Chap­ter 20

Ruby left me there, next to the dry­er, with an emp­ty cock­tail glass in my hand.
I need­ed to go back to the par­ty. But I stood there, frozen, think­ing, Get out of here. I just couldn’t turn the door­knob. And then the door opened on its own. Celia. The rau­cous, bright-lit par­ty behind her.
“Eve­lyn, what are you doing?”
“How did you find me?”
“I ran into Ruby, and she said I could find you drink­ing in the laun­dry room. I thought it was a euphemism.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I can see that.”
“Do you sleep with women?” I asked.
Celia, shocked, shut the door behind her. “What are you talk­ing about?”
“Ruby says you’re a les­bian.”
Celia looked over my shoul­der. “Who cares what Ruby says?”
“Are you?”
“Are you going to stop being friends with me now? Is that what this is about?”
“No,” I said, shak­ing my head. “Of course not. I would… nev­er do that. I would nev­er.”
“What, then?”
“I just want to know is all.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think I have the right to know?”
“Depends.”
“So you are?” I asked.
Celia put her hand on the door­knob and pre­pared to leave.
Instinc­tive­ly, I leaned for­ward and grabbed her wrist.
“What are you doing?” she said.
I liked the feel of her wrist in my hand. I liked the way her per­fume per­me­at­ed the whole tiny room. I leaned for­ward and kissed her.
I did not know what I was doing. And by that I mean that I was not ful­ly in con­trol of my move­ment and that I was phys­i­cal­ly unaware of how to kiss her. Should it be the way I kissed men, or should it be dif­fer­ent some­how? I also did not under­stand the emo­tion­al scope of my actions. I did not tru­ly under­stand their sig­nif­i­cance or risk.
I was a famous woman kiss­ing a famous woman in the house of the biggest stu­dio head in Hol­ly­wood, sur­round­ed by pro­duc­ers and stars and prob­a­bly a good dozen peo­ple who rat­ted to Sub Rosa mag­a­zine.
But all I cared about in that moment was that her lips were soft. Her skin was with­out any rough­ness what­so­ev­er. All I cared about was that she kissed me back, that she took her hand off the door­knob and, instead, put it on my waist.
She smelled flo­ral, like lilac pow­der, and her lips felt humid. Her breath was sweet, spiked with the taste of cig­a­rettes and crème de men­the.
When she pushed her­self against me, when our chests touched and her pelvis grazed mine, all I could think was that it wasn’t so dif­fer­ent and yet it was dif­fer­ent entire­ly. She swelled in all the places Don went flat. She was flat in the places Don swelled.
And yet that sense that you can feel your heart in your chest, that your body tells you it wants more, that you lose your­self in the scent, taste, and feel of anoth­er person—it was all the same.
Celia broke away first. “We can’t stay in here,” she said. She wiped her lips on the back of her hand. She took her thumb and rubbed it against the bot­tom of mine.
“Wait, Celia,” I said, try­ing to stop her.
But she left the room, shut­ting the door behind her.
I closed my eyes, unsure how to get a han­dle on myself, how to qui­et my brain.
I breathed in. I opened the door and walked right up the steps, tak­ing them two at a time.
I opened every sin­gle door on the sec­ond floor until I found who I was look­ing for.
Don was get­ting dressed, shov­ing the tail of his shirt into his suit pants, as a woman in a bead­ed gold dress put her shoes on.
I ran out. And Don fol­lowed me.
“Let’s talk about this at home,” he said, grab­bing my elbow.
I yanked it away, search­ing for Celia. There was no sign of her.
Har­ry came in through the front door, fresh-faced and look­ing sober. I ran up to him, leav­ing Don on the stair­case, cor­nered by a tip­sy pro­duc­er want­i­ng to talk to him about a melo­dra­ma.
“Where have you been all night?” I asked Har­ry.
He smiled. “I’m going to keep that to myself.”
“Can you take me home?”
Har­ry looked at me and then at Don still on the stairs. “You’re not going home with your hus­band?”
I shook my head.
“Does he know that?”
“If he doesn’t, he’s a moron.”
“OK,” Har­ry said, nod­ding with con­fi­dence and sub­mis­sion.
What­ev­er I want­ed was what he would do.
I got into the front seat of Harry’s Chevy, and he start­ed back­ing out just as Don came out of the house. He ran to my side of the car. I did not roll down the win­dow.
“Eve­lyn!” he yelled.
I liked how the glass between us took the edge off his voice, how it muf­fled it enough to make him sound far away. I liked the con­trol of being able to decide whether I lis­tened to him at full vol­ume.
“I’m sor­ry,” he said. “It isn’t what you think.”
I stared straight ahead. “Let’s go.”
I was putting Har­ry in a tough spot, mak­ing him take sides. But to Harry’s cred­it, he didn’t bat an eye­lash.
“Cameron, don’t you dare take my wife away from me!”
“Don, let’s dis­cuss it in the morn­ing,” Har­ry called through the win­dow, and then he plowed out, into the roads of the canyon.
When we got to Sun­set Boule­vard and my pulse had slowed, I turned to Har­ry and start­ed talk­ing. When I told him that Don had been upstairs with a woman, he nod­ded as if he’d expect­ed no less.
“Why don’t you seem sur­prised?” I asked as we sped through the inter­sec­tion of Dohe­ny and Sun­set, the very spot where the beau­ty of Bev­er­ly Hills start­ed to show. The streets widened and became lined with trees, and the lawns were immac­u­late­ly man­i­cured, the side­walks clean.
