“But right now, you have plausible deniability. You don’t have to hear about it or see it.”
Harry turned left, into the flats instead of the hills. He was taking me to his house instead of my own. He was scared of what Don would do to me. I sort of was, too.
“Maybe I’m ready for that. To be a real friend. True blue,” I said.
“I’m not sure that’s a secret I want you to have to keep, love. It’s a sticky one.”
“I think that secret’s much more common than either of us is pretending,” I said. “I think maybe all of us have at least a little bit of that secret within us. I think I just might have that secret in me, too.”
Harry took a right and pulled into his driveway. He put the car in park and turned to me. “You’re not like me, Evelyn.”
“I might be a little,” I said. “I might be, and Celia might be, too.”
Harry turned back to the wheel, thinking. “Yes,” he said finally. “Celia might be, too.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected,” he said. “And I suspected she might have . . . feelings for you.”
I felt like I was the last person on earth to know what was right in front of me.
“I’m leaving Don,” I said.
Harry nodded, unsurprised. “I’m happy to hear it,” he said. “But I hope you know the full extent of what it means.”
“I know what I’m doing, Harry.” I was wrong. I didn’t know what I was doing.
“Don’s not going to take it sitting down,” Harry said. “That’s all I mean.”
“So I should continue this charade? Allow him to sleep around and hit me when he feels like it?”
“Absolutely not. You know I would never say that.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to be prepared for what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said.
“That’s fine,” Harry said. He opened his car door and got out. He came around to my side and opened my door.
“Come, Ev,” he said kindly. He put his hand out. “It’s been a long night. You need some rest.”
I suddenly felt very tired, as if once he pointed it out, I realized it had been there all along. I followed Harry to his front door.
His living room was sparse but handsome, furnished with wood and leather. The alcoves and doorways were all arched, the walls stark white. Only a single piece of art hung on the wall, a red and blue Rothko above the sofa. It occurred to me then that Harry wasn’t a Hollywood producer for the paycheck. Sure, his house was nice. But there wasn’t anything ostentatious about it, nothing performative. It was merely a place to sleep for him.
Harry was like me. Harry was in it for the glory. He was in it because it kept him busy, kept him important, kept him sharp.
Harry, like me, had gotten into it for the ego.
And we were both fortunate that we’d found our humanity in it, even though it appeared to be somewhat by accident.
The two of us walked up the curved stairs, and Harry set me up in his guest room. The bed had a thin mattress with a heavy wool blanket. I used a bar of soap to wash my makeup off, and Harry gently unzipped the back of my dress for me and gave me a pair of his pajamas to wear.
“I’ll be just next door if you need anything,” he said.
“Thank you. For everything.”