The elevator doors open onto another glass box in the sky.
I step out into a lobby that smells like cold brew, printer toner, and expensive perfume. Sunlight pours through floor-to-ceiling windows, glazing the polished concrete floor. Beyond the glass, LA sprawls out in a hazy quilt—pools winking like thumbnail screens, the distant hills washed in that soft, smog-filtered gold.
Quinn walks beside me, clutching a canvas tote instead of a laptop bag, fingers tapping a muted rhythm on the strap. I hear the faint slosh of melting ice in the plastic cup in her other hand. The straw squeaks between her teeth.
“You can still bail,” she mutters, low enough that only I hear.
“I already rode the elevator,” I say. “That would feel dramatic even for me.”
She snorts and bumps her shoulder against mine. The contact grounds me.
A young assistant in a black jumpsuit appears from behind a frosted glass door, an iPad tucked to her chest. “Ms. Hayes? Ms. Hart? They’re ready for you.”
Ready for us.
The words give me a small, quiet thrill I immediately feel guilty about. Another chance to explain. Another version of the story where I get to control the lighting.
We follow her down a hallway lined with framed posters—documentaries with serious fonts and laurel wreaths. War zones, hospital corridors, climate marches. At the end, she opens a glass door onto a conference room. The air conditioning rushes over my skin, a refrigerated sigh.
The documentarian, Ezra Feld, rises from his chair.
I know his face from festival photos: beard going silver, wire-rimmed glasses, dark curls pulled back. In person, he looks softer, cardigan sleeves pushed up, hands ink-smudged from notes. Two producers flank him, both in tailored neutrals with the faint green tint of pressed juice in matching bottles.
“Nora,” Ezra says, stepping forward, hand extended. “Thank you for coming.”
His palm is dry and warm. His grip is firm, not crushing. He looks me in the eyes and holds the contact just long enough to register sincerity without veering into intimidation. He has practiced this.
“Thanks for the invitation,” I say. “You know Quinn.”
“Of course.” He turns to Quinn. “Big fan of ‘Second Take.’ Your framing was invaluable for understanding the public piece of this.”
“That’s one word for it,” Quinn says, lips twitching. She sets her cup down, the plastic thunk dull against the glass tabletop.
We sit. The chair cushions sigh beneath me. Someone has placed a bottle of chlorophyll-green juice at my spot, condensation beading on the surface. I move it an inch away, drawn to the way the bottle warps the view of downtown like a tiny, distorted aquarium.
Ezra opens a leather notebook. One of the producers—Marta—taps a tablet awake, the screen’s glow reflecting in the glass wall behind her like a second, ghostly device.
“I’m glad we could all be in the same room,” Ezra begins. “I know Lila’s lawyer couldn’t join, but we’re in touch. Today, I wanted to lay out our vision and hear what you need to feel safe and represented.”
That word hooks in the air: represented. I swallow.
“We see this as a feature-length documentary,” Marta says. “Intimate, patient, grounded. This isn’t a tabloid piece. We’re talking festivals, awards conversations, long-tail streaming.”
Her partner, a guy in an open-collar shirt named Dev, nods. “The story already lives online in fragments—podcast episodes, clips from the fire, think pieces. We want to gather that, but more important, we want the private journey. The before, the breaking point, the aftermath.”
“Your emotional arc,” Marta adds, looking at me.
That small, quiet thrill flickers again. I ignore the way my fingers tighten around the edge of the table.
“We’d follow you to Laurel Canyon,” Ezra says gently. “The glass house, the pool. The tension between that transparency and the secrets you carried. We’d go back to Pennsylvania, to the mill site. That skeleton on the river. We’d capture that geography, the way it shaped you.”
I picture the mill, the damp air, the cold metal tang of the stair rails on my palms. Fog hugging the riverbank. Then I picture that image projected in a dark festival theater, people holding cocktails in a lobby afterward, calling it haunting.
“We’d also talk to crew,” Ezra continues. “Stunt workers, background actors, showrunners, executives, lawyers. This isn’t just a one-woman play.”
Quinn shifts in her seat, the canvas of her jeans whispering against the leather cushion. She flips open her notebook but doesn’t write.
“Your confession was a turning point in the cultural conversation about accountability,” Dev says. “People still argue about it. Did you sacrifice enough? Were you forced? Did you get lionized? We want to sit in that discomfort. Give you space to tell your side in long form, not sound bites.”
Tell your side.
My heart gives a stupid little leap. The letters from yesterday float up in my mind—You disgust me, You’re late but not useless, Don’t let it become a PR line and then die. Their voices crowd around that phrase like a protective ring.
“Can I ask,” I say, “how you’re imagining Lila’s role?”
Ezra meets my eyes again. “We respect her decision to turn herself in. We’d like to include her perspective, of course. But there are legal constraints. Filming inside the detention facility would be complicated. At minimum, we’d use excerpts from her testimony and from that three-way conversation you all released with Quinn.”
“We didn’t release all of it,” Quinn says. She raises one eyebrow.
“Right,” Ezra says. “We’d work with what’s public or with what she consents to. Our current thought is that Nora is our spine. Lila is the gravitational force that moves her.”
