I knelt down in front of the fireplace and started poking the ashes. And then I took two logs and laid them perpendicular to each other.
“We need newspaper,” she said when she came back. “And I’ve decided there’s no point in glasses anymore.”
I looked up to see her swigging the wine out of the bottle.
I laughed, grabbed the newspaper off the table, and threw it in. “Even better!” I said, and I ran upstairs and grabbed the copy of Sub Rosa that had called me a cold bitch. I raced back down to show her. “We’ll burn this!”
I threw the magazine into the fireplace and lit a match.
“Do it!” she said. “Burn those jerks.”
The flame curled the pages, held steady for a moment, and then sputtered out. I lit another match and threw it in.
I somehow managed a few embers and then a very small flame as some of the newspaper caught.
“All right,” I said. “I feel confident that this is slowly coming along.”
Celia came over and handed me the bottle of wine. I took it and sipped from it. “You have a little catching up to do,” she said as I tried to give it back to her.
I laughed and put the bottle back up to my lips.
It was expensive wine. I liked drinking it as if it was water, as if it meant nothing to me. Poor girls from Hell’s Kitchen can’t drink this kind of wine and treat it like it’s nothing.
“All right, all right, give it back,” Celia said.
I teasingly held on to it, not letting it out of my grasp.
Her hand was on mine. She pulled with the same force I did. And then I said, “OK, it’s all yours.” But I said it too late, and I let go too soon.
Wine went all over her white shirt.
“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I took the bottle, put it down on the table, took her hand, and pulled her up the stairs. “You can borrow a shirt. I have just the perfect one for you.”
I led her into my bedroom and straight into my closet. I watched as Celia looked around, taking in the surroundings of the bedroom I shared with Don.
“Can I ask you something?” she said. Her voice had an airiness to it, a wistfulness. I thought she might ask me if I believed in ghosts or love at first sight.
“Sure,” I said.
“And you’ll promise to tell the truth?” she asked as she took a seat on the corner of the bed.
“Not particularly,” I said.
Celia laughed.
“But go ahead and ask the question,” I said. “And we’ll see.”
“Do you love him?” she asked.
“Don?”
“Who else?”
I thought about it. I had loved him once. I’d loved him very much. But did I love him anymore? “I don’t know,” I said.
“Is it all for publicity? Are you just in it to be an Adler?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“What, then?”
I walked over and sat down on the bed. “It’s hard to say I do or don’t love him or to say that I’m with him for one reason over another. I love him, and a lot of the time I hate him. And I’m with him because of his name but also because we have fun. We used to have fun a lot, and now we still do sometimes. It’s hard to explain.”
“Does he do it for you?” she said.
“Yes, very much. Sometimes I find myself aching to be with him so much it embarrasses me. I don’t know if a woman is supposed to want a man as much as I find myself wanting Don.”
Don may have taught me that I was capable of loving someone and desiring him. But he also taught me that you could desire someone even when you don’t like him, that you can desire someone especially when you don’t like him. I believe today they call it hate-fucking. But it’s a crude name for something that is a very human, sensual experience.
“Forget I asked,” Celia said, standing up from the bed. I could tell she was bothered.
“Let me get the shirt,” I said, walking toward the dresser.
It was one of my favorite shirts, a lilac button-down blouse with a silvery sheen to it. But it didn’t fit me well. I could barely fasten it around my chest.
Celia was smaller than me, more delicate.
“Here,” I said, handing it to her.
She took it from me and looked at it. “The color is gorgeous.”
“I know,” I said. “I stole it from the set of Father and Daughter. But don’t tell anyone.”
“I hope you know by now that all of your secrets are safe with me,” Celia said as she started unbuttoning it to put it on.
I think for her it was a throwaway line. But it meant a lot to me. Not because she said it, I suppose. But because when she said it, I realized I believed her.
“I do,” I said. “I do know that.”
People think that intimacy is about sex.
But intimacy is about truth.
When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me”—that’s intimacy.
And by those standards, that moment with Celia was the most intimate one I’d ever had with anyone.
It made me so appreciative, so grateful, that I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go.
“I’m not sure it will fit me,” Celia said.
“Try it on. I bet it will, and if it does, it’s yours.”
I wanted to give her a lot of things. I wanted what I had to be hers. I wondered if this was what it felt like to love someone. I already knew what it meant to be in love with someone. I’d felt it, and I’d acted it. But to love someone. To care for them. To throw your lot in with theirs and think, Whatever happens, it’s you and me.
“All right,” Celia said. She threw the shirt on the bed. As she pulled off her own shirt, I found myself looking at the paleness of the skin stretched across her ribs. I gazed at the bright whiteness of her bra. I noticed the way her breasts, instead of being lifted by the bra like mine, appeared as if the bra were there merely for decoration.
I followed the tiny trail of dark brown freckles that ran along the side of her right hip.
“Well, hello,” Don said.
I jumped. Celia gasped and scrambled to put her shirt back on.
