Act One
“Harper Moore and Nadine Heywood? It was always going to end like this: with a body buried six feet under.”
Lights flash. A hand pushes a camera away. Couture gowns flicker and vanish. Ambulances pull up to a film festival, smearing tire tracks across the crimson carpet. Those same sirens, police cars now, hurtle down winding country roads. In a bar, two women blur as their bodies launch at each other, snarling and vicious and brutal.
“The only surprise is that it didn’t happen sooner.”
A woman walks the carpet of a film premiere, a suited man on her arm, but he hardly seems to notice the video cameras rolling or the microphones thrust into their faces. It is her—Harper Moore—in a green silk dress, her hair a cascade of ebony, diamonds raining from her earlobes. She’s the one who looks directly down the lens and offers a slow, languidsmile before the footage fades to black and the title card fills the screen:
A FATAL FEUD
THE MURDER THAT DIVIDED HOLLYWOOD
Sat before softly blurred mannequins and walls lined with bolts of fabric, acclaimed designer Amos DuPont adjusts a cufflink and laughs, making clear his voice overlaid the intro.
Amos DuPont:We always knew they would do anything for a shred of fame. I just don’t think we meant it quite so literally.
In the neon-studded office ofHollywood Whisperer, senior reporter Jasmine McKenna speaks.
Jasmine McKenna:I’ve never seen a media storm like this. All anyone wants to talk about right now is Harper Moore. And all anyone wants toseeis Nadine Heywood: splashed across every page, celebrating the long-awaited downfall of her nemesis.
Nadine Heywood comes into focus: blond, tan, and toned. A strap of her ruby-sequined minidress fallsdown one arm as the other arm raises a bottle of champagne. She struts along the countertop, utterly jubilant, pouring drinks into glasses clutched by the desperate hands below.
Jasmine McKenna:That rivalry—the mystery of it? Friends one moment, enemies the next? They’re shrouded in so much gossip and rumor … Who doesn’t want to know the real story of how the Hollywood It Girl and the Greatest Actress of the Age came to blows?
In a Beverly Hills home, acclaimed model and one-third of Harper Moore’s infamous BFF trio, Kayla Alexander, glowers into the lens.
Kayla Alexander:That was probably Nadine’s first thought when she heard about what happened—that Harper wouldn’t be able to shareherside of the story anymore. If it weren’t for those of us who care about Harper, it would be only Nadine’s tale to frame however she pleases.
Amos DuPont:If you need someone to spill on Heywood, then I’ve probably known her longest. Well. Apart from Harper, of course. But that’s exactly my point: If you want to understand the womanwe’re accusing of murder, you need to understand her nemesis. They can’t be untangled.
Jasmine McKenna:Nadine’s won a Tony, multiple Golden Globes, and two goddamn Oscars. What she’s achieved is nearly impossible. But does anyone care? All that success, and we’ve only ever wanted to know about her latest spat with Harper. So it’s hardly a surprise, is it? That when it’s Harper’s tragedy, when it’s an international scandal—when it’s a goddamn murder—all eyes turn to Nadine. Maybe this is how we finally get to the truth of it all.
In a luxurious London hotel, the camera rests on a damask armchair, hazy and out of focus.
A producer, off screen:Alright, so we’re going to start with Central Art and Drama School and where the rivalry began. You can talk about your time in London and—
A figure drops into the chair, an elegant heap of bronzed limbs, couture silk, and artfully teased hair. Her dress is the same cherry red as the sequined slip she’d donned in the previous clip, her lips a perfectly matching stain. She looks off, scowling.
Nadine Heywood:Drama school? No, no, darling. The rivalry began in 1996 when Harper decided to use my name as a way into this industry rather than working hard like the rest of us. When we were at CADS? I hardly remember her.
Nadine flashes the camera a smug, teasing smirk.
Nadine Heywood:Harper Moore was thoroughly unremarkable.
September 1992
THIS IS THE TRUTH, AS I’D ONLY ADMIT IT TO YOU, MY love: We all stopped talking when Harper Moore walked into the room.
I’d been at Central Art and Drama School a single day, and I was so desperate to feel it: that moment of knowing I’d made it. That here was a place I belonged. But my dreams were so all-encompassing that drama school was barely a blip on the map, and even as I sat there waiting for the relief of having finally landed, I was already focused on all theotherplaces CADS might propel me.
The applications had been a stressful haze of video tapes and essays, my disinterested parents snarking about internships and groaning every time I had another audition, until I stopped telling them completely and just headed off by myself, denting my inheritance from my grandfather on eye-watering train fares. He wouldn’t mind. In fact, part of me suspectedhe’d left it to me for this reason. Even from the grave, he was determined to be my number one fan.
When I got the letter, I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t have anyone left to tell who wouldn’t crush the fledgling happiness blossoming in my chest. And I’d been hungry for so long I didn’t know how to stop and feel the satisfaction.
I’d ended up with three offers but no real decision to make. I knew it was CADS—prestigious but cutthroat, a place where the admissions process was only the first hurdle and far from the sensible choice if I had my heart set on something as outlandish as graduating. But I had wanted it from the moment I entered those ornate wooden arches. The school’s premises were just a few doors down from where The Globe had once stood, and you couldfeelthe prestige the moment you stepped into the CADS theater, with its painted dome ceiling, its crimson velvet seats, and its deeply impractical backstage area that connected through the auditorium, like all that mattered was the stage; everything else was an afterthought.
CADS felt like somewhere you could become somebody … or at least fake it until you did.
