It didn’t matter that the hospital tests proved I was sober.
They rifled through my garbage and printed pictures of thetwobottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (a boozy afternoon for Lana’s birthday and frankly considered a warm-up back in Yorkshire). They’d follow my car, pinning me in and yelling from the window so that all I could think of as I struggled to get back behind that wheel was the sudden swerve and its aftermath. At a lunch with Sabine, the press began hounding me so badly she’d thrown her scarf over me and began shouting at them all to “leave the poor girl alone, you blasted leeches!”
“We need to lean toward pity,” Ruchi decided. “Don’t answer when they ask you, just look shaken and scared.”
“Iamshaken and scared.”
“Perfect.”
Even Harper believed it. She phoned me a few days later. “I wanted to come around, but I don’t imagine that’s useful for either of us right now,” she said. “So, is it true you drove yourself into a mountain out of jealousy?”
“No,” I snapped “I was visiting a friend and got into an accident.”
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“Don’t act like you fucking care.”
“I do care,” she said, but before I could wonder if she meant it, she added: “I’d really like to brag about my Oscar now, and I hardly want to be insensitive about it.”
———
The truth is I was furious. My strategy had always been to simply achieve more than Harper and rise above her drama. But she’d overtaken me, leaped straight ahead, and so … what? I couldn’t even sink to her level because she was floating above me now.
Harper had waltzed on in and won a goddamn Oscar with her first film role—which was exactly what she always did: made the things I’d worked so hard for look easy.
So if my strategy didn’t work, I’d take hers.
1998 was a string of snide comments, planted rumors, and deliberate provocations. We kept our ear to the ground—Lana and the other assistants, Ruchi and her press contacts, and Sabine starting every lunch with “Nadine, dear, I heard somethingdelicious.”
But I was also facing the talons of the press like never before. I’d begun sleeping with the composer fromLeave a Light On, which would have been fine if I hadn’t also begun to develop feelings. But the paparazzi set themselves up outside any hotel I stayed in and sometimes lingered in wait outside of my home. If we went out, they followed. And when they suspected we were dating, they started writing the nastiest pieces about why “hot” women date “ugly” men and whether our relationship was further evidence of the psychotic break I was so apparently having.
So he ended things.
Then Ruchi phoned, said she’d found out who had beenfeeding the press information about the two of us: Sabine Verrier. I shouldn’t be surprised. It was only ever supposed to be mutually beneficial, but after two years, I’d considered her a friend. Or, at least, she was the closest I’d come to making one since Ivan.
If I was shutting people out before, I was firmly and decisively bolting the doors now. No further relationships, just the occasional one-night stand (and then not even that, just my own wandering fingers and a very good showerhead). No friendships—just alliances. No more snippets of myself revealed through the facade, instead the performance was so solidified even I wasn’t sure who I was behind it anymore.
And with nothing else to focus on, I had Harper.
My highlights of that year were minimal.
In an interview on MTV, Harper called me two-faced.
Amos was delighted. The Met Gala theme that year was cubism. Few went as all out for the themes back then—but we did. A split look, asymmetrical and blown out of proportion. The dress was exceptional—not merely in its design but its construction. Amos had to build a frame to keep it from shifting when one side was so much heavier. My makeup and hair embraced eccentricity too. So there I was, half art, half costume, wholly divine. Two-faced, with my two different looks.
We made history that night. Photographers turned away from Hollywood greats to take pictures ofme.It even landed me a whole shoot withVogue, inspired by the look.
My other highlight was, of course, the premiere ofMaldon.
It was wonderful. The adoring fans, my heartfelt reunion with Sasha (though even she was kept firmly at a distance, only ever finding her in a crowd full of people and pivoting conversation whenever it veered personal). We watched the film for the first time in the theater, and I got chills at how truly brilliant it all was. It was a movie about war that drilled into futility, into human hope and love and tenderness. I didn’t think I could be happier than when I was sitting, watching it unfurl before me.
I could. And I didn’t have to wait long to realize to what heights my happiness could peak.
And just how far from it I could fall.
A FATAL FEUD
The silver-purple dress catches every light. Harper poses on the red carpet, then rushes back to a tall man standing at the edges. She presses a kiss to his cheek then turns back to the cameras and smiles.
