JUNE 2004
NADINE WOULD NOT PRETEND IT WAS HARDER FOR HER than Harper. She did not face the indignities of prison: of being stripped and hounded, her freedom taken and placed into isolation for her own safety.
But it was pretty fucking hard.
It took weeks to even be able to talk to Harper. She had no reason to, officially. They were not family, nor even friends, and Nadine certainly wasn’t on the legal team.
Everything went through Adrian.
“She’s refusing to put you on her visitation list,” he said. “She can’t say anything, not without them overhearing, but I don’t think she wants you tarnished by this.”
“And I agree,” Ruchi said. “I know you love her.” Her gaze was stern, knowing.
Very knowing. “But I don’t want you incriminating yourself.
No—absolutely not. Do not say anything else right now.
Tell me nothing, and let’s leave it at that.
But my official advice, Nadine, is that any association with Harper now could destroy you. ”
“Fine! Raze me to the ground, just get me in that damn room.”
———
Nadine flew to London under the pretext of rubbing it in Harper’s face.
Every night, a new club, a new party, a new headline.
She restored her hair to its natural strawberry blond and left it down to bring out the green in her eyes.
She let her sleeve slip, revealing a sun tattoo on her wrist. She began tucking flowers behind her ears, each carefully selected, every one front and center in every shot.
She did a tell-all interview of her own with Hollyword and filled it with snippets from the plays they’d performed together at CADS: love is blind, and we’re all curious about what might hurt us.
If Harper wouldn’t see her, fine. But she’d tell her she loved her in every way she could. She’d signal it in every shot. And she’d be here. She’d be here no matter how many times Harper silently begged her not to be.
Opportunities came rolling in through Ruchi, and Nadine sifted through them all like she was compiling a battle strategy—which were worth her time and which might have greatest impact and, of course, which would help Harper.
The interview was a wonderful start—fortuitous timing, a clutch move but not necessarily the last.
So she phoned Ivan: “Are you sure?” he asked. “Have you really truly considered what this would do to you? Yeah fair enough, you’ve certainly climbed out of darker holes.”
And Amos: “You know, I think I deserve a bonus, don’t you?
Call it $100k, and I’m in. Wait … Nadine.
Did you mean it? When you said you’d have given me the money anyway?
Alright, okay. I’ll see you on Monday. Well, I’m hardly letting you style yourself for this am I? Not if it’s as important as you claim.”
And Caleb: “This person you’re seeing, would this … would it help? Yes, you know what I’m asking. Okay. Alright. No, don’t apologize—sounds complicated as hell. Good luck to you, Heywood. Whatever I can do to help.”
Nadine had, finally, figured out how to ask for help.
So she went on and on. A gentle plea to Sasha Wallace.
A barter with Kayla Alexander, promoting her brand of activewear in exchange for her assistance.
Ruchi pulled strings, dug up a photo of Nadine at that car crash, the Hollywood Whisperer reporter thrusting a mic into her blood-covered face, and that would hardly be a good look, would it?
So let’s call in that favor. Nadine exhumed ghosts like Lewis Stamper and Zoe Holland and Oisín Connellan, the kinds who might be enticed in for drip-fed fame.
By the time they got the call from the production studio—after all someone had to fund this thing, even if it was through a dozen anonymous channels, and that someone could definitely point them in the right direction for interviewees—everyone was already on board.
———
And then, finally, Harper approved the visitation request.
Nadine tried to keep it quiet. For once, she did not want the press knowing. Even if they could have easily played it off, even if it would be just another brag in a long line of them.
She had to pass through security, depositing every item on her person into the beige trays.
“Do you want a closed visit?” they asked. “We can put her behind glass—we know she’s attacked you before.”
“No,” she said, not caring that it was too quick and too desperate. No, because she was here and Harper was close and nothing else mattered, not even her constricting heart whose beat seemed to falter with each step she took.
“Alright. You’ll remain in your assigned seat for the duration of your visit. Your hands must remain visible at all times,” the guard listed. “An officer will be present and listening during the course of your visit.”
Nadine nodded, and they escorted her to the small, dark room with its single table and chairs. And then the door opened and …
Harper looked like she was on a film set, that was all. Gray sweats, her hair a little greasy, her face bare.
She looked right at Nadine who was unsure how the officer remained, how he did not feel so inappropriately intrusive with the tension thrumming between them. Surely the whole world could feel it.
Nadine had to force herself to remain seated, her hands visible even as her nails dug into her palm.
“I assume you’re here to gloat,” Harper said.
Nadine’s eyes flicked to the guard. “Oh, there’s no point in that. This all goes beyond it, doesn’t it? And we were friends once.”
“Friends?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “Sure, why not. I’ve lost a few too many of those to deny another.”
This was it, the moment she couldn’t wait longer for. But still, Nadine felt herself out on a precipice, a certain fall in every direction. Guilt that gnawed, that ate right through her.
“When I told you that story, the other day,” she began. She could hardly face Harper’s expectant expression. “There’s something I left out. I should have told you, I’m sorry but—”
“Nadine,” Harper interrupted sternly. Her voice was ice, and Nadine winced against it.
“Do you know what has, unexpectedly, hurt me the most recently? Joel was going to leave me. He took out all that money and he ran. And he couldn’t even just do that, no.
My lucky necklace, the one my mother gave me, he had to take that too.
