The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo(77)

Bonnie Lakeland was washing her hands as I came in. She gave me a smile, and then she left. And I was alone. I sat in a stall and closed the door. I let myself cry.

“Evelyn?”

You don’t spend years pining away for one voice not to notice it when it finally appears.

“Celia?” I said. My back was to the stall door. I wiped my eyes.

“I saw you come in here,” she said. “I thought it might be a sign that you weren’t . . . that you were upset.”

“I’m trying to be happy for Ruby,” I said, laughing just a little bit as I used a piece of toilet paper to carefully dry my eyes. “But it’s not exactly my style.”

“Mine either,” she said.

I opened the door. And there she was. Blue dress, red hair, small stature with a presence that filled the whole room. And when her eyes set on me, I knew she still loved me. I could see it in the way her pupils widened and softened.

“You are as gorgeous as ever,” she said as she leaned against the sink, her arms holding her weight behind her. There was always something intoxicating about the way Celia looked at me. I felt like a rare steak in front of a tiger.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” I said.

“We probably shouldn’t be caught in here together,” Celia said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I suspect more than a few people seated in there know what we once got up to,” she said. “I know you’d hate for them to think we were up to it again.”

This was a test.

I knew it. She knew it.

If I said the right thing, if I told her I didn’t care what they thought, if I told her I’d make love to her in the middle of the stage in front of all of them, I just might be able to have her back.

I let myself think about it for a moment. I let myself think about waking up tomorrow to her cigarette-and-coffee breath.

But I wanted her to admit it wasn’t all me. That she had played a part in our demise. “Or maybe you just don’t want to be seen with a . . . what was the word you used, I believe it was whore?”

Celia laughed and looked down at the floor and then back up at me. “What do you want me to say? That I was wrong? I was. I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me.”

“But I never meant to hurt you,” I said. “Never once would I have done a single thing to hurt you on purpose.”

“You were ashamed to love me.”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “That is absolutely untrue.”

“Well, you certainly went to great lengths to hide it.”

“I did what had to be done to protect both of us.”

“Debatable.”

“So debate it with me,” I said. “Instead of running away again.”

“I didn’t run far, Evelyn. You could have caught up with me, if you wanted to.”

“I don’t like being played, Celia. I told you that the first time we went out for milk shakes.”

She shrugged. “You play everyone else.”

“I have never claimed that I wasn’t a hypocrite.”

“How do you do that?” Celia said.

“Do what?”

“Act so cavalier about things that are sacred to other people?”

“Because other people have got nothing to do with me.”

Celia scoffed, somewhat gently, and looked down at her hands.

“Except you,” I said.

I was rewarded with the sight of her looking up at me.

“I care about you,” I said.

“You cared about me.”

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t misspeak.”

“You certainly moved on fast enough with Rex North.”

I frowned at her. “Celia, you know better than that.”

“So it was fake.”

“Every moment.”

“Have you been with anyone else? Any men?” she asked. She was always jealous of the men, worried she couldn’t compete. I was jealous of the women, worried I wouldn’t compare.

“I’ve had a good time,” I said. “As I’m sure you’ve had.”

“John isn’t—”

“I’m not talking about John. But I’m sure you haven’t kept chaste.” I was fishing for information that might break my heart, a flaw of the human condition.

“No,” she said. “You’re right about that.”

“Men?” I asked, hoping the answer was yes. If it was men, I knew it didn’t mean anything to her.

She shook her head, and my heart broke just a little bit more, like a tear that deepens from strain.

“Anyone I know?”

“None of them were famous,” she said. “None of them meant anything to me. I touched them and thought of what it felt like to touch you.”