I inhale slowly, feel my ribs press against the inside of my shirt.
“So I’m the protagonist,” I say.
“You’re the one whose mind we can access,” Marta offers. “Audiences need a guide. Your arc—from denial to confession to whatever comes next—is where the emotional investment lives.”
“And the dead stunt double?” Quinn asks. Her voice stays level, but the straw in her drink creaks between her fingers. “Where does Rhea live in the emotional investment?”
Dev lifts both hands in a pacifying gesture. “Her story is central. The fund, the hearings, the safety training—”
“The fund makes a great Act Three beat,” Marta adds. “From tragedy to tangible change. It shows that accountability can lead to action, not just punishment.”
“We’re talking impact campaigns,” Dev says. “Partnerships with unions, safety orgs, panels at festivals. Important conversations.”
The phrase lands with a faint chemical sting, like fake smoke in the back of my throat during a staged fire that almost became real.
“This has awards written all over it,” he goes on. “The Academy has been hungry for stories about justice, labor, the messy gray. With the right rollout, this isn’t just content, it’s canon.”
My fingers uncurl from the table edge and curl again.
On one level, I hear the calculation: take the mess of my life, plate it nicely, serve it to tastemakers, hope they tip well. On another, a quieter part of me thrills at the words. Awards. Canon. A version of my story nobody can edit without my participation.
“I have a question,” Quinn says. She finally writes something in her notebook, pen scratching. “If Nora says no, do you still make the film?”
The room stills for half a beat.
“We’d have to re-evaluate,” Ezra says carefully. “There’s a world where we focus on the workers, on Lila’s story, on systemic negligence.”
“But would the streamers finance that without Nora?” Quinn asks. “Without a face they recognize from movie posters and memes?”
Dev gives a small, rueful smile. “Off the record? Probably not. The industry still runs on recognizable brands. Nora’s involvement makes this greenlightable.”
Recognizable brand. I feel my jaw tighten.
The air conditioner kicks louder. I rub my thumb and forefinger together under the table, grounding myself in the smooth ridge of old scar tissue there, a faint reminder of a broken glass award from years ago that cut my hand when I dropped it.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s what I need, if my face is the price of admission.”
Four sets of eyes focus on me. Behind them, the city glows in the glass like a smudged backdrop.
“Number one,” I say. “Lila doesn’t get excerpted. She’s not just testimony and court sketches. If this gets made, she has to be a full partner. Producer credit, pay, creative input. Not just ‘subject.’”
Ezra hesitates. “Given her current legal situation, that may be—”
“Complicated, yes,” I cut in. “Not impossible. You’ve done films in war zones. You can figure out the paperwork for a woman in county lockup.”
Quinn’s mouth twitches. She looks down, hiding it.
“Number two,” I say. “You don’t get to frame this as my emotional comeback story with labor as decoration. If you want me on camera, I want crew safety organizations integrated from day one. Not just talking heads you drop in to look responsible. I want them in the room when you outline, when you cut, when you write your impact campaign.”
Marta leans forward, hands folded. “We absolutely plan to consult with experts—”
“Consulting isn’t the same as ceding power,” I say. “I want them with veto power on anything that turns their dead or injured colleagues into inspirational stock footage.”
The word dead settles heavy between us.
“Number three,” I continue, before anyone can pivot. “Rhea’s partner gets to decide how much of her story is included. Not you. Not me. Not some programmer who wants to balance ‘hard to watch’ with ‘palatable.’ If they say no to a shot, it’s no.”
Dev exhales through his nose. “You’re asking us to give editorial control to the people we’re covering.”
“You’re asking me to hand you the worst thing I’ve ever done and trust you not to turn it into prestige trauma porn,” I say. “So, yes.”
Quinn’s pen has stopped moving. Her hand is just resting on the page now, fingers spread.
Ezra laces his ink-smudged hands together, elbows on the table. “Nora, I respect the impulse. I share it. But if we give final say to advocacy groups and directly involved subjects, we risk creating a film that feels… constrained. Audiences sense when something is committee-approved.”
“This isn’t a focus group,” I say. “This is people whose bodies paid for our suspense.”
“There’s also the question of narrative clarity,” Marta adds. “We can’t have five different stakeholders vetoing structure because it doesn’t fit their ideal framing.”
“Whose framing has history defaulted to?” Quinn asks quietly. “Producers? Managers? Studio lawyers?”
The room goes still again. Outside, a helicopter chops through the sky, the sound faint but insistent, like a heart monitor somewhere down the hall.
I lean back in my chair. The leather creaks.
“Look,” Dev says, tone softening. “We’re not here to exploit you. We’re trying to make something that lives, that gets seen, that opens doors. That takes a kind of storytelling discipline. Your conditions—some of them are doable. Partnering with unions, showing the training program, absolutely. But granting editorial veto to third parties? That undermines the integrity of the work.”
“Of your work,” I say. “Not theirs.”
Ezra pushes his glasses up his nose. “If we foreground the structural angle too much, we risk losing the audience in abstractions. The human entry point is your journey. People need to feel with you to care about the system.”
