I felt like I was the last person on earth to know what was right in front of me.
“I’m leaving Don,” I said.
Harry nodded, unsurprised. “I’m happy to hear it,” he said. “But I hope you know the full extent of what it means.”
“I know what I’m doing, Harry.” I was wrong. I didn’t know what I was doing.
“Don’s not going to take it sitting down,” Harry said. “That’s all I mean.”
“So I should continue this charade? Allow him to sleep around and hit me when he feels like it?”
“Absolutely not. You know I would never say that.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to be prepared for what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said.
“That’s fine,” Harry said. He opened his car door and got out. He came around to my side and opened my door.
“Come, Ev,” he said kindly. He put his hand out. “It’s been a long night. You need some rest.”
I suddenly felt very tired, as if once he pointed it out, I realized it had been there all along. I followed Harry to his front door.
His living room was sparse but handsome, furnished with wood and leather. The alcoves and doorways were all arched, the walls stark white. Only a single piece of art hung on the wall, a red and blue Rothko above the sofa. It occurred to me then that Harry wasn’t a Hollywood producer for the paycheck. Sure, his house was nice. But there wasn’t anything ostentatious about it, nothing performative. It was merely a place to sleep for him.
Harry was like me. Harry was in it for the glory. He was in it because it kept him busy, kept him important, kept him sharp.
Harry, like me, had gotten into it for the ego.
And we were both fortunate that we’d found our humanity in it, even though it appeared to be somewhat by accident.
The two of us walked up the curved stairs, and Harry set me up in his guest room. The bed had a thin mattress with a heavy wool blanket. I used a bar of soap to wash my makeup off, and Harry gently unzipped the back of my dress for me and gave me a pair of his pajamas to wear.
“I’ll be just next door if you need anything,” he said.
“Thank you. For everything.”
Harry nodded. He turned away and then turned back to me as I was folding down the blanket. “Our interests aren’t aligned, Evelyn,” he said. “Yours and mine. You see that, right?”
I looked at him, trying to determine if I did see it.
“My job is to make the studio money. And if you are doing what the studio wants, then my job is to make you happy. But more than anything, Ari wants to—”
“Make Don happy.”
Harry looked me in the eye. I got the point.
“OK,” I said. “I see it.”
Harry smiled shyly and closed the door behind him.
You’d think I’d have tossed and turned all night, worried about the future, worried about what it meant that I had kissed a woman, worried about whether I should really leave Don.
But that’s what denial is for.
The next morning, Harry drove me back to my house. I was bracing myself for a fight. But when I got there, Don was nowhere to be seen.
I knew that very moment that our marriage was over and that the decision—the one I thought was mine to make—had been made for me.
Don hadn’t been waiting for me, hadn’t been planning to fight for me. Don was off somewhere else, leaving me before I could leave him.
Instead, right on my doorstep, was Celia St. James.
Harry waited in the driveway until I made my way up to her. I turned and waved for him to go.
When he was gone, and my beautiful treelined street was as quiet as you’d expect in Beverly Hills at just past seven in the morning, I took Celia’s hand and led her inside.
“I’m not a . . .” Celia said when I shut the door behind us. “I just . . . there was a girl in high school, my best friend. And she and I—”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said.
“OK,” she said. “I’m just . . . I’m not . . . there’s nothing wrong with me.”
“I know there’s nothing wrong with you.”
She looked at me, looking to understand exactly what I wanted from her, exactly what she should confess.
“Here is what I know,” I said. “I know that I used to love Don.”
“I know that!” she said defensively. “I know you love Don. I’ve always known that.”
“I said I used to love Don. But I don’t think I’ve loved him for some time now.”
“OK.”
“Now the only person I think about is you.”
And with that, I went upstairs and packed my bags.
I HID OUT IN CELIA’S apartment for a week and a half, in purgatory. Celia and I slept, chastely, side by side in her bed every night.
During the day, I stayed in her apartment and read books while she went to work on her new movie for Warner Brothers.
We did not kiss. We occasionally lingered a little too long when our arms brushed, when our hands touched, never locking eyes. But in the middle of the night, after we both had appeared to fall asleep, I would feel her body against my back and I would push myself into her, feeling the warmth of her stomach against me, her chin in the crook of my neck.
Some mornings I would wake up in a pile of her hair and inhale deeply, trying to breathe in as much of her as I could.
I knew that I wanted to kiss her again. I knew that I wanted to touch her. But I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to do or how it was supposed to work. It was easy to think of that one kiss in a dark laundry room as a fluke. It wasn’t even that hard to tell myself that the feelings I had for her were simply platonic.
As long as I only indulged my thoughts about Celia sometimes, then I could tell myself it wasn’t real. Homosexuals were misfits. And while I didn’t think that made them bad people—after all, I loved Harry like a brother—I wasn’t ready to be one of them.
So I told myself that the spark between Celia and me was just a quirk we had. Which was convincing as long as it remained quirky.
Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it.
And that is what happened to me one Saturday morning when Celia was in the shower and I was making eggs.
There was a knock at the door, and when I opened it, I saw the only face I was happy to see on that side of the threshold.
“Hi, Harry,” I said, leaning in to hug him. I was careful not to get my runny spatula on his nice oxford shirt.
“Look at you,” he said. “Cooking!”
“I know,” I said as I moved out of the way and invited him in. “Hell has frozen over, I guess. Would you like some eggs?”
I led him toward the kitchen. He peeked into the pan. “How well have you mastered breakfast?” he asked.
“If you’re asking if your eggs will be burned, the answer is probably.”
Harry smiled and put a large, heavy envelope on the dining room table. The thwap it made as it hit the wood was all the clue I needed to what it contained.
“Let me guess,” I said. “I’m getting a divorce.”
“It would appear you are.”
“On what grounds? I assume his lawyers didn’t check the boxes for adultery or cruelty.”
“Abandonment.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Clever.”
“The grounds don’t matter. You know that.”
“I know.”
“You should read through it, have a lawyer read through it. But there’s essentially one big highlight.”
“Tell me.”
“You get the house and your money and half of his.”
I looked at Harry as if he was trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge. “Why would he do that?”
“Because you are forbidden to talk to anyone at any time about anything that
happened during your marriage.”
“Is he also forbidden?”
Harry shook his head. “Not in writing, no.”
“So I can’t talk, and he can blab all over town? What makes him think I’ll go for that?”
Harry looked down at the table for a moment and then back up at me, sheepish.
“Sunset’s dropping me, aren’t they?”
“Don wants you out of the studio. Ari’s planning to loan you out to MGM and Columbia.”
“And then what?”
“And then you’re on your own.”
“Well, that’s fine. I can do that. Celia’s freelance. I’ll get an agent, like her.”
“You can,” Harry said. “And I think you should try, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Don wants Ari to blackball you from getting an Oscar nod, and Ari’s agreeing to it. I think he’s gonna loan you out and purposefully put you in flops.”
“He can’t do that.”
“He can. And he will, because Don’s the goose that laid the golden egg. The studios are all hurting. People aren’t going to the movies as much; they are waiting for the next episode of Gunsmoke. Sunset’s been in decline from the minute we were forced to sell off our theaters. We’re staying afloat because of stars like Don.”
“And stars like me.”
Harry nodded. “But—and I’m sorry to say it, but I think it’s important that you see the big picture—Don’s worth a lot more asses in the seats than you are.”
I felt about two inches tall. “That hurts.”
“I know,” Harry said. “And I’m sorry.”
The water in the bathroom turned off, and I heard Celia step out of the shower. There was a breeze coming in from the window. I wanted to shut it, but I didn’t move. “So that’s it. If Don doesn’t want me, no one does.”
“If Don doesn’t want you, he doesn’t want anyone else to have you. I realize it’s a subtle difference, but . . .”
“But it is vaguely reassuring.”
“Good.”
“So that’s his play? Don ruins my life and buys my silence with a house and less than a million dollars?”
“That’s a lot of money,” Harry said, as if it mattered, as if it helped.
“You know I don’t care about money,” I said. “At least, not primarily.”
“I know.”
Celia came out of the bathroom in a robe, her hair wet and straight. “Oh, hi, Harry,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“No need to hurry on my account,” he said. “I was just leaving.”
Celia smiled and walked into the bedroom.
“Thank you for bringing it,” I said.
Harry nodded.
“I did it once, I can do it again,” I said to him as we walked to the door. “I can build the whole thing back up from scratch.”
“I have never doubted that you could do a single thing you put your mind to.” Harry put his hand on the doorknob, ready to go. “I’d like it if . . . I hope that we can still be friends, Evelyn. That we can still—”
“Oh, shut up,” I said. “We’re best friends. Who may or may not tell each other everything. That doesn’t change. You still love me, right? Even though I’m about to be on the outs?”
“I do.”
“And I still love you. So that’s the end of it.”
Harry smiled, relieved. “OK,” he said. “It’s me and you.”
“Me and you, true blue.”
Harry walked out of the apartment, and I watched him go down the street and get into his car. Then I turned around and rested my back against the door.
I was going to lose everything I had built my life on.
Everything except the money.
I still had the money.
And that was something.
And then I realized there was something else waiting for me, something I wanted that I was free to have.
It was there, with my back against the door of her apartment, on the brink of my divorce from the most popular man in Hollywood, that I realized that lying to myself about what I wanted took far more energy than I had.
So instead of wondering what it meant and what it made me, I stood up and walked into Celia’s room.
She was in her robe still, drying her hair in front of her vanity.
I walked up to her and looked into her gorgeous blue eyes, and I said, “I think that I love you.”
And then I took the tie of her robe and pulled it open.
I did it slowly. I did it so slowly that she could have stopped me a million times before it broke free. But she didn’t.
