The Ballad of Katie: Somewhere Under Heaven Series

Katie's World

Author's note: This book utilizes multi-character POV.

Katie's POV

So I guess this is where I make my introduction. My name is Katherine Loralei Pattinson, but everyone calls me Katie. I'm just your average teenage girl from Princeton, New Jersey with a rather unique life.

You see, I come from a bit of a famous family. How?  I think you've heard of Robert Pattinson, right? Well, he's my dad and yes, I get asked non-stop about that to the point where if I had a nickel for every time someone mentions Twilight, I would be a self-made billionaire. But the reality is Dad's awesome, and I actually got to see the world because of him since he would take us with him when he was on movie sets in the summer which was so cool. Sometimes it would be the whole family and other times, it would be my grandfather or Mom's half-brother Eric going with us which was always fun. Also, what kid doesn't want to spend time with their dad? I know I sure the hell love to because I have so much fun with him. 

Then there's my mom Casey who is a retired filmmaker who still has a stake in an independent studio she started with my dad. She's also a very smart woman who can speak several languages and has doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of London. She now works part-time with the studio and is a professor and dean at Rider University. Mom has also worked as a political commentator for MSNBC and the BBC, served as mayor of Princeton, and was just elected to the New Jersey State Assembly so yeah, she's a very smart lady. 

My parents met in the craziest way. Mom was a filmmaker and photographer who worked as an assistant to her friend Katie Winslow for a Dior photoshoot in New York. Katie had to leave and told my mom she was doing the rest of the shoot which got her nervous. Dad was the main focal point of the photoshoot and picked up on how nervous she was and proceeded to give her a little pep talk over a cup of coffee. He would become Mom's biggest ally when Dior hired her to do the rest of the photoshoots involving him. They became best friends, started the production company and about two years later, they fell in love.

Their first kiss was on Christmas night which was so sweet. He decided not to go home to London because he wanted to be there for her on account of my grandma Deana dying of a heart attack a week earlier. They spent Christmas together and that night she went to open a gift that he gave her, and she found him under the mistletoe. When I heard the story, I thought it was so romantic and of course so did my mom because she's been madly in love with him ever since. 

My parents got engaged several months after that kiss and as much as some of my mom's relatives tried to stop it, they got married shortly thereafter. Mom called it the classic wedding of a South Jersey Cinderella and a dashing Englishman in the City of Brotherly Love. They wanted to settle in London which they did but after a few years, they moved back to New Jersey and where we are now, Princeton.

How I came into this world is an interesting story. Mom and Dad were living in London when she got pregnant with me and my twin brother Ashton. Ashton is the oldest out of us being born at 11:55 PM on May 12 and then there's me who was born at 12:03 AM on May 13. The funny part is we were both born in the same hospital in London where our dad was born and as for our names? Well, Mom named my brother after our uncle Shane (Ashton is Uncle Shane's middle name) and Dad named me after St. Katherine Drexel which is Mom's confirmation name and as for my middle name, it's Mom's middle name and he liked it so he went with it.

Mom swears I'm a mini clone of my dad, but he doesn't see it. He always points out that while I may have his hair color and a few other features, I do have my mom's green-grey eyes and her smile. Also, he swears that I got my intelligence from my mom because while he wasn't a bad student, he also wasn't an honor student like l am. He does mention that he has a thing about writing which I have obviously inherited because he always tells me the story of the English composition teacher he had in school who would sit there and read his essays which were always so drawn out and multipage. He also said that teacher must have had the patience of a saint because he can't figure out how the hell she sat there, read through that and marked every single one of those papers. But other than that, he also says I'm like her because I'm multilingual (I can also speak Spanish and Italian while Mom speaks six foreign languages) and I know both American and British sign language.

Now Ashton I think is the mini version of my dad because he's got that same chaotic and mischievous personality. I swear, this kid does some very weird things which my mom swears is just like our dad. Of course, Dad reminds her about how she puts cayenne pepper on everything, including watermelon!

Like I said, I'm an honor student who knows a few languages other than English. I am also the star player for both my lacrosse and soccer teams (or as Dad calls it, football). I also know karate and I dabble in the arts. What kind of art? Mostly filmmaking, photography, and drama. Hey, my mom's a filmmaker and my dad's an actor, what else would I do? I'm also involved with my local Girl Scout troop and every year I manage to be the top cookie seller. Ms. Perez who was my leader in Brownies swore that it's because I have a celebrity endorsement, but I don't think so. Yeah, Dad's helped with a few cookie sales like the time he got a couple of frat boys from TCNJ to buy about $50 worth of cookies but most of the time if anyone's buying more than a couple of boxes off of me, it's him. 

Our home base these days Princeton, New Jersey which my parents love because they can just be themselves and it's far enough from the insanity of the world but close enough to where you don't have to go halfway around the world to get to the grocery store or in Mom's case, Costco. We still have a place in England which my parents had from when they first got married and we'll go there a couple times a year just to visit with my relatives in London. We're also close with Mom's uncle Colin who is my grandfather's twin brother, and we also discovered that Mom's cousins are really her half-siblings since my grandfather's first wife married Colin just to shut up their stepfather who was already embarrassed by the fact that they were products of an affair. 

Then there's my uncle Shane who has a son named Jalen and he also raises his wife's son Dion like one of his own. As for my family, aside from Ashton, I have a foster brother named Jaxon who is my best friend. I also had a younger sister named Loralei, but she died a few weeks after she was born due to a heart defect. 

My life is typical for the daughter of an iconic actor and a filmmaker and broadcast journalist turned university professor and politician living in New Jersey...that is until we faced a few obstacles. This is our story and we're sticking to it.