28. Duncan
DUNCAN
The Dolby Theatre reeks of expensive perfume and desperation. I can feel it radiating off the nominees in their custom gowns and borrowed jewelry, each one performing calm while their hands shake just slightly when they think nobody's watching.
Millie's hand is ice-cold in mine.
We're seated seven rows back, close enough to the stage that the cameras will catch our reactions but far enough that we're not in the primary splash zone.
The Academy's way of acknowledging the scandal without endorsing it, Jeremiah explained last week.
I nodded like that made sense, like any of this circus makes sense.
Millie hasn't said more than ten words since we arrived.
She smiled for the photographers on the red carpet, answered questions about her Valentino gown with practiced grace, laughed at Jimmy Kimmel's opening monologue with everyone else.
But I can feel the tension vibrating through her body where her thigh presses against mine, can see the tightness around her eyes that nobody else would recognize as fear.
"You okay?" I murmur during a commercial break.
She nods without looking at me. Her other hand is gripping the armrest hard enough that her skin is taut over her knuckles.
On stage, some comedian I vaguely recognize is making jokes about the year in film. The audience laughs on cue, a practiced sound that echoes strangely in the massive theater. Then he pivots, his tone shifting into something with more edge.
"Of course, we have to talk about the most romantic story of the year.
Millie Harris and Duncan Ellington." He pauses for effect while the camera finds us in the audience.
Millie's smile doesn't waver but her hand tightens around mine.
"From high school enemies to a strategic PR arrangement to, apparently, actual love.
It's like a romantic comedy except with more contracts and fewer Hugh Grant moments. "
The audience laughs. Some of it sounds genuine, some forced. I keep my face neutral, the expression I perfected during investor meetings where someone's trying to get a rise out of me.
"Although I gotta say," the comedian continues, "if I'd known you could fake your way into love and an Oscar nomination, I would've tried that years ago. Would've saved a fortune on therapy."
More laughter. Millie's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
The camera cuts away and the comedian moves on to easier targets. Millie releases my hand to reach for her water glass, takes a sip that's mostly about having something to do with her hands.
"Breathe," I say quietly.
"I am breathing."
"You're holding your breath. I can tell because you do it every time you're trying not to react to something." I wait until she looks at me. "We knew there would be jokes. We talked about this."
"Talking about it and sitting here while three thousand people laugh at us are different things."
She's right, but before I can respond the lights dim again and another presenter walks on stage.
The show continues in waves of speeches and musical numbers and montages celebrating films I haven't seen.
Millie watches all of it with the focus of someone taking an exam, like if she looks away for even a second she'll miss something crucial.
Two hours in, they finally reach the acting categories. Best Supporting Actor goes to someone I don't recognize from a film about musicians. His speech runs long, gets played off by the orchestra, and the audience laughs awkwardly as he's escorted off stage still talking.
Then Best Actress.
The presenter is an older actress whose name I should know but don't. She stands at center stage with the envelope in her hands, drawing out the moment with practiced showmanship.
"The nominees for Best Actress are..."
They play the clips. Janie Torres first, looking luminous in some period drama I fell asleep during when Millie made me watch it. Then three other actresses whose names I recognize but whose faces blur together in my memory. Finally, Millie.
Her clip shows the courthouse scene I mentioned weeks ago.
Even on the massive screen I can see every microexpression, the way her character's grief transforms into rage and then into something harder to name.
The audience goes quiet watching it, which tells me everything I need to know about her performance.
When the clip ends, the camera finds Millie in her seat. She's smiling, composed, hands folded neatly in her lap. Nobody would know she's terrified except me, because I can feel her leg trembling against mine.
Next to us, three rows forward and slightly to the left, Janie Torres sits with her chin tilted up at an angle that suggests supreme confidence. Her dress is ice blue. When the camera finds her she waves slightly, like she's already practicing her acceptance.
The presenter opens the envelope. Takes her time reading the card inside.
"And the Oscar goes to..."
Millie's hand finds mine again and squeezes so hard I lose circulation to my fingers.
"Gertrude Elias, The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter."
The theater explodes with applause. On screen, Gertrude Elias stands from her seat four rows ahead of us, both hands pressed to her mouth in genuine shock. She's fifty-nine according to the program, a veteran character actress who's been nominated twice before and never won.
Gertrude makes her way to the stage, hugs the presenter, takes the statue with shaking hands.
Her speech is tearful and rambling and goes on long enough that the orchestra starts playing her off.
She ignores them and keeps talking, thanking everyone from her acting coach to her dog groomer, and the audience loves it.
When she finally finishes and walks off stage, the show cuts to commercial. The lights come up slightly and people start shifting in their seats, pulling out phones, whispering to their neighbors.
Millie releases my hand and reaches for her water again. Takes a long drink that empties half the glass.
"You okay?" I ask for the third time tonight.
"Fine." Her voice is steady, professional. "Gertrude deserved it. She was incredible in that film."
"So were you."
"Not tonight, apparently." She sets the glass down with slightly too much force. "At least Janie didn't win either. That's something."
