In the sunlight, it’s easier to see the signs of aging. The whites of her eyes are cloudy, and the complexion of her hands is in the process of becoming translucent. The clear blue tint to her veins reminds me of my grandmother. I used to love the soft, papery tenderness of her skin, the way it didn’t bounce back but stayed in place.
“Evelyn, what do you mean you’ll be dead?”
Evelyn laughs. “I mean that I want you to publish the book as an authorized biography, with your name on it, when I’m dead.”
“OK,” I say, as if this is a perfectly normal thing to have someone say to you. And then I realize, no, that’s crazy. “Not to be indelicate, but are you telling me you’re dying?”
“Everyone’s dying, sweetheart. You’re dying, I’m dying, that guy is dying.”
She points to a middle-aged man walking a fluffy black dog. He hears her, sees her finger aimed at him, and realizes who it is that’s speaking. The effect on his face is something like a triple take.
We turn toward the restaurant, walking the two steps down to the door. Evelyn sits at a table in the back. No host guided her here. She just knows where to go and assumes everyone else will catch up. A server in black pants, a white shirt, and a black tie comes to our table and puts down two glasses of water. Evelyn’s has no ice.
“Thank you, Troy,” Evelyn says.
“Chopped salad?” he asks.
“Well, for me, of course, but I’m not sure about my friend,” Evelyn says.
I take the napkin off the table and put it in my lap. “A chopped salad sounds great, thank you.”
Troy smiles and leaves.
“You’ll like the chopped salad,” Evelyn says, as if we are friends having a normal conversation.
“OK,” I say, trying to redirect. “Tell me more about this book we’re writing.”
“I’ve told you all you need to know.”
“You’ve told me that I’m writing it and you’re dying.”
“You need to pay better attention to word choice.”
I may feel a little out of my league here—and I may not be exactly where I want to be in life right now—but I know a thing or two about word choice.
“I must have misunderstood you. I promise I’m very thoughtful with my words.”
Evelyn shrugs. This conversation is very low-stakes for her. “You’re young, and your entire generation is casual with words that bear great meaning.”
“I see.”
“And I didn’t say I was confessing any sins. To say that what I have to tell is a sin is misleading and hurtful. I don’t feel regret for the things I’ve done—at least, not the things you might expect—despite how hard they may have been or how repugnant they may seem in the cold light of day.”
“Je ne regrette rien,” I say, lifting my glass of water and sipping it.
“That’s the spirit,” Evelyn says. “Although that song is more about not regretting because you don’t live in the past. What I mean is that I’d still make a lot of the same decisions today. To be clear, there are things I regret. It’s just . . . it’s not really the sordid things. I don’t regret many of the lies I told or the people I hurt. I’m OK with the fact that sometimes doing the right thing gets ugly. And also, I have compassion for myself. I trust myself. Take, for instance, when I snapped at you earlier, back at the apartment, when you said what you did about my confessing sins. It wasn’t a nice thing to do, and I’m not sure you deserved
it. But I don’t regret it. Because I know I had my reasons, and I did the best I could with every thought and feeling that led up to it.”
“You take umbrage with the word sin because it implies that you feel sorry.”
Our salads appear, and Troy wordlessly grates pepper onto Evelyn’s until she puts her hand up and smiles. I decline.
“You can be sorry about something and not regret it,” Evelyn says.
“Absolutely,” I say. “I see that. I hope that you can give me the benefit of the doubt, going forward, that we’re on the same page. Even if there are multiple ways to interpret exactly what we’re talking about.”
Evelyn picks up her fork but doesn’t do anything with it. “I find it very important, with a journalist who will hold my legacy in her hands, to say exactly what I mean and to mean what I say,” Evelyn says. “If I’m going to tell you about my life, if I’m going to tell you what really happened, the truth behind all of my marriages, the movies I shot, the people I loved, who I slept with, who I hurt, how I compromised myself, and where it all landed me, then I need to know that you understand me. I need to know that you will listen to exactly what I’m trying to tell you and not place your own assumptions into my story.”