Was she right? Deep down, didn’t I know that the reason I was running so fast right now was to capitalize on my fame? To seize it before it became fleeting? Maybe if I’d gone back to school, learned and studied more, I’d be a better actress for it. I was good—very good. But I might have become phenomenal. Had I wasted my one chance before I was at my very best?
I’m not even sure I’d acknowledged that fear myself until Harper threw it in my face.
But I swallowed that terror down and I smiled. She might know how to get to me, but I knew her in turn.
“I have the Wilfred Allen Award,darling. It’s going to look great next to my Oscar.”
Anger flashed in her eyes—brief and quick before she blinked it away, suddenly cackling. “You love this, you do know that, right? Look at you, you’re practically thrumming with delight. You get to best me. You get to win. You knowwho you are, Nadine, and you started to have the world fooled. You wore that necklace like a fucking calling card, to taunt me for all you had, and still you think you’re better than all this? That all you want is success?”
I could taste the victory, ripe and sweet. The necklace. The poster. Just how much of me had she noticed? Just how much had I played on her mind these last few years?
“I do want success,” I said, as dismissively as I could.
“No, my dear, you want attention. Mummy and Daddy never came to your recitals so you thought you’d call me a bitch in front of the cameras. All for some drop of recognition.”
If I was still holding that glass I might have dropped it.
That taste in my mouth was sour now, any satisfaction I’d felt vanished. When I answered, I spoke slowly, like the deliberate words might smart in a way that lasted, my words ringing in her head, a part of me buried down deep. “I called you a bitch, Harper, because you’re a bitch.”
“And you’re an attention-hungry coward who did unforgivable things to me and then ran from them. So go ahead, pretend this is all for the press. But it’s real for me. The only thing that got me through CADS was dreaming of flying to LA to bring you crashing down. And here I am.”
———
I suspect she was being melodramatic. I think she wanted to rile me into some sort of vendetta because it was fun for her. Because I’d risen high and she was petty enough to want tosee if she really could drag me back down to her level—like it might prove she mattered too. Or because life could never be interesting enough for Harper.
But by the time I realized that, I was in too deep.
Besides, she was right. I did enjoy it. I liked competition. I liked the challenge. I bristled at every slight, and plotting back gave me something to do, and, dear god, what had I even done with my time before this? Worked and slept and wasted my time on a dying relationship I couldn’t wait to bury.
Beating Harper gave me purpose.
———
I went to the Oscars with that ratty old necklace threaded into the chain of my Prada bag. I sat on the edge of my little grouping, wedged between the casts ofWherever You Are,Trellis, andCrime Never Sleeps—a cop movie whose frequent explosions had it nominated for Best Visual Effects.
Beside me was Caleb Krause, the film’s comedic relief and one of Hollywood’s accidental darlings: a ditzy partier whose floppish hair and goofy grin bought him an innocence not afforded to most. He was surprisingly good company, and, alright, maybe I did think that our laughter might be construed as flirting and perhaps I leaned into it, but it didn’t even occur to me that flirtation could be a dig at Oisín and our recently buried relationship until it was reported that way. I was too busy thinking of Harper with every fluttered lash.
It was ludicrous. Hamish Alexander won Best SupportingActor forWherever You Are, the only one of my little cohort to score a win. And yet thereIwas in every single newspaper, just after the winners, in all the roundups of their favorite moments: not only laughing beside Caleb but on my feet for several standing ovations that really showed off my dress, though that had its own carpet shots splashed across the spreads too.
Amos and I had a lengthy discussion about what we were going for and how to tie it all into a showstopper.
“Are we thinking femme fatale? Innocence incarnate? Serious actress? Grunge drama school dropout?”
“I want to look like I belong,” I decided. “Like Ishouldbe at the Oscars. That I’m the sort of person the Academy Awards were created for.”
So we’d done exactly that—floor-length gold with impeccable tailoring and boning around the waist to make every line of me sharp and purposeful. The silhouette was iconic enough that if the trophy were a woman, it would have been me gilded atop its plinth.
The next week, Harper wore a near-identical outfit cut into a two-piece crop top and skirt as she was shot partying with some of herCity Girlscostars.
And that was how it went for those first months as we found our footing. I was the one who took herself too seriously. Harper was the fun one, who partied a bit too hard and kissed the wrong boys and who proved you really could have it all. Iwas the snob; she was the hack. I was the star, but she was the one you were envious of.
I thought that dynamic might be where we left things.
“I don’t want to take any roles if Harper Moore is also on the ticket,” I told my agent over lunch. Being together on a set would give her too much power—I needed her at a distance, where she couldn’t step close to me, slip beneath my skin, and wind me up like her little toy.
“Do I know who that is?” Victor asked, jaded and bored. And lying—he was a very good agent and might have known more about my public perception than Ruchi did.
I picked at my salad and sighed. “Orange dress.”
