As we were coming off the San Diego Freeway, I asked Harry the question that had been running through my mind for days.
“Do you think I’m a whore?”
Harry pulled over to the side of the road and turned to me. “I think you’re brilliant. I think you’re tough. And I think the word whore is something ignorant people throw around when they have nothing else.”
I listened to him and then turned my head to look out my window.
“Isn’t it awfully convenient,” Harry added, “that when men make the rules, the one thing that’s looked down on the most is the one thing that would bear them the greatest threat? Imagine if every single woman on the planet wanted something in exchange when she gave up her body. You’d all be ruling the place. An armed populace. Only men like me would stand a chance against you. And that’s the last thing those assholes want, a world run by people like you and me.”
I laughed, my eyes still puffy and tired from crying. “So am I a whore or not?”
“Who knows?” he said. “We’re all whores, really, in some way or another. At least in Hollywood. Look, there’s a reason she’s Celia Saint James. She’s been playing that good-girl routine for years. The rest of us aren’t so pure. But I like you this way. I like you impure and scrappy and formidable. I like the Evelyn Hugo who sees the world for what it is and then goes out there and wrestles what she wants out of it. So, you know, put whatever label you want on it, just don’t change. That would be the real tragedy.”
When we got to my house, Harry tucked me into bed and then went downstairs and made me dinner.
That night, he slept in the bed next to me, and when I woke up, he was opening the blinds.
“Rise and shine, little bird,” he said.
I did not speak to Celia for five years after that. She did not call. She did not write. And I could not bring myself to reach out to her.
I knew how she was doing only from what people said in the papers and what sort of gossip was running around town. But that first morning, as the sunlight shone on my face and I still felt exhausted from the trip to Mexico, I was actually OK.
Because I had Harry. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like I had family.
You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”
So I fell down.
And Harry caught me.
YOU AND CELIA DIDN’T HAVE any contact at all?” I ask.
Evelyn shakes her head. She stands up and walks over to the window and opens it a crack. The breeze that streams in is welcome. When she sits back down, she looks at me, ready to move on to something else. But I’m too baffled.
“How long were the two of you together by that point?”
“Three years?” Evelyn says. “Just about.”
“And she just left? Without another word?”
Evelyn nods.
“Did you try to call her?”
She shakes her head. “I was . . . I didn’t yet know that it is OK to grovel for something you really want. I thought that if she didn’t want me, if she didn’t understand why I did what I did, then I didn’t need her.”
“And you were OK?”
“No, I was miserable. I was hung up on her for years. I mean, sure, I spent my time having fun. Don’t get me wrong. But Celia was nowhere in sight. In fact, I would read copies of Sub Rosa because Celia’s picture was in them, analyzing the other people with her in the photos, wondering who they were to her, how she knew them. I know now that she was just as heartbroken as I was. That somewhere in her head, she was waiting for me to call her and apologize. But at the time, I just ached all alone.”
“Do you regret that you didn’t call her?” I ask her. “That you lost that time?”
Evelyn looks at me as if I am stupid. “She’s gone now,” Evelyn says. “The love of my life is gone, and I can’t just call her and say I’m sorry and have her come back. She’s gone forever. So yes, Monique, that is something I do regret. I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly. But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them. Back then, I still thought I had all the time I needed to do everything I wanted. That if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.”
“You thought she’d come back to you,” I say.
“I knew she’d come back to me,” Evelyn says. “And she knew it, too. We both knew our time wasn’t over.”
I hear the distinct sound of my phone. But it isn’t the familiar tone of a regular text message. It is the beep I set just for David, last year when I got the phone, just after we were married, when it never occurred to me that he’d ever stop texting.
I look down briefly to see his name. And beneath it: I think we should talk. This is too huge, M. It’s happening too fast. We have to talk about it. I put it out of my mind instantly.
“So you knew she was coming back to you, but you married Rex North anyway?” I ask, refocused.
Evelyn lowers her head for a moment, preparing to explain herself. “Anna Karenina was way over budget. We were weeks behind schedule. Rex was Count Vronsky. By the time the director’s cut came in, we knew the entire thing had to be reedited, and we needed to bring someone else in to save it.”
“And you had a stake in the box office.”
“Both Harry and I did. It was his first movie after leaving Sunset Studios. If it flopped, he would have a hard time getting another meeting in town.”
“And you? What would have happened to you if it flopped?”
“If my first project after Boute-en-Train didn’t do well, I was worried I’d be a flash in the pan. I’d risen from ashes more than once by that point. But I didn’t want to have to do it again. So I did the one thing I knew would get people desperate to see the movie. I married Count Vronsky.”
Clever Rex North
THERE IS A CERTAIN FREEDOM in marrying a man when you aren’t hiding anything.
