But the next morning, when I woke up and my hair was out of place and my breath smelled, I looked over at him, expecting to see a smile on his face. Instead, he looked stoic, as if he had been staring at the ceiling for hours.
“What’s on your mind?” I said.
“Nothing.”
His chest hair was graying. I thought it made him look regal.
“What is it?” I said. “You can tell me.”
He turned and looked at me. I fixed my hair, feeling somewhat embarrassed at how unkempt I looked. He looked back up at the ceiling.
“This is not how I imagined it.”
“What did you imagine?”
“You,” he said. “I imagined the glory of a life with you.”
“And now you don’t?”
“No, that’s not it,” he said, shaking his head. “Can I be honest? I think I hate the desert. There is too much sun and no good food, and why are we here? We are city people, my love. We should go home.”
I laughed, relieved that it wasn’t anything more. “We still have three days here,” I said.
“Yes, yes, I know, ma belle, but please, let us go home.”
“Early?”
“We can get a room at the Waldorf for a few days. Instead of here.”
“OK,” I said. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said. And then he got up and took a shower.
Later on, at the airport as we waited to board, Max went to buy something to read on the flight. He came back with People magazine and showed me the write-up of our wedding.
They called me a “daring sexpot” and Max my “white knight.”
“Pretty cool, no?” he said. “We look like royalty. You look so beautiful in this picture. But of course you do. That’s who you are.”
I smiled, but all I could think about was Rita Hayworth’s famous line. Men go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me.
“I think maybe I will lose a few pounds,” he said, patting his belly. “I want to be handsome for you.”
“You are handsome,” I said. “You’ve always been handsome.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Look at this photo they have of me. I look like I have three chins.”
“It’s just a bad picture. You look marvelous in person. I wouldn’t change a single thing about you, really.”
But Max wasn’t listening. “I think I will stop eating fried foods. I have gotten too American, don’t you think? I want to be handsome for you.”
But he didn’t mean handsome for me. He meant handsome for the pictures he’d be taking with me.
My heart tore just a little as we boarded the plane. It split further and further as I watched him read the magazine during the flight.
Just before we landed, a man flying in coach came up to first class to use the bathroom and did a double take when he saw me. When he was gone, Max turned to me, smiling, and said, “Do you think all these people are going to go home and tell everyone they were on a flight with Evelyn Hugo?”
The moment he was done saying it, my heart had completely torn in half.