Chapter 33
Summary
- Rex and the narrator, Evelyn, have been married for two and a half years, living in the hills and working at Paramount with a team of people including agents, a publicist, lawyers, business managers and assistants.
- They lead separate lives at home, only to come together for work, holding hands the moment they drove onto the Paramount lot.
- During the marriage, Evelyn engages in meaningless affairs while presuming Rex does the same.
- One day, Rex confesses to Evelyn that he is in love with a woman named Joy whom he has been seeing on and off, and who is pregnant with his child. He also wants to marry Joy.
- Evelyn swiftly begins to strategize the best way to announce their impending divorce in light of the upcoming release of their third film, "Carolina Sunset."
- Her plan is to have simultaneous affairs — Rex with Joy and Evelyn with Harry, a Paramount star — in order to allow their divorce to be seen as mutual wrongdoing, and thus create a victimless crime which will also help sell film tickets.
- However, Harry points out that the public might not believe his affair with Evelyn, as many know about his sexual orientation.
- They decide to capture candid looking photos of them together to make the affair look more believable.
- In order to leak the photo to the public, Evelyn contacts Ruby, who is also her ex-husband Don's ex-wife.
- Evelyn discovers that Don was abusive to Ruby. Regretting not revealing Don's previous acts of abuse on her, she acknowledges that her silence enabled Don's subsequent abuse towards Ruby.