The Long Night

"They hate me," Avril said. "The voters must hate me. I didn't get a single nomination."

"Lower your voice," Ethan told her. "There are cameras ten feet away."

"Let them hear."

"You'll get another shot. We make the right record, and they won't be able to ignore you."

She punched his shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt him, but harder than he expected. "You should have released Something Just Like This sooner. A couple of weeks, and it might have made the eligibility window."

Ethan rubbed the spot. Avril looked slight beneath her jacket, but she had never been delicate. She had released an album that found its audience; Grammy voters simply had not responded. The December single had come too late to change this year's nominations. He could not promise it would have won, but he understood why watching her labelmates collect trophies stung.

American Art Records had four artists in contention for Best New Artist: Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Celine Trudeau. The crowded field had become one of the night's stories before anyone opened an envelope. Bruno won and thanked Michael and Ethan from the stage, grinning so widely that the music almost played him off. Taylor left empty-handed despite country nominations. Katy's Stronger earned her a pop nomination, and its recording put her and Ethan in another race, but neither trophy came their way.

The label still had a triumph. Celine Dion's Let It Go had held the top spot on the Billboard chart for eleven weeks and remained in the rankings half a year later. Children knew the chorus; radio programmers still found room for it. Celine won across its nominated categories, including the screen-music prize. She accepted the applause with the composure of someone who had spent years learning what a room like this demanded.

Avril saw it all from a few seats away. She had only recently joined the label, so the comparison was unfair. That did not make it hurt less.

Outside, photographers converged. Ethan said good night to the group and slipped into his car. Two Grammy trophies sat beside him. He could not read music, yet the industry had given him awards that trained musicians spent entire careers chasing. The absurdity made him smile. It also made him uncomfortable.

A horn sounded behind them.

"Can you let them pass?" he asked Pete.

"There's plenty of road."

The horn sounded again. Ethan's phone lit up at the same moment.

"Pull over."

Pete eased to the curb. A black Hummer stopped alongside them, and Avril leaned out of the driver's window.

"Come on. Drive with me."

"Every photographer in Los Angeles knows that car," Ethan said. "Get in mine if you want to disappear for a while."

Minutes later, Pete took the Hummer away, and Ethan drove toward the coast with Avril in the passenger seat.

"Is this a different car from last time?" she asked.

"It is. I rotate them."

"Of course you do."

"The press learns a car fast. Sometimes the best one to drive is worth thirty thousand dollars and looks like everybody else's."

"What are you hiding, a string of secret girlfriends?"

"Six of them. We all live together."

Avril laughed. "You couldn't keep up."

He let her believe it was a joke. The truth was hard enough to explain to people who knew him.

She opened a beer from a cooler. Ethan declined when she offered him one.

"You're driving," she said.

"Exactly."

For a while she drank and watched the storefronts slide past. Then the anger returned: the nominations, the voters, everyone she suspected had dismissed her. Ethan listened. She needed an audience more than an argument.

"You don't have to win their approval tonight," he said. "We'll make the next song impossible to miss."

"You always say that like you can just decide."

"I can decide to work on it."

By the time they reached the coastal road, traffic had thinned. The ocean was almost invisible beyond the guardrail, but they could hear it through the open window.

Avril eyed one of his trophies. "Proof you can win a Grammy without knowing a treble clef."

"I'd rather you said that to my face than to a reporter."

"I am saying it to your face."

She grabbed the trophy, lowered the window, and threw it into the dark. Ethan braked and turned toward her.

"What the hell was that?"

She leaned across the console and kissed him before he could finish. Startled, he jerked the wheel. The car clipped a tree at the edge of the turnout, hard enough to deploy the airbags but not fast enough to send either of them through the windshield.

For a few seconds neither spoke. Ethan turned off the engine. Avril stared at the dented hood, then at him.

"I'm sorry. I really have had too much."

"We need to make sure you're all right."

They got out and checked for injuries. Ethan's pulse was racing. He called Pete and gave him their location; the trophy could wait until someone could search safely in daylight. When Avril tried to kiss him again, he stepped back.

"Avril. You need to get home."

"I want to stay."

"You've been drinking, and you're angry. We can talk tomorrow."

She tried to laugh it off, but the laugh failed. "So now you don't want me?"

"That's not what I said."

"I don't want to be another one of your girlfriends, even if that story was real. And I don't want to do something I'll have to guess about in the morning."

"You won't," he said.

Her shoulders dropped. For the first time since leaving the ceremony, she seemed tired rather than furious. Ethan waited with her near the car until Pete arrived with a replacement and made sure she got home safely. Their argument remained unfinished.

* * *

On February 27, the Kodak Theatre glittered beneath the lights of the 77th Academy Awards. The red carpet was crowded with actors, publicists, television crews, and fans who had waited for hours to glimpse a familiar face. Some of the faces, even devoted moviegoers would struggle to name. There were simply too many people who made movies, or claimed to.

"Ethan, over here. Nicole, a little closer."

He put an arm around Nicole Kidman for the cameras. Flashbulbs went off in a burst. When they reached the interview line, a reporter praised her performance in La Vie en Rose and asked whether she expected to win Best Actress.

"I hope the work connected with people," Nicole said. "The other performances are wonderful. I won't pretend I know what the voters decided."

"But you won the Golden Globe. Doesn't that make you the favorite?"

"Everyone here would like to take something home," Ethan said as Nicole stepped toward the entrance. "No one gets to know the result in advance."

He was about to follow her when Chris Connelly caught his attention.

"Ethan. MGM has pulled several films from its release calendar. Why?"

The calendar had become a bargaining table after the six-studio front collapsed. DreamWorks, New Line, Lionsgate, and other mid-sized companies had spent months watching their releases crowded out. Now they wanted a chance to put their films in theaters without facing a new MGM tentpole every other Friday.

Ethan had called a meeting with the studios willing to talk. MGM, Universal, Sony, Paramount, and Fox agreed to leave a roughly two-month stretch with more breathing room for smaller distributors. Their own releases would be limited during that period, particularly the expensive ones. MGM went further and moved its scheduled films out of the window altogether.

It was not charity. Giving the smaller studios a reason to trust the new arrangement made it harder for Disney and Warner to recruit them back. After the two months, everyone would return to negotiating individual dates. The major summer pictures were not going away.

"We're untangling a crowded schedule," Ethan told Connelly. "Some pictures deserve a clean opening weekend. That helps exhibitors and audiences as much as it helps the studios."

"Does that mean Hollywood is back to normal?"

"It means we're trying to make the next few months workable. I wouldn't call anything in this business normal."

"Disney and Warner haven't announced the same limits."

"You'll have to ask them about their calendars."

Connelly tried another question, but Ethan smiled and moved on. Alexandra Daddario and Crystal Liu were passing toward the theater. He joined them at the end of the carpet, leaving the release war outside for one evening.