WW HEN I GET TO EVELYN’S apartment in the morning, I’m unsure when I even made the actual decision to come. I simply woke up and found myself on my way. When I rounded the corner, walking here from the subway, I realized I could never have not come. I cannot and will not do anything to compromise my standing at Vivant. I did not fight for writer at large to bunt at the last minute. I’m right on time but somehow the last to arrive. Grace opens the door for me and already looks as if a hurricane hit her. Her hair is falling out of her ponytail, and she’s trying harder than usual to keep a smile on her face. “They showed up almost forty-five minutes early,” Grace says to me in a whisper. “Evelyn had a makeup person in at the crack of dawn to get her ready before the magazine’s makeup person. She had a lighting consultant come in at eight thirty this morning to guide her on the most flattering light in the house. Turns out it’s the terrace, which I have not been as diligent about cleaning because it’s still cold out every day. Anyway, I’ve been scrubbing the terrace from top to bottom for the past two hours.” Grace jokingly rests her head on my shoulder. “Thank God I’m going on vacation.” “Monique!” Frankie says when she sees me in the hallway. “What took you so long?” I look at my watch. “It’s eleven-oh-six.” I remember the first day I met Evelyn Hugo. I remember how nervous I was. I remember how largerthan-life she seemed. She is painfully human to me now. But this is all new to Frankie. She hasn’t seen the real Evelyn. She still thinks we’re photographing an icon more than a person. I step out onto the terrace and see Evelyn in the midst of lights, reflectors, wires, and cameras. There are people circled around her. She is sitting on a stool. Her gray blond hair is being blown in the air by a wind machine. She is wearing her signature emerald green, this time in a long-sleeved silk gown. Billie Holiday is playing on a speaker somewhere. The sun is shining behind Evelyn. She looks like the very center of the universe. She is right at home.