MARCH 1996
TWO DAYS BEFORE THE OSCARS I WAS IN A CAR WITH Ruchi driving to Bel-Air.
I’d moved to Santa Monica by then in what was only supposed to be a temporary rental—four bedrooms on a small plot of land that they’d stacked up high so that the roof terrace looked out across the ocean and shaded the pool that curved beneath.
I bought it off my landlady the following year and have been there ever since.
Harper, on the other hand, seemed to move around a lot, so that as the years went on she always knew how to find me, while I traced her like an obsessive fan, savoring the hints of her like pinpricks on a map.
Traffic was awful, even for LA, and by the time we rolled in I was frozen from the intense air-conditioning that I now associated with California. I was tired, and I was pissed off before I’d even spoken to her.
A man appeared at the door. Tall and beautiful but a touch too wiry for Harper’s usual tastes, and it made far more sense when he took Ruchi’s hand and said: “Adrian Navarro, Gallant PR. Thank you for returning my call.”
“Ruchi Sharma. Ruchi Sharma PR. And I’ll thank you to lose my number.”
“Sure, I’ll always be able to dig it up again if I need it. Right this way then.”
But I was already moving. Harper clearly wanted a dramatic moment—but the fact she’d planned this meeting here and not at some restaurant on the strip suggested this little show was for my eyes only.
Her home was sleek and cold. The only warmth in the walls—enormous canvases marked with abstract crimson swirls.
Harper was at the kitchen island, pouring liquor into a cocktail shaker. I had to force myself forward as I saw her, couldn’t freeze like I had looking at her face in the magazine. She followed me to this city. She leaned on my name.
She should be on her knees.
Instead she stood against her counter in tight leather trousers and a sheer vest, tossing her hair over her shoulder so she could bring the cocktail up to shake.
“It’s eleven o’clock.”
“Which is why this is an espresso martini,” she said, pouring the liquid into the glass. “Coffee is a morning drink. Oh come on, Heywood, don’t tell me you skip mimosas at brunch.”
“You wanted to talk?” I pushed.
She scoffed. “You didn’t come all this way because I wanted to talk. You wanted to see me.”
“I wanted to discuss whatever it is we’re doing here,” I corrected, accepting the drink from her despite my previous protestations.
She didn’t step back once she’d handed the drink over, just stood awfully close to me as she cocked her head to the side, that infuriating smirk still locked on her face.
“You haven’t changed at all, have you? Well, aside from the obvious,” her fingers fluttered to my hair, and for some stupid reason, I let her twirl a lock about her finger before it fell, limp and discarded back against my chest. “I had a poster of you on my wall, you know? Everyone else at CADS could hardly believe it was you, blood-soaked and murderous. But I knew those were always the sort of performances you loved best.”
“Is there a point to this, Harper?” I growled the words out, noting that she was right, but she was also wrong. I had changed, but being beside her undid all that in quick succession, like my whole life here was artifice and the rot she inspired was the truth festering beneath.
I took a sip of my martini, sweeter than I’d expected, and winced with distaste. I liked my drinks bitter, sour—but this was Harper, all manufactured saccharinity. Still, I was distinctly aware that the taste lingering on my tongue also rested upon hers.
“I called and you answered; that’s the point.
” She finally took a step away, a hint of coconut tangible as her hair whipped round.
She’d changed her shampoo—of course she had.
It had been years, a different country—hell, a different continent.
So why did that pull me up short? Fuck, why did I even remember?
Her eyes rounded in some grotesque attempt at vulnerability. “I was worried you’d forgotten me.”
“Stop it,” I snapped. “This isn’t about me.”
“No, of course it’s not,” she raised her martini in a toast. “It’s about me. You’re good for my brand. You get me attention, and attention is how you make it in this city. We both know why I told that story. But why did you embrace it?”
“It helps me too,” I said, reminding myself that I was a professional and Harper—this rivalry—was a choice I’d made. “That’s why I’m here. This rivalry could be mutually beneficial, so let’s lay out the parameters.”
“Way to suck out the joy of it all. Thank you, but no.”
“No? You started this.”
“You started this. A long time ago. And then you abandoned me.” She pouted over the rim of her glass, and I had the sudden urge to wipe it from her face. If she was going to be a brat, I wanted to treat her like one.