“Don has always had a pen­chant for women he’s just met,” Har­ry says. “I wasn’t sure if you knew. Or if you cared.”
“I didn’t know. And I do care.”
“Well, then, I’m sor­ry,” he said, look­ing at me briefly before putting his eyes back on the road. “In that case, I should have told you.”
“I sup­pose there are lots of things we don’t tell each oth­er,” I said, look­ing out the win­dow. There was a man walk­ing his dog down the street.
I need­ed some­one.
Right then, I need­ed a friend. Some­one to tell my truths to, some­one to accept me, some­one to say that I was going to be OK.
“What if we real­ly did it?” I said.
“Told each oth­er the truth?”
“Told each oth­er every­thing.”
Har­ry looked at me. “I’d say that’s a bur­den I don’t want to put on you.”
“It might be a bur­den for you, too,” I said. “I have skele­tons.”
“You’re Cuban, and you’re a pow­er-hun­gry, cal­cu­lat­ing bitch,” Har­ry said, smil­ing at me. “Those secrets aren’t so bad.”
I threw my head back and laughed.
“And you know what I am,” he said.
“I do.”
“But right now, you have plau­si­ble deni­a­bil­i­ty. You don’t have to hear about it or see it.”
Har­ry turned left, into the flats instead of the hills. He was tak­ing me to his house instead of my own. He was scared of what Don would do to me. I sort of was, too.
“Maybe I’m ready for that. To be a real friend. True blue,” I said.
“I’m not sure that’s a secret I want you to have to keep, love. It’s a sticky one.”
“I think that secret’s much more com­mon than either of us is pre­tend­ing,” I said. “I think maybe all of us have at least a lit­tle bit of that secret with­in us. I think I just might have that secret in me, too.”
Har­ry took a right and pulled into his dri­ve­way. He put the car in park and turned to me. “You’re not like me, Eve­lyn.”
“I might be a lit­tle,” I said. “I might be, and Celia might be, too.”
Har­ry turned back to the wheel, think­ing. “Yes,” he said final­ly. “Celia might be, too.”
“You knew?”
“I sus­pect­ed,” he said. “And I sus­pect­ed she might have… feel­ings for you.”
I felt like I was the last per­son on earth to know what was right in front of me.
“I’m leav­ing Don,” I said.
Har­ry nod­ded, unsur­prised. “I’m hap­py to hear it,” he said. “But I hope you know the full extent of what it means.”
“I know what I’m doing, Har­ry.” I was wrong. I didn’t know what I was doing.
“Don’s not going to take it sit­ting down,” Har­ry said. “That’s all I mean.”
“So I should con­tin­ue this cha­rade? Allow him to sleep around and hit me when he feels like it?”
“Absolute­ly not. You know I would nev­er say that.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to be pre­pared for what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t want to talk about this any­more,” I said.
“That’s fine,” Har­ry said. He opened his car door and got out. He came around to my side and opened my door.
“Come, Ev,” he said kind­ly. He put his hand out. “It’s been a long night. You need some rest.”
I sud­den­ly felt very tired, as if once he point­ed it out, I real­ized it had been there all along. I fol­lowed Har­ry to his front door.
His liv­ing room was sparse but hand­some, fur­nished with wood and leather. The alcoves and door­ways were all arched, the walls stark white. Only a sin­gle piece of art hung on the wall, a red and blue Rothko above the sofa. It occurred to me then that Har­ry wasn’t a Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­er for the pay­check. Sure, his house was nice. But there wasn’t any­thing osten­ta­tious about it, noth­ing per­for­ma­tive. It was mere­ly a place to sleep for him.
Har­ry was like me. Har­ry was in it for the glo­ry. He was in it because it kept him busy, kept him impor­tant, kept him sharp.
Har­ry, like me, had got­ten into it for the ego.
And we were both for­tu­nate that we’d found our human­i­ty in it, even though it appeared to be some­what by acci­dent.
The two of us walked up the curved stairs, and Har­ry set me up in his guest room. The bed had a thin mat­tress with a heavy wool blan­ket. I used a bar of soap to wash my make­up off, and Har­ry gen­tly unzipped the back of my dress for me and gave me a pair of his paja­mas to wear.
“I’ll be just next door if you need any­thing,” he said.
“Thank you. For every­thing.”
Har­ry nod­ded. He turned away and then turned back to me as I was fold­ing down the blan­ket. “Our inter­ests aren’t aligned, Eve­lyn,” he said. “Yours and mine. You see that, right?”
I looked at him, try­ing to deter­mine if I did see it.
“My job is to make the stu­dio mon­ey. And if you are doing what the stu­dio wants, then my job is to make you hap­py. But more than any­thing, Ari wants to—”
“Make Don hap­py.”
Har­ry looked me in the eye. I got the point.
“OK,” I said. “I see it.”
Har­ry smiled shy­ly and closed the door behind him.
You’d think I’d have tossed and turned all night, wor­ried about the future, wor­ried about what it meant that I had kissed a woman, wor­ried about whether I should real­ly leave Don.
But that’s what denial is for.
The next morn­ing, Har­ry drove me back to my house. I was brac­ing myself for a fight. But when I got there, Don was nowhere to be seen.
I knew that very moment that our mar­riage was over and that the decision—the one I thought was mine to make—had been made for me.