The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo(90)

Celia listened as I spoke, letting the words sink in. I could see her grappling with what I was saying, trying to make it fit for her. “I want you to do the movie as you want to do it,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“I just . . .” She looked down and started shaking her head. “I’m feeling very . . . I don’t know. I’m not sure I can do this. Knowing you’re with Don all day, with these long nights, and I never see you, and . . . sex. Sex is sacred between us. I’m not sure I can stand to watch that.”

“You won’t need to watch it.”

“But I’ll know it happened. I’ll know it’s out there. And everyone will see it. I want to be OK with this. I really do.”

“So be OK with it.”

“I’m going to try.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m really going to try.”

“Great.”

“But Evelyn, I don’t think I can. Just knowing that you were . . . when you slept with Mick, I was sick for years afterward, thinking about the two of you together.”

“I know.”

“And you slept with Harry, God knows how many times,” she said.

“I know, honey. I know. But I’m not sleeping with Don.”

“But you have slept with him. You have. When people watch the two of you on-screen, they will be watching something the two of you have already done.”

“It’s not real,” I said.

“I know, but what you’re saying to me is that you are prepared to make it look real. You’re saying you’re going to make it look more real than anything else any of us have done so far.”

“Yes,” I said. “I guess I am saying that.”

She started crying. She put her head in her hands. “I feel like I’m failing you,” she said. “But I can’t do it. I can’t. I know myself, and I know this is too much for me. I’ll be too sick over it. I’ll make myself ill thinking of you with him.” She shook her head, resolved. “I’m sorry. I don’t have it in me. I can’t handle it. I want to be stronger for you, I do. I know that if the tables were turned, you could handle it. I feel like I’m disappointing you. And I’m so sorry, Evelyn. I will work forever to make it up to you. I’ll help you get any part you want. For the rest of our lives. And I’ll work on getting there so that the next time this happens, I can be stronger. But . . . please, Evelyn, I can’t live through you sleeping with another man. Even if this time it only looks real. I can’t do it. Please,” she said. “Please don’t do this.”

My heart sank. I nearly vomited.

I looked down at the floor. I studied the way two planks of wood met just under my feet, how the nailheads were just the littlest bit sunken in.

And then I looked up at her and said, “I already did it.”

I sobbed.

And I pleaded.

And I groveled, desperately, on my knees, having long ago learned the lesson that you have to throw yourself at the mercy of the things you truly want.

But before I was done, Celia said, “All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be truly mine. But you’ve never been mine. Not really. I’ve always had to settle for one piece of you. While the world gets the other half. I don’t blame you. It doesn’t make me stop loving you. But I can’t do it. I can’t do it, Evelyn. I can’t live with my heart half-broken all the time.”

And she walked out the door and left me.

Within a week, Celia had packed up all her things, at my apartment and hers, and moved back to L.A.

She would not answer the phone when I called. I couldn’t get hold of her.

Then, weeks after she left, she filed for divorce from John. When he got the papers, I swear, it was as if she had served them to me directly. It was clear, in no uncertain terms, that by divorcing him, she was divorcing me.

I got John to make some calls to her agent, her manager. He tracked her down at the Beverly Wilshire. I flew to Los Angeles, and I pounded on her door.

I was wearing my favorite Diane von Furstenberg, because Celia had once said I was irresistible in it. There were a man and a woman coming out of their hotel room, and as they walked down the hall, they couldn’t stop looking at me. They knew who I was. But I refused to hide. I just kept knocking on the door.

When Celia finally opened it, I looked her in the eye and didn’t say a word. She stared back at me, silent. And then, with tears in my eyes, I said, simply, “Please.”

She turned away from me.

“I made a mistake,” I said. “I’ll never do it again.”

The last time we had fought like this, I had refused to apologize. And I really thought that this time, if I just admitted how wrong I was, if I gave in, sincerely and with all my heart, she would forgive me.