Page 51 of Falling Like Stars

“Uh, I have nothing prepared—clearly—so I’m going to wing it.” I huff a breath, gripping the statuette with both hands—at the base and around the middle—so it doesn’t slip out of my sweaty palms. “I’d like to thank our incredible director, Mike Petersen, our producers, my agent Chase, my manager Syd, my entire team, and the other incredible nominees in this category whose performances are the reason I have nothing prepared. Thank you too, of course, to the Academy for this incredible honor. I’m saying ‘incredible’ a lot. I know, I hear it too.”

This earns some laughter that lets me catch my breath.

“To the crew of Crazy 8, and the cast…” I look in the crowd for their faces but all I see are the same smiling blobs and the red light of the camera that tells me millions are watching. “I need to thank the incredible actors I was privileged enough to work with: Tom, Margot, Mark, Jamie, Pedro, Dave, and Florence. Thank you for making coming to work every day feel like hanging out with family. Love you, all.” I look at the camera. “To my actual family: Mom, Dad, my brother Jeremy…I love you guys so much. This is for you.”

The music swells as does the applause. RDJ and I are guided offstage by a young woman in a glittering black dress. The actor and I chat briefly about how surreal the whole thing is. Someone hands me a glass of champagne, pictures are taken, and then I’m hurried down “Winner’s Walk” to a press room in the Loews Hotel next door, where I’m bombarded with questions I barely remember answering.

At a commercial break, I’m ushered back to my seat at the Dolby, and I set the Oscar across my lap. Eva is all smiles and hugs when the lights are up, but as soon as they dim and the show resumes, she’s a block of ice beside me, with a volcanic fire simmering somewhere within.

“Well, I hope you’re happy,” she seethes. “Unbelievable.”

I don’t know what she’s pissed about now, but I try to ignore her, focusing instead on the other actors and filmmakers and trying not to think that if I had someone I cared about sitting next to me, this moment would be perfect.

After the ceremony, I just want to go home. But according to Eva, the Vanity Fair Oscar party is where we need to be so she can “salvage some face time with important people.” I decide it’s the perfect place to get good and drunk.

It doesn’t take long; I’m not a big drinker. Five signature vodka cocktails later and three shots of tequila with my Crazy 8 cast, and I’m blitzed out of my fucking mind. The night is a blur of congratulatory handshakes and hugs, photographs, and conversations with everyone in Hollywood about upcoming projects—theirs and mine. Everyone is here.

Not everyone, I amend blearily, scanning the crowd for the hundredth time. I see a hundred faces but none of them are hers.

When it’s time to leave, Ezra Crawford, head of my personal security, pours me into the limo. I nearly clock myself in the face with the Oscar as I stretch out along one side. It’s a minor miracle I was able to hang on to it at all.

“So that happened.” The limo ceiling is seemingly spinning in the opposite direction of every turn the car makes to get us back to the Hills. “I think I said yes to a beer commercial in Sweden.”

Eva, who’s been icily quiet, makes a noise. “So many offers. Must be hard to keep track of them all.”

I don’t take the bait. I’m too drunk anyway.

At the Hollywood Hills house, the world looks as if I’m underwater and the ground wants to slip out from under my feet as I weave my way to the front door.

“You good, sir?” Ezra asks, glancing at Eva with dark eyes.

“Never better,” I say, then pat him on his huge shoulder. “Have a good night, Ez.”

Inside the house, I set the Oscar on a glass end table and slump onto the couch.

Eva paces in front of me, arms crossed. Sometime during the night, she’d changed into a slinky little cocktail dress in fire engine red. Her eyes blaze with just as much heat as she glares at me, her voice shaking with barely contained rage.

“You should have seen yourself,” she says. “Pathetic.”

Her sudden mockery should come as no surprise, but it still does. Still hurts. I snort a dry laugh. “Fool me twice…”

“You were a laughingstock. A grown man clutching that statue like a little boy holding his favorite dolly.”

I stuff a throw pillow under my head on the couch’s arm. “Whatever you say, Eva.”

“You really have no clue, do you? You are a selfish bastard!”

A second later, I feel wind blow past my cheek as a glass paperweight sails past my head and shatters on the travertine tiles leading to the kitchen.

I jolt to sitting. “What the fuck…”

“Your speech, so charming,” Eva seethes. “So humble and affable with a little bit of funny. So perfectly calibrated to seem unprepared when you knew exactly what you were doing.”

I haul myself to my feet and gesture at the glittering remains of the paperweight. “Jesus, you could have killed me. And just what the fuck are you talking about? I can barely remember my speech. Everything after Robert read my name is a blur.”

“Oh, is it?” Eva scoffs acidly. “Because I remember every word and I am humiliated!”

She punctuates the words with a hard shove to my chest. It sends me back to the couch, where I try to mentally will myself into being less drunk. To keep the room from spinning and defend myself from the woman I once thought was going to be the mother of my children.

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