“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.