The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Page 47)

Meanwhile, Evelyn must have used that time to warm up to Max Girard, her director on All for Us. The two have announced plans to marry. Only time will tell if Max is the lucky ticket to happiness for Evelyn. But what we do know is that he will be husband number six.

MAX AND I GOT MARRIED in Joshua Tree, with Connor, Harry, and Max’s brother, Luc. Max had originally suggested Saint-Tropez or Barcelona for our wedding and honeymoon. But both of us had just finished movies shooting in Los Angeles, and I thought it sounded nice, just a small group of us in the desert.

I dispensed with white, having long ago stopped feigning innocence. Instead, I wore an ocean-blue maxi dress, my blond hair feathered ever so slightly. I was forty-four.

Connor wore a flower in her hair. Harry stood next to her in dress pants and a button-down.

Max, my groom, wore white linen. We joked that it was his first wedding, so he should be the one to wear white.

That evening, Harry and Connor flew back to New York. Luc flew back to his home in Lyon. Max and I stayed in a cabin, a rare night alone.

We made love on the bed, on the desk, and, in the middle of the night, on the porch underneath the stars.

In the morning, we ate grapefruit and played cards. We flipped channels on the television. We laughed. We talked about movies we loved, movies we’d shot, movies we wanted to make.

Max said he had an idea for an action movie starring me. I told him I wasn’t sure I was fit to be an action hero.

“I’m in my forties, Max,” I said. We were walking in the desert, the sun beating down on us. I had forgotten the water in the cabin.

“You are ageless,” he said to me, kicking up sand as we went. “You can do anything. You are Evelyn Hugo.”

“I’m Evelyn,” I told him. I stopped in place. I grabbed his hand. “You don’t always need to call me Evelyn Hugo.”

“But that is who you are,” he said. “You are the Evelyn Hugo. You are extraordinary.”

I smiled and kissed him. I was so relieved to feel loved, to feel love. I was so exhilarated by wanting to be with someone again. I thought Celia would never come back to me. But Max, he was right there. He was mine.

When we got back to the cabin, the two of us were sunburned and parched. I made us peanut butter and jelly for dinner, and we sat in bed and watched the news. It felt so peaceful. Nothing to prove, nothing to hide.

We went to sleep with Max cradling me. I could feel his heartbeat against my back.

But the next morning, when I woke up and my hair was out of place and my breath smelled, I looked over at him, expecting to see a smile on his face. Instead, he looked stoic, as if he had been staring at the ceiling for hours.

“What’s on your mind?” I said.

“Nothing.”

His chest hair was graying. I thought it made him look regal.

“What is it?” I said. “You can tell me.”

He turned and looked at me. I fixed my hair, feeling somewhat embarrassed at how unkempt I looked. He looked back up at the ceiling.

“This is not how I imagined it.”

“What did you imagine?”

“You,” he said. “I imagined the glory of a life with you.”

“And now you don’t?”

“No, that’s not it,” he said, shaking his head. “Can I be honest? I think I hate the desert. There is too much sun and no good food, and why are we here? We are city people, my love. We should go home.”

I laughed, relieved that it wasn’t anything more. “We still have three days here,” I said.

“Yes, yes, I know, ma belle, but please, let us go home.”

“Early?”

“We can get a room at the Waldorf for a few days. Instead of here.”

“OK,” I said. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” he said. And then he got up and took a shower.

Later on, at the airport as we waited to board, Max went to buy something to read on the flight. He came back with People magazine and showed me the write-up of our wedding.

They called me a “daring sexpot” and Max my “white knight.”

“Pretty cool, no?” he said. “We look like royalty. You look so beautiful in this picture. But of course you do. That’s who you are.”

I smiled, but all I could think about was Rita Hayworth’s famous line. Men go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me.

“I think maybe I will lose a few pounds,” he said, patting his belly. “I want to be handsome for you.”

“You are handsome,” I said. “You’ve always been handsome.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Look at this photo they have of me. I look like I have three chins.”

“It’s just a bad picture. You look marvelous in person. I wouldn’t change a single thing about you, really.”

But Max wasn’t listening. “I think I will stop eating fried foods. I have gotten too American, don’t you think? I want to be handsome for you.”

But he didn’t mean handsome for me. He meant handsome for the pictures he’d be taking with me.

