Away From the Spotlight (73 page)

Other than asking me who designed my dress and responding to congratulations, I remain
ed
silent so that Will could
get down to business and
steer the conversation to the release of
All Castles Are Grey
in the
spring,
Midnight 4
over the
summer, and the start of shooting of
The Ludlow Conspiracy
.

Once inside, Will
and I
mingled with
the crowd as we headed to our table
.  W
ill continued to introduce me as his wife to
everyone
we met. 
I can’t say that I was star
-
struck, but it was disconcerting to have very famous people hugging and kissing me in congratulations as if we had been friends our whole lives.  I must have had a little acting skill in me because I don’t believe my discomfort showed.  If it had, Will would have said something.

Upon arriving at our table, Will
had to leave to go backstage
since he was one of the early presenters
.  I remained at the table with a number of the members of the
Midnight
cast and their dates, all of whom I had seen at the reception two
nights
earlier.  Katherine sat next to me and kept me company.

“So the word’s out, I gather?” Katherine asked.

“Will introduced me all along the red carpet as his wife, so I would say,
‘
yes.
’
”

“Nervous?”

“I’ve been through it before so I
kind of know what to expect
.  We moved into our new house so it will be a little more secure this time
and I’m somewhat prepared at work
.  My nerves are more about being here than the paparazzi.”

“You’ll be fine.”
  Katherine patted my hand.

“
I’m just not used to it yet.”
  I took a deep breath.

Will looked gorgeous a
s he walked to
the podium and arrived to screams from the audience.  I wa
s surprised
by the screams
since
the audience didn
’
t consist of fans, but
primar
i
ly
of his peers.  Will looked down for a second a
t
the podium
,
r
an his fingers through his hair, smiled sheepishly, and then started his presentation.

Katherine looked at me and laughed.  “It still embarrasses him.”

It took a while for Will to return to the table and, when he finally did, he kissed me.  When he leaned
away
, I noticed
a camera pointed at us and would not have been surprised if th
e kiss
made it on
to
the telecast.  I suspected that news of our surprise wedding would be one of the reported items from the event.

Afterward, we
attended
one of the large after-parties
.  News must have spread like wildfire because we received a barrage of congratulations
.  I expected to see Will work the crowd a little, but there was no need.  As soon as we sat down, people came to him as I had seen at his
Midnight
cast-mate
’s birthday party so many months before.  Some were actors, but many were producers and other behind-the-scenes people I did not recognize.

I turned to Katherine for company, but she was in the same position Will was in, being constantly approached by others.

After a while, Will grabbed my hand and led
me to the dance floor, amid
stares as we made our way there.

“Are you sure you want to do this now?  Don’t you have business here?” I asked as he embraced me to dance slowly.

“I’ve done what I came to do.  Now it’s time to have fun.”

And we did have fun.  All throughout awards season, Will did what business he needed to do and still managed to find time to have a good time with me.  With each event, I became more comfortable and talkative.  By the time the Oscars rolled around, there were people who would approach us to talk to me rather than Will.  Will would smile when that happened as if he w
ere
not at all surprised.

By the time
Will and I
had been married t
wo
years, t
he furor surrounding us when our marriage was discovered had died down for the most part.  It would only rise up again when Will
won awards
and
around the premieres of his
films
.
T
he release of
Midnight 4
, the last of
Will’s
young romantic hero parts, was th
e last time it was really bad.

Will
was married and starting to get too old for the screaming girls demographic.  In addition, since I was not a celebrity, we didn’t have to worry about being on the celebrity couple
radar
either.

Our friends started to settle down
a
round us and we were no longer the only married couple among them.  Stephen and Kate as well as Colin and Gemma ended up getting married
to
no great surprise.  The stress of a long-distance relationship finally caused Pam and Niall to break up, but Pam met someone who lived in Orange County and settled down
with him
in Laguna Beach. 
Carrie
and
Jeff
married as well and bought a home
in Irvine. 
Rachael
met someone and moved out-of-state to live with him, keeping in touch regularly via a very entertaining blog.  My sister and
Matt
broke up and she ended up
engaged to
someone she met at work.

