Chapter 24: Opening Credits

Six weeks later I sat in the Marlowe Theatre in a green silk gown, in the same row, in the same seat.

Two seats down from me, the seat was empty.

Nobody had filled it, and nobody had asked why.

Mason sat on my left with his bow tie crooked and his hand resting on mine on the armrest.

Roz sat on my right in a purple velvet jacket that did not match anything.

She had a thermos in her bag, and she had told the usher it was medicinal.

Behind us my stepfather sat with his arms crossed, looking at the stage.

He had come to every one of my dinners since the panel, and he had not once said how proud he was.

He had asked how the second act was going, and he had listened to the answer.

It turned out that was how he said it.

"They've put the writers' awards on at the end," Roz whispered. "Typical. Make us wait."

"You've waited three years."

"I've waited longer than that, dear. I was a script reader."

On the stage a woman in silver walked to the podium with a gold envelope.

She was an old screenwriter, and she smiled at the audience before she spoke.

"Best Original Screenplay," she said.

My hand turned over under Mason's, and gripped.

"The nominees are..."

She read four names.

Mine was the third.

When she said it, the sound of my own name in a room that size nearly stopped me.

Willa Mercer, for Low Tide.

Not Holloway, and not Draper.

Mercer, in a voice that had no hesitation in it at all.

"And the winner," the woman said, and slid her thumb under the flap.

She opened it.

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