Chap­ter 24

Ari dropped me from any pro­duc­tions with­in Sun­set and start­ed offer­ing to loan me out to Colum­bia. After being forced to do two for­get­table roman­tic comedies—both of them so bad that it was a fore­gone con­clu­sion they would fail spectacularly—the oth­er stu­dios didn’t want much of me, either.
Don was on the cov­er of Life, grace­ful­ly com­ing out of the ocean onto the shore, smil­ing as if it was the best day of his life.
When the 1960 Acad­e­my Awards came around, I was offi­cial­ly per­sona non gra­ta.
“You know that I would take you,” Har­ry said when he called that after­noon to check in on me. “You just say the word, and I’ll come pick you up. I’m sure you have a stun­ning dress you can slip on, and I’ll be the envy of every­body with you on my arm.”
I was at Celia’s apart­ment, get­ting ready to leave before her hair and make­up peo­ple came over. She was in the kitchen, drink­ing lemon water, avoid­ing eat­ing any­thing so she could fit into her dress.
“I know you would,” I said into the phone. “But you and I both know it would only hurt your rep­u­ta­tion to be aligned with me right now.”
“I do mean it, though,” Har­ry said.
“I know you do,” I said. “But you also know I’m too smart to take you up on it.”
Har­ry laughed.
“Do my eyes look puffy?” Celia asked when I got off the phone with Har­ry. She opened them big­ger and stared at me, as if this would help me answer the ques­tion.
I saw bare­ly any­thing out of the ordi­nary. “They look gor­geous. And any­way, you know Gwen will make you look fab­u­lous. What are you wor­ried about?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Eve­lyn,” Celia said, teas­ing me. “I think we all know what I’m wor­ried about.”
I took her by the waist. She was wear­ing a thin satin slip, edged in lace. I was wear­ing a short-sleeved sweater and shorts. Her hair was wet. When Celia’s hair was wet, she didn’t smell like sham­poo. She smelled like clay.
“You’re going to win,” I said, pulling her toward me. “It isn’t even a con­test.”
“I might not. They might give it to Joy or to Ellen Matt­son.”
“They would no soon­er give it to Ellen Matt­son than throw it in the L.A. Riv­er. And Joy, bless her heart, is no you.”
Celia blushed, put her head in her hands briefly, and then looked back at me. “Am I intol­er­a­ble?” she said. “Obsess­ing over this? Mak­ing you talk to me about it? When you’re …”
“On the skids?”
“I was going to say black­balled.”
“If you are intol­er­a­ble, let me be the one to tol­er­ate you,” I said, and then I kissed her and tast­ed the lemon juice on her lips.
I checked my watch, know­ing that hair and make­up would be there any moment, and grabbed my keys.
She and I had been tak­ing great pains not to be seen togeth­er. It was one thing when we real­ly were just friends, but now that we had some­thing to hide, we had to start hid­ing it.
“I love you,” I said. “I believe in you. Break a leg.”
When my hand turned the door­knob, she called to me. “If I don’t win,” she said, her wet hair drip­ping onto the spaghet­ti straps of her slip, “will you still love me?”
I thought she was jok­ing until I looked direct­ly into her eyes.
“You could be a nobody liv­ing in a card­board box, and I’d still love you,” I said. I’d nev­er said that before. I’d nev­er meant it before.
Celia smiled wide. “Me too. The card­board box and all of it.”

Hours lat­er, back at the home I used to share with Don but now could say was entire­ly my own, I made myself a Cape Cod­der, sat on the couch, and tuned the TV to NBC, watch­ing all my friends and the woman I loved walk the red car­pet at the Pan­tages The­atre.
It all seems much more glam­orous on-screen. I hate to break it to you, but in per­son, the the­ater is small­er, the peo­ple are paler, and the stage is less impos­ing.
It’s all curat­ed to make the audi­ence at home feel like out­siders, to make you feel like a fly on the wall of a club you aren’t good enough to get into. And I was sur­prised by how effec­tive it was on me, how easy it was to fall for, even for a per­son who had just recent­ly been at the very cen­ter of it.
I was two cock­tails in and drown­ing in self-pity by the time they announced Best Sup­port­ing Actress. But the minute the cam­era panned to Celia, I swear I sobered up and clasped my hands togeth­er as tight­ly as pos­si­ble for her, as if the hard­er I pressed them togeth­er, the high­er her chances of win­ning.
“And the award goes to … Celia St. James for Lit­tle Women.”
I jumped up out of my seat and shout­ed for her. And then my eyes got teary as she walked up to the stage.
As she stood there, behind the micro­phone, hold­ing the stat­uette, I was mes­mer­ized by her. By her fab­u­lous boat­neck dress, her sparkling dia­mond and sap­phire ear­rings, and that absolute­ly flaw­less face of hers.
“Thank you to Ari Sul­li­van and Har­ry Cameron. Thank you to my agent, Roger Colton. To my fam­i­ly. And to the amaz­ing cast of women that I felt so lucky to be a part of, to Joy and Ruby. And to Eve­lyn Hugo. Thank you.”
When she said my name, I swelled with pride and joy and love. I was so god­damn hap­py for her. And then I did some­thing mor­ti­fy­ing­ly inane. I kissed the tele­vi­sion set.
I kissed her right on her grayscale face.
The clink I heard reg­is­tered before the pain. And as Celia waved to the crowd and then stepped away from the podi­um, I real­ized I’d chipped my tooth.
But I didn’t care. I was too hap­py. Too excit­ed to con­grat­u­late her and tell her how proud I was.
I made anoth­er cock­tail and forced myself to watch the rest of the spec­ta­cle. They announced Best Pic­ture, and as the cred­its rolled, I turned off the TV.
I knew that Har­ry and Celia would be out all night. So I shut off the lights and went upstairs to bed. I took off my make­up. I put on cold cream. I turned down the cov­ers. I was lone­ly, liv­ing all alone.
Celia and I had dis­cussed it and come to the con­clu­sion that we could not move in togeth­er. She was less con­vinced of this than I was, but I was stead­fast in my resolve. Even though my career was in the gut­ter, hers was thriv­ing. I couldn’t let her risk it. Not for me.
My head was on the pil­low, but my eyes were wide open when I heard some­one pull into the dri­ve­way. I looked out the win­dow to see Celia slip­ping out of a car and wav­ing good night to her dri­ver. She had an Oscar in her hand.
“You look com­fort­able,” Celia said, once she’d made her way to me in the bed­room.
“Come here,” I said to her.
She’d had a glass or three. I loved her drunk. She was her­self but hap­pi­er, so bub­bly I some­times wor­ried she’d float away.
She took a run­ning start and hopped into the bed. I kissed her.
“I’m so proud of you, dar­ling.”
“I missed you all night,” she said. The Oscar was still in her hand, and I could tell it was heavy; she kept allow­ing it to tip over onto the mat­tress. The space for her name was blank.
“I don’t know if I was sup­posed to take this one,” she said, smil­ing. “But I didn’t want to give it back.”
“Why aren’t you out cel­e­brat­ing? You should be at the Sun­set par­ty.”
“I only want­ed to cel­e­brate with you.”
I pulled her clos­er to me. She kicked off her shoes.
“Noth­ing means any­thing with­out you,” she said. “Every­thing that isn’t you is a pile of dog shit.”
I tossed my head back and laughed.
“What hap­pened to your tooth?” Celia asked.
“Is it that notice­able?”