Wish You Were Italian

by Kristin Rae

  My arms are as limp as overcooked fettuccini, but I manage to scoop up the phone. “Okay, yeah. Him,” I say, going for indifference. “A bit of a shock, but whatever.”

  Mom puts a hand on her hip. Here we go. “Emma, you know how tired I am of dealing with high-publicity romances,” she begins, in full-blown managerial mode. “The last two years have been ridiculous, putting out one tabloid fire after another. You’re at a crossroads here and have a chance to prove yourself as a serious actress. Brett Crawford is the worst sort of boy for you to get involved with, so don’t even consider dating him.”

  Does she really think I would want to go through all that crap again? On-set romances are usually total disasters, and not just for me. Until last spring I was on a primetime drama that, despite sky-high ratings, was cancelled due to conflict on the set. I played the president’s daughter, but the actor playing the president was caught having a real-life relationship with the actress who played the first lady—and unfortunately, she also happened to be our executive producer’s wife. It wasn’t pretty.

  And it eventually shut the entire show down.

  That was when Steve McGregor, the do-it-all executive producer/creator/director of Coyote Hills, called my agent to ask if he could meet with me to discuss his new project. It was the very day the cancellation of The First Family was announced, and I haven’t received a bigger compliment in the six years of my career.

  McGregor is responsible for more hit dramas than any producer in television—his shows don’t even require pilots. I think his methods are brilliant, but some people say he’s a nutcase. For one thing, he’s already slated to direct about one-third of the first season, which either means the guy really is insane or he plans to live with a caffeine drip attached to his arm. McGregor is also notoriously secretive about who he’s considering for his cast or I would have already known about Brett. And he rarely takes time to screen-test a pair of actors—who he’s already familiar with—for chemistry. But I’ve worked with enough cinematic geniuses to know there’s no use questioning them. You just go along.

  “Listen, Mom,” I say, trying to hide the likelihood that the pizza I had for lunch is about to land on her Jimmy Choo pumps. “This isn’t a big deal. I had a silly celebrity crush on Brett when I was, like, eight.” Well, it started about then, and went on and on. But his growing reputation as a guy who never commits, just loves whoever he’s with at the moment, has definitely dampened my enthusiasm. “That’s ancient history. I’m totally over him.”

  Totally may be pushing it. I might still watch his movies, a lot, and rewind certain parts that I think he’s especially amazing in. But is it so wrong that I think he’s the best actor of my generation? Isn’t it natural that I would be attracted to someone with so much talent?

  Mom gives me a thin, cynical smile. “I noticed just this morning that your laptop wallpaper is yet another picture of Brett Crawford.”

  Yeah, well, about that … I also just like to look at him.

  “The only time it’s been otherwise in the last ten years,” Mom goes on, “is when you’ve been dating some other Hollywood hotshot who thought nothing of dragging your name through the mud.”

  Why did she have to bring them into this? “It isn’t my fault that they all cheated on me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Mom’s icy expression melts a little, and I realize I rarely see this softer look on her face anymore. She has brown eyes, mine are blue, but we share the same dark hair and small-framed bodies. I’ve never felt like she’s forced me into a life I don’t want—I’m the one who got the lead in a first-grade play and begged her to let me become a real actress—but it feels as if she sometimes forgets that I’m not just a client.

  It’s all business, all the time.

  “I know that,” Mom says. “And your dad and your closest friends know that. But the majority of the world looks at a girl who dates this same type of guy over and over, as someone who has very poor judgment. It just can’t happen again.”

  How could she possibly think I pick losers on purpose?

  When I first met Troy, who was my costar during the last season of The First Family, he was always smiling, laughing, joking around with me, surprising me with flowers or a dinner overlooking the ocean. But it isn’t exactly easy dating professional actors—guys who can fake their way through anything.

  I look my mom square in the eyes and say, “I get it, okay? I’m totally done with Hollywood guys. Can we move on now?”

  Someone sneezes. Rachel and Trina are just outside the door and have probably been there this entire time, listening. Mom breathes a familiar sigh of irritation. “We’ll talk more when you get home,” she says. “And perhaps you can find a new wallpaper for your laptop?”

  I nod and return her phone. “Don’t worry. I’ll be …” Fine is what I’d intended to say, but a vision of Brett Crawford sitting next to me in a cast chair—with his perfect surfer tan, blond hair that always falls in front of his eyes, and a smile that puts a hummingbird in my stomach—enters my mind, and I can’t speak.

  “You’ll be amazing,” Mom says with a squeeze of my shoulder. “Steve McGregor didn’t even consider another actress for this part, and he always knows what he’s doing. You just need to focus on your career, not boys.”

  Mom leaves the room, and Rachel soon takes her place. She shuts the door again and says, “Are you freaking out or what? Brett Crawford? This is fate!”

  “It’s ill-fated, you mean.” I collapse into her bed pillows and throw one over my face. I’ve had several chances to meet Brett. A few times, I’ve even been in the same room as him. But besides the fact that he’s more than two years older and would have only thought of me as a silly little girl before now, I’ve intentionally avoided Brett because I don’t want to know the real him. “I have a perfectly happy relationship with my laptop wallpaper version of Brett Crawford, thank you very much.”

