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“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—”