Instead, she sat up straighter, looked at me more boldly, and put her hand on my waist as I did it.
The sides of the robe broke free of each other the moment the tension slacked, and then there she was, naked and sitting in front of me.
Her skin was creamy and pale. Her breasts were fuller than I’d anticipated, her nipples pink. Her flat stomach rounded just the littlest bit underneath her belly button.
And when my eyes moved down to her legs, she parted them just the littlest bit.
Instinctively, I kissed her. I put my hands on her breasts, touching them the way I wanted to and then the way I liked my own to be touched.
When she moaned, I throbbed.
She kissed my neck and the top of my chest.
She pulled my shirt off over the top of my head.
She looked at me, my breasts exposed.
“You’re gorgeous,” she said. “Even more gorgeous than I imagined.”
I blushed and put my head in my hands, embarrassed by how out of control I felt, how out of my league it all was.
She took my hands off my face and looked at me.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said.
“It’s OK,” she said. “I do.”
That night, Celia and I slept nude, holding each other. We no longer pretended to touch by accident. And when I woke up in the morning with her hair in my face, I inhaled, loudly and proudly.
Within those four walls, we were unashamed.
Sub Rosa
December 30, 1959
ADLER AND HUGO KAPUT!
Don Adler, Hollywood’s Most Eligible Bachelor?
Don and Evelyn are calling it quits! After two years of marriage, Don has filed for divorce from Evelyn Hugo.
We are sad to see the lovebirds part ways, but we’d be lying if we said we were surprised. We’ve heard rumblings that Don’s star is set to rise even higher, and Evelyn was getting jealous and catty.
Luckily for Don, he’s renewed his contract with Sunset Studios—which must have head honcho Ari Sullivan smiling wide—and has three films slated for release this year. That Don never misses a beat!
Meanwhile, while Evelyn’s newest movie, Little Women, showed boffo B.O. numbers and great critical reception, Sunset has pulled her out of the upcoming Jokers Wild and replaced her with Ruby Reilly.
Has the sun set on Evelyn’s time with Sunset?
HOW DID YOU REMAIN SO confident? So steadfast in your resolve?” I ask Evelyn.
“When Don left me? Or when my career went down the tubes?”
“Both, I guess,” I say. “I mean, you had Celia, so it’s a little different, but still.”
Evelyn cocks her head slightly. “Different from what?”
“Hm?” I say, lost in my own thoughts.
“You said I had Celia, so it was a little different,” Evelyn clarifies. “Different from what?”
“Sorry,” I say. “I was . . . in my own head.” I have momentarily let my own relationship problems seep into what should be a one-way conversation.
Evelyn shakes her head. “No need to be sorry. Just tell me different from what.”
I look at her and realize that I’ve opened a door that can’t really be shut. “From my own impending divorce.”
Evelyn smiles, almost like the Cheshire Cat. “Now things are getting interesting,” she says.
It b
others me, her cavalier attitude toward my own vulnerability. It’s my fault for bringing it up. I know that. But she could treat it with more kindness. I’ve exposed myself. I’ve exposed a wound.
“Have you signed the papers?” Evelyn asks. “Perhaps with a tiny heart above the i in Monique? That’s what I would do.”
“I guess I don’t take divorce as lightly as you,” I say. It comes out flatly. I consider softening, but . . . I don’t.
“No, of course not,” Evelyn says kindly. “If you did, at your age, you’d be a cynic.”
“But at your age?” I ask.
“With my experience? A realist.”
“That, in and of itself, is awfully cynical, don’t you think? Divorce is loss.”
Evelyn shakes her head. “Heartbreak is loss. Divorce is a piece of paper.”
I look down to see that I have been doodling a cube over and over with my blue pen. It is starting to tear through the page. I neither pick up my pen nor push harder. I merely keep running the ink over the lines of the cube.
“If you are heartbroken right now, then I feel for you deeply,” Evelyn says. “That I have the utmost respect for. That’s the sort of thing that can split a person in two. But I wasn’t heartbroken when Don left me. I simply felt like my marriage had failed. And those are very different things.”
When Evelyn says this, I stop my pen in place. I look up at her. And I wonder why I needed Evelyn to tell me that.
I wonder why that sort of distinction has never crossed my mind before.
* * *
ON MY WALK to the subway this evening, I see that Frankie has called me for the second time today.
I wait until I’ve ridden all the way to Brooklyn and I’m heading down the street toward my apartment to respond. It’s almost nine o’clock, so I decide to text her: Just getting out of Evelyn’s now. Sorry it’s so late. Want to talk tomorrow?
I have my key in my front door when I get Frankie’s response: Tonight is fine. Call as soon as you can.
I roll my eyes. I should never bluff Frankie.
I put my bag down. I pace around the apartment. What am I going to tell her? The way I see it, I have two choices.
I can lie and tell her everything’s going fine, that we’re on track for the June issue and that I’m getting Evelyn to talk about more concrete things.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Page 13