Mick hit an instrumental part in the song and started walking toward the very front of the stage, talking to the audience. Reflexively, I stood up and cheered for him. I jumped up and down. I was louder than anyone there. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted to make the two of them stop talking, to each other or to anyone else. I wanted the gossip game of telephone that had started with that woman to end with that man. I wanted it all to be over. I wanted to be doing something else. So I cheered as loudly as I could. I cheered like the teenage girls in the back. I cheered as if my life depended on it, because maybe it did.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Mick said from the stage. He had his hand over his brow, shading the spotlight from his eyes. He was looking right at me. “Or is that my dream woman right there in the front?”

Sub Rosa

November 1, 1961

EVELYN HUGO AND CELIA ST. JAMES SLUMBER PARTIES

How close is too close?

Girl-next-door Celia St. James, with her Oscar win and her trail of hits, has been a longtime friend of honey-blond sexpot Evelyn Hugo. But lately we’re starting to wonder if these two aren’t up to something.

Insiders are saying the two are quite a pair of . . . thespians.

Sure, plenty of girlfriends go shopping together and share a drink or two. But Celia’s car is parked outside Evelyn’s home, the one she used to share with none other than Mr. Don Adler, every night. All night.

So what’s happening behind those walls?

Whatever it is, it certainly doesn’t sound like it’s on the straight and narrow.

I’M GOING OUT ON A date with Mick Riva.”

“Like hell you are.”

When Celia was angry, her chest and her cheeks flushed. This time, they’d grown red faster than I’d ever seen.

We were in the outdoor kitchen of her weekend home in Palm Springs. She was grilling us burgers for dinner.

Ever since the article came out, I’d refused to be seen with her in Los Angeles. The rags didn’t yet know about her place in Palm Springs. So we would spend weekends there together and our weeks in L.A. apart.

Celia went along with the plan like a put-upon spouse, agreeing to whatever I wanted because it was easier than fighting with me. But now, with the suggestion of going on a date, I’d gone too far.

I knew I’d gone too far. That was the point, sort of.

“You need to listen to me,” I said.

“You need to listen to me.” She slammed the lid of the grill shut and gestured to me with a pair of silver tongs. “I’ll go along with any of your little tricks that you want. But I’m not getting on board with either of us dating.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“We have plenty of choices.”

“Not if you want to keep your job. Not if you want to keep this house. Not if you want to keep any of our friends. Not to mention that the police could come after us.”

“You are being paranoid.”

“I’m not, Celia. And that’s what’s scary. But I’m telling you, they know.”

“One article in one tiny paper thinks they know. That’s not the same thing.”

“You’re right. This is still early enough that we can stop it.”

“Or it will go away on its own.”

“Celia, you have two movies coming out next year, and my movie is all anyone is talking about around town.”

“Exactly. Like Harry always says, that means we can do whatever we want.”

“No, that means we have a lot to lose.”

Celia, angry, picked up my pack of cigarettes and lit one. “So that’s what you want to do? You want to spend every second of our lives trying to hide what we really do? Who we really are?”

“It’s what everyone in town is doing every day.”

“Well, I don’t want to.”

“Well, then you shouldn’t have become famous.”

Celia stared at me as she puffed away at her cigarette. The pink of her lipstick stained the filter. “You’re a pessimist, Evelyn. To your very core.”

“What would you like to do, Celia? Maybe I should call over to Sub Rosa myself? Call the FBI directly? I can give them a quote. ‘Yep, Celia St. James and I are deviants!’ ”

“We aren’t deviants.”

“I know that, Celia. And you know that. But no one else knows that.”

“But maybe they would. If they tried.”

“They aren’t going to try. Do you get that? No one wants to understand people like us.”

“But they should.”

“There are lots of things we all should do, sweetheart. But it doesn’t work that way.”

“I hate this conversation. You’re making me feel awful.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. But the fact that it’s awful doesn’t mean it’s not true. If you want to keep your job, you cannot allow people to believe that you and I are more than friends.”

“And if I don’t want to keep my job?”

“You do want to.”

“No, you want to. And you’re pinning it on me.”

“Of course I want to.”

“I’d give it all up, you know. All of it. The money and the jobs and the fame. I’d give it all up just to be with you, just to be normal with you.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying, Celia. I’m sorry, but you don’t.”

“What’s really going on here is that you’re not willing to give it up for me.”

“No, what’s going on here is that you’re a dilettante who thinks if this acting thing doesn’t work out, you can go back to Savannah and live off your parents.”

“Who are you to talk to me about money? You’ve got bags of it.”

“Yeah, I do. Because I worked my ass off and was married to an asshole who knocked me around. And I did that so I could be famous. So I could live the life we’re living. And if you think I’m not going to protect that, you’ve lost your mind.”

“At least you’re admitting this is about you.”

I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Celia, listen to me. Do you love that Oscar? The very thing you keep on your nightstand and touch before you go to sleep?”

“Don’t—”

“People are saying, given how early you won it, you’re the kind of actress who could win multiple times. I want that for you. Don’t you want that?”

“Of course I do.”

“And you’re gonna let them take that away just because you met me?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Listen to me, Celia. I love you. And I can’t let you throw away everything you have built—and all your incredible talent—by taking a stand when no one will stand with us.”

“But if we don’t try . . .”

“No one is going to back us, Celia. I know how it feels to be shut out of this town. I’m just finally making my way back in. I know you’re probably picturing some world where we go up against Goliath and win. But that’s not gonna happen. We’d tell the truth about our lives, and they’d bury us. We could end up in prison or in a mental hospital. Do you get that? We could be committed. It’s not that far-fetched. It happens. Certainly, you can count on the fact that no one would return our calls. Not even Harry.”

“Of course Harry would. Harry’s . . . one of us.”

“Which is precisely why he could never be caught talking to us again. Don’t you get it? The danger is even higher for him. There are actually men out there who would want to kill him if they knew. That’s the world we live in. Anyone who touched us would be examined. Harry wouldn’t be able to withstand it. I could never put him in that position. To lose everything he’s worked for? To quite literally risk his life? No. No, we’d be alone. Two pariahs.”

“But we’d have each other. And that’s enough for me.”

She was crying now, the tears streaking down her face and carrying her mascara with them. I put my arms around her and wiped her cheek with my thumb. “I love you so much, sweetheart. So, so much. And it’s in part because of things like that. You’re an idealist and a romantic, and you have a beautiful soul. And I wish the world was ready to be the way you see it. I wish that the rest of the people on earth with us were capable of living up to your expectations. But they aren’t. The world is ugly, and no one wants to give anyone the benefit of the doubt about anything. When we lose our work and our reputations, when we lose our friends and, eventually, what money we have, we will be destitute. I’ve lived that life before. And I cannot let it happen to you. I will do whatever I can to prevent you from living that way. Do you hear me? I love you too much to let you live only for me.”