There it is. The same argument I leaned on for years: sell them my face so they swallow the message. Make the girl in pain pretty and they’ll stay through the credits.
“You want to use my guilt as a delivery system,” I say. “You’ll be kinder about it than the studio was, but it’s the same math.”
Quinn’s eyes flick to me, sharp.
Ezra shakes his head. “I want to be honest about the contradictions. You did real harm. You also tried to repair. You were protected by a system you now critique. That’s compelling, and it might move people.”
“And it might recast me as a victim-hero,” I say. “The brave woman who ‘faced her past’ while the girl I shoved is reduced to an inciting incident and the woman who died stays a plot point.”
The green juice bottle sweats a small ring onto the glass table. A drop slides down and pools at the base, magnifying a tiny circle of the word Organic on the label.
“Here’s the last condition,” I say. “If Lila says no, you don’t make the film. Not centered on me. Not centered on her. Not at all.”
Dev lets out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of control to hand one person.”
“You already admitted my face is the gate key,” I say. “So I’m using that. If she doesn’t want another retelling, I don’t either.”
Ezra studies me for a long beat. His gaze isn’t unkind. It’s calculating in the way a surgeon’s gaze is—measuring what can be cut without killing the patient.
“What if we write these in as guiding principles rather than hard vetoes?” he asks carefully. “We commit to centering workers, to partnering with the fund, to seeking Lila’s involvement in good faith. But we retain final editorial say. That’s standard for any documentarian.”
My heart rate kicks up. I feel it in my throat, in the tips of my fingers. The temptation is right there: compromise a little, trust his reputation, hope he keeps his word. Imagine the headlines they mentioned: Nora Hayes Confronts Her Past in New Doc.
I picture Rhea’s partner at the training program, watching kids learn how to say no, writing, Don’t let it become a PR line and then die.
I breathe in.
The conference room smells like lemon cleaner and something floral—Marta’s perfume, lingering in the conditioned air. It smells like places where people make decisions about other people’s lives without ever touching the consequences.
“I appreciate the pitch,” I say. My voice comes out steady. “And I’m grateful you want to treat the story with care. But if those conditions are impossible, then my answer is no.”
Quinn’s head turns toward me. Her eyes flash, surprise and something like pride mingled with worry.
“Nora,” Ezra says gently. “We can keep talking. This doesn’t have to be decided today.”
“For me it does,” I say. “Every time I let someone reframe this, people get hurt. I’m not interested in being the sympathetic center of another franchise. If you want to make a film about crew safety with workers and Lila in charge, I’ll donate to your budget and stay off camera. If you want me on camera without them in power, I’m not interested.”
The producers exchange a look. A quick one, the kind I’ve used with directors to silently agree: difficult talent.
“That’s your final word?” Dev asks.
I stand. The chair legs scrape softly.
“That’s my first boundary,” I say. “Feels like a good time to practice keeping it.”
I reach for my bag. Quinn grabs her tote, her half-finished iced coffee leaving a ring on the table. No one moves to wipe it.
Ezra rises too. “If we reconsider the structure, can we reach back out?”
“If you have something concrete,” I say. “Written. With Lila’s lawyer copied. And with safety orgs named, not abstracted. Then we can talk.”
I extend my hand. He takes it.
“Whatever you decide,” he says quietly, “you changed more than people admit.”
“That doesn’t belong in my logline,” I say. “It belongs in contracts and rails that don’t collapse.”
Quinn lets out a breath she’s been holding the entire meeting. We walk back down the hallway, past the framed posters, the laurel wreaths blinking under track lights. The assistant leaps up to push the elevator button, bright smile never faltering.
The elevator doors close on the conference room view: the city, the glass, the table ringed with people who will probably figure out a way to pitch this without me.
“You just turned down an Oscar,” Quinn says when we step into the parking garage. The air is warmer here, dusty with exhaust and faintly salty, like old sweat trapped in concrete.
“No,” I say, heading toward my car. “I turned down another edit of the same lie.”
She jogs to keep up. “You’re really okay with that?”
I unlock the car. The metal is hot under my fingers despite the shade. On the far side of the garage, sunlight pours in through a gap, catching on a row of windshields until the whole wall looks like stacked panes of glass.
“No,” I admit. “I’m terrified I just made everything worse.”
We stop by the driver’s side door. Quinn studies my face, then nods once.
“So what now?” she asks. “You won’t give them a movie. You can’t keep doing talk-show versions. How do you keep the story honest without feeding on it?”
The question hangs between us, buzzing like a fluorescent light about to burn out.
My phone buzzes in my bag—another email. I don’t check it. I look past the garage opening, toward the pale line of the eastern horizon where, far away and unseen from here, a river town wakes up under fog and a rusted mill waits for whatever comes next.
“I don’t know yet,” I say. “Maybe the next version doesn’t happen in front of a camera.”
I slide into the car with that uncertainty heavy in my chest, already knowing that whatever I do next with the mill, with Rhea, with Lila, will have to start away from glass walls and green juice—and that the blank space where a documentary could have been might demand a different kind of return.