Luke reached for his beer and pulled out the chair opposite her, spun it around, then sat down on it. “You mentioned they’d screwed you over. How bad is it? How did you find out?”
“The most innocuous of meetings, to be honest. By the time I was nine, I was already on my third season of a TV show that was highly rated at the network. And I’d already done three movies the years before, but I remember filming a particular movie on my ninth birthday. The director, Calvin Waterstone, got nominated for an Oscar for it. And he was always so kind to me. Made sure they enforced all the rules about my working hours and tutoring and stuff. I remember feeling like it was a fun experience, even though it was this weird, cult-novel-type movie about the end of the world. I mean, the world literally ended. Everyone died, even me.”
“Sounds fucking depressing, but I’d like to watch it to see little you.”
Willow laughed. “Definitely not. Anyway, two weeks after you and I . . . met, I saw Calvin in a queue at Starbucks. We drank our coffee together; fun walk down memory lane and all that. But then, he said it had been a tough negotiation on my salary because he’d never paid a child actor three million dollars before.”
“Fucking hell. Three million at nine years old. No wonder you are loaded.”
Willow huffed. “Here’s the thing. I’m not. Well, I mean, I am. In regular terms. But three million is all there was in my Coogan account when I turned eighteen.”
“That’s the account you told me about. The one where the studio puts fifteen percent of their salary straight into an account in kids’ names. The parents are never supposed to get their hands on it, then?”
“No.”
“That’s still a lot of dough, though.”
“It is, but I’m piecing together how much I earned. How much money there should be. Calvin has helped. It looks like I made over eleven million in movies alone. I know some of it had to go to expenses and taxes and shit, but also, none of this includes any interest that it should have gained in all the years since. I haven’t made a movie in a decade. I think I could be owed as much as twenty million. I did a bit of research, and the house—which is in my dad’s name—was about a million when he bought it nearly fifteen years ago, and it’s now roughly worth twenty-two million. He bought it when I signed the first movie deal. I think he used my earnings to pay for it. Then, there are so many endorsements I did as a kid, I don’t even know how to begin to quantify those.”
“Jesus Christ, Will. That’s a lot to sort out. Can you get any of it back?”
“I hope so. I’ve spent the last month, since I found out I was pregnant, collecting information from his office. I live in the Malibu property guest house. It didn’t occur to me that the whole house should be mine. I thought it was amazing I had my own mini-place at fifteen. So, every time my parents went out, I began systematically collecting evidence from Dad’s office. He’s a slob, so it’s been a mess, but I’ve managed to copy the files on his laptop and scan paper files onto mine. He definitely doesn’t know that I know. And I’ll admit, the idea of facing him to talk about it is terrifying. I wanted to pull it all together before I approached him.”
Luke finished his beer. “If you don’t mind me asking, if you were good at acting and made good money from it, why do you care about this social media shit? Why not go back to it?”
“I’m a persona non grata. A nobody. I was slow to develop, so I played younger than I was for a while, which is a director’s dream because working with young kids is actually hard. Having a twelve-year-old who can pass for ten is great.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
Something deep inside told her she could trust him. “My last director’s dream also involved playing with young kids. Girls, specifically. I told the teacher on set that . . . well, shit.” She blew out a deep breath. “It would be classified as grooming today. He didn’t rape me. But he touched me in a way that was inappropriate for an older man and young girl. And he was asking me to touch him. The teacher reported it to the studio, who were allowed to handle it quietly by my dad. The assistant director took over the last few scenes I was in. Dad accepted a payoff and signed an iron-clad NDA on my behalf. But, somehow, people knew. And I wasn’t hired for another acting role again. Plus, puberty wasn’t kind. I told you the line that hurt me most that evening in Detroit.”
“Fuck, Willow. That’s awful. You’re a strong woman, now. Why not try again?”
“I don’t want to put myself in that position again. The Me Too movement shows how much it still happens. Plus, I enjoyed being normal. Dad tried to push me to act more. He’d send me to audition after audition, but gawky teens who report their abusers aren’t high in demand. I got to go to school and hang out with my best friend, Riley. It almost felt normal, hanging at her house after school each day.”
“If you wanted normal, why did you choose to put your life on social media?”
“I want to creatively tell stories. It started as photographs and videos. And then, my following built. I went to school with the creators of Shamaze, and they asked if I wanted to be involved in the launch. I thought it would be cool. More flexible than being on a movie set. The kicker is, all the sponsorship deals were set up through the business Dad ran. Payments go into a company bank account, and my dad pays me sporadically. He takes a fee for management. I never thought it was weird because he’s always been my manager and business advisor. I let him negotiate everything, never asked to see paperwork. There has always been a business in place for this. It didn’t occur to me that he wasn’t working in my best interest.”
“What a completely shit run of luck. It’s fucking wrong that your dad ripped you off, and you deserve the money back. But I’m sure plenty of people would wonder how tough your life has really been because of it. I mean, you still have three million. I’d kill for that kind of cash.”
Willow picked up the pen again and pushed it across the table. “Now you understand why I can’t leave myself open to trusting someone with my business affairs. I need formal enforceable agreements. I trusted my director, he let me down. I trusted my dad, he let me down. I trusted our family lawyer, he let me down. I trusted the business’s accountant, but he let me down. Nobody starts out wanting to let me down, Luke. Somehow, they do though. I want to make sure you get properly compensated, that we have an NDA, and make sure our lines are completely clear.”
Luke picked up the contract, scanned the first page and looked at the second before tossing it back down onto the table. “Not signing anything without a lawyer looking at it.”
“When will you get a lawyer to look at it?”
He shrugged. “Not sure this is the kind of contract a local lawyer would look at. I need to find someone who knows a bit more about this stuff.”
“Please, can you get it done? It’s stressing me out. I’ve worked hard for my position as an influencer and content creator. It’s how I intend to support me and the baby and save for our future. I know you probably think I have so many other choices, but I love what I do. I don’t want to lose it.”
“It’s probably the only thing we agree on, Willow. I don’t want to lose what I had, either.”