  As things are, we never fight, he never cheats on me, and he doesn’t … scare me.

  “Brett was in television for the first several years of his career, so why would he want to come back?” I add. “He’s been doing great in big-budget movies. He should stay where he is.”

  Rachel plops into her desk chair. “Don’t you keep up with anything? It’s amazing how much more I know about your world than you do.”

  It’s not such a bad thing that Rachel always knows more gossip than I do; Hollywood is practically her religion. When we met, Rachel had already been doing commercials since she was a baby in a Downy-soft blanket, so she was quick to make herself my mentor. But a few years later, when we were twelve, we both went to an open audition for what turned out to be an Oscar-winning film, and I got the part.

  It was a lucky break. Right time, right place, right look.

  Since then, I’ve done whatever I could to get Rachel auditions for other major projects, but nothing has worked out. And tension builds with every failed attempt. A few months ago she straight out told me, “How did this even happen? You have everything I want.”

  Why doesn’t she get that I wish she had it all too?

  No matter how different things sometimes feel between us, though, one thing stays the same: Rachel is the only friend I have who’s been with me all along—the only friend who keeps my feet planted firmly in the dark, rich soil of Arkansas. Even when I’m dressed from head to toe in Prada, with red carpet beneath me and cameras flashing from every other direction, Rachel is a constant reminder of where I came from. Who I really am.

  I blow the silver fringe from her pillow off my face. “Are you talking about Brett’s girl issues?” I ask. “Because, crazy enough, being a player only seems to help a guy’s career.”

  “But it’s more than just that,” Rachel says. “According to insiders, Brett’s been a pain to work with on his last few films. He misses call times and keeps the cast and crew waiting for hours.” Rachel sounds like a newscaster as she presents a tattered tabloid as evidence. “Critics say he’s lo
st his passion for acting, that he’ll be nothing but a washed-up child star if he doesn’t do something quick to redeem himself. So his management team must think television is his best bet. It’s worked for a ton of other actors.”

  I’ve read some of this, but not all. “Everyone knows what a great actor Brett is—he’s been nominated for major awards since he was five,” I say. “He’s probably just burned out, and McGregor is smart enough to realize he’ll push through it.”

  “Yeah, I guess I can see that. But back to the girl issues,” Rachel replies and tacks on a sly smile. “You know what Brett’s problem is? He just hasn’t dated the right girl yet.”

  I toss a pillow at her. “The last thing I want to be is Brett Crawford’s next ‘throwaway party favor,’ so don’t look at me,” I say, then I make a silent promise to put soap in my mouth for quoting a tabloid. Reporters tell plenty of lies about my own life, so I question everything I read, but I’ve seen enough myself to know that every once in a while they’re surprisingly dead-on. In their pursuit of a quick, juicy story to sell, however, gossipmongers often miss the details that could really damage someone. “It’s just that this is all sort of sad,” I go on. “Brett has always been someone safe for me to crush on, but now—”

  Rachel cuts me off with laughter. “Oh, please! You know what’s gonna happen. Brett will fall head over heels in love and change his whole life to be with you. So just flirt a little and see where things go.”

  “No way,” I reply. She might understand if I told her how bad things got with Troy, but I can’t take the chance of Rachel telling Trina, who would go straight to my mom. Then Mom would freak out even more about me living on my own in Arizona, which is something I’ve had to fight for every day for the past few months. “I just need to get over Brett before we start working together. That’s all. Or he’ll be … well, a bit of a distraction.”

  “More like a tall, beautiful problem with a killer smile.” Rachel turns back to her wall to swoon over The Bod in a western-themed cologne ad for Armani. “I can only imagine how distracted I’d be if I ever worked with my dream guy. Distracted by his perfectly toned arms, and his amazing green eyes, and his luscious mocha hair, and … gosh, I better not talk him up too much, or you’ll want to start a collection of your own. But The Bod is all mine, got it?”

  I probably sound just as ridiculous as Rachel does when I talk about Brett—I mean, when I used to talk about Brett—but I laugh anyway. “Yep, he’s all yours,” I reply. “Down to his last curly eyelash.”

  I have to agree with Rachel on one thing, though: The Bod, whoever he is, makes leather cowboy chaps look seriously hot.

  Copyright © 2014 by Kristin Rae

  All rights reserved.

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  First published in the United States of America in May 2014

  by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  E-book edition published in May 2014

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books,

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rae, Kristin.

  Wish you were Italian : an If only novel / Kristin Rae.

  pages cm

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Pippa Preston, sent to Italy for a three-month art history program, decides instead to see the country on her own, armed with a list of such goals as eating an entire pizza and falling in love with an Italian, but soon finds herself attracted both to a dangerous local boy and an American archaeology student.

  [1. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Italy—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.R12313Wis 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013044591

  ISBN 978-1-6196-3286-8 (e-book)

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