Chap­ter 31

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.
She looked at me as if I were a paint­ing she was inter­pret­ing, and then she said, apolo­get­i­cal­ly, “You do not look Cuban.”
“Pues, lo soy,” I said haugh­ti­ly. (“Well, I am.”)
Luisa nod­ded and packed up her lunch, mov­ing on to change the bed linens. I sat at that table for at least a half hour, reel­ing. I kept think­ing, How dare she try to take my own iden­ti­ty away from me? But as I looked around my house, see­ing no pic­tures of my fam­i­ly, not a sin­gle Latin-Amer­i­can book, stray blond hairs in my hair­brush, not even a jar of cumin in my spice rack, I real­ized Luisa hadn’t done that to me. I had done it to me. I’d made the choice to be dif­fer­ent from my true self.
Fidel Cas­tro had con­trol of Cuba. Eisen­how­er had already put the eco­nom­ic embar­go in place by that point. The Bay of Pigs had been a dis­as­ter. Being a Cuban-Amer­i­can was com­pli­cat­ed. And instead of try­ing to make my way in the world as a Cuban woman, I sim­ply for­sook where I came from. In some ways, this helped me release any remain­ing ties con­nect­ing me to my father. But it also pulled me fur­ther away from my moth­er. My moth­er, whom this had all been for at some point.
That was all me. All the results of my own choic­es. None of that was Luisa’s fault. So I real­ized I had no right to sit at my own kitchen table blam­ing her.
When she left that night, I could tell she still felt uncom­fort­able around me. So I made sure to smile sin­cere­ly and tell her I was excit­ed to see her the next day.
From that day for­ward, I nev­er spoke Span­ish to her. I was too embar­rassed, too inse­cure of my dis­loy­al­ty. But she spoke it from time to time, and I smiled when she made jokes to her moth­er with­in earshot. I let her know I under­stood her. And I quick­ly grew to care for her very much. I envied how secure she was in her own skin. How unafraid she was to be her true self. She was proud to be Luisa Jimenez.
She was the first employ­ee I ever had whom I cher­ished. I was not going to move house with­out her.

“I’m sure she’s great,” Rex said. “Bring her. Now, prac­ti­cal­ly speak­ing, do we sleep in the same bed?”
“I doubt it’s nec­es­sary. Luisa will be dis­creet. I’ve learned that les­son before. And we’ll just throw par­ties a few times a year and make it look like we live in the same room.”
“And I can still … do what I do?”
“You can still sleep with every woman on the plan­et, yes.”
“Every woman except my wife,” Rex said, smil­ing and tak­ing anoth­er sip of his drink.
“You just can’t get caught.”
Rex waved me off, as if my wor­ry wasn’t a con­cern.
“I’m seri­ous, Rex. Cheat­ing on me is a big sto­ry. I can’t have that.”
“You don’t have to wor­ry,” Rex said. He was more sin­cere about that than any­thing else I’d asked of him, maybe more than any scene in Anna Karen­i­na. “I would nev­er do any­thing to make you look fool­ish. We’re in this togeth­er.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot. That goes for me, too. What I do won’t be your prob­lem. I promise you.”
Rex put out his hand, and I shook it.
“Well, I should be going,” he said, check­ing his watch. “I have a date with a par­tic­u­lar­ly eager young lady, and I’d hate to keep her wait­ing.” He but­toned his coat as I stood up. “When should we tie the knot?” he asked.
“I think we should prob­a­bly be seen around town a few times this com­ing week. And keep it going for a lit­tle while. Maybe put a ring on my fin­ger around Novem­ber. Har­ry sug­gest­ed the big day could be about two weeks before the film hits the­aters.”