You wonder what it must be like to be a man, to be so confident that the final say is yours.
When he gets up off the bed and grabs his jacket, you realize there’s an element of this that you hadn’t accounted for. He likes to reject. He likes to condescend. When he was calculating his moves last night, he was thinking of this moment, too. This moment where he gets to leave you.
So you do something you hadn’t rehearsed in your mind.
When he gets to the door and turns to you and says, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out between us, baby. But I wish you all the best,” you pick up the phone on the side of the bed and throw it at him.
You do it because you know he’ll like it. Because he’s given you everything you came for. You should give him everything he came for.
He ducks and frowns at you, as if you’re a small deer he has to leave in the forest.
You start crying.
And then he’s gone.
And you stop.
And you think, If only they gave out Oscars for this shit.
PhotoMoment
December 4, 1961
RIVA AND HUGO LOSE THEIR MINDS
Heard of a quickie wedding? How about a quickie marriage? Well, this one takes the cake!
Bombshell Evelyn Hugo was spotted in the lap of none other than her biggest fan Mick Riva last Friday night in the heart of Las Vegas. Card players and dice guys alike were treated to quite a show by the two of them. Canoodling, necking, and drinking up a storm, from the craps table right out the door and down the street to a . . . CHAPEL!!!!
That’s right! Evelyn Hugo and Mick Riva got married!
And to make matters even crazier, they promptly filed for an annulment.
The booze seemed to have gotten to their heads—and in the morning, clearer heads prevailed.
With a string of failed marriages between the two of them, what’s one more?
Sub Rosa
December 12, 1961
EVELYN HUGO’S HEARTBREAK
Don’t believe what you hear about Evelyn and Mick’s drunken escapades. Mick may get a little too eager with the drink, but those in the know say Evelyn was in full control that night. And desperately wanted to get married.
Poor Evelyn’s had such a hard time finding love after Don left her—it’s no wonder she would throw herself into the arms of the first handsome man to come along.
And we’re hearing she’s inconsolable since he left her.
It seems like Evelyn was no more than a night of fun to Mick, but she really thought they had a future together.
We just hope Evelyn can get it right one of these days.
FOR TWO MONTHS, I WAS living in near bliss. Celia and I never talked about Mick, because we didn’t have to. Instead, we could go wherever we wanted, do whatever we wanted.
Celia bought a second car, a boring brown sedan, and left it parked in my driveway every night without anyone asking questions. We would sleep cradling each other, turning off the light an hour before we wanted to fall asleep so that we could talk in the darkness. I would trace the lines of her palm with my fingertips in the mornings to wake her up. On my birthday, she took me out to the Polo Lounge. We were hiding in plain sight.
Fortunately, painting me as some woman who couldn’t keep a husband sold more papers—for a longer period of time—t