“No, thank you.”
“Sorry,” Amos interrupted. “You’re turning down Joel Ingram? Have youseenhim?”
“Look,” I said, growing irritable in that way I could only get away with now I’d reached a certain level of fame. “I appreciate it. I do. But this is my first nomination. It’s about me. Please just let me have this one. I’ll bring whoever you want next time it’s a whole picture nomination, but when it’s just me, can’t I stand alone?”
“Fine, but do let me know if you’re in the mood for dates with any of those men. Introductions can always be arranged.”
———
My efforts to take the win crashed a little when the Oscar nominations were announced, and I wasn’t on the list, though we’d never really expected to compete with the big-budget studio productions. Still, evidently a part of me had hoped from the crushing disappointment I felt and the hurt I had to swallow out of existence.
I’d never seen Amos so excited as in the run-up to the awards ceremony. Short of the Wilfred Allen, this was my first award nomination, and it was a bloody Golden Globe.This was huge. He never skimped on a single outfit, but he clearly saw this as an opportunity.
Slinky, figure-hugging slips were on every carpet—some weren’t even pretendingnotto be lingerie. But to deviate would have triggered all sorts of articles about suspected weight gain or pregnancy that I didn’t want to distract from the night. So Amos found a designer from Paris who worked wonders with silk and draped me in sapphire blue that showed off every dimple and edge of me, shining where the light hit it. My eyes were a murky grayish green, but the color brought out the blue hues, so Amos instructed the makeup artists to make them shine.
In the mirror, I looked like I’d already won. I was radiant, assured, and ready to grace that carpet—perhaps even to take home a trophy.
Which I did.
It hadn’t really occurred to me that I might actually win this thing until about ten minutes before, when I had to frantically check I had my notes for my hastily pulled together speech. When they said my name, it took me a split second longer than everyone else to hear it, only registering it when my costars grasped me and cheered.
I had to blink back tears as I made the obligatory thank-yous: everyone who had made this possible, to the team I madeLeave a Light Onwith and of course to my parents, who have obviously always supported me. But when I got to my grandfather I started to get choked up because I did it, Iactually did this thing we’d always dreamed of and here was the proof.
Lana brought an array of newspapers and magazines to my house every day, and the morning after the Globes I skipped down to see them, hungover, still heady from the win. Perhaps not expecting myself to grace the cover—there were plenty of winners, after all—but still expecting the awards to dominate.
But there, pushing past it all:
Caleb Krause Engaged toCity GirlsStar Harper Moore
I crushed the page in my hand before hurling it across the room, trying to control my anger, trying to not to let it get to me.
But it did. And it did when they broke the engagement off the night I won a BAFTA a few months later. (Her mother even usurped me—Greta’s devastated missive on their breakup page seven to my page fourteen.)
Harper had obviously done it intentionally. The final straw was when Harper won an Emmy later that year and promptly quitCity Girls.
It was front-page news.
And I was so furious I could have killed her.
A FATAL FEUD
Arrayed in lemon-yellow silk, Harper Moore holds an Emmy. In azure, Nadine Heywood steps to the stage to receive her Golden Globe. In chartreuse, she collects a BAFTA. In gold, in rose, in black … the trophies blur, the actresses fade into one another.
Nadine Heywood:I was pleased when Harper won the Emmy. I had a BAFTA and a Golden Globe by that point; it was about time she started to catch up. But whenGildeddebuted … Well, Harper’s always gleefully lapped up my scraps.
Jasmine McKenna:Oh, that was quite the campaign. That’s something to be said for most of Harper’s projects: They’ve always known how to cash in on the rivalry.
Harper sits in an orange swivel chair, smiling at a studio audience. Moreno, host ofThank God It’s Friday, smirks a conspiratorial grin. “So,” he asks. “Isit true Nadine Heywood originally turned down the part of Estelle?”
Harper laughs. “I couldn’t possibly say—but it would make sense. Nadine’s always had notoriously poor taste.”
Kayla Alexander:But that’s the thing—to Harper it’s always just been a way to ramp up publicity and churn up a box office. She doesn’t have a hateful bone in her body. It’s Nadine who made it all personal and serious.
A fight in a bar, two hazy figures flying at each other. Harper, her pink top torn at the shoulder, is led off, hands cuffed behind her back as two police officers force her into a car.
Ivan Drozdov:It was a big year for Nadine. She’d won two awards but … Well, look atallshe’s achieved. Was it ever enough for her? She doesn’t know how to be satisfied, just how to want more. So, yes, she was jealous.
In purple-hued silver, Harper Moore climbs a stage and receives a golden trophy of a man with arms tucked tight. She smiles at the crowd, Oscar gripped almost carelessly as the cast ofGildedrise to their feet.
