The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

THAT WAS TRULY IT?” I say.

“She was done with me,” Evelyn says.

“What about the movie?”

“Are you asking if it was worth it?”

“I guess so.”

“The movie was a huge hit. Didn’t make it worth it.”

“Don Adler won an Oscar for it, didn’t he?”

Evelyn rolls her eyes. “That bastard won an Oscar, and I wasn’t even nominated.”

“Why not? I’ve seen it,” I say. “Parts of it, at least. You’re great. Really exceptional.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Well, then, why weren’t you nominated?”

“Because!” Evelyn says, frustrated. “Because I wasn’t allowed to be applauded for it. It had an X rating. It was responsible for letters to the editor at nearly every paper in the country. It was too scandalous, too explicit. It got people excited, and when they felt that way, they had to blame someone, and they blamed me. What else were they going to do? Blame the French director? The French are like that. And they weren’t going to blame the newly redeemed Don Adler. They blamed the sexpot they’d created whom they could now call a tramp. They weren’t going to give me an Oscar for that. They were going to watch it alone in a dark theater and then chastise me in public.”

“But it didn’t hurt your career,” I say. “You did two more movies the next year.”

“I made people money. No one turns away money. They were all too happy to get me in their movies and then talk about me behind my back.”

“Within a few years, you delivered what is considered one of the most noble performances of the decade.”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have had to turn it around. I did nothing wrong.”

“Well, we know that now. People were praising you, and the film, as early as the mid-’80s.”

“It’s all fine in hindsight,” Evelyn says. “Except that I spent years with a scarlet A on my chest, while women and men across the country screwed each other’s brains out thinking about what the movie meant. People were shocked by the representation of a woman wanting to get fucked. And while I’m aware of the crassness of my language, it’s really the only way to describe it. Patricia was not a woman who wanted to make love. She wanted to get fucked. And we showed that. And people hated how much they loved it.”

She’s still angry. I can see it in the way her jaw tightens.

“You won an Oscar shortly after that.”

“I lost Celia for that movie,” she says. “My life, which I loved so much, was turned upside down over that movie. Of course, I understand it was my own fault. I’m the one who filmed an explicit sex scene with my ex-husband without talking to her about it first. I’m not trying to blame other people for the mistakes I made in my own relationship. But still.” Evelyn is quiet, lost in her thoughts for a moment.

“I want to ask you something, because I think it’s important for you to speak directly about it,” I say.

“OK . . .”

“Did being bisexual put a strain on your relationship?” I want to make sure to portray her sexuality with all of its nuance, in all its complexity.

“What do you mean?” she asks. There is a slight edge to her voice.

“You lost the woman you loved because of your sexual relationships with men. I think that’s relevant to your larger identity.”

Evelyn listens to me and considers my words. Then she shakes her head. “No, I lost the woman I loved because I cared about being famous as much as I cared about her. It had nothing to do with my sexuality.”

“But you were using your sexuality to get things from men that Celia couldn’t give you.”

Evelyn shakes her head even more emphatically. “There’s a difference between sexuality and sex. I used sex to get what I wanted. Sex is just an act. Sexuality is a sincere expression of desire and pleasure. That I always kept for Celia.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that before,” I say.

“Being bisexual didn’t make me disloyal,” Evelyn says. “One has nothing to do with the other. Nor did it mean that Celia could only fulfill half my needs.”

I find myself interrupting her. “I didn’t—”

“I know you’re not saying that,” Evelyn says. “But I want you to have it in my words. When Celia said she couldn’t have all of me, it was because I was selfish and because I was scared of losing everything I had. Not because I had two sides of me that one person could never fulfill. I broke Celia’s heart because I spent half my time loving her and the other half hiding how much I loved her. Never once did I cheat on Celia. If we’re defining cheating by desiring another person and then making love to that person. I never once did that. When I was with Celia, I was with Celia. The same way any woman married to a man is with that man. Did I look at other people? Sure. Just like anyone in a relationship does. But I loved Celia, and I shared my true self only with Celia.

“The problem was, I used my body to get other things I wanted. And I didn’t stop doing that, even for her. That’s my tragedy. That I used my body when it was all I had, and then I kept using it even when I had other options. I kept using it even when I knew it would hurt the woman I loved. And what’s more, I made her complicit in it. I put her in a position to continually have to approve of my choices at her own expense. Celia may have left me in a huff, but it was a death by a thousand cuts. I hurt her with these tiny scratches, day after day. And then I got surprised when it left a wound too big to heal.

“I slept with Mick because I wanted to protect our careers, mine and hers. And that was more important to me than the sanctity of our relationship. And I slept with Harry because I wanted a baby, and I thought people would get suspicious if we adopted. Because I was afraid to draw attention to the sexlessness of our marriage. And I chose that over the sanctity of our relationship. And when Max Girard had a good idea about a creative choice in a movie, I wanted to do it. And I was willing to do it at the expense of the sanctity of our relationship.”

“You’re hard on yourself, I think,” I say. “Celia wasn’t perfect. She could be cruel.”

Evelyn shrugs slightly. “She always made sure the bad was outweighed by so much good. I . . . well, I didn’t do that for her. I made it fifty-fifty. Which is about the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad. Of course, I realized all this when she left me. And I tried to fix it. But it was too late. As she said, she simply couldn’t do it anymore. Because it took me too long to figure out what I cared about. Not because of my sexuality. I feel confident you’re going to get that right.”

“I promise,” I say. “I will.”

“I know you will. And while we’re on the subject of how I’d like to be portrayed, there’s something else you need to get exactly right. I won’t be able to clear things up after I’m gone. I want to know now, I want to be absolutely sure, that you’ll represent what I’m telling you accurately.”

“OK,” I say. “What is it?”

Evelyn’s mood turns a bit darker. “I’m not a good person, Monique. Make sure, in the book, that that’s clear. That I’m not claiming to be good. That I did a lot of things that hurt a lot of people, and I would do them over again if I had to.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “You don’t seem so bad, Evelyn.”

“You, of all people, are going to change your mind about that,” she says. “Very soon.”

And all I can think is, What the fuck did she do?