“You won’t go home to your family?”

I paused in my packing. I hadn’t even thought of that as a possibility. “I hadn’t considered it,” I finally answered.

“You aren’t close with them, then?”

“We’re not, like, feuding or anything,” I stalled by hunting for the book I’d been reading. “I haven’t been home in a long time. Mom always extends the invitation, but the past few years I’ve stuck around home. My home in LA, I mean. Always just hung out with friends.”

“Go home and see your family.” She spoke it like a command.

“Why?”

“Because you have a family to go home to. Someday you might not, and you might regret it. Blood is thicker than fame and fortune in Hollywood—or, at least, it should be.”

I let her words rattle around in my head as I continued to pack. By this time I had enough clothing to last me three weeks, but I needed an excuse not to look B.J. in the eyes. Why not go home?

Because they had no idea what I’d been through, other than what the tabloids and celebrity-watching television shows had reported. I’d stopped going home once I’d gotten onto DC, and while I still talked to my parents now and then on the phone, I’d never given them the unabridged version of what had happened with Dianne and me. Plus, I had changed so much, lived such a different life from them—I didn’t know if I’d even be able to relate to their small-town lives anymore. But B.J. had a point: I was lucky I had them at all.

I finally stopped packing and looked her in the eyes. “All right then, I’ll go home.” She laughed. “What’s so funny?”

“Maybe you ought to just ship your whole trailer.” I looked down; my suitcase was never going to close. Embarrassed, I began removing items and placing them on the bed as B.J. watched on with smug satisfaction.

Reily, Vermont: population 16,264. I hadn’t been back here in nine years, but nothing important had changed. The only big difference I could see was that the water tower that loomed at the edge of downtown had been repainted to say Reily, Vermont: Childhood Home of Jack Harrington.” Mom sent a picture of it after they’d finished, right after my first nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was embarrassing, but flattering.

I drove my rental car through town, taking in all the long-forgotten sights. It hadn’t been a bad place to grow up. I wondered how many of my classmates still lived here, having taken over the family business or started a family of their own. My younger sister, Abby, was one of those who’d married her high school boyfriend after college. He managed his dad’s paper mill finances, and she stayed home with the twins.