The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

WHEN I GET TO EVELYN’S apartment in the morning, I’m unsure when I even made the actual decision to come.

I simply woke up and found myself on my way. When I rounded the corner, walking here from the subway, I realized I could never have not come.

I cannot and will not do anything to compromise my standing at Vivant. I did not fight for writer at large to bunt at the last minute.

I’m right on time but somehow the last to arrive. Grace opens the door for me and already looks as if a hurricane hit her. Her hair is falling out of her ponytail, and she’s trying harder than usual to keep a smile on her face.

“They showed up almost forty-five minutes early,” Grace says to me in a whisper. “Evelyn had a makeup person in at the crack of dawn to get her ready before the magazine’s makeup person. She had a lighting consultant come in at eight thirty this morning to guide her on the most flattering light in the house. Turns out it’s the terrace, which I have not been as diligent about cleaning because it’s still cold out every day. Anyway, I’ve been scrubbing the terrace from top to bottom for the past two hours.” Grace jokingly rests her head on my shoulder. “Thank God I’m going on vacation.”

“Monique!” Frankie says when she sees me in the hallway. “What took you so long?”

I look at my watch. “It’s eleven-oh-six.” I remember the first day I met Evelyn Hugo. I remember how nervous I was. I remember how larger-than-life she seemed. She is painfully human to me now. But this is all new to Frankie. She hasn’t seen the real Evelyn. She still thinks we’re photographing an icon more than a person.

I step out onto the terrace and see Evelyn in the midst of lights, reflectors, wires, and cameras. There are people circled around her. She is sitting on a stool. Her gray blond hair is being blown in the air by a wind machine. She is wearing her signature emerald green, this time in a long-sleeved silk gown. Billie Holiday is playing on a speaker somewhere. The sun is shining behind Evelyn. She looks like the very center of the universe.

She is right at home.

She smiles for the camera, her brown eyes sparkling in a different way from anything I’ve ever seen in person. She seems at peace somehow, in full display, and I wonder if the real Evelyn isn’t the woman I’ve been talking to for the past two weeks but, instead, the one I see before me right now. Even at almost eighty, she commands a room in a way I’ve never seen before. A star is always and forever a star.

Evelyn was born to be famous. I think her body helped her. I think her face helped her. But for the first time, watching her in action, moving in front of the camera, I get the sense that she has sold herself short in one way: she could have been born with considerably less physical gifts and probably still made it. She simply has it. That undefinable quality that makes everyone stop and pay attention.

She spots me as I stand behind one of the lighting guys, and she stops what she’s doing. She waves me over to her.

“Everyone, everyone,” she says. “We need a few photos of Monique and me. Please.”

“Oh, Evelyn,” I say. “I don’t want to do that.” I don’t want to even be close to her.

“Please,” she says. “To remember me by.”

A couple of people laugh, as if Evelyn is making a joke. Because, of course, no one could forget Evelyn Hugo. But I know she’s serious.

And so, in my jeans and blazer, I step up next to her. I take off my glasses. I can feel the heat of the lights, the way they glare in my eyes, the way the wind feels on my face.

“Evelyn, I know this isn’t news to you,” the photographer says, “but boy, does the camera love you.”

“Oh,” Evelyn says, shrugging. “It never hurts to hear it one more time.”

Her dress is low-cut, revealing her still-ample cleavage, and it occurs to me that it is the very thing that made her that will be the thing to finally take her down.

Evelyn catches my eye and smiles. It is a sincere smile, a kind smile. There is something almost nurturing about it, as if she is looking at me to see how I’m doing, as if she cares.

And then, in an instant, I realize that she does.

Evelyn Hugo wants to know that I’m OK, that with everything that has happened, I will still be all right.

In a moment of vulnerability, I find myself putting my arm around her. A second after I do, I realize that I want to pull it back, that I’m not ready to be this close.

“I love it!” the photographer says. “Just like that.”

I cannot pull my arm away now. And so I pretend. I pretend, for one picture, that I am not a bundle of nerves. I pretend that I am not furious and confused and heartbroken and torn up and disappointed and shocked and uncomfortable.

