MAY 2001 #3
I could indeed walk back out there. I didn’t need to dash in humiliated, clutching desperately at my broken dress.
I could drop it altogether, walk out with my skirt tight and my breasts exposed.
It would be a scandal. It would be horrible, but I could ride the wave.
I was a party girl now, wasn’t I? This could be a moment to step into my new skin rather than reclaiming the old.
And it would make Harper furious—just like declaring my addiction myself. Take away her leverage and the woman couldn’t cope with all that suddenly lost power.
I could also just stay in here and wait it out, but I was so angry I’d expose myself just to wrench the ground away from Harper.
“I could do more than that, couldn’t I?” I said. “Give myself another black eye and claim you broke the dress in your frenzied attack.”
“I suppose you could. Though I hope you’ll at least let me actually do it this time.
It’s not fair to accuse me and not let me lay hands on you.
” Harper leaned back against an ornate column and watched me like my fury was entertainment, or perhaps like a conductor, watching her orchestra play.
And now after so much crescendo, she instructed the final beat.
“The only issue, however, is that you’ve won.
And I don’t think you’d want to detract from your victory with that. Or by flashing half of America.”
My ire stuttered. And, to my horror, I felt my crumpled hope unfurling. Harper always managed to snatch that from me.
“You’re lying,” I said.
“No, Nadine, I’m not.”
“You couldn’t know.”
“A bribe in the right place and you can know everything. Why do you think I’m so furious?” She held that lace out again, letting it wave like a slow pendulum, like my time to take it was running out. “Why do you think I’m so delighted to lord this over you?”
“Because you’re a sadistic bitch.”
“And you’re Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Congratulations.”
I’d beat her. I’d won.
And it didn’t fucking matter. Only it did. It was my whole future stretched out before me.
I took a breath and turned, planting my palms against the sink. The broken dress gaped, held in place only by my arms pinning it tight. “Tie the damn thing.”
Harper’s smile was acid. But I forced myself not to look away. Let it fuel me, as my disdain for Harper had often done.
Her quick fingers were cold when they brushed my spine as they threaded the shoelace through the hooks.
The dress fit back in place, but considerably looser than before with the added expanse of the lace.
I could breathe. It was almost like it was always meant to be worn this way, like I’d walked straight out of a Vivienne Westwood shoot.
When I turned, Harper was so close I could have kissed her. I was almost tempted—anything to wipe that self-satisfied little smirk from her face.
I snatched the other thread from her hand, looping it around my own throat before Harper had the chance to tie it for me. I wound it a few times before knotting it into a neat bow. Harper watched, pleased and victorious, but at the very least I had collared my hatred by myself.
“I’ll see you out there,” Harper beamed, somehow striding elegantly away, even with her now-loose boots.
I turned to the mirror, straightening the bow.
I couldn’t discard it entirely, that’s not how this worked, and Harper’s revenge was a thing I couldn’t risk right now, not while I was rebuilding the things I’d lost. If this was her retribution for Cannes, so be it.
Perhaps winning this time around would keep her appeased enough that I could snag some roles and strengthen my position before she struck again.
———
Lana pressed a phone into my hand the moment the ceremony finished.
“What the fuck did you do?” Amos hissed. “I swear if you ruined my styling to cover a mid-Emmy hickey, I’ll—”
“Design a better dress?” I snapped. The cameras were rolling even out here for the behind-the-scenes shots, so I hid myself with my hair and spoke out of the corner of my mouth.
“I told you I couldn’t breathe. The clasps broke, and I would have been crawling out of there shirtless if Harper hadn’t offered me her shoelaces. ”
“Harper?”
At her name, she emerged, laughing outrageously, tapping Joel’s arm like she couldn’t believe he was real.
The flames of my anger might have been extinguished by my hope, but they still smoldered and smoked—and this fanned those embers. How dare she play this bubbly role, smiling and laughing and flirting for the cameras like she wasn’t just half-garroting me in the bathroom?
“Yes, her.”
I should have expected this, sooner or later. But we’d had a good run, longer than I ever would have thought when we settled in the same flat in Bethnal Green.
Amos could not admit a mistake, and when he knew he’d made one he’d lash out. Normally, I could suffer it with an eyeroll. But I was humiliated, my win dampened by the knowledge I hadn’t won where it counted.
“Don’t take that tone with me, Heywood,” he snapped. “If you hadn’t gone up a dress size then—”
“You’re my stylist, Amos, you’re supposed to make clothes that fit me. Not the other way around.”
“And I had your measurements so—”
I couldn’t argue, not fully, not with so many people watching.
So I simply fired him instead.
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