Summary
Evelyn continues her narrative. At first, her marriage to Don was blissful, and she loved being with him and having sex with him. After only a few weeks of marriage, the two of them began shooting the film One More Day together. However, one of Don's other films got bad reviews, and he began to feel insecure about his career. This annoyed him, especially since Evelyn's career was doing well, and Don suggested that Evelyn stop working and have children. Evelyn refused, and Don hit her for the first time. However, when Don apologized and swore he would never do it again, Evelyn believed him. One More Day was a hit, and both Evelyn and Don were nominated for Oscars, but Evelyn confides that she has never watched the film.
Over the following months, Don hit Evelyn repeatedly, particularly when he was feeling frustrated or insecure. Harry realized what was going on, but both he and Evelyn knew that Evelyn's career depended on her staying with Don. Evelyn also still loved him, even though he was abusing her. Because Evelyn was determined to hide the abuse, she was sometimes rude and curt with her housekeeper, Paula. Neither Evelyn nor Don won at the Oscars; however, a few months later, Harry told Evelyn that production was going to finally begin on Little Women. She would be co-starring alongside Ruby Reilly (a friend of Evelyn's), and a young rising star named Celia St. James. Evelyn was immediately suspicious, because she could tell how talented Celia was.
Evelyn and Monique pause their interviewing; Monique admits that she hasn't yet told her editor about the biography. Monique also receives a package from her mother, containing photos that her father took on various sets. Monique reminisces about how much her father loved his work, and how this inspired her to find her own passion in journalism. Monique also reveals that her full first name is Elizabeth Monique Grant; her father always preferred to call her by her middle name, and after his death, Monique adopted it as her primary name. She reflects on how happy and loving her family was, even though her parents faced challenges as a biracial couple (her mother is white, and her father was Black).
The narrative returns to Evelyn's account. Evelyn explains how one day on set, Celia invited her to lunch. Evelyn quickly figured out that Celia was creating a photo opportunity, and capitalizing on the attention that would come from the two women being seen together. During the lunch, Celia showed that she was quite shrewd and pragmatic: she knew that she was a better actress than Evelyn, but that Evelyn was more famous. She offered to give Evelyn help with her acting in exchange for Evelyn helping to cultivate her celebrity persona. Celia also confided that she liked and respected Evelyn, and wanted the two of them to be friends.
The narrative includes a gossip article (dated June 1959) speculating that Evelyn was refusing to have children because she was too preoccupied with her career, and was not being a good wife to Don. By this time, Evelyn had finished filming Little Women and her acting had improved through Celia's coaching. The two women had also become good friends. Evelyn was concerned that the gossip about her lack of interest in having children would have a negative impact on her career, and she figured out that it was her housekeeper who had sold the information to the magazine. She carefully staged a plan to make it appear that she had been suffering reoccurring miscarriages, knowing that this would be much more sympathetic. Sure enough, this information was leaked and printed.
One night, Celia came over to Evelyn's house while Don was away, and the two women drank and talked intimately with one another. Celia told Evelyn about her past: she grew up in a very wealthy family in Georgia, and was scouted by talent agents. Celia also praised Evelyn's beauty and intelligence. Evelyn confided to Celia that she had ambivalent feelings about Don and her marriage, and realized that she had developed complete trust in Celia. When Celia spilled wine on her blouse and changed in front of Evelyn, Evelyn also found herself looking with interest at the other woman's body.
At the premiere of Little Women, Evelyn was accompanied by her husband, and Celia went with Don's friend Robert Logan, even though she was unhappy about it. To increase the film's publicity, it was important that Celia be seen with an eligible bachelor. During the screening, Evelyn was awed by Celia's performance, and became convinced that Celia was going to win an Oscar. Evelyn was not jealous, and simply happy for her friend. At the party after the screening, Ruby dragged Evelyn into a private space to complain about feeling that the other actresses had been overshadowed by Celia. Evelyn refused to say bad things about Celia, and eventually Ruby told Evelyn about rumors that Celia was a lesbian. Ruby also said that Don was cheating on Evelyn.
Evelyn pauses in her narrative, and Monique can tell that she is nervous and unsettled. Monique asks Evelyn again who was the love of her life, and Evelyn answers "Celia St. James." Monique refers to Evelyn as a gay woman, and Evelyn quickly becomes annoyed, explaining that she is bisexual. Evelyn also explains that when she first heard Celia referred to as gay, she felt jealous (thinking about the idea of Celia with other women), and this jealousy gave her insight that her feelings for Celia might be romantic.
Evelyn returns to her narrative: after Ruby left, she stayed frozen in shock, and then Celia came into the room and found her. Evelyn immediately shared what Ruby had told her, and asked Celia if she was indeed gay. Celia gave an ambiguous answer, and was preparing to leave when Evelyn abruptly kissed her. They broke apart, and Evelyn wandered upstairs, where she caught Don with another woman. She asked Harry to take her home, even though Don begged her to talk with him. On the drive home, Harry admitted that he and many other people knew that Don was being unfaithful, but weren't sure if Evelyn cared. Harry alluded to his sexual orientation, and his suspicion that Celia was also gay. Evelyn told him that she wanted to leave Don, and Harry supported her, although he also pointed out that a divorce would be challenging, and the studio would likely side with Don.
