So when Ruchi forwarded agent interest, I was screaming,climbing onto the chair of our houseshare, and popping the cheap cava Oisín had rushed out to buy. He’d grasped me before I could get down, spinning me around in his arms and declaring just how proud he was.
His own offers came a few weeks later, afterDreadbasehad taken off and about two days after Ruchi told me just what parts of me were being perceived most by filmgoers.
“It’s good, Nadine. I know it doesn’t feel it but—”
“I want to be taken seriously,” I’d choked, staring at the newspaper spread before me—“naDDine” in bold black type. “I actually care about all this.”
“I know. So choose an agent, put me in touch, and we’ll strategize your next role.”
I wined and dined the ones on the London circuit, but LA was still in my sights, so when a phone call came through from Victor Dale, I knew before we’d even got to the point of discussing my future prospects that he was the one.
“I’ve met you before,” he said in lieu ofhello. He was from Louisiana, and his voice still held a charming lilt of that accent. “Haven’t I? Couldn’t shake the thought when I watched that film.”
“Langstone House,” I said a little nervously. By twenty years old, the person I’d been at eighteen seemed distinctly embarrassing—though now I suspect she wasn’t all that different a character. “The Stamper party.”
“Right. Orange dress.”
After Sundance, CADS had started to feel like a blur—ahazy sort of dream. But I remembered Harper in that tight mesh dress, her pitch-dark hair bold against the umber like a fire simmering in the night sky.
“No,” I said, my mouth dry. “That wasn’t me.”
“Well, regardless, you’re not someone the world is going to forget in a hurry. Not if I can help it. How soon can you be in LA?”
His office sorted everything. Oisín took no convincing to come with me, and soon his own agent was asking for it anyway.
Besides, London had become too close. Our last week there was marred by tourists snapping photos of us on the tube, people rushing us for signatures when we went out for coffee, and, perhaps most startlingly, a horde of flashing bulbs that had surrounded the restaurant we’d decided to celebrate our success in.
“This is amazing,” Oisín said, staring at the flashes that had me flinching.
I could just about wrap my head around the general public being amazed at our existence, given I’d been raised on a belief that transcending that fourth wall would be the closest I might come to magic and certainly to fulfillment. But the press were something else—they did not care; they wished to shock, to sell.
I might work with them happily on a press tour or perform some version of myself for their lenses, but this felt like a loss of control.
The paparazzi were worse in LA, but at least gettingaway was easier, piling into cars with dark tinted windows or phoning our publicists to get them to negotiate a ceasefire.
“Your relationship is keeping the momentum rolling into your next project,” Ruchi assured me when I had called in tears, having been chased by cameras after Oisín and I had gone to the gym together. “Say the word and I’ll pull strings, but I don’t think you actually want that.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I mean it. If it gets too much, let me know. But for now I’ll speak to Victor about getting you moved to a hotel with its own gym facilities. One good film deal and you’ll have a gated house in the Hills.”
The very edge of Westwood was as close as we could get, a three-bed house with views (if you angled yourself right) of the hills soaring above. It wouldn’t register that I lived there, that gone was the mold-ridden bathroom and abrasive housemates. The counters were marble (real marble, not patterned linoleum), and the shower poured in a waterfall (had seven different settings), and the closet (god,the closet!) was three times the size of my childhood bedroom, half of it already stocked.
The deal I ended up taking wasn’tgood—there were offers with more money, even ones I hadn’t had to audition for.
ButWherever You Arewas a shoo-in for the Oscars. And sure, Casey might not be a major part, but she had intentionality to her, a drive that threaded the narrative together and a steadfastness that said to the worldthiswas who I was.
Not a pair of erect nipples in a jumpsuit.
———
Oisín loved Los Angeles. That joie de vivre I’d found so intoxicating in Europe took on new life here. He wanted to taste it all, experience it all, never rest for a moment. There was always a party to go to, someone to meet, a new place to be photographed.
I didn’t even try to keep up. I enjoyed it, I did—LA feltmorethan anywhere I’d been before, both in the good and the bad. The lights were brighter, the shadows darker. But what drew me in most were the people and opportunities. So while Oisín went golfing with movie stars, I drove across town to auditions and then raced back via Beverly Hills for lunches with casting directors. (I didn’t even care that not all of them led to deals, not when I was sampling oysters and truffles and goddamn caviar.)
We spent two months filmingWherever You Arein New Mexico, and it was a relief to flee the crowds of Los Angeles, even if I flitted back at weekends to see Oisín, who was filmingCode Deltaat a studio. He’d tried to explain the plot, but it seemed to just be a series of car chases and explosions that he was confident would be the first in a years-long, era-defining series.
I’d missed him sorely, mostly at night when I found I couldn’t sleep as well without him holding me.
