And exactly the sort of person Ruby and I would hate.
“You’re twenty-one years old, you’re married to the biggest movie star there is right now, and you were just nominated for an Academy Award, Evelyn.”
Harry had a point, but so did I. Celia was going to be a problem.
“It’s OK. I’m ready. I’m gonna give the best goddamn performance of my life, and when people watch the movie, they are going to say, ‘Beth who? Oh, the middle sister who dies? What about her?’?”
“I have absolutely no doubt,” Harry said, putting his arm around me. “You’re fabulous, Evelyn. The whole world knows it.”
I smiled. “You really think so?”
This is something that everyone should know about stars. We like to be told we are adored, and we want you to repeat yourself. Later in my life, people would always come up to me and say, “I’m sure you don’t want to hear me blabbering on about how great you are,” and I always say, as if I’m joking, “Oh, one more time won’t hurt.” But the truth is, praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even.
“Yes,” he said. “I really think so.”
I stood up from my chair to give Harry a hug, but as I did, the lighting highlighted my upper cheekbone, the rounded spot just below my eye.
I watched as Harry’s gaze ran across my face.
He could see the light bruise I was hiding, could see the purple and blue under the surface of my skin, bleeding through the pancake makeup.
“Evelyn . . .” he said. He put his thumb up to my face, as if he needed to feel it to know it was real.
“Harry, don’t.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“No, you won’t.”
“We’re best friends, Evelyn. Me and you.”
“I know,” I said. “I know that.”
“You said best friends tell each other everything.”
“And you knew it was bullshit when I said it.”
I stared at him as he stared at me.
“Let me help,” he said. “What can I do?”
“You can make sure I look better than Celia, better than all of ’em, in the dailies.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“But it’s all you can do.”
“Evelyn . . .”
I kept my upper lip stiff. “There’s no move here, Harry.”
He understood what I meant. I couldn’t leave Don Adler.
“I could talk to Ari.”
“I love him,” I said, turning away and clipping my earrings on.
It was the truth. Don and I had problems, but so did a lot of people. And he was the only man who had ever ignited something in me. Sometimes I hated myself for wanting him, for finding myself brightening up when his attention was on me, for still needing his approval. But I did. I loved him, and I wanted him in my bed. And I wanted to stay in the spotlight.
“End of discussion.”
A moment later, there was another knock on my door. It was Ruby Reilly. She was shooting a drama where she played a young nun. She was standing in front of the two of us in a black tunic and a white cowl. Her hood was in her hand.
“Did you hear?” Ruby said to me. “Well, of course you heard. Harry’s here.”
Harry laughed. “You both start rehearsals in three weeks.”
Ruby hit Harry on the arm playfully. “No, not that part! Did you hear Celia St. James is playing Beth? That tart’s gonna show us all up.”
“See, Harry?” I said. “Celia St. James is going to ruin everything.”
THE MORNING WE STARTED REHEARSALS for Little Women, Don woke me up with breakfast in bed. Half a grapefruit and a lit cigarette. I found this highly romantic, because it was exactly what I wanted.
“Good luck today, sweetheart,” he said as he got dressed and headed out the door. “I know you’ll show Celia St. James what it really means to be an actress.”
I smiled and wished him a good day. I ate the grapefruit and left the tray in bed as I got into the shower.
When I got out, our maid, Paula, was in the bedroom cleaning up after me. She was picking the butt of my cigarette off the duvet. I’d left it on the tray, but it must have fallen.
I didn’t keep a neat house.
My clothes from last night were on the floor. My slippers were on top of the dresser. My towel was in the sink.
Paula had her work cut out for her, and she didn’t find me particularly charming. That much was clear.
“Can you do that later?” I said to her. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m in a rush to get to set.”
She smiled politely and left.
I wasn’t in a rush, really. I just wanted to get dressed, and I wasn’t going to do that in front of Paula. I didn’t want her to see that there was a bruise, dark purple and yellowing, on my ribs.
Don had pushed me down the stairs nine days before. Even as I say it all these years later, I feel the need to defend him. To say that it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. That we were toward the bottom of the stairs, and he gave me a shove that bumped me down about four steps and onto the floor.
Unfortunately, the table by the door, where we kept the keys and the mail, is what caught my fall. I landed on it on my left side, the handle on the top drawer getting me right in the rib cage.
When I said that I thought I might have broken a rib, Don said, “Oh, no, honey. Are you all right?” as if he wasn’t the one who pushed me.
Like an idiot, I said, “I think I’m fine.”
The bruise wasn’t going away quickly.
Paula burst back in through the door a moment later.
“Sorry, Mrs. Adler, I forgot the—”
I panicked. “For heaven’s sake, Paula! I asked you to leave!”
She turned around and walked out. And what pissed me off more than anything was that if she was going to sell a story, why wasn’t it that one? Why didn’t she tell the world that Don Adler was beating his wife? Why, instead, did she come after me?
*
TWO HOURS LATER, I was on the set of Little Women. The soundstage had been turned into a New England cabin, complete with snow on the windows.
Ruby and I were united in our fight against Celia St. James stealing the movie from us, despite the fact that anyone who plays Beth leaves the audience reaching for the hankies.
You can’t tell an actress that a rising tide lifts all boats. It doesn’t work that way for us.
But on the first day of rehearsals, as Ruby and I hung out by craft services and drank coffee, it became clear that Celia St. James had absolutely no idea how much we all hated her.
“Oh, God,” she said, coming up to Ruby and me. “I’m so scared.”
She was wearing gray trousers and a pale pink short-sleeved sweater. She had a childlike, girl-next-door kind of face. Big, round, pale blue eyes, long lashes, Cupid’s bow lips, long strawberry-red hair. She was simplicity perfected.
I was the sort of beautiful that women knew they could never truly emulate. Men knew they would never even get close to a woman like me.
Ruby was the elegant, aloof sort of beauty. Ruby was cool. Ruby was chic.
But Celia was the sort of beautiful that felt as if you could hold it in your hands, like if you played your cards right, you might just get to marry a girl like Celia St. James.