Don started laughing. “What on earth is going on in here?” he teased.
I walked over to him and said, “Absolutely nothing.”
PhotoMoment
November 2, 1959
LIFE OF THE PARTY GIRL
Celia St. James is really making a name for herself around town! And it’s not just because she’s proving to be a swell actress. The Georgia Peach knows how to make all the right friends.
The most high-profile of which is everyone’s favorite starlet Evelyn Hugo. Celia and Evelyn have been seen all over town, shopping, chatting, and even finding time for a round or two of ladies’ golf at the Beverly Hills Golf Club.
And to make matters even more perfect, it seems the best friends will be going on plenty of double dates in the near future. Celia has been spotted at the Trocadero with none other than Robert Logan, close friend of Evelyn’s hubby, Don Adler.
A handsome date, glamorous friends, and talk of a statuette in her future—it’s a good time to be Celia St. James!
I DON’T WANT TO DO this,” Celia said.
She was wearing a tailored black dress with a deep-V neckline. It was the kind of dress I could never wear out of the house or I’d be picked up on a prostitution charge. She had on a diamond necklace that Don had persuaded Sunset to loan to her.
Sunset wasn’t in the business of helping freelance actresses, but Celia wanted the diamonds, and I wanted Celia to have anything she wanted. And Don wanted me to have anything I wanted, at least most of the time.
Don had just starred in his second Western, The Righteous, after he had lobbied Ari Sullivan hard for one more crack at bat. This time, however, the reviews were telling a different story. Don
had “manned up.” He was convincing everyone, on his sophomore try, that he was a formidable action star.
Which translated into Don having the number one movie in the country and Ari Sullivan giving Don anything he asked for.
That’s how those diamonds made their way onto Celia’s neck, the large center ruby resting at the top of her breasts.
I was in emerald green again. It was a look that was starting to become my signature. This time, it was off the shoulder and made of peau de soie, with a cinched waist, full skirt, and beading on the neckline. My hair was down in a brushed-under bob.
I looked over at Celia, who was looking in the mirror at my vanity, fiddling with her bouffant.
“You have to do this,” I said.
“I don’t want to. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
I picked up my clutch, made to match my dress. “Not really,” I said.
“You’re not the boss of me, you know,” she said.
“Why are we friends?” I asked her.
“Honestly? I don’t even remember,” she said.
“Because our whole is greater than the sum of our parts.”
“And so what?”
“And so when it comes to what acting roles to take and how to play them, who’s in charge?”
“I am.”
“And now, when it’s the opening of our movie? Who’s in charge then?”
“I suppose you are.”
“You suppose right.”
“I really hate him, Evelyn,” Celia said. She was messing with her makeup.
“Put the rouge down,” I said. “Gwen made you look gorgeous. Don’t mess with perfect.”
“Did you listen to me? I said I hate him.”
“Of course you hate him. He’s a weasel.”
“There’s no one else?”
“Not at this hour.”
“And I can’t go alone?”
“To your own premiere?”
“Why can’t you and I just go together?”
“I’m going with Don. You’re going with Robert.”
Celia frowned and turned back to the mirror. I saw her eyes narrow and her lips purse, as if she was thinking of how mad she was.
I grabbed her bag and handed it to her. It was time to go.
“Celia, would you cut it out? If you’re not willing to do what it takes to get your name in the paper, then why the hell are you here?”
She stood up, ripped the bag out my hand, and walked out the door. I watched her go down my stairs, into my living room with a grand smile, and then run into Robert’s arms as if she thought he was the savior of all mankind.
I walked up to Don. He always cleaned up nicely in his tux. There was no denying that he was going to be the most handsome man there. But I was tiring of him. What’s that saying? Behind every gorgeous woman, there’s a man sick of screwing her? Well, it works both ways. No one mentions that part.
“Shall we go?” Celia said, as if she couldn’t possibly wait to show up to the movie on Robert’s arm. She was a great actress. No one has ever denied that.
“I don’t want to waste a minute more,” I said, looping my arm into Don’s and holding on for dear life. He looked down at my arm and then at me, as if pleasantly surprised by my warmth.
“Let’s see our little women in Little Women, shall we?” Don said. I nearly smacked him across the face. He was owed a smack or two. Or fifteen.
Our cars picked us up and drove us to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
Parts of Hollywood Boulevard had been blocked off for our arrival. The driver pulled up just behind Celia and Robert outside the theater. We were the last in a line of four cars.
When you are one of an ensemble of female stars in a movie and the studio wants to make a big show, they make sure you all show up at the same time, in four separate cars, with four eligible bachelors for dates—except, in my case, the eligible bachelor was my husband.
Our dates stepped out first, each standing by and offering a hand. I waited as I watched Ruby step out, then Joy, then Celia. I waited just a beat longer than the rest of them. And then I stepped out, leg first, onto the red carpet.
“You’re the most beautiful woman here,” Don said into my ear as I stood next to him. But I already knew he thought I was the most gorgeous woman there. I knew, very acutely, that if he did not believe that, he would not have been with me.