Life was good and
Will and I
thought it was time to take the next step
and start a family
.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to work a baby and my career, but
I
knew
we would figure it out
somehow.  I thought it would take me a while to get pregnant, but it happened almost immediately.  Nine months after that, I had a healthy baby boy we na
med William after his father.

Even as a baby,
William
couldn’t have looked more like his father if he tried.  He was absolutely gorgeous
with thick brown hair and big
blue eyes that later turned
green
.

We had a little trouble every once in a while with paparazzi trying to get shots of
our son
, but it could have been worse and had
been worse for us in the past.

To the extent possible between films,
Will
was a stay-at-home dad, spending every moment possible with his son.  We had a nanny, who was rendered
largely
useless during these times.  Will tried to shoot locally
as much as
possible to avoid traveling and being away from William and me for
any protracted period of time.

A few years later
, Will and I decided to try for a girl.  I became pregnant almost i
mmediately as I had before.  W
ill
was
hope
ful
that this child would
be a girl and
look just like
me.

Our life was perfect at th
at
point.  We loved each other deeply, had a wonderful home, a beautiful
four-year-old
son
,
and a
nother child
on the way.

It wasn’t to last. 
Will and I had been married a little over
six
years when it happened.

Every once in a while, Will would be followed by paparazzi
even when he wasn’t shooting a film or didn’t have one in release
. 
That night, Will
w
as followed to a meeting with a
d
irector in Mali
bu regarding an upcoming film.

On the way home, it
was a dark and stormy night
along PCH
. 
The p
hotographer
, who had been drinking
while waiting for Will to leave the meeting in Malibu,
swerved into Will
at very high speed and hit Will
’
s car on the driver
’
s side
and Will’s car overturned
.  Will died at the scene.
 
The morning papers read:

Academy Award
w
inner Will MacKenzie died at approximately 10:30 p.m. last night from injuries sustained in a car accident on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.  The driver of the other car has not been identified yet by police. 
That driver was injured in the accident, but is in stable condition at UCLA Medical Center. 
Sources at the scene describe the driver as a white male in his early 20
’
s.  Drunk driving on the part of this driver is suspected.  MacKenzie, 32, received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his turn in the British film,
“
All Castles Are Grey
”
and appeared in of some of the most successful films
of
the last decade, including his starring role
s
in the popular
“
Midnight
”
and
“
Ludlow Conspiracy
”
franchise
s
.
MacKenzie leaves behind his wife, Shannon, and young son, William.

At the time of
Wil
l’s death
, w
e were madly in love as always, living in our dream house with our young son
,
and
had
a
nother child
on the way.  Will had hit his stride in
his career and I was becoming
a
s
uccessful
lawyer
.  We
weren’t merely content
, w
e were happy.  We
had the perfect life
together
and, in an instant, it was
gone
.

If I had thought that
the
break-up with Will
when we were dating
was bad,
it
was
nothing
compared to
losing him now
.  This split was permanent and completely out of my control.
  There would be no reconciliation except in heaven or the next life. 
I wished then that I had a little more faith in the existence of heaven or the next life.

However
, I couldn’t
permit myself to
wallow in my pain.  There were details to take care of and a son to consider.  Rather than give in to my overwhelming
grief
, I
swallowed my
pain
. 
I took a
n immediate
leave of absence from work to take care of all of the final arrangements and
to
comfort
William who
, at the age of four,
was too young to understand his father’s absence.

I insisted that Will be buried in the U.S. near his son.  Will’s parents didn’t argue.  Unfortunately, that meant that there would be a media circus whether or not we tried to keep things small and private.  I therefore quickly gave up the idea of
a
small and private
service
. 
Will’s
f
uneral in Los Angeles was
a
massive
, star-studded
,
media event. 
I was still so numb at that time that I remember little of it
other than the herculean effort it took not to break down entirely at the service
.  Family, friends and bodyguards did their best to
sequester
William and me
from the media
.
  In light of the cause of Will’s death, I would have not been able to contain my anger.  Keeping away from them allowed me to
maintain
some semblance of poise
.