The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo(54)

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I would.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” she asked just as the waiter put her steak down in front of her and my salad in front of me. “I mean absolutely sure?”

“Yes.”

Celia was quiet for a moment. She stared down at her plate. She seemed to be considering everything about this moment, and the longer she took to speak, the farther I found myself bending forward, trying to get closer to her.

“I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” she said finally. “I probably won’t make it much past sixty.”

I stared at her. “You’re lying,” I said.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. That can’t be true.”

“It is true.”

“No, it’s not,” I said.

“It is,” she said. She picked up her fork. She sipped the water in front of her.

My mind was reeling, thoughts bouncing around my brain, my heart spinning in my chest.

And then Celia spoke again, and the only reason I was able to focus on her words was that I knew they were important. I knew they mattered. “I think you should do your movie,” she said. “Finish strong. And then . . . and then, after that, I think we should move to the coast of Spain.”

“What?”

“I have always liked the idea of spending the last years of my life on a beautiful beach. With the love of a good woman,” she said.

“You’re . . . you’re dying?”

“I can look into some locations in Spain while you’re shooting. I’ll find a place where Connor can get a great education. I’ll sell my home here. I’ll get a compound somewhere, with enough space for Harry, too. And Robert.”

“Your brother Robert?”

Celia nodded. “He moved out here for business a few years ago. We’ve become close. He . . . he knows who I am. He supports me.”

“What is chronic obstructive—?”

“Emphysema, more or less,” she said. “From smoking. Do you still smoke? You should stop. Right now.”

I shook my head, having long ago given it up.

“They have treatments to slow down the process. I can live a normal life for the most part, for a while.”

“And then what?”

“And then, eventually, it will become difficult to be active, hard to breathe. When that happens, I won’t have much time. All told, we’re looking at ten years, give or take, if I’m lucky.”

“Ten years? You’re only forty-nine.”

“I know.”

I started crying. I couldn’t help it.

“You’re making a scene,” she said. “You have to stop.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“OK,” she said. “OK.”

She picked up her purse and threw down a hundred-dollar bill. She pulled me out of my chair, and we walked to the valet. She gave him her ticket. She put me in the front seat of the car. She drove me to her house. She sat me on the sofa.

“Can you handle this?” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked her. “Of course I can’t handle it.”

“If you can handle this,” she said, “then we can do this. We can be together. I think we can . . . we can spend the rest of our lives together, Evelyn. If you can handle this. But I can’t, in good conscience, do this to you if you don’t think you’ll survive it.”

“Survive what, exactly?”

“Losing me again. I don’t want to let you love me if you don’t think you can lose me again. One last time.”

“I can’t. Of course I can’t. But I want to anyway. I’m going to anyway. Yes,” I said finally. “I can survive it. I’d rather survive it than never feel it.”

“Are you sure?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure about anything. I love you, Celia. I’ve always loved you. And we should spend the rest of the time we have together.”

She grabbed my face. She kissed me. And I wept.

She started crying with me, and soon I couldn’t tell whether the tears I was tasting were hers or mine. All I knew was that I was once again in the arms of the woman I was always meant to love.

Eventually, Celia’s blouse was on the floor and my dress was hiked up around my thighs. I could feel her lips on my chest, her hands on my stomach. I stepped out of my dress. Her sheets were stark white and perfectly soft. She no longer smelled like cigarettes and alcohol but like citrus.

In the morning, I woke up with her hair in my face, fanned across the pillow. I rolled to my side and curved my body against the back of hers.

“Here is what we’re going to do,” Celia said. “You’re going to leave Max. I’m going to call a friend of mine in Congress. He’s a representative from Vermont. He needs some press. You’re going to be seen around with him. We’re going to spread a rumor that you’re stepping out on Max with a younger man.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Jesus, Celia. He’s a child,” I said.

“That’s exactly what people will say. They’ll be shocked that you’re dating him.”

“And when Max tries to slander me?”

“It won’t matter what he’s trying to claim about you. It will look like he’s just bitter.”

“And then?” I asked.

“And then, down the line, you marry my brother.”

“Why am I going to marry Robert?”

“So that when I die, everything I own will be yours. My estate will be under your control. And you can keep my legacy.”

“You could appoint that to me.”

“And have someone try to take it away because you were my lover? No. This is better. This is smarter.”

“But marrying your brother? Are you crazy?”

“He’ll do it,” she said. “For me. And because he’s a rake who likes to bed almost every woman he sees. You’d be good for his reputation. It’s a win-win.”

“All this instead of just telling the truth?”

I could feel Celia’s rib cage expand and contract underneath me.

“We can’t tell the truth. Did you see what they did to Rock Hudson? If it was cancer he was dying of, there’d be telethons.”

“People don’t understand AIDS,” I said.

“They understand it just fine,” Celia said. “They just think that he deserves it because of how he got it.”

I rested my head on the pillow while my heart sank in my chest. She was right, of course. The past few years, I’d watched Harry lose friend after friend, former lovers, to AIDS. I’d watched him cry his eyes red out of fear that he’d get sick, for not knowing how to help the people he loved. And I’d watched Ronald Reagan never so much as acknowledge what was happening in front of our eyes.

“I know things have changed since the sixties,” she said. “But they haven’t changed that much. It wasn’t that long ago that Reagan said gay rights weren’t civil rights. You can’t risk losing Connor. So I’ll call Jack, my friend in the House of Representatives. We’ll plant the story. You’ll shoot your movie. You’ll marry my brother. And we’ll all move to Spain.”

“I’ll have to talk to Harry.”

“Of course,” she said. “Talk to Harry. If he hates Spain, we’ll go to Germany. Or Scandinavia. Or Asia. I don’t care. We just need to go somewhere where people won’t care who we are, where people will leave us alone and Connor can live a normal childhood.”

“You’ll need medical care.”

“I’ll fly where I need to. Or we can bring people to me.”

I thought about it. “It’s a good plan.”

“Yeah?” Celia was flattered, I could tell.

“The student has become the master,” I said.

She laughed, and I kissed her.

“We’re home,” I said.

This wasn’t my home. We’d never lived here together before. But she knew what I meant.

“Yes,” she said. “We’re home.”





Now This

July 1, 1988




EVELYN HUGO AND MAX GIRARD DIVORCE TURNS UGLY AMID REPORTS OF HUGO CHEATING

Evelyn Hugo is headed to divorce court one more time. She filed papers citing “irreconcilable differences” this week. And while she’s an old hand at this, it looks like this one’s gonna be a doozy.

Sources say Max Girard is seeking spousal support, and reports have surfaced claiming that Girard is bad-mouthing Hugo all over town.

“He’s so angry he’s saying just about anything he can to get back at her,” an insider close to the former couple says. “You name it, he’s said it. She’s a cheater, she’s a lesbian, she owes him her Oscar. It’s clear he’s very heartbroken.”

Hugo was recently seen out with a much younger man last week. Jack Easton, a Democratic congressman from Vermont, is only twenty-nine years old. That’s more than two decades younger than Evelyn. And if the photos of their evening together out to dinner in Los Angeles are any indication, it looks like a blossoming romance.

Hugo doesn’t have a great track record, but in this case, it seems like one thing is clear: Girard’s comments certainly sound like sour grapes.