The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

I WAS IN LOVE WITH Connor from the moment she looked at me. With her full head of hair and her round blue eyes, I thought, for a moment, she looked just like Celia.

Connor was always hungry and hated being alone. She wanted nothing more than to lie on me, quietly sleeping. She absolutely adored Harry.

During those first few months, Celia shot two movies back-to-back, both out of town. One of them, The Buyer, was a movie I knew she was passionate about. But the second, a mob movie, was exactly the sort of work she hated. On top of the violence and darkness, it shot for eight weeks, four in Los Angeles and four in Sicily. When the offer came in, I was expecting her to turn it down. Instead, she took the part, and John decided to go with her.

During the time they were gone, Harry and I lived almost exactly like a traditional married couple. Harry made me bacon and eggs for breakfast and ran my baths. I fed the baby and changed her nearly hourly.

We had help, of course. Luisa was taking care of the house. She was changing the sheets, doing the laundry, cleaning up after all of us. On her days off, it was Harry who stepped in.

It was Harry who told me I looked beautiful, even though we both knew I’d seen better days. It was Harry who read script after script, looking for the perfect project for me to take on once Connor was old enough. It was Harry who slept next to me every night, who held my hand as we fell asleep, who held me when I was convinced I was a terrible mother after I scratched Connor’s cheek giving her a bath.

Harry and I had always been close, had long been family, but during that time, I truly felt like a wife. I felt like I had a husband. And I grew to love him even more. Connor, and that time with her, bonded Harry and me in ways I could never imagine. He was there to celebrate the good and support me during the bad.

It was around that time that I started to believe that friendships could be written in the stars. “If there are all different types of soul mates,” I told Harry one afternoon, when the two of us were sitting out on the patio with Connor, “then you are one of mine.”

Harry was wearing a pair of shorts and no shirt. Connor was lying on his chest. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and his stubble was coming in. It had just the slightest gray patch under his chin. Looking at him with her, I realized how much they looked alike. Same long lashes, same pert lips.

Harry held Connor to his chest with one hand and grabbed my free hand with the other. “I am absolutely positive that I need you more than I’ve ever needed another living soul,” he said. “The only exception being—”

“Connor,” I said. We both smiled.

For the rest of our lives, we would say that. The only exception to absolutely everything was Connor.

* * *

WHEN CELIA AND John came home, things went back to normal. Celia lived with me. Harry lived with John. Connor stayed at my place, with the assumption that Harry would come by days and nights to be with us, to care for us.

But that first morning, just around the time Harry was due for breakfast, Celia put on her robe and headed to the kitchen. She started making oatmeal.

I had just come down, still in my pajamas. I was sitting at the island nursing Connor when Harry walked in.

“Oh,” he said, looking at Celia, noticing the pan. Luisa was washing dishes in the sink. “I was coming in to make bacon and eggs.”

“I’ve got it,” Celia said. “A nice warm bowl of oatmeal for everybody. There’s enough for you, too, if you’re hungry.”

Harry looked at me, unsure what to do. I looked at him, equally uncertain.

Celia just kept stirring. And then she grabbed three bowls and set them down. She put the pot in the sink for Luisa to wash.

It occurred to me then how odd this system was. Harry and I paid Luisa’s salary, but Harry didn’t even live here. Celia and John paid the mortgage on the home Harry lived in.

Harry sat down and grabbed the spoon in front of him. He and I dug into our oatmeal at the same time. When Celia’s back was to us, we looked at each other and grimaced. Harry mouthed something to me, and even though I could barely read his lips, I knew what he was saying, because it was exactly what I was thinking.

So bland.

Celia turned back to us and offered us some raisins. We both took her up on it. And then the three of us sat in the kitchen, eating our oatmeal quietly, all aware that Celia had staked her claim. I was hers. She would make my breakfast. Harry was a visitor.

Connor started crying, so Harry took her and changed her. Luisa went downstairs to grab the laundry. And when we were alone, Celia said, “Max Girard is doing a movie called Three A.M. for Paramount. It’s supposed to be a real art-house piece, and I think you should do it.”

I had kept in touch with Max, on and off, since he directed me in Boute-en-Train. I never forgot that it was with him that I was able to catapult my name to the top again. But I knew Celia couldn’t stand him. He was too overt in his interest in me, too salacious about it. Celia used to jokingly call him Pepé Le Pew. “You think I should do a movie with Max?”

Celia nodded. “They offered it to me, but it makes more sense for you. Regardless of the fact that I think he’s a Neanderthal, I can recognize that the man makes good movies. And this role is exactly your thing.”

“What do you mean?”

Celia got up and took my bowl with hers. She rinsed them both in the sink and then turned back to me, leaning against it. “It’s a sexy part. They need a real bombshell.”

I shook my head. “I’m someone’s mother now. The whole world knows it.”

Celia shook her head. “That’s exactly why you have to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a sexual woman, Evelyn. You’re sensual, and you’re beautiful, and you’re desirable. Don’t let them take that away from you. Don’t let them desexualize you. Don’t let your career be on their terms. What do you want to do? You want to play a mom in every role you take from now on? You want to play only nuns and teachers?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. I want to play everything.”

“So play everything,” she said. “Be bold. Do what no one expects you to do.”

“People will say it’s unbecoming.”

“The Evelyn I love doesn’t care about that.”

I closed my eyes and listened to her, nodding. She wanted me to do it for me. I really believe that. She knew I wouldn’t be happy being limited, being relegated. She knew I wanted to continue to make people talk, to tantalize, to surprise. But the part she wasn’t mentioning, the part I’m not even sure she truly understood, was that she also wanted me to do it because she didn’t want me to change.

She wanted to be with a bombshell.

It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.

It is why I loved Celia. She was a very complicated woman who always kept me guessing. And here she had surprised me one more time.

She had said, Go, have a baby. But she had meant to add, Just don’t act like a mother.

Fortunately and unfortunately for her, I had absolutely no intention of being told what to do or of being manipulated into a single thing.

So I read the script, and I took a few days and thought about it. I asked Harry what he thought. And then I woke up one morning and thought, I want the part. I want it because I want to show I’m still my own woman.

I called Max Girard and told him I was interested if he was interested. And he was.

“But I’m surprised you want to do this,” Max said. “You are one hundred percent sure?”

“Is there nudity?” I asked. “I’m OK with the idea. Really. I look fantastic, Max. It’s not a problem.” I did not look fantastic, nor did I feel fantastic. It was a problem. But it was a solvable problem, and solvable problems aren’t really problems, are they?

“No,” Max said, laughing. “Evelyn, you could be ninety-seven years old, and the whole world would line up to see your chest.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Don,” he said.

“Don who?”

“Your part,” he said. “The whole movie. All of it.”

“What?”

“You’re playing opposite Don Adler.”