“Can you do that later?” I said to her. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m in a rush to get to set.”

She smiled politely and left.

I wasn’t in a rush, really. I just wanted to get dressed, and I wasn’t going to do that in front of Paula. I didn’t want her to see that there was a bruise, dark purple and yellowing, on my ribs.

Don had pushed me down the stairs nine days before. Even as I say it all these years later, I feel the need to defend him. To say that it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. That we were toward the bottom of the stairs, and he gave me a shove that bumped me down about four steps and onto the floor.

Unfortunately, the table by the door, where we kept the keys and the mail, is what caught my fall. I landed on it on my left side, the handle on the top drawer getting me right in the rib cage.

When I said that I thought I might have broken a rib, Don said, “Oh, no, honey. Are you all right?” as if he wasn’t the one who pushed me.

Like an idiot, I said, “I think I’m fine.”

The bruise wasn’t going away quickly.

Paula burst back in through the door a moment later.

“Sorry, Mrs. Adler, I forgot the—”

I panicked. “For heaven’s sake, Paula! I asked you to leave!”

She turned around and walked out. And what pissed me off more than anything was that if she was going to sell a story, why wasn’t it that one? Why didn’t she tell the world that Don Adler was beating his wife? Why, instead, did she come after me?

* * *

TWO HOURS LATER, I was on the set of Little Women. The soundstage had been turned into a New England cabin, complete with snow on the windows.

Ruby and I were united in our fight against Celia St. James stealing the movie from us, despite the fact that anyone who plays Beth leaves the audience reaching for the hankies.

You can’t tell an actress that a rising tide lifts all boats. It doesn’t work that way for us.

But on the first day of rehearsals, as Ruby and I hung out by craft services and drank coffee, it became clear that Celia St. James had absolutely no idea how much we all hated her.

“Oh, God,” she said, coming up to Ruby and me. “I’m so scared.”

She was wearing gray trousers and a pale pink short-sleeved sweater. She had a childlike, girl-next-door kind of face. Big, round, pale blue eyes, long lashes, Cupid’s bow lips, long strawberry-red hair. She was simplicity perfected.

I was the sort of beautiful that women knew they could never truly emulate. Men knew they would never even get close to a woman like me.

Ruby was the elegant, aloof sort of beauty. Ruby was cool. Ruby was chic.

But Celia was the sort of beautiful that felt as if you could hold it in your hands, like if you played your cards right, you might just get to marry a girl like Celia St. James.

Ruby and I both were aware of what kind of power that is, accessibility.

Celia toasted a piece of bread at the craft services table and slathered it with peanut butter and then bit into it.

“What on earth are you scared of?” Ruby said.

“I have no idea what I’m doing!” Celia said.

“Celia, you can’t really expect us to fall for this ‘aw shucks’ routine,” I said.

She looked at me. And the way she did it made me feel as if no one had ever really looked at me before. Not even Don. “That hurts my feelings,” she said.

I felt a little bit bad. But I certainly wasn’t going to let on. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said.

“Yes, you absolutely did,” Celia said. “I think you’re a bit of a cynic.”

Ruby, that fair-weather friend, pretended to hear the AD calling for her and took off.

“I just have a hard time believing a woman the entire town is saying will be nominated next year is doubting her ability to play Beth March. It’s the chewiest, most likable role in the whole thing.”

“If it’s such a sure thing, then why didn’t you take it?” she asked me.

“I’m too old, Celia. But thank you for that.”

Celia smiled, and I realized I’d played right into her hands.

That’s when I started to take a liking to Celia St. James.

LET’S PICK UP HERE TOMORROW,” Evelyn says. The sun set long ago. As I look around, I notice the remains of breakfast, lunch, and dinner scattered across the room.

“OK,” I say.

“By the way,” she adds as I start to pack up. “My publicist got an e-mail today from your editor. Inquiring about a photo shoot for the June cover.”

“Oh,” I say. Frankie has checked in on me a few times now. I know I need to call her back, update her on this situation. I’m just . . . not sure of my next move.

“I take it you haven’t told them the plan,” Evelyn says.

I place my computer in my bag. “Not yet.” I hate the slight tint of sheepishness that comes out when I say it.

“That’s fine,” Evelyn says. “I’m not judging you, if that’s what you’re worried about. God knows I’m no defender of the truth.”

I laugh.

“You’ll do what you need to do,” she says.

“I will,” I say.

I just don’t know what, exactly, that is yet.

* * *

WHEN I GET home, the package from my mother is sitting just inside my building’s door. I pick it up, only to realize that it’s incredibly heavy. I end up pushing it across the tile floor with my foot. I pull it, one step at a time, up the stairs. And then I drag it into my apartment.

When I open the box, it’s filled with some of my father’s photo albums.

The front of each is embossed with “James Grant” in the bottom right-hand corner.

Nothing can stop me from sitting down, right on the floor where I am, and looking through the photos one by one.

On-set still photos of directors, famous actors, bored extras, ADs—you name it, they are all in here. My dad loved his job. He loved taking pictures of people who weren’t paying attention to him.

I remember once, about a year before he died, he took a two-month job in Vancouver. My mom and I went to visit him twice while he was up there, but it was so much colder than L.A., and he was gone for what felt like so long. I asked him why. Why couldn’t he just work at home? Why did he have to take this job?

He told me he wanted to do work that invigorated him. He said, “You have to do that, too, Monique. When you’re older. You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it feel small. OK? You promise me that?” He put out his hand, and I shook it, like we were making a business deal. I was six. By the time I was eight, we’d lost him.

I always kept what he said in my heart. I spent my teenage years with a burning pressure to find a passion, one that would expand my soul in some way. It was no small task. In high school, long after we had said good-bye to my father, I tried theater and orchestra. I tried joining the chorus. I tried soccer and debate. In a moment of what felt like an epiphany, I tried photography, hoping that the thing that expanded my father’s heart might expand my own.

But it wasn’t until I was assigned to write a profile piece on one of my classmates in my composition class freshman year at USC that I felt anything close to a swelling in my chest. I liked writing about real people. I liked finding evocative ways of interpreting the real world. I liked the idea of connecting people by sharing their stories.

Following that part of my heart led me to J school at NYU. Which led to my internship at WNYC. I followed that passion to a life of freelancing for embarrassing blogs, living check to check and hand to mouth, and then, eventually, to the Discourse, where I met David when he was working on the site’s redesign, and then to Vivant and now to Evelyn.

One small thing my dad said to me on a cold day in Vancouver has essentially been the basis of my entire life’s trajectory.

For a brief moment, I wonder if I would have listened to him if he hadn’t died. Would I have clung to his every word so tightly if his advice had felt unlimited?

At the end of the last photo album, I come across candids that don’t appear to be from a movie set. They were taken at a barbecue. I recognize my mom in the background of some of them. And then, at the very end, is one of me with my parents.