I glance toward where Janie is sitting. Her face is frozen in a smile that looks painful to maintain, her hands clasped in her lap so tightly I can see tendons standing out in her wrists.
Her date, some actor I vaguely recognize from an action franchise, leans over to whisper something and she nods without looking at him.
"She looks worse than you do," I observe.
"Good." The word comes out sharp, then Millie seems to catch herself. "Sorry. That was petty."
"You're allowed to be petty. You just lost an Oscar you worked your entire life for."
"I didn't lose. Gertrude won. Those are different things."
She's performing now, saying the things she's supposed to say, being gracious in defeat the way the Academy expects their nominees to be. But I can see the disappointment underneath it, the same bone-deep exhaustion I saw the morning of the nominations.
The lights dim again as the show returns from commercial.
We sit through forty more minutes of awards and speeches and montages.
When it finally ends, the lights come up fully and everyone stands, stretching and gathering their things.
Around us, people are already networking, discussing after-parties, checking their phones to see what social media is saying.
Millie stands and smooths down her gown with hands that are steadier than I expected. "Ready?"
"Where are we going?"
"Governor's Ball. It's tradition for nominees to attend even if they lose." She says it without inflection, stating facts. "We'll make an appearance, congratulate Gertrude, let a few photographers get shots of us looking supportive, then we can leave."
"We don't have to do any of that. We can go straight home if you want."
"I want to go to the Ball." Her voice has an edge now, the first crack in the professional facade she's been maintaining all night. "I spent ten years working toward this nomination and I'm not going to hide in my apartment just because I didn't win."
She walks away before I can respond, heading toward the aisle where a crowd is already forming. I follow because what else can I do, watching her navigate through congratulations from people who five minutes ago were probably hoping she'd win and are now relieved she didn't.
The Governor's Ball is exactly what I expected: hundreds of people in formal wear drinking champagne and pretending the results were shocking. Gertrude Elias holds court near the center of the room, her Oscar statue sitting on the table in front of her while people line up to offer congratulations.
Millie walks straight toward her. I trail behind, close enough to intervene if needed but far enough to give her space.
"Gertrude." Millie's voice is warm, genuine. "Congratulations. That was a beautiful speech."
Gertrude turns and her face lights up. "Millie! Oh my God, you were robbed. Your performance was?—"
"Stop." Millie cuts her off gently. "You earned this. You were brilliant and I'm thrilled for you."
They hug, a real embrace rather than the air-kiss thing most people are doing. When they pull apart Gertrude is wiping tears from her eyes and Millie is smiling in a way that looks almost genuine.
We spend another hour circulating, talking to people whose names I immediately forget. Millie is perfect, gracious, everything a good loser is supposed to be. But I can see the strain around her eyes, the tightness in her shoulders that means she's running on fumes.
Finally, mercifully, she turns to me. "Can we go home now?"
"Yeah. Let's get out of here."
We make our exit through a side door that LaToya texted coordinates for earlier. Outside, a car is waiting with a driver who doesn't ask questions, just pulls away from the curb the second we're inside.
Millie leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes. Her hands rest in her lap, still perfectly posed, like even alone in this car she can't fully let go of the performance.
"You can be disappointed," I say quietly. "You don't have to pretend this doesn't hurt."
She opens her eyes and looks at me. In the dim light from passing streetlights I can see the exhaustion written across her face, the careful mask finally starting to crack.
"I'm not disappointed. I'm relieved."
The words surprise me. "Relieved?"
"That it wasn't Janie. That I don't have to watch her stand up there and thank everyone for recognizing her authenticity while implying I bought my way into the race.
" She laughs, but there's no humor in it.
"Gertrude winning means nobody has to deal with that narrative.
It's clean. Neutral. The best possible outcome other than me actually winning, which clearly wasn't going to happen. "
"You don't know that."
"Duncan." She turns to face me fully. "Look at me. Really look. Do I seem like someone who just lost something they desperately wanted? Or do I seem like someone who's been let off the hook?"
I study her face, searching for the disappointment I was expecting to find. But what I see instead is something closer to relief mixed with bone-deep exhaustion.
"Both," I say finally.
"Yeah. Both." She looks out the window at the city passing by.
"I wanted to win. I wanted it so badly I could taste it.
But I also spent the past two months terrified of what would happen if I did.
Terrified the win would get asterisked because of the scandal, terrified I'd give my speech and still feel empty, terrified that achieving the thing I'd worked toward my entire life wouldn't actually fix anything. "
"And now?"
"Now I don't have to find out." She leans her head on my shoulder. "Now I can just go home with you and sleep for twelve hours and wake up tomorrow as someone who got nominated and lost, which is honestly a much simpler story than winning would have been."
I wrap my arm around her and pull her closer. Outside, Los Angeles slides past in a blur of lights and palm trees and people who have no idea what just happened at the Dolby Theatre and wouldn't care if they did.
"I love you," I say into her hair.
"I know. I love you too."
The car pulls up to our hotel. We get out, wave off the driver, and walk inside hand-in-hand. In the elevator she leans against me, eyes closed, and I hold her up because she's been holding herself up all night and she's earned the right to stop.