I pretend that I am simply captivated by Evelyn Hugo.

Because, despite everything, I still am.

* * *

AFTER THE PHOTOGRAPHER leaves, after everyone has cleaned up, after Frankie has left the apartment, so happy that she could have sprouted wings and flown herself back to the office, I am preparing to leave.

Evelyn is upstairs changing her clothes.

“Grace,” I say as I spot her gathering disposable cups and paper plates in the kitchen. “I wanted to take a moment to say good-bye, since Evelyn and I are done.”

“Done?” Grace asks.

I nod. “We finished up the story yesterday. Photo shoot today. Now I get to writing,” I say, even though I haven’t the foggiest idea how I’m going to approach any of this or what, exactly, my next step is.

“Oh,” Grace says, shrugging. “I must have misunderstood. I thought you were going to be here with Evelyn through my vacation. But honestly, all I could focus on was that I had two tickets to Costa Rica in my hands.”

“That’s exciting. When do you leave?”

“On the red-eye later,” Grace says. “Evelyn gave them to me last night. For me and my husband. All expenses paid. A week. We’re staying near Monteverde. All I heard was ‘zip-lining in the cloud forest,’ and I was sold.”

“You deserve it,” Evelyn says as she appears at the top of the stairs and walks down to meet us. She is in jeans and a T-shirt but has kept her hair and makeup. She looks gorgeous but also plain. Two things that only Evelyn Hugo can be at once.

“Are you sure you don’t need me here? I thought Monique would be around to keep you company,” Grace says.

Evelyn shakes her head. “No, you go. You’ve done so much for me lately. You need some time on your own. If something comes up, I can always call downstairs.”

“I don’t need to—”

Evelyn cuts her off. “Yes, you do. It’s important that you know how much I appreciate all that you’ve done around here. So let me say thank you this way.”

Grace smiles demurely. “OK,” she says. “If you insist.”

“I do. In fact, go home now. You’ve been cleaning all day, and I’m sure you need more time to pack. So go on, get out of here.”

Surprisingly, Grace doesn’t fight her. She merely says thank you and gathers her things. Everything seems to be happening seamlessly until Evelyn stops her on her way out and gives her a hug.

Grace seems slightly surprised though pleased.

“You know I could never have spent these past few years without you, don’t you?” Evelyn says as she pulls away from her.

Grace blushes. “Thank you.”

“Have fun in Costa Rica,” Evelyn says. “The time of your life.”

And once Grace is out the door, I suspect I understand what is going on.

Evelyn was never going to let the thing that made her be the thing to destroy her. She was never going to let anything, even a part of her body, have that sort of power.

Evelyn is going to die when she wants to.

And she wants to die now.

“Evelyn,” I say. “What are you . . .”

I can’t bring myself to say it or even suggest it. It sounds so absurd, even the thought of it. Evelyn Hugo taking her own life.

I imagine myself saying it out loud and then watching Evelyn laugh at me, at how creative my imagination is, at how silly I can be.

But I also imagine myself saying it and having Evelyn respond with a plain and resigned confirmation.

And I’m not sure I’m ready to stomach either scenario.

“Hm?” Evelyn says, looking at me. She does not seem concerned or disturbed or nervous. She looks as if this is any normal day.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Thank you for coming today,” she says. “I know you were unsure if you would be able to make it, and I . . . I’m just glad that you did.”

I hate Evelyn, but I think I like her very much.

I wish she had never existed, and yet I can’t help but admire her a great deal.

I’m not sure what to do with that. I’m not sure what any of it means.

I turn the front doorknob. All I can manage to squeak out is the very heart of what I mean. “Please take care, Evelyn,” I say.

She reaches out and takes my hand. She squeezes it briefly and then lets go. “You too, Monique. You have an exceptional future ahead of you. You’ll wrangle the very best out of this world. I really do believe that.”

Evelyn looks at me, and for one split second, I can read her expression. It is subtle, and it is fleeting. But it is there. And I know that my suspicions are right.

Evelyn Hugo is saying good-bye.