Celia was gone. I wasn’t really at a place in my life where I could fall in love with anyone, and Rex wasn’t the type of man who seemed capable of falling in love at all. Maybe, if we’d met at different times in our lives, we might have hit it off. But with things as they were, Rex and I had a relationship built entirely on box office.
It was tacky and fake and manipulative.
But it was the beginning of my millions.
It was also how I got Celia to come back to me.
And it was one of the most honest deals I’ve ever made with anybody.
I think I will always love Rex North a little bit because of all that.
* * *
“SO YOU’RE NEVER going to sleep with me?” Rex said.
He was sitting in my living room with one leg casually crossed over the other, drinking a manhattan. He was wearing a black suit with a thin tie. His blond hair was slicked back. It made his blue eyes look even brighter, with nothing in their way.
Rex was the kind of guy who was so beautiful it was nearly boring. And then he smiled, and you watched every girl in the room faint. Perfect teeth, two shallow dimples, a slight arch of the eyebrow, and everybody was done for.
Like me, he’d been made by the studios. Born Karl Olvirsson in Iceland, he hightailed it to Hollywood, changed his name, perfected his accent, and slept with everybody he needed t
o sleep with to get what he wanted. He was a matinee idol with a chip on his shoulder about proving he could act. But he actually could act. He felt underestimated because he was underestimated. Anna Karenina was his chance to be taken seriously. He needed it to be a big hit just as much as I did. Which was why he was willing to do exactly what I was willing to do. A marriage stunt.
Rex was pragmatic and never precious. He saw ten steps ahead but never let on what he was thinking. We were kindred spirits in that regard.
I sat down next to him on my living room sofa, my arm resting behind him. “I can’t say for sure I’d never sleep with you,” I said. It was the truth. “You’re handsome. I could see myself falling for your shtick once or twice.”
Rex laughed. He always had a detached sense about him, like you could do whatever you wanted and you wouldn’t get under his skin. He was untouchable in that way.
“I mean, can you say for certain that you’d never fall in love with me?” I asked. “What if you end up wanting to make this a real marriage? That would be uncomfortable for everyone.”
“You know, if any woman could do it, it would make sense that it was Evelyn Hugo. I suppose there’s always a chance.”
“That’s how I feel about sleeping with you,” I said. “There’s always a chance.” I grabbed my gibson off the coffee table and drank a sip.
Rex laughed. “Tell me, then, where will we live?”
“Good question.”
“My house is in the Bird Streets, with floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s a pain in the ass to get out of the driveway. But you can see the whole canyon from my pool.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I don’t mind moving to your place for a little while. I’m shooting another movie in a month or so over at Columbia, so your place will be closer anyway. The only thing I insist on is that I can bring Luisa.”
After Celia left, I could hire help again. After all, there was no longer anyone hiding in my bedroom. Luisa was from El Salvador, just a few years younger than I was. The first day she came to work for me, she was talking to her mother on the phone during her lunch break. She was speaking in Spanish, right in front of me. “La señora es tan bonita, pero loca.” (“This lady is beautiful but crazy.”)
I turned and looked at her, and I said, “Disculpe? Yo te puedo entender.” (“Excuse me? I can understand you.”)
Luisa’s eyes went wide, and she hung up the phone on her mother and said to me, “Lo siento. No sabía que usted hablaba Español.” (“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”)
I switched to English, not wanting to speak Spanish anymore, not liking how strange it sounded coming out of my own mouth. “I’m Cuban,” I said to her. “I’ve spoken Spanish my entire life.” That wasn’t true, though. I hadn’t spoken it in years.
She looked at me as if I were a painting she was interpreting, and then she said, apologetically, “You do not look Cuban.”
“Pues, lo soy,” I said haughtily. (“Well, I am.”)
Luisa nodded and packed up her lunch, moving on to change the bed linens. I sat at that table for at least a half hour, reeling. I kept thinking, How dare she try to take my own identity away from me?
But as I looked around my house, seeing no pictures of my family, not a single Latin-American book, stray blond hairs in my hairbrush, not even a jar of cumin in my spice rack, I realized Luisa hadn’t done that to me. I had done it to me. I’d made the choice to be different from my true self.
Fidel Castro had control of Cuba. Eisenhower had already put the economic embargo in place by that point. The Bay of Pigs had been a disaster. Being a Cuban-American was complicated. And instead of trying to make my way in the world as a Cuban woman, I simply forsook where I came from. In some ways, this helped me release any remaining ties connecting me to my father. But it also pulled me further away from my mother. My mother, whom this had all been for at some point.
That was all me. All the results of my own choices. None of that was Luisa’s fault. So I realized I had no right to sit at my own kitchen table blaming her.
When she left that night, I could tell she still felt uncomfortable around me. So I made sure to smile sincerely and tell her I was excited to see her the next day.
