Chapter III. Portrait d’une Femme. #2
“Ah, oui, c’est vrai, your husband is French. He was very worried.” She struggles with the word. Wah-reedt. It’s endearing. I know what it’s like to speak a language every day for twenty years and still not get it right. To live in a space where you never feel fully understood.
I was seven when we moved from Kingston to Westchester County, New York.
I wore ankle socks with patent-leather shoes and grosgrain ribbons in my hair.
And I spoke with an accent. Assimilating into white America was tedious.
Assimilating into Black America was even more so.
Something about resembling a group genetically and yet having almost no cultural ties.
I was twenty-seven when I moved to Paris and did it all over again.
Anouk takes her time unwrapping the towel and reading the card, which I’d written in French, and I turn my attention back to the swimming pool, where her husband, if that is indeed her husband, is still swimming laps. He’s moved on from the crawl to the butterfly.
“C’est très gentil de ta part, Cecilia. Merci.”
“De rien.”
I like the way she says my name. It’s much more melodious in French. Most things are. But Anouk’s voice is deep and languid, and there’s a fullness to it now that was not there on the Cabo shoot. I suppose she was still a girl then. We both were.
“He’s crazy, Frederick,” she says, inclining her head toward the pool. “My husband.”
“He’s rather committed.”
“He does this Ironman thing. It’s his whole life. Running, swimming, biking. Every day. It’s my fault because I told him to get a hobby. But now, it’s like, come onnn, you’re not thirty-three, man.”
I laugh at that, American colloquialisms tumbling from her French mouth.
“Are you still in touch with him?” she asks. “Didier?”
Her sudden change of subject throws me. “I haven’t seen him in years.”
She nods slowly, her slender finger running over the edge of the thank-you card. And then, again, “What a character.”
It feels like an opening. An invitation of sorts. But she is in a robe, and I am standing there awkwardly in her minimalist living room twenty years after the fact, and I have no idea how to move forward. I should have been better prepared.
“Are you rushing? I have a luncheon at one, but … you can come upstairs for a minute?”
It is not what I’m expecting. My pulse accelerates. “I can.”
I am still holding my glass of sparkling water when I follow her out of the room, through the atrium, and up the stairs.
The second floor is equally austere. Oak floors, white walls, glass balustrades, a bridge stretching across the atrium connecting the two wings of the house.
A study in modern simplicity. It is the kind of house I could live in if I did not feel the need to hold on to so many things.
Anouk leads me to the end of a long hall and into her bedroom.
It’s a rambling suite, really, a series of connected rooms. Two master bedroom–sized closets, a luxurious bath, an enclosed courtyard with an outdoor shower …
We eventually wind our way into a dressing room, where Anouk directs me to a banquette before situating herself to do her makeup. I am awed.
A series of black and whites grace the walls.
There are a few candids, some family shots, but mostly there are stills of her during her modeling days, iconic.
I recognize many of them. A cover Peter Lindbergh shot for Bazaar.
A celebrated Pamela Hanson print. An immaculate glossy by Patrick Demarchelier