The next day, Evelyn packed her things and moved in with Celia. However, the two of them did not kiss or have sex. After some time, Harry came to see Evelyn with divorce papers, and explained the terms Don was offering. Don was prepared to be financially generous, but he insisted on terms that Evelyn could not talk about anything that happened during their marriage. Also, Evelyn would be lent out to other studios for the remainder of her contract, and then cut loose; Harry suspected that the studio planned to put Evelyn in movies they were expecting to fail, and also prevent her from getting an Oscars nomination.
After Harry left, Evelyn reflected on her situation: after her divorce, she would have a large sum of money, but would also have to rebuild her career from scratch. Realizing that she could now redefine her life, Evelyn initiated sex with Celia for the first time.
Analysis
Evelyn's second marriage (to Don Adler) is perhaps the most tragic of all her marriages: she genuinely loved him, and married him with no ulterior motives. She believed that Don would support her ambitions, but quickly learned that Don was not confident enough to be married to a woman who was more successful than him. While Ernie Diaz was largely indifferent, he stayed out of the way of Evelyn's ambitions. The strain on her marriage introduces a theme that will cause conflict for the duration of Evelyn's career: her need to find a partner who can support her ambitions, and not be threatened by her success. Don's interest in Evelyn having children, or focusing on domestic priorities such as making him breakfast, shows that he reflects a more traditional and patriarchal view of how heterosexual relationships should function. Living in an abusive relationship also leads to Evelyn further separating her public persona from her private reality. On the surface, she and Don need to seem like a blissful couple, and so she has to hide what she is actually experiencing.
Evelyn's secrecy and shame about her abusive home life parallels how Harry Cameron has to keep his sexual orientation a secret; the two of them become close because they each completely trust one another. Evelyn's friendship with Harry reveals how intimacy and love can be separate from romance and sexuality. Their friendship is platonic, and yet they show each more love and support than Evelyn gets from her actual marriage. This arrangement sets the stage for Evelyn coming to separate marriage from love: she learns firsthand that people can love one another without being in love, and that desire and attraction don't guarantee a healthy relationship. Evelyn truly desired Don, but this chemistry did not mean that they were a good match for one another.
Evelyn's experience with Harry also primes her to recognize intimacy and trust as her relationship with Celia deepens. The affection between Celia and Evelyn is initially unlikely because Hollywood pits them against one another, but Celia earns Evelyn's respect through her pragmatism and intelligence. While Celia plays to a different set of strengths and cultivates a very different persona, she engages in a similar performative construction of identity, and this gives the two women something in common. With both Harry and Celia, Evelyn is able to let her guard down when she is around other people who can also understand the difference between appearance and reality. Evelyn's emotional maturation is revealed when she is capable of being sincerely happy for Celia, and supportive of Celia's ambitions. Unlike Don, who is jealous and resentful of Evelyn, Evelyn wants to see Celia succeed; this juxtaposition shows why one relationship is much healthier than the other.
While Evelyn readily recognized her affection and respect for Celia, the sexual attraction between the two women arises somewhat spontaneously. Evelyn feels some interest when she watches Celia change her blouse in front of her; the scene ironically inverts social expectations of heterosexuality. Celia can comfortably remove her clothing in front of Evelyn because of the assumption that both women must be heterosexual, and therefore disinterested in one another's bodies as objects of desire. This assumption is underscored by Don interrupting and responding simply with amusement; had he come across Evelyn alone with a half-naked man, his reaction would almost certainly have been different. However, in a scene that is normalized through a framework of insistent heterosexuality, queer desire can begin to spring up in the text. Symbolism of the two women starting a fire together, and then Celia spilling wine on herself (implying a stain or a mark, somewhat reminiscent of fallen women being forced to wear a badge of shame) reinforces the growing sexual tension between them. At the same time, Evelyn's curiosity about Celia's body might stem from competition, or a sense of comparison.
It's not until Evelyn hears a rumor that Celia is a lesbian that she can conceptualize what this desire might look like, or try it out. The pressure to hide sexual orientations is damaging for individuals like Harry and Celia, but it also impedes individuals like Evelyn from fully understanding their desires. If Evelyn had encountered same sex desire sooner, she might have been better able to recognize her own desires. Evelyn's desire is also different from Harry and Celia's experience of queerness: both of them are represented as having very fixed and stable sexual orientations that they have been aware of for a long time, even if they were required to hide them. Bisexuality is presented as potentially a more exploratory and emergent experience; as Marjorie Garber writes in her theorization of bisexuality, "the erotic discovery of bisexuality is the fact that it reveals sexuality to be a process of growth, transformation, and surprise, not a stable and knowable state of being" (66). This dynamic makes Evelyn's experience of her bisexual identity particularly rich as an aspect of a biography, as it can reflect her ongoing maturation and change.
Significantly, Evelyn is very precise about naming her orientation as a bisexual woman: she wants her truth to be represented, but refuses to have it simplified. Evelyn senses that, in some ways, her identity as a bisexual woman will be more complicated and difficult to explain than had she only desired women; one reason why Evelyn may have selected Monique as her biographer is her belief that, as a biracial woman, Monique might better be able to understand the duality and nuance of Evelyn's own identity.
The social and historical context also means that Celia and Evelyn do not act rashly, even after they recognize their desire for one another. Indeed, Evelyn only decides to pursue a sexual relationship with Celia at a moment when she realizes that she effectively has nothing left to lose. The collapse of her marriage and burgeoning career liberates Evelyn to pursue her authentic desires, but it also hints that Evelyn might never have prioritized pursuing Celia if the stakes had remained high.
