mania, although to her sisters it probably looked like excitement.
It had been four years since the entire St. John family had been together. Days after Noele’s NYU graduation, Giovanni, the middle daughter, had moved to Toronto to film what became a hit AMC show. Their parents, working through a battle in their marriage, took up residence in Paris by that December, granting Elise family separation and consequent career growth. Three or four out of the five gathered every few months or so during holidays, events, or times when their work obligations converged, but Noele’s college graduation had rendered the St. John estate a true empty nest, and everyone but Elise had scattered.
A year ago, the sisters had all promised to come home to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their parents’ legendary Halloween costume party. It was the occasion they all loved most and, for that reason, it almost felt as though Kitty had planned her passing now, knowing her neighbors, the St. Johns, would all be together.
Feeling a rush of tears, Elise turned from the kitchen entry and walked farther down the driveway to the backyard. The fog was low and thick, so she removed her heels before descending to the third tier of yard and through the vegetable garden that hid her father’s studio.
Though the studio was made to look like a garden shed, the steel door was actually bulletproof. She punched in the keypad code and entered to find her father fingering a drum machine.
“Your daughters have arrived.”
James didn’t look up. “My daughters, huh?”
His bald head was brown like a walnut and shiny-smooth underneath the bright light above his workstation. He gestured to the drum machine. “I’m working.” James was a producer who played fourteen instruments, wrote and arranged music, and had a vocal range from Maxwell to Barry White. His love for blues, jazz, and classical made his music complex and varied but somehow timeless.
Elise collapsed on the couch, staring at her father’s self-portrait on the wall. Painted from a photograph of him at Zuma Beach back when he wore a beard, it commemorated his first days in Los Angeles as a paid musician. He would continue sleeping on the floor of a friend’s apartment for another year, but it was the first time he realized he could—even as a Black man—make money doing what he loved.
He came to join her, scratching his gray beard shadow. “How was your meeting?”
“They didn’t even mention her.”
“I’m not sure why you expected them to.”
“Even to Mom, it’s like Kitty’s death is a footnote. All she cares about is us being here.”
“That’s happiness for her. And for me.”
“It’s just—Mom would rather talk about anything else.”
“Kitty wouldn’t want us moping. There will be plenty of time for that tomorrow night.”
Elise rolled her eyes. “Mom changed everything.”
“It’ll all be fine, honey, I promise.”
“Do you think I should talk to Vogue about Kitty?”
“If Kitty didn’t want a spectacle, she wouldn’t have left you the money.”
“It seems so unlike her.”
“I know you idolized her, but she was human, I assure you.”
“I know that,” Elise pouted, resenting the truth that she clearly hadn’t known Kitty as well as she thought.
“There are as many sides to the truth as people telling the story.”
“How many sides do you think there are?”
“Baby, I don’t know. Kitty lived a long life. She knew a lot of people.”
She squinted her eyes at him, feeling as though he knew something more than he was admitting.
He laughed and used the arm rest of his chair to stand. “Let’s go see my other babies. I also believe it’s time for a cocktail.”
Elise let him off the hook for siding with her mother, knowing he would never betray his allegiance to his wife for anyone.
* * *