The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I once read that charisma is “charm that inspires devotion.” And I can’t help but think of that now, when she’s holding my coffee for me. The combination of such a powerful woman and such a small and humble gesture is enchanting, to be sure.

what sort of financial gain do you envision?” “For me or for you?” “Let’s start with you.” “None for me. Remember, I’ll be dead.” “You’ve mentioned that.” “Next question.” I lean in conspiratorially. “I hate to pose something so vulgar, but what kind

Make them pay you what they would pay a white man.

I say, putting my thick coat around my shoulders.

Being wanted meant having to satisfy.

He’d convinced himself that his wanting me was my fault. And I believed him. Look what I do to these poor boys, I thought. And yet also, Here is my value, my power. So when he dumped me—because he was bored with me, because he’d found someone else more exciting—I felt both a deep relief and a very real sense of failure.

cake. Con: she will ask me if I’m

says. “I already booked the ticket.” “Mom,” I say, groaning. “What? I could have canceled it if you’d said no. But you didn’t. So great. I’ll be there in about two weeks. That works, right?” I knew this was going to happen as soon as my mom partially retired from teaching last year. She spent decades as the head of the science department at a private high school, and the moment she told me she was stepping down and only teaching two classes, I knew that

And to this day, I’m not sure whether Gwen asked me if I fell in order to spare me the need to lie or to encourage me to keep quiet. I wasn’t the only woman being hit back then. A lot of women were negotiating the very same things I was at that moment. There was a social code for these things. The first rule being to shut up about it.

That’s the part I was stuck in, the part where you accept the apology because it’s easier than addressing the root of the problem,

You can’t tell an actress that a rising tide lifts all boats. It doesn’t work that way for us.

For so long, I felt like two halves.

stop her. “Stay.” Don looked at me. “She’s my friend.” Don rolled his eyes and shrugged. “So what’s the plan, Evelyn?” “I’m going to fake a miscarriage.” “What on earth for?” “They’ll hate me and probably lose respect for you if they think I won’t give you a baby,” I said, despite the fact that it was exactly what was going on between us. That was the elephant

and into the living room. I put my drink down on the hairpin-leg coffee table and walked over to the record player. I pulled out Billie

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth.

someone. To care for them. To throw your lot in with theirs and think, Whatever happens, it’s you

Men were almost never with me for my personality. I’m not suggesting that charming girls should take pity on the pretty ones. I’m just saying it’s not so great being loved for something you didn’t do.

off, determining, before I’d even said

Don’t ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box, Monique. Don’t do that.”

silk cocktail number, she failed to wow like she has in the past. Evelyn’s signature color

“Nothing means anything without you,”

theaters. Don starred in a hit thriller movie. Ruby Reilly’s reviews for Jokers Wild called her “stunningly perfect” and “positively incomparable.” I taught myself how to make meat loaf and iron my own slacks. And then I saw Breathless

It’s a hard business, reconciling what the truth used to be with what the truth is now.

than anyone there. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted to make the two of them

You wonder what it must be like to be a man, to be so confident that the final say is yours.

where you stood with Rex North. “Don’t try

considered doing something like this before, maybe one day even taking a wife. God knows

She was always jealous of the men, worried she couldn’t compete. I was jealous of the women, worried I wouldn’t compare.

“A small part,” Harry said, defending himself. “It goes against all my greater instincts.

“I am absolutely positive that I need you more than I’ve ever needed another living soul,” he said. “The only exception being—” “Connor,” I said. We both smiled. For the rest of our lives, we would say that. The only exception to absolutely everything was Connor.

It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.

I can’t live with my heart half-broken all the time.”

Which is about the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad.

to see you. Can we meet? Love, Evelyn My Dearest Evelyn, To be frank, that news breaks me. I do not know if I could bear

of what people will think, and to choose the false version of yourself time and time again, until you forget who you started out as or why you started doing it to begin with. But just as we pulled around the corner onto Harry’s narrow private road, every thought I’d ever had before that moment was erased from my mind.

thing tomorrow?” I asked him through the rolled-down window. “I’m going to call you.” “Good,” I said. “If you can’t sleep, think. Think about what you need. What you need from me as a thank-you for what you did.” He nodded, and

a job teaching at Wharton. She never knew that he had made

you. Forever yours, James I put down the letter. I stare straight ahead into the air. And then, and only then, it hits me. My father was in love with

You don’t have to make yourself OK for a good mother; a good mother makes herself OK for you.