My heart tore just a little as we boarded the plane. It split further and further as I watched him read the magazine during the flight.

Just before we landed, a man flying in coach came up to first class to use the bathroom and did a double take when he saw me. When he was gone, Max turned to me, smiling, and said, “Do you think all these people are going to go home and tell everyone they were on a flight with Evelyn Hugo?”

The moment he was done saying it, my heart had completely torn in half.

* * *

IT TOOK ME about four months to realize that Max had no intention of even trying to love me, that he was only capable of loving the idea of me. And then, after that, it seems so silly to say it, but I didn’t want to leave him, because I didn’t want to get divorced.

I’d only married a man I loved once before. This was only the second time in my life I had gone into a marriage believing it could last. And after all, I hadn’t left Don. Don had left me.

With Max, I thought that something might change, something might click, something might make him see me as I truly was and love me for it. I thought maybe I could love the real him enough that he’d start loving the real me.

I thought I could finally have a meaningful marriage with someone.

But that never happened.

Instead, Max paraded me around town like the trophy I was. Everyone wanted Evelyn Hugo, and Evelyn Hugo wanted him.

That girl in Boute-en-Train mesmerized everybody. Even the man who created her. And I didn’t know how to tell him that I loved her, too. But I wasn’t her.

IN 1988, CELIA TOOK THE role of Lady Macbeth in a film adaptation. She could have submitted herself for Best Actress. There was no other woman with a bigger part in the movie than her. But she must have submitted herself for Best Supporting, because when the ballot came out, that was what she was nominated for. The moment I saw it, I knew it had been her call. She was just that smart.

Naturally, I voted for her.

When she won, I was in New York with Connor and Harry. Max had gone to the awards that year alone. It was a fight between the two of us. He wanted me with him, but I wanted to spend the evening with my family, not in a control slip and six-inch heels.

Also, if I’m being entirely frank, I was fifty years old. There was an entire new generation of actresses to compete with. They were all gorgeous, with smooth skin and shiny hair. When you are known for being gorgeous, you cannot imagine suffering a fate worse than standing next to someone and falling short.

It did not matter how beautiful I used to be. The clock was ticking, and everyone could see it.

My roles were starting to dry up. The parts I was being offered were the mothers of the great roles being offered to women literally half my age. Life in Hollywood is a bell curve, and I had prolonged my time at the top for as long as possible. I’d lasted longer than most. But I had come around the corner now. And they were all but putting me out to pasture.

So no, I did not want to go to the Academy Awards. Instead of flying to L.A. and spending the day in a makeup chair and then sucking in and standing up straight in front of hundreds of cameras and millions of eyes, I spent the day with my daughter.

Luisa was on vacation, and we had not found someone we liked to step in for her, so Connor and I spent the day making a game out of cleaning the house. We made dinner together. Afterward, we popped some popcorn and sat down with Harry to watch as Celia won.

Celia was wearing a yellow silk dress with a ruffled edge. Her red hair, now shorter, was pulled back in a chignon. She was older, certainly, but never more breathtaking. When they called her name, she got up on the stage and accepted her award with the grace and sincerity that audiences had always known her for. And just as she was about to leave the microphone, she said, “And to anyone tempted to kiss the TV tonight, please don’t chip your tooth.”

“Mom, why are you crying?” Connor asked.

I put my hand to my face and realized that I had teared up.

Harry smiled at me and rubbed my back. “You should call her,” he said. “It’s never a bad idea to bury hatchets.”

Instead, I wrote a letter.

My Dearest Celia,

Congratulations! You absolutely deserve it. There is no doubt you are the most talented actress of our generation.

I wish for nothing more than your complete and total happiness. I did not kiss the TV this time, but I did cheer just as loudly as I did the other times.

All my love,

Edward

Evelyn

I sent it with the peace of sending off a message in a bottle. Which is to say that I expected no response. But a week later, there it was. A small, square, cream-colored envelope addressed to me.

My Dearest Evelyn,

Reading your letter felt like gasping for air after being trapped under water. I hope you will forgive me for being so blunt, but how did we make such a mess of it all? And what does it mean that we have not spoken in a decade but I still hear your voice in my head every day?

XO,

Celia

My Dearest Celia,

I own all of our missteps. I was selfish and shortsighted. I can only hope that you have found bliss somewhere else. You deserve so much happiness. And I am sorry I could not give that to you.

Love,