He tried to take my luck from me. All this time I’ve been mourning him, even knowing he cheated on me, even knowing he was going to leave me—and then I find out he stopped for one last moment of cruelty. ”
Yes. Good. It was a good cover.
Nadine was not surprised. Harper had expensive lawyers and a case made of circumstantial evidence, speculation, and paper-thin witness statements.
If the media hadn’t fanned these flames, Nadine was unconvinced it would have even reached a trial.
“I know, I know Harper,” she said quickly. “And I can only imagine how hard that is. But …”
Harper’s gaze was cutting, and she watched Nadine squirm. “The worst thing? That’s the only thing my mother’s ever given me that meant anything to me. And now through all of this I find out it’s fake? A hunk of plastic I’ve been wearing for years?”
Oh god, she knew. Nadine was simultaneously relieved and terrified. She had, for over a month now, agonized over her responsibility in this arrest, and in not being able to talk to Harper about it.
She wanted to sit at her feet, rest her head on her lap, and tell her exactly what had happened. To beg for her forgiveness.
To know that everything was okay between them.
Rather than this—risking losing not only Harper’s freedom but Harper herself.
“I just want to know,” Harper snapped. “Was it intentional?”
“No, god no.”
Is that what she’d thought? That night, when Harper came to her door and Nadine led her to the shower.
When, later, they left and she stuck her necklace in her pocket—the one Harper had given her years ago.
The one she had still brought everywhere, to every award and every festival, because Harper was the luckiest thing that ever happened to her.
Because on that night of all nights, didn’t she need fortune on her side?
And when she got home and discovered it missing, only to find Harper’s necklace curled in a heap on her bathroom counter?
She’d nearly convinced herself it really was her cheap imitation, because if it wasn’t … then hers was somewhere incriminating. Harper must have felt the same, must have realized she’d lost her necklace and never said a thing in the hope it wouldn’t matter.
Neither of them had said anything—and wasn’t that them? Just as bad as each other?
But Nadine had, like she had so many years ago, taken the necklace.
Nadine swallowed and looked at the officer. “I’m sure your mother didn’t realize she’d given you a fake until afterward, when it was too late to do anything about it.”
She understood, she supposed. If the roles were reversed, she might wonder if Harper had tried to set her up too.
Harper nodded. “Alright.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” Harper smiled then, small and slight but a promise of something bigger to come. “I remember how that story ended. If you say it wasn’t intentional, I believe you.”
“I’m going to fix this,” Nadine said.
Harper cocked her head to the side. “I’m going to be free.
The trial is ludicrous. I don’t think they even believe it themselves.
There’s DNA they can’t explain. There’s damage to his teeth consistent with gang violence.
There are threads the police themselves have admitted they can’t follow.
They’ve managed to string something of a narrative together with me, but it doesn’t fit right.
The truth is still out there making a lot more sense. ”
Hope flared—and unlike when Harper wasn’t in front of her, it didn’t immediately sputter out.
Maybe they really had done it—thrown enough chaos and misdirection into the mix to put on a better show. “You’re right,” Nadine agreed. “You’ll be acquitted, and then you’ll be back in LA, and I doubt I’ll be cast in anything ever again because all of Hollywood will be knocking at your door.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. Proving myself innocent in a court of law is one thing. In the court of public opinion? Well, that’s quite another.”
Nadine reached her hands a little closer, though still not touching. Not with the watchful gaze upon them. But she wanted to, and Harper must have looked down and realized the same.
“You haven’t seen the reaction to your interview.
” Moving was the least she could say. Compelling, persuasive, a magnum opus.
This trial was widely considered another shred of entertainment—there were even petitions to host it stateside so they might let cameras in the courtroom.
“Everyone is primed to believe you. In fact, the only thing holding the public back is … us. Our history and all the violence laced within it. So I’ve agreed to take part in a documentary.
It’s dropping the night before the verdict. ”
Harper winced. “My mother told me about that—couldn’t believe they had the nerve to approach her. I suppose it’s no surprise you’re taking part.”
Nadine hadn’t risked Greta, just in case her phone lines were tapped too. But she’d make it up to her once all this was behind them.
“It should be good for you. Ruchi found out they’re trying to frame me instead.
” She’d had to justify all her friends being involved somehow.
“Kayla Alexander is arguing the case, so I suppose she’s more loyal to you than you thought.
But they want to argue I killed him as an escalation of the rivalry. ”
Harper arched a brow, but Nadine saw the panic flitting in her eyes. “You’re obsessed with me, Nadine. But even I don’t believe you’d kill for me.”
No, no one would believe that. But they might be persuaded Nadine was the instigator of all of their encounters—that Harper had no history of violence, just a history of being Nadine’s victim. An innocent party on all accounts.
“No, I don’t think anyone is going to think it was me.
God, could you imagine?” She flicked her gaze down at Harper’s clothes.
“Well, I suppose you probably can. So they’ll be looking for a better story to tell.
” Nadine grinned, not realizing that Harper tracked those smiles like jewels, hungry to collect every single one.
Sometimes you can admire someone so completely you do not realize they’re staring right back, harboring worship of their own.
“I imagine the truth is going to come out.”
“And that is?”
A simple missive, a singular request: Blame me. Save her.
“That we’re nothing to each other. A fabrication. And it’s over now.”