Ruchi called that evening: “Turn to channel four.”
I did so swiftly. It was the week before Christmas, and I’d spent most of the month at home. Rehab had encouraged broadening our hobbies, so I alternated between arranging flowers, knitting, and trying to teach myself guitar. I hated all of them but supposedly it was good to keep my hands busy.
I coped by sticking audiobooks into the cassette player. I was considering producing a film myself, to expand my reach. Maybe finding a book that would work well for adaptation.
But tonight I paused it and reached for the TV remote instead.
It wasThis Friday Night, hosted by Eloise Taverner, and Harper was right there in those famous swivel armchairs, laughing away.
“Congratulations on your Golden Globe nomination by the way,” Eloise said, flashing a quick smile at the cheering audience. “Justannounced today!”
“Thank you, thank you!”
“And I have to ask … what do you think of the choice of nominees?”
The audienceoohedat the fact Eloise had asked so audacious a question.
I wanted to reach through the screen and shake them, to tell them to grow the fuck up.
And I wanted to hear Harper answer.
She laughed a low, melodic chuckle. “I think 2003 might just be the war of the nominations.”
The bouquet of tansy arrived the next day.
January 2003
AMOS PHONED HOURS AFTER THE TANSY ARRIVED. IF war was on, he said, then he had to be a part of it. We argued and then I told him to be at my house early the next morning. So I was back, in a dress selected by him, and I wondered if Harper was too, because they mirrored.
I saw her catch it—ahead of me on the carpet, a quick look before she was moving along to the next camera.
I caught up to her at the very end, snatched her wrist, and watched the cameras pivot from Mandy Stein to us, shadowed by the hotel’s doors.
“We could make this more interesting,” I said—had been preparing this little pitch since the moment the news of our dual nomination broke. Winning wasn’t enough—I wanted her on her knees. Collared by my shoelaces. Kissing my goddamn feet. “Winner gets—”
“Not now,” she said, not even looking at me as she shrugged me off—like she hadn’t sent a declaration of war hand wrappedto my home. She stepped away just as Joel turned from the cameras, concluding his interview. He narrowed his eyes at me, but Harper was holding her hand out, stepping toward him. She took hold of his elbow and didn’t look back.
I watched her take every step—so I saw when another figure appeared from the shadows up ahead.
Pale pink satin. Hair a gentle curve over one shoulder. The undeniable flashes of Harper in her gaze, her smile, the way she held herself.
Greta Liao.
My stomach clenched, hand drawing so tight around the chain of my bag it might have cut.
Harper kissed her mother’s cheek. Joel clapped her shoulder in a half-hearted hug.
A happy fucking family.
The room slanted, tilted so sharply I stumbled. And it wasn’t just that I was here and I was alone and Harper had everything (that my parents were rotting in a casket, as indifferent to me as ever) but that Greta wasn’t on the red carpet. That her dress paled before her daughter’s. There was no effort here for her to leverage Harper’s fame to her own advantage. She was just here for her daughter—like Harper had always wanted.
I watched the three of them disappear into the auditorium and had to let the door close before I could take another step.
———
When they declared me the winner, it took all my effort notto look for Harper in the crowd. I wanted to see her eyes on me. But I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I looked up and found her whispering to her mother or examining the nails of a hand clasped in Joel’s or rummaging through her bag for the lipstick smudged into the corners of her lips.
There would be more.Screen Actors Guild Awards and BAFTAs and Oscars and others I no longer cared to consider. There would be more chances.I’d do it right next time.