Men were almost never with me for my personality.
I’m not suggesting that charming girls should take pity on the pretty ones. I’m just saying it’s not so great being loved for something you didn’t do.
The photographers started calling our names as we all walked in. My head was a jumble of words being thrown in my direction. “Ruby! Joy! Celia! Evelyn!” “Mr. and Mrs. Adler! Over here!”
I could barely hear myself think over the din of cameras snapping and the crowd buzzing. But, as I had long ago trained myself to do, I pretended as if I felt perfectly calm inside, as if being treated like a tiger at the zoo was my most comfortable situation.
Don and I held hands and smiled for every flashing bulb. At the end of the red carpet stood a few men with microphones. Ruby was speaking to one. Joy and Celia were speaking to another. The third put his mic in my face.
He was a short guy with small eyes and a bulbous, gin-blossomed nose. A face made for radio, as they say.
“Miss Hugo, are you excited for this picture to come out?”
I laughed as kindly as I could to disguise what a stupid question he was asking. “I’ve waited my whole life to play Jo March. I’m incredibly excited for tonight.”
“And you seem to have made a good friend during filming,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You and Celia St. James. You seem like you’re great friends.”
“She’s wonderful. And wonderful in the film. Absolutely.”
“She and Robert Logan seem to be getting hot and heavy.”
“Oh, you’d have to ask them about that. I don’t know.”
“But didn’t you set them up?”
Don stepped in. “I think that’s all for questions,” he said.
“Don, when are you and the Mrs. going to start a family?”
“I said it was enough, friend. And it’s enough. Thank you.”
Don pushed me forward.
We got to the doors, and I watched as Ruby and her date, followed by Joy and hers, walked through.
Don opened the door in front of us, waiting for me. Robert held the one on the other side for Celia.
And I got an idea.
I took Celia’s hand and turned us around.
“Wave to the crowd,” I said, smiling. “Like we’re the goddamn queens of England.”
Celia smiled brightly and did exactly as I did. We stood there, in black and green, redhead and blonde, one of us all ass and the other all tits, waving to the crowd as if we ruled them.
Ruby and Joy were nowhere to be seen. And the crowd roared for us.
We turned around and headed into the theater. We made our way to our seats.
“Big moment,” Don said.
“I know.”
“In just a few months, you’ll win for this, and I’ll win for The Righteous. And then the sky’s the limit.”
“Celia is going to be nominated, too,” I whispered into his ear.
“People are going to leave this movie talking about you,” he said. “I have no doubt.”
I looked over to see Robert whispering into Celia’s ear. She was laughing as if he actually had anything funny to say. But it was me who got her those diamonds, me who got her that gorgeous picture of the two of us that would make headlines the next day. Meanwhile, she was acting as if he was about to charm her dress off. All I could think was that he didn’t know about that line of freckles on her hip. I knew about them, and he didn’t.
“She’s really talented, Don.”
“Oh, get over her,” Don said. “I’m sick of hearing her name all the damn time. They
shouldn’t be asking you about her. They should be asking you about us.”
“Don, I—”
He waved me off, determining, before I’d even said anything, that whatever I had to say was useless to him.
The lights dimmed. The crowd quieted. The credits started to roll. And my face appeared on the screen.
The entire audience stared at me on-screen as I said, “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents!”
But by the time Celia said, “We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,” I knew it was all over for me.
Everyone was going to walk out of this theater talking about Celia St. James.
It should have made me afraid or jealous or insecure. I should have been plotting to one-up her in some way by planting a story that she was a prude or sleeping around. That is the fastest way to ruin a woman’s reputation, after all—to imply that she has not adequately threaded the needle that is being sexually satisfying without ever appearing to desire sexual satisfaction.
But instead of spending the next hour and forty-five minutes nursing my wounds, I spent the time holding back a smile.
Celia was going to win an Oscar. It was as plain as the nose on her face. And it didn’t make me jealous. It made me happy.
When Beth died, I cried. And then I reached over Robert’s and Don’s laps and squeezed her hand.
Don rolled his eyes at me.
And I thought, He’s going to find an excuse to hit me later. But it will be for this.
* * *
I WAS STANDING in the middle of Ari Sullivan’s mansion at the top of Benedict Canyon. Don and I had made it up the winding streets without saying much of anything to each other.
I suspected he knew the same thing I did once he saw Celia in that movie. That no one cared about anything else.
After our driver dropped us off and we made our way inside, Don said, “I need to find the john,” and disappeared.
I looked for Celia but couldn’t find her.
Instead, I was surrounded by brown-nosing losers, hoping to rub elbows with me while they drank their sugary cocktails and talked about Eisenhower.
“Would you excuse me?” I said to a woman in a hideous bubble cut. She was waxing on about the Hope Diamond.
Women who collected rare jewels seemed exactly the same as men who were desperate to have just one night with me. The world was about objects to them; all they wanted to do was possess.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Page 11