bookish

We’re all whores, really, in some way or another. At least in Hollywood.

But I like you this way. I like you impure and scrappy and formidable. I like the Evelyn Hugo who sees the world for what it is and then goes out there and wrestles what she wants out of it. So, you know, put whatever label you want on it, just don’t change. That would be the real tragedy.

So, you know, put whatever label you want on it, just don’t change. That would be the real tragedy.

You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”

I didn’t yet know that it is OK to grovel for something you really want. I thought that if she didn’t want me, if she didn’t understand why I did what I did, then I didn’t need her.

I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay.

But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them.

I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it. That’s what I should have done. And now that I don’t have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly. But that’s a luxury. You can do that when you’re rich and famous. You can decide that wealth and renown are worthless when you have them. Back then, I still thought I had all the time I needed to do everything I wanted. That if I just played my cards right, I could have it all.

I knew she’d come back to me. And she knew it, too. We both knew our time wasn’t over.

There is a certain freedom in marrying a man when you aren’t hiding anything.

I wasn’t really at a place in my life where I could fall in love with anyone, and Rex wasn’t the type of man who seemed capable of falling in love at all. Maybe, if we’d met at different times in our lives, we might have hit it off.

Rex was the kind of guy who was so beautiful it was nearly boring.

Rex was pragmatic and never precious. He saw ten steps ahead but never let on what he was thinking. We were kindred spirits in that regard.

He always had a detached sense about him, like you could do whatever you wanted and you wouldn’t get under his skin. He was untouchable in that way.

I kept thinking, How dare she try to take my own identity away from me? But as I looked around my house, seeing no pictures of my family, not a single Latin-American book, stray blond hairs in my hairbrush, not even a jar of cumin in my spice rack, I realized Luisa hadn’t done that to me. I had done it to me. I’d made the choice to be different from my true self.

Being a Cuban-American was complicated. And instead of trying to make my way in the world as a Cuban woman, I simply forsook where I came from. In some ways, this helped me release any remaining ties connecting me to my father. But it also pulled me further away from my mother. My mother, whom this had all been for at some point.

I envied how secure she was in her own skin. How unafraid she was to be her true self. She was proud to be Luisa Jimenez.