From that day forward, I never spoke Spanish to her. I was too embarrassed, too insecure of my disloyalty. But she spoke it from time to time, and I smiled when she made jokes to her mother within earshot. I let her know I understood her. And I quickly grew to care for her very much. I envied how secure she was in her own skin. How unafraid she was to be her true self. She was proud to be Luisa Jimenez.
She was the first employee I ever had whom I cherished. I was not going to move house without her.
“I’m sure she’s great,” Rex said. “Bring her. Now, practically speaking, do we sleep in the same bed?”
“I doubt it’s necessary. Luisa will be discreet. I’ve learned that lesson before. And we’ll just throw parties a few times a year and make it look like we live in the same room.”
“And I can still . . . do what I do?”
“You can still sleep with every woman on the planet, yes.”
“Every woman except my wife,” Rex said, smiling and taking another sip of his drink.
“You just can’t get caught.”
Rex waved me off, as if my worry wasn’t a concern.
“I’m serious, Rex. Cheating on me is a big story. I can’t have that.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Rex said. He was more sincere about that than anything else I’d asked of him, maybe more than any scene in Anna Karenina. “I would never do anything to make you look foolish. We’re in this together.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot. That goes for me, too. What I do won’t be your problem. I promise you.”
Rex put out his hand, and I shook it.
“Well, I should be going,” he said, checking his watch. “I have a date with a particularly eager young lady, and I’d hate to keep her waiting.” He buttoned his coat as I stood up. “When should we tie the knot?” he asked.
“I think we should probably be seen around town a few times this coming week. And keep it going for a little while. Maybe put a ring on my finger around November. Harry suggested the big day could be about two weeks before the film hits theaters.”
“Shock everybody.”
“And get them talking about the movie.”
“The fact that I’m Vronsky and you’re Anna . . .”
“Makes the whole thing seem tawdry when our marriage will make it seem legitimate.”
“It’s both dirty and clean,” Rex said.
“Exactly.”
“That’s your bread and butter,” he said.
“Yours too.”
“Nonsense,” Rex said. “I am dirty. Through and through.”
I walked with him to the front door and hugged him good-bye. As he stood in the open doorway, he asked, “Have you seen the latest edit? Is it good?”
“It’s fantastic,” I said. “But it’s almost three hours long. If we’re going to get people to buy a ticket . . .”
“We have to put on a show,” he said.
“Precisely.”
“But we’re good in it? Me and you?”
“We’re absolutely dynamite.”
PhotoMoment
November 26, 1962
EVELYN HUGO AND REX NORTH HITCHED!
Evelyn Hugo’s at it again. And this time, we think she’s outdone herself. Evelyn and Rex North tied the knot last weekend at North’s estate in the Hollywood Hills.
The two met during the filming of the upcoming Anna Karenina and are said to have fallen in love instantly, smitten with each other even during rehearsals. These two blond lovers are sure to heat up theaters in the coming weeks as Anna and Count Vronsky.
This is the first marriage for Rex, although Evelyn has a couple of failed marriages behind her. This year, her famous ex Don Adler is separating from Hat Trick star Ruby Reilly.
W
ith a brand-new movie, a star-studded wedding, and two mansions between them, surely Evelyn and Rex are having the time of their lives.
PhotoMoment
December 10, 1962
CELIA ST. JAMES ENGAGED TO QUARTERBACK JOHN BRAVERMAN
Superstar Celia St. James has been on a hot streak lately in the film department, with her period drama Royal Wedding and her stunning turn in the musical Celebration.
And now she has even more to celebrate. Because she’s found love with New York Giants QB John Braverman.
The two have been spotted in Los Angeles and Manhattan, dining out and enjoying each other’s company.
Here’s hoping Celia turns out to be a good-luck charm for Braverman. That big diamond on her finger has sure got to feel like a good-luck charm for her!
Hollywood Digest
December 17, 1962
ANNA KARENINA WINS BIG AT THE BOX OFFICE
The eagerly awaited Anna Karenina sailed into theaters this Friday and took the weekend.
With rave reviews for both Evelyn Hugo and Rex North, it’s no wonder audiences are flocking to the film. Between the world-class performances and the chemistry both on- and off-screen, excitement for the movie has reached a fever pitch.
People are saying a pair of Oscars might be just the perfect wedding gift for the newlyweds.
As a producer on the film, Evelyn stands to make boffo numbers off the box office.
Brava, Hugo!
THE NIGHT OF THE ACADEMY Awards, Rex and I sat next to each other, holding hands, allowing everyone a glimpse of the romantic marriage we were peddling around town.
We both smiled politely when we lost, clapping for the winners. I was disappointed but not surprised. It seemed a little too good to be true, the idea of Oscars for people like Rex and me, beautiful movie stars trying to prove they had substance. I got the distinct impression that a lot of people wanted us to stay in our lane. So we took it in stride and then partied the night away, the two of us drinking and dancing until the wee hours.
