The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo(67)

“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 to 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.