The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

FOR THE NEXT TWO AND a half years, Rex and I stayed married, living in a house in the hills, developing and shooting movies at Paramount.

We were staffed up with an entire team of people by that point. A pair of agents, a publicist, lawyers, and a business manager for each of us, as well as two on-set assistants and our staff at the house, including Luisa.

We woke up every day in our separate beds, got ready on opposite sides of the house, and then got into the same car and drove to the set together, holding hands the moment we drove onto the lot. We worked all day and then drove home together. At which point, we’d split up again for our own evening plans.

Mine were often with Harry or a few Paramount stars I had taken a liking to. Or I went out on a date with someone I trusted to keep a secret.

During my marriage to Rex, I never met anyone I felt desperate to see again. Sure, I had a few flings. Some with other stars, one with a rock singer, a few with married men—the group most likely to keep the fact that they’d bedded a movie star a secret. But it was all meaningless.

I assumed Rex was having meaningless dalliances, too. And for the most part, he was. Until suddenly, he wasn’t.

One Saturday, he came into the kitchen as Luisa was making me some toast. I was drinking a cup of coffee and having a cigarette, waiting for Harry to come pick me up for a round of tennis.

Rex went to the fridge and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He sat down beside me at the table.

Luisa put the toast in front of me and then set the butter dish in the center of the table.

“Anything for you, Mr. North?” she asked.

Rex shook his head. “Thank you, Luisa.”

And then all three of us could sense it; she needed to excuse herself. Something was about to happen.

“I’ll be starting the laundry,” she said, and slipped away.

“I’m in love,” Rex said when we were finally alone.

It was perhaps the very last thing I ever thought he’d say.

“In love?” I asked.

He laughed at my shock. “It doesn’t make any sense. Trust me, I know that.”

“With whom?”

“Joy.”

“Joy Nathan?”

“Yes. We’ve seen each other on and off through the years. You know how it is.”

“I know how it is with you, sure. But last I heard, you broke her heart.”

“Yes, well, it will come as no surprise to you that I have, in the past, been a little . . . let’s say, heartless.”

“Sure, we can say that.”

Rex laughed. “But I started feeling like it might be nice to have a woman in my bed when I woke up in the morning.”

“How novel.”

“And when I thought of what woman I might like that to be, I thought of Joy. So we’ve been seeing each other. Quietly, mind you. And, well, now I find that I can’t stop thinking about her. That I want to be around her all the time.”

“Rex, that’s wonderful,” I said.

“I hoped you’d think so.”

“So what should we do?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, breathing deeply, “Joy and I would like to marry.”

“OK,” I said, my brain already kicking into high gear, calculating the perfect time to announce our divorce. We’d already had two movies come out, one a modest hit, one a smash. The third, Carolina Sunset, about a young couple who have lost a child and move to a farm in North Carolina to try to heal, ultimately having affairs with people in their small town, was premiering in a few months.

Rex had phoned in his performance. But I knew the movie had the potential to be big for me. “We’ll say that the stress of filming Carolina Sunset, of being on set and watching each other kiss other people, ruined us. Everyone will feel bad for us but not too bad. People love stories of hubris. We took what we had for granted, and now we’re paying the price. You’ll wait a little while. We’ll plant a story that I introduced you to Joy because I wanted you to be happy.”

“That’s great, Evelyn, really,” Rex said. “Except that Joy’s pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

I closed my eyes, frustrated. “OK,” I said. “OK. Let me think.”

“What if we just say that we haven’t been happy for a while? That we’ve been living separate lives?”

“Then we’re saying that our chemistry has fizzled out. And who’s going to go see Carolina Sunset then?”

This was the moment, the one Harry had warned me about. Rex didn’t care about Carolina Sunset, certainly not as much as I did. He knew he wasn’t anything special in it, and even if he was, he was all wrapped up in his new love, his new baby.

He looked out the window and then back at me. “OK,” he said. “You’re right. We went into this together, we’ll leave it together. What do you suggest? I told Joy we’d be married by the time the baby comes.”

Rex North was always a more stand-up guy than anyone gave him credit for.

“Obviously,” I said. “Of course.”

The doorbell rang, and a moment later, Harry walked into the kitchen.

I had an idea.

It wasn’t a flawless idea.

Almost no idea is.

“We’re having affairs,” I said.

“What?” Rex asked.

“Good morning,” Harry said, realizing he’d missed a large part of the conversation.

“During the course of making a movie about both of us having affairs, we both started having affairs. You with Joy, me with Harry.”

“What?” Harry said.

“People know we work together,” I said to Harry. “They’ve seen us together. You’ve been in the background of hundreds of photos of me. They’ll believe it.” I turned to Rex. “We’ll divorce immediately after the stories are planted. And anyone who blames you for cheating on me with Joy, which we can’t deny for obvious reasons, will realize it’s a victimless crime. Because I was doing it to you, too.”

“This actually isn’t a terrible idea,” Rex said.

“Well, it makes both of us look bad,” I said.

“Sure,” Rex said.

“But it will sell tickets,” Harry said.

Rex smiled and then looked me right in the eye, put out his hand, and shook mine.

* * *

“NO ONE’S GOING to believe it,” Harry said as we drove to the tennis club later that morning. “People in town, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and me. There are a lot of people who will dismiss it right out of hand.”

“Because . . .”

