“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.