“I’ve seen people do it,” she said, shrugging.

“Me too. I’ve seen Don do it. But I’ve never done it.”

“We can do it,” she said. “We can do anything.”

“All right!” I said. “You go open another bottle of wine, and I’ll start trying to guess how to get it started.”

“Great idea!” Celia flung the blanket off her shoulders and ran into the kitchen.

I knelt down in front of the fireplace and started poking the ashes. And then I took two logs and laid them perpendicular to each other.

“We need newspaper,” she said when she came back. “And I’ve decided there’s no point in glasses anymore.”

I looked up to see her swigging the wine out of the bottle.

I laughed, grabbed the newspaper off the table, and threw it in. “Even better!” I said, and I ran upstairs and grabbed the copy of Sub Rosa that had called me a cold bitch. I raced back down to show her. “We’ll burn this!”

I threw the magazine into the fireplace and lit a match.

“Do it!” she said. “Burn those jerks.”

The flame curled the pages, held steady for a moment, and then sputtered out. I lit another match and threw it in.

I somehow managed a few embers and then a very small flame as some of the newspaper caught.

“All right,” I said. “I feel confident that this is slowly coming along.”

Celia came over and handed me the bottle of wine. I took it and sipped from it. “You have a little catching up to do,” she said as I tried to give it back to her.

I laughed and put the bottle back up to my lips.

It was expensive wine. I liked drinking it as if it was water, as if it meant nothing to me. Poor girls from Hell’s Kitchen can’t drink this kind of wine and treat it like it’s nothing.

“All right, all right, give it back,” Celia said.

I teasingly held on to it, not letting it out of my grasp.

Her hand was on mine. She pulled with the same force I did. And then I said, “OK, it’s all yours.” But I said it too late, and I let go too soon.

Wine went all over her white shirt.

“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I took the bottle, put it down on the table, took her hand, and pulled her up the stairs. “You can borrow a shirt. I have just the perfect one for you.”

I led her into my bedroom and straight into my closet. I watched as Celia looked around, taking in the surroundings of the bedroom I shared with Don.

“Can I ask you something?” she said. Her voice had an airiness to it, a wistfulness. I thought she might ask me if I believed in ghosts or love at first sight.

“Sure,” I said.

“And you’ll promise to tell the truth?” she asked as she took a seat on the corner of the bed.

“Not particularly,” I said.

Celia laughed.

“But go ahead and ask the question,” I said. “And we’ll see.”

“Do you love him?” she asked.

“Don?”

“Who else?”

I thought about it. I had loved him once. I’d loved him very much. But did I love him anymore? “I don’t know,” I said.

“Is it all for publicity? Are you just in it to be an Adler?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“What, then?”

I walked over and sat down on the bed. “It’s hard to say I do or don’t love him or to say that I’m with him for one reason over another. I love him, and a lot of the time I hate him. And I’m with him because of his name but also because we have fun. We used to have fun a lot, and now we still do sometimes. It’s hard to explain.”

“Does he do it for you?” she said.

“Yes, very much. Sometimes I find myself aching to be with him so much it embarrasses me. I don’t know if a woman is supposed to want a man as much as I find myself wanting Don.”

Don may have taught me that I was capable of loving someone and desiring him. But he also taught me that you could desire someone even when you don’t like him, that you can desire someone especially when you don’t like him. I believe today they call it hate-fucking. But it’s a crude name for something that is a very human, sensual experience.

“Forget I asked,” Celia said, standing up from the bed. I could tell she was bothered.

“Let me get the shirt,” I said, walking toward the dresser.

It was one of my favorite shirts, a lilac button-down blouse with a silvery sheen to it. But it didn’t fit me well. I could barely fasten it around my chest.

Celia was smaller than me, more delicate.

“Here,” I said, handing it to her.

She took it from me and looked at it. “The color is gorgeous.”

“I know,” I said. “I stole it from the set of Father and Daughter. But don’t tell anyone.”

“I hope you know by now that all of your secrets are safe with me,” Celia said as she started unbuttoning it to put it on.

I think for her it was a throwaway line. But it meant a lot to me. Not because she said it, I suppose. But because when she said it, I realized I believed her.

“I do,” I said. “I do know that.”

People think that intimacy is about sex.

But intimacy is about truth.

When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me”—that’s intimacy.

And by those standards, that moment with Celia was the most intimate one I’d ever had with anyone.

It made me so appreciative, so grateful, that I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go.

“I’m not sure it will fit me,” Celia said.

“Try it on. I bet it will, and if it does, it’s yours.”

I wanted to give her a lot of things. I wanted what I had to be hers. I wondered if this was what it felt like to love someone. I already knew what it meant to be in love with someone. I’d felt it, and I’d acted it. But to love someone. To care for them. To throw your lot in with theirs and think, Whatever happens, it’s you and me.

“All right,” Celia said. She threw the shirt on the bed. As she pulled off her own shirt, I found myself looking at the paleness of the skin stretched across her ribs. I gazed at the bright whiteness of her bra. I noticed the way her breasts, instead of being lifted by the bra like mine, appeared as if the bra were there merely for decoration.

I followed the tiny trail of dark brown freckles that ran along the side of her right hip.

“Well, hello,” Don said.

I jumped. Celia gasped and scrambled to put her shirt back on.

Don started laughing. “What on earth is going on in here?” he teased.

I walked over to him and said, “Absolutely nothing.”

PhotoMoment

November 2, 1959

LIFE OF THE PARTY GIRL

Celia St. James is really making a name for herself around town! And it’s not just because she’s proving to be a swell actress. The Georgia Peach knows how to make all the right friends.

The most high-profile of which is everyone’s favorite starlet Evelyn Hugo. Celia and Evelyn have been seen all over town, shopping, chatting, and even finding time for a round or two of ladies’ golf at the Beverly Hills Golf Club.

And to make matters even more perfect, it seems the best friends will be going on plenty of double dates in the near future. Celia has been spotted at the Trocadero with none other than Robert Logan, close friend of Evelyn’s hubby, Don Adler.

A handsome date, glamorous friends, and talk of a statuette in her future—it’s a good time to be Celia St. James!

I DON’T WANT TO DO this,” Celia said.

She was wearing a tailored black dress with a deep-V neckline. It was the kind of dress I could never wear out of the house or I’d be picked up on a prostitution charge. She had on a diamond necklace that Don had persuaded Sunset to loan to her.

Sunset wasn’t in the business of helping freelance actresses, but Celia wanted the diamonds, and I wanted Celia to have anything she wanted. And Don wanted me to have anything I wanted, at least most of the time.