It didn’t look as bad on—it was rather nice, actually, the ruffles rippling in a way that made me think of a design sketch, the gentle brush of a pencil on paper and the long, elegant figure within.
Harper’s stylist must have thought along similar lines. Her floor-length black dress had a cape that swept the red carpet as she walked. It clung tightly to her, licking her skin like a shroud of shadow. Her makeup was sharp and bold, sanding her jawline to a razor edge, her cheekbones to sudden juts. She was alluring in her danger. Like to cut yourself on her was a privilege, to bleed a worthy sacrifice.
If I was the winner, she was the adversary. She was the one here to snatch the trophy.
“Harper, do you know where your husband is?”
“Did you drive Joel away?”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“Do you think he would have run off if you weren’t so upset about Caleb and Nadine?”
“Are you on any special diet to try to win him back?”
“Do you suspect foul play?”
I felt those calls like a cacophony, drowning and painful. Sharp and raw. I stumbled and caught myself just in time. And there Harper was, smiling in the eye of the storm.
She stepped away, and I saw the smile fall.
A second later, I saw her wipe at her eye.
Maybe it was real. Maybe it was for the expectant audience.
But there I was, watching and enraptured. I could barely smile through my own pictures and interviews. I wanted to lash out, to strike anyone who had hurled those questions out so recklessly.
But I couldn’t fix this one for her. I couldn’t make the paparazzi stop.
(I wanted, so desperately, for the them to stop. I wanted, if I’m honest, to spirit her away to a world where the only lashing tongue she might collide with was my own.)
I could only distract.A great big look over there.
So that when they called my name on that podium, when the applause burst, I had only a brief moment to think:I won. Not just the award, but all of it. Here I was, a double Oscar winner(one more than Harper—doubleHarper).
It was more than even I, with my supposedly endless ambition, had ever dared to dream.
And then, as I mounted the stage, my eyes fell to her.
“This award means so much to me,” I began, leaning toward the microphone. The lights were blinding. I could hardly see anyone at all. But I knew where Harper was. I always did. “Over the last few years I have suffered unimaginable loss, and I appreciate every single person who kept me afloat during that time. But one person did quite the opposite. In fact, one person throughout my whole career has made everything so much harder than it should have been. My pain became her entertainment. So holding this award in my hand, after a wholeseason of fighting it out for them, I just have one thing to say: Harper, how’s your shelf looking?” I raised the award in the air, so the statue caught the light. “Because mine’s getting heavy.”
———
The room exploded after that, the rest of the ceremony something of a blur. Well, those were my Academy hopes obliterated for the foreseeable future. We’d been snubbed by the Guilds as it was, had somehow scraped through to the Oscars,somehow won—and then done something as crass as to bring our drama to the most prestigious stage in Hollywood.
I couldn’t stop laughing. God, imagine if they found out we’d killed someone. They’d probably find this more distasteful: at least we’d kept that quiet. This on the other hand wasthoroughlyundignified.
“Harper, do you have anything you’d like to say back?” A reporter called, and I felt myself turning to her, but I couldn’t—had to let that moment on stage be my final.
“Harper, what do you think of the Academy’s selection?”
“How does Nadine’s hat trick of wins sit with you?”
Her gaze caught mine, and I saw something raw there. Honest confusion, a dash of relief. An edge of hope.
My team were hauling me out. It was raining when we emerged, and Lana ran out to cover me with a huge umbrella, telling me I had to be at dinner with the director and investors in twenty minutes, and also that Ruchi wanted to speak and she was “not exactly happy.”
But I still couldn’t stop laughing.