But I clung to the aloof disdain I knew would hurt her most. “This is very needy, Harper. You couldn’t cope at CADS without me?”
“Yes. See, imagine coming back to school in September and you simply not being there … You won after screwing me over, repeatedly, and I didn’t even have the chance for a rematch? It was so boring without trying to outpace you or take roles from you.”
“Nothing was stopping you from working like I did.”
“Working? Darling, you’re a dropout with pert tits and a good jumpsuit. That’s what’s giving you your fifteen minutes of fame. But I have three years of CADS under my belt, and you don’t have the skill to last long here.”
I knew this was how Harper operated—and all at once I was nineteen again. “You’re so desperate to succeed you’ll do anything for it, wouldn’t you? Admit it, you’re a vindictive, entitled, conniving little bitch.”
This is what she did: continuous jabs until she found the one that hurt.
Was she right? Deep down, didn’t I know that the reason I was running so fast right now was to capitalize on my fame?
To seize it before it became fleeting? Maybe if I’d gone back to school, learned and studied more, I’d be a better actress for it.
I was good—very good. But I might have become phenomenal.
Had I wasted my one chance before I was at my very best?
I’m not even sure I’d acknowledged that fear myself until Harper threw it in my face.
But I swallowed that terror down and I smiled. She might know how to get to me, but I knew her in turn.
“I have the Wilfred Allen Award, darling. It’s going to look great next to my Oscar.”
Anger flashed in her eyes—brief and quick before she blinked it away, suddenly cackling.
“You love this, you do know that, right? Look at you, you’re practically thrumming with delight.
You get to best me. You get to win. You know who you are, Nadine, and you started to have the world fooled.
You wore that necklace like a fucking calling card, to taunt me for all you had, and still you think you’re better than all this? That all you want is success?”
I could taste the victory, ripe and sweet. The necklace. The poster. Just how much of me had she noticed? Just how much had I played on her mind these last few years?
“I do want success,” I said, as dismissively as I could.
“No, my dear, you want attention. Mummy and Daddy never came to your recitals so you thought you’d call me a bitch in front of the cameras. All for some drop of recognition.”
If I was still holding that glass I might have dropped it.
That taste in my mouth was sour now, any satisfaction I’d felt vanished. When I answered, I spoke slowly, like the deliberate words might smart in a way that lasted, my words ringing in her head, a part of me buried down deep. “I called you a bitch, Harper, because you’re a bitch.”
“And you’re an attention-hungry coward who did unforgivable things to me and then ran from them. So go ahead, pretend this is all for the press. But it’s real for me. The only thing that got me through CADS was dreaming of flying to LA to bring you crashing down. And here I am.”
———
I suspect she was being melodramatic. I think she wanted to rile me into some sort of vendetta because it was fun for her.
Because I’d risen high and she was petty enough to want to see if she really could drag me back down to her level—like it might prove she mattered too.
Or because life could never be interesting enough for Harper.
But by the time I realized that, I was in too deep.
Besides, she was right. I did enjoy it. I liked competition.
I liked the challenge. I bristled at every slight, and plotting back gave me something to do, and, dear god, what had I even done with my time before this?
Worked and slept and wasted my time on a dying relationship I couldn’t wait to bury.
Beating Harper gave me purpose.
———
I went to the Oscars with that ratty old necklace threaded into the chain of my Prada bag. I sat on the edge of my little grouping, wedged between the casts of Wherever You Are, Trellis, and Crime Never Sleeps—a cop movie whose frequent explosions had it nominated for Best Visual Effects.
Beside me was Caleb Krause, the film’s comedic relief and one of Hollywood’s accidental darlings: a ditzy partier whose floppish hair and goofy grin bought him an innocence not afforded to most. He was surprisingly good company, and, alright, maybe I did think that our laughter might be construed as flirting and perhaps I leaned into it, but it didn’t even occur to me that flirtation could be a dig at Oisín and our recently buried relationship until it was reported that way.
I was too busy thinking of Harper with every fluttered lash.
It was ludicrous. Hamish Alexander won Best Supporting Actor for Wherever You Are, the only one of my little cohort to score a win.
And yet there I was in every single newspaper, just after the winners, in all the roundups of their favorite moments: not only laughing beside Caleb but on my feet for several standing ovations that really showed off my dress, though that had its own carpet shots splashed across the spreads too.