“Because they know what I am. I mean, I’ve considered doing something like this before, maybe one day even taking a wife. God knows it would make my mother happy. She’s still sitting there, in Champaign, Illinois, desperately wondering when I’ll find a nice girl and have a family. I would love to have a family. But too many people would see through it.” He looked at me briefly as he drove. “Just as I’m afraid too many people will see through this.”

I looked out my window at the palm trees swaying at their tops.

“So we make it undeniable,” I said.

The thing I liked about Harry was that he was never one step behind me.

“Photos,” he said. “Of the two of us.”

“Yeah. Candids, looking like we’ve been caught at something.”

“Isn’t it easier for you just to pick someone else?” he said.

“I don’t want to get to know someone else,” I said. “I’m sick of trying to pretend I’m happy. At least with you, I’ll be pretending to love someone I really do love.”

Harry was quiet for a moment. “I think you should know something,” he said finally.

“OK.”

“Something I’ve thought I should tell you for some time.”

“OK, tell me.”

“I’ve been seeing John Braverman.”

My heart started beating quickly. “Celia’s John Braverman?”

Harry nodded.

“For how long?”

“A few weeks.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure if I should.”

“So their marriage is . . .”

“Fake,” Harry said.

“She doesn’t love him?” I asked.

“They sleep in separate beds.”

“Have you seen her?”

Harry didn’t answer at first. He looked as if he was trying to choose his words carefully. But I had no patience for perfect words.

“Harry, have you seen her?”

“Yes.”

“How does she seem?” I asked, and then thought of a better question, one more pressing. “Did she ask about me?”

While I had not found living without Celia to be easy, I did find it easier when I could pretend she was a part of another world. But this, her existing in my orbit, made everything I had been repressing come bubbling up.

“She didn’t,” Harry said. “But I suspect it’s because she didn’t want to ask, rather than not wanting to know.”

“But she doesn’t love him?”

Harry shook his head. “No, she doesn’t love him.”

I turned my head and looked back out the window. I imagined telling Harry to drive me to her house. I imagined running to her door. I imagined dropping to my knees and telling her the truth, that life without her was lonely and empty and quickly losing all meaning.

Instead, I said, “When should we do the picture?”

“What?”

“The picture of you and me. Where we make it look like we’ve been caught in an affair.”

“We can do it tomorrow night,” Harry said. “We can park the car. Maybe up in the hills, so photogs can find us but the picture will look secluded. I’ll call Rich Rice. He needs some money.”

I shook my head. “This can’t come from us. These gossips aren’t playing ball anymore. They are out for themselves. We need someone else to call it in. Someone the rags will believe wants me to get caught.”

“Who?”

I shake my head the moment the idea comes to me. I already don’t want to do it the moment I realize I have to.

* * *

I SAT DOWN at the phone in my study. I made sure the door was closed. And I dialed her number.

“Ruby, it’s Evelyn, and I need a favor,” I said as soon as she answered.

“I’m open to it,” she said, not missing a beat.

“I need you to tip off some photographers. Say you saw me necking in a car up in the Trousdale Estates.”

“What?” Ruby said, laughing. “Evelyn, what are you up to?”

“Don’t worry about what I’m up to. You have enough on your plate.”

“Does this mean Rex is about to be single?” she asked.

“Haven’t you had enough of my leftovers?”

“Honey, Don pursued me.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“The least you could have done was warn me,” she said.

“You knew what he was doing behind my back,” I said. “What made you think he’d be any different with you?”

“Not the cheating, Ev,” she said.

And that’s when I realized he’d hit her, too.

I was temporarily stunned silent.

“You’re OK now?” I asked after a moment. “You got away?”

“Our divorce is final. I’m moving to the beach, just bought a place in Santa Monica.”

“You don’t think he’s going to try to blackball you?”

“He tried,” Ruby said. “But he won’t succeed. His last three movies barely broke even. He didn’t get nominated for The Night Hunter like everybody thought. He’s on a downward spiral. He’s about to be as harmless as a declawed cat.”

I felt for him, in some small way, as I twirled the phone cord in my hand. But I felt for her much more. “How bad was it, Ruby?”

“Nothing I couldn’t hide with pancake makeup and long sleeves.” The way she said it, the pride in her voice, as if admitting that it hurt her was a vulnerability she wasn’t willing to give in to, made my heart break. It broke for her, and it broke for the me of all those years ago who did the same thing.

“You’ll come over for dinner one of these days,” I said to her.

“Oh, let’s not do that, Evelyn,” she said. “We’ve been through too much to be so phony.”

I laughed. “Fair enough.”

“Anybody in particular you want me to call tomorrow? Or just anybody with a tip line?”

“Anybody powerful will do. Anybody eager to make money off my demise.”

“Well, that’s everybody,” Ruby said. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“You’re too successful,” she said. “Too many hits, too many handsome husbands. We all want to shoot you down from the air now.”

“I know, dear. I know. And when they’re done with me, they’ll come for you.”

“You’re not really famous if anybody still likes you,” Ruby said. “I’ll call tomorrow. Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re a lifesaver.”

And as we hung up, I thought, If I’d told people what he was doing to me, he might not have had the chance to do it to her.

I wasn’t much interested in keeping a log of the victims of my decisions, but it did occur to me that if I was, I’d have had to put Ruby Reilly on the list.