Chap­ter 32

The night of the acad­e­my awards, Rex and I sat next to each oth­er, hold­ing hands, allow­ing every­one a glimpse of the roman­tic mar­riage we were ped­dling around town. We both smiled polite­ly when we lost, clap­ping for the win­ners. I was dis­ap­point­ed but not sur­prised. It seemed a lit­tle too good to be true, the idea of Oscars for peo­ple like Rex and me, beau­ti­ful movie stars try­ing to prove they had sub­stance. I got the dis­tinct impres­sion that a lot of peo­ple want­ed us to stay in our lane. So we took it in stride and then par­tied the night away, the two of us drink­ing and danc­ing until the wee hours.

Celia wasn’t at the awards that year, and despite the fact that I searched for her at every par­ty Rex and I went to, I didn’t lay eyes on her. Instead, Rex and I paint­ed the town red. At the William Mor­ris par­ty, I found Har­ry and dragged him into a qui­et cor­ner, where the two of us sipped cham­pagne and talked about how wealthy we were going to be. You should know this about the rich: they always want to get rich­er. It is nev­er bor­ing, get­ting your hands on more mon­ey.

When I was a child, try­ing to find some­thing to eat for din­ner besides the old rice and dry beans in the kitchen, I would tell myself that if I could just have a good meal every night, I’d be hap­py. When I was at Sun­set Stu­dios, I told myself all I want­ed was a man­sion. When I got the man­sion, I told myself all I want­ed was two hous­es and a team of help. Here I was, just turned twen­ty-five, already real­iz­ing that no amount would ever real­ly be enough.

Rex and I went home at around five in the morn­ing, the two of us down­right drunk. As our car drove away, I searched my purse for keys to the house, and Rex stood beside me breath­ing his sour gin breath down my neck. “My wife can’t find the keys!” Rex said, stum­bling ever so slight­ly. “She’s try­ing very hard, but she can’t seem to find them.”

“Would you be qui­et?” I said. “Do you want to wake the neigh­bors?”

“What are they going to do?” Rex said, even loud­er than before. “Kick us out of town? Is that what they will do, my pre­cious Eve­lyn? Will they tell us we can’t live on Blue Jay Way any­more? Will they make us move to Robin Dri­ve? Or Ori­ole Lane?”

I found the keys, put them in the door, and turned the knob. The two of us fell inside. I said good night to Rex and went to my room. I took off my dress alone, with­out any­one there to unzip the back of it. The lone­li­ness of my mar­riage hit hard­er in that moment than it ever had.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mir­ror and could see, in no uncer­tain terms, that I was beau­ti­ful. But it didn’t mean any­one loved me. I stood in my slip and looked at my brassy blond hair and my dark brown eyes and my straight, thick eye­brows. And I missed the woman who should have been my wife. I missed Celia. My mind reeled with the thought that she might be with John Braver­man that very moment. I knew bet­ter than to believe any of it. But I also feared that I didn’t know her the way I thought I did. Did she love him? Had she for­got­ten me? Tears welled in my eyes as I thought about her red hair that used to fan across my pil­lows.

“There, there,” Rex said from behind me. I turned around to see him stand­ing in the door­way. He had tak­en off his tux jack­et and undone his cuff links. His shirt was half but­toned, his bow tie undone, hang­ing on either side of his neck. It was the very sight that mil­lions of women across the nation would have killed for.

“I thought you went to bed,” I said. “If I’d known you were up, I’d’ve had you help me get my dress off.”

“I would have liked that.”

I waved him off. “What are you doing? Can’t sleep?”

“Haven’t tried.”

He walked far­ther into the room, clos­er to me. “Well, try, then. It’s late. At this rate, the two of us will be asleep until evening.”

“Think about it, Eve­lyn,” he said. The lights stream­ing in through the win­dows lit his blond hair. His dim­ples glowed. “Think about what?”

“Think about what it would be like.” He moved clos­er to me and put his hand on my waist. He stood behind me, his breath once again on my neck. It felt good to be touched by him.

Movie stars are movie stars are movie stars. Sure, we all fade after a while. We are human, full of flaws like any­one else. But we are the cho­sen ones because we are extra­or­di­nary. And there is noth­ing an extra­or­di­nary per­son likes more than some­one else extra­or­di­nary.

“Rex.”

“Eve­lyn,” he said, whis­per­ing into my ear. “Just once. Shouldn’t we?”

“No,” I said, “we shouldn’t.” But I was not whol­ly con­vinced of my answer, and thus, nei­ther was Rex. “You should go back to your room before we both do some­thing we’ll regret tomor­row.”

“Are you sure?” he said. “Your wish is my com­mand, but I’d like it very much if you changed your wish.”

“I won’t change it,” I said.

“Think of it, though,” he said. He raised his hands high­er up my tor­so, the silk of my slip the only thing between us. “Think of the way I’d feel on top of you.”

I laughed. “I will not think about that. If I think about that, we’ll both be sunk.”

“Think of the way we’d move togeth­er. The way we’d be slow at first and then lose con­trol.”

“Does this work with oth­er women?”

“I’ve nev­er had to work this hard with oth­er women,” he said, kiss­ing my neck.

I could have walked away from him. I could have slapped him right across the face, and he would have tak­en it with a stiff upper lip and left me alone. But I wasn’t ready for this part to be over. I liked being tempt­ed. I liked know­ing I might make the wrong deci­sion.

And it would absolute­ly have been the wrong deci­sion. Because as soon as I got out of that bed, Rex would for­get how bad­ly he’d worked to get me. He’d remem­ber only that he’d had me. And this wasn’t a typ­i­cal mar­riage. There was too much mon­ey on the line.

I let him flick one side of my slip off. I let him run his hand under­neath the neck­line of it.

“Oh, what it would be to lose myself in you,” he said. “To lie under­neath you and watch you writhe on top of me.”

I almost did it. I almost ripped my own slip off and threw him onto the bed. But then he said, “C’mon, baby, you know you want to.” And it became per­fect­ly clear just how many times Rex had tried this before with count­less oth­er women.

Nev­er let any­one make you feel ordi­nary.

“Get out of here,” I said, though not unkind­ly.

“But—”

“No buts. Go on to bed.”

“Eve­lyn—”

“Rex, you’re drunk, and you’re con­fus­ing me for one of your many girls, but I’m your wife,” I said, with all obvi­ous irony.

“Not even once?” he said. He seemed to sober up quick­ly, as if his hood­ed eyes had been part of the act. I was nev­er real­ly sure with him. You nev­er knew exact­ly where you stood with Rex North.

“Don’t try it again, Rex. It’s not going to hap­pen.”

He rolled his eyes and then kissed me on the cheek. “G’night, Eve­lyn,” he said, and then he slipped out my door just as smooth­ly as he’d come in.

The next day, I woke up to a ring­ing phone, deeply hun­gover and mild­ly con­fused about where I was.

“Hel­lo?”

“Rise and shine, lit­tle bird.”

“Har­ry, what on earth?” The sun in my eyes felt like a burn.

“After you left the Fox par­ty last night, I had a very inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion with Sam Pool.”

“What was a Para­mount exec doing at a Fox par­ty?”

“Try­ing to find you and me,” Har­ry said. “Well, and Rex.”

“To do what?”

“To sug­gest that Para­mount sign you and Rex to a three-pic­ture deal.”

“What?”

“They want three movies, pro­duced by us, star­ring you and Rex. Sam said to name a price.”

“Name a price?” When­ev­er I had too much to drink, I always woke up the next morn­ing feel­ing as if I were under­wa­ter. Every­thing looked mut­ed, sound­ed blur­ry. I need­ed to make sure I was fol­low­ing.

“What do you mean, name a price?”

“Do you want a mil­lion bucks for a pic­ture? I heard that’s what Don’s get­ting for The Time Before. We could get that for you, too.”

Did I want to make as much mon­ey as Don? Of course I did. I want­ed to get the pay­check and mail a copy of it to him with a pho­to of my mid­dle fin­ger. But most­ly I want­ed the free­dom to do what­ev­er I want­ed.

“No,” I said. “Nope. I’m not sign­ing some con­tract where they tell me what movies to be in. You and I decide what movies I do. That’s it.”

“You aren’t lis­ten­ing.”

“I’m lis­ten­ing just fine,” I said, shift­ing my weight onto my shoul­der and chang­ing the arm that was hold­ing the phone. I thought to myself, I’m going to go for a swim today. I should tell Luisa to heat the pool.

“We choose the movies,” Har­ry said. “It’s a blind deal. What­ev­er films you and Rex like Para­mount wants to buy. What­ev­er salary we want.”

“All because of Anna Karen­i­na?”

“We’ve proven your name brings peo­ple into the the­ater. And if I’m being entire­ly clear-eyed about this, I think Sam Pool wants to screw over Ari Sul­li­van. I think he wants to take what Ari Sul­li­van threw away and make gold out of it.”

“So I’m a pawn.”

“Everyone’s a pawn. Don’t go around tak­ing things per­son­al­ly now when you nev­er have before.”

“Any movies we want?”

“Any­thing we want.”

“Have you told Rex?”

“Do you hon­est­ly think I would run a sin­gle thing by that cad before run­ning it by you?”

“Oh, he is not a cad.”

“If you had been there to talk to Joy Nathan after he broke her heart, you’d dis­agree.”

“Har­ry, he’s my hus­band.”

“Eve­lyn, no, he’s not.”

“Can’t you find some­thing to like about him?”

“Oh, there’s plen­ty to like about him. I love how much mon­ey he’s made us, how much he will make us.”

“Well, he’s always done good by me.” I told him no, and he walked out my door. Not every man would do that. Not every man had.

“That’s because you both want the same thing. You, of all peo­ple, should know that you can’t tell a sin­gle thing about a person’s true char­ac­ter if you both want the same thing. That’s like a dog and a cat get­ting along because they both want to kill the mouse.”

“Well, I like him. And I want you to like him. Espe­cial­ly because if we sign this deal, Rex and I will have to stay mar­ried quite a bit longer than we orig­i­nal­ly thought. Which makes him my fam­i­ly. And you’re my fam­i­ly. So you’re both fam­i­ly.”

“Plen­ty of peo­ple don’t like their fam­i­lies.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said. “Let’s get Rex on board and sign this thing, OK? Get your agents togeth­er to ham­mer out the deal. Let’s ask for the moon.”

“OK,” I said.

“Eve­lyn?” Har­ry said, before get­ting off the phone.