“Please,” I said. “Let’s talk about this.” “No.” “You can’t do this, Celia. Let’s talk this out.” I leaned against the door, pushing my face into the slim gap of the doorframe, hoping it would make my voice travel farther, make Celia understand faster. “This is not a life, Evelyn,” she said. She opened the door and walked past me. I almost fell, so much of my weight had been resting on the very door she had just flung open. But I caught myself and followed her down the stairs. “Yes, it is,” I said. “This is our life. And we’ve sacrificed so much for it, and you can’t give up on it now.” “Yes, I can,” she said. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to live this way. I don’t want to drive an awful brown car to your home so no one knows I’m here. I don’t want to pretend I live by myself in Hollywood when I truly live here with you in this house. And I certainly don’t want to love a woman who would screw some singer just so the world doesn’t suspect she loves me.” “You are twisting the truth.” “You are a coward, and I can’t believe I ever thought any differently.” “T did this for you!” I yelled. We were at the foot of the stairs now. Celia had one hand on the door, the other on her suitcase. She was still in her bathing suit. Her hair was dripping. “You didn’t do a goddamn thing for me,” she said, her chest turning red in splotches, her cheeks burning. “You did it for you. You did it because you can’t stand the idea of not being the most famous woman on the planet. You did it to protect yourself and your precious fans, who go to the theater over and over just to see if this time they'll catch a half frame of your tits. That’s who you did it for.” “It was for you, Celia. Do you think your family is going to stick by you if they find out the truth?” She bristled when I said it, and I saw her turn the doorknob. “You will lose everything you have if people find out what you are,” I said.