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Page 19

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

A week later, I pretended I was lost in the executive offices, and I ran into him in the hallway. He was a portly guy, but it was a weight that suited him. He had eyes that were so dark brown it was hard to make out the irises and the kind of five oโ€™clock shadow that was permanent. But he had a pretty smile. And that was what I focused on.

โ€œMrs. Diaz,โ€ he said. I was both surprised and not surprised to find that he had learned my name.

โ€œMr. Sullivan,โ€ I said.

โ€œPlease, call me Ari.โ€

โ€œWell, hello, Ari,โ€ I said, grazing my hand on his arm.

I was seventeen. He was forty-eight.

That night, after his secretary left for the day, I was laid across his desk, with my skirt around my hips and Ariโ€™s face between my legs. It turned out Ari had a fetish for orally pleasing underage girls. After about seven minutes of it, I pretended to erupt in reckless pleasure. I couldnโ€™t tell you whether it was any good. But I was happy to be there, because I knew it was going to get me what I wanted.

If the definition of enjoying s*x means that it is pleasurable, then Iโ€™ve had a lot of s*x that I didnโ€™t enjoy. But if weโ€™re defining it as being happy to have made the trade, then, well, I havenโ€™t had much I hated.

When I left, I saw the row of Oscars that Ari had sitting in his office. I told myself that one day Iโ€™d get one, too.

Love Isnโ€™t All and the Gary DuPont movie Iโ€™d wanted came out within a week of each other. Love Isnโ€™t All tanked. And Penelope Quills, the woman whoโ€™d gotten the part Iโ€™d wanted opposite Gary, got terrible reviews.

I cut out a review of Penelope and sent it by interoffice mail to Harry and Ari, with a note that said, โ€œI would have knocked it out of the park.โ€

The next morning, I had a note from Harry in my trailer: โ€œOK, you win.โ€

Harry called me into his office and told me that he had discussed it with Ari, and they had two potential roles for me.

I could play an Italian heiress as the fourth lead in a war romance. Or I could play Jo in Little Women.

I knew what it would mean, playing Jo. I knew Jo was a white woman. And still, I wanted it. I hadnโ€™t gotten on my back just to take a baby step.

โ€œJo,โ€ I said. โ€œGive me Jo.โ€

And in so doing, I set the star machine in motion.

Harry introduced me to studio stylist Gwendolyn Peters. Gwen bleached my hair and cut it into a shoulder-length bob. She shaped my eyebrows. She plucked my widowโ€™s peak. I met with a nutritionist, who made me lose six pounds exactly, mostly by taking up smoking and replacing some meals with cabbage soup. I met with an elocutionist, who got rid of the New York in my English, who banished Spanish entirely.

And then, of course, there was the three-page questionnaire I had to fill out about my life until then. What did my father do for a living? What did I like to do in my spare time? Did I have any pets?

When I turned in my honest answers, the researcher read it in one sitting and said, โ€œOh, no, no, no. This wonโ€™t do at all. From now on, your mother died in an accident, leaving your father to raise you. He worked as a builder in Manhattan, and on weekends during the summer, heโ€™d take you to Coney Island. If anyone asks, you love tennis and swimming, and you have a Saint Bernard named Roger.โ€

I sat for at least a hundred publicity photos. Me with my new blond hair, my trimmer figure, my whiter teeth. You wouldnโ€™t believe the things they made me model. Smiling at the beach, playing golf, running down the street being tugged by a Saint Bernard that someone borrowed from a set decorator. There were photos of me salting a grapefruit, shooting a bow and arrow, getting on a fake airplane. Donโ€™t even get me started on the holiday photos. It would be a sweltering-hot September day, and Iโ€™d be sitting there in a red velvet dress, next to a fully lit Christmas tree, pretending to open a box that contained a brand-new baby kitten.

The wardrobe people were consistent and militant about how I was dressed, per Harry Cameronโ€™s orders, and that look always included a tight sweater, buttoned up just right.

I wasnโ€™t blessed with an hourglass figure. My ass might as well have been a flat wall. You could hang a picture on it. It was my chest that kept menโ€™s interest. And women admired my face.

To be honest, Iโ€™m not sure when I figured out the exact angle we were all going for. But it was sometime during those weeks of photo shoots that it hit me.

I was being designed to be two opposing things, a complicated image that was hard to dissect but easy to grab on to. I was supposed to be both naive and erotic. It was as if I was too wholesome to understand the unwholesome thoughts you were having about me.

It was bullshit, of course. But it was an easy act to put on. Sometimes I think the difference between an actress and a star is that the star feels comfortable being the very thing the world wants her to be. And I felt comfortable appearing both innocent and suggestive.

When the pictures got developed, Harry Cameron pulled me into his office. I knew what he wanted to talk about. I knew there was one remaining piece that needed to be put into place.

โ€œWhat about Amelia Dawn? That has a nice ring to it, doesnโ€™t it?โ€ he said. The two of us were sitting in his office, him at his desk, me in the chair.

I thought about it. โ€œHow about something with the initials EH?โ€ I asked. I wanted to get something as close to the name my mother gave me, Evelyn Herrera, as I could.

โ€œEllen Hennessey?โ€ He shook his head. โ€œNo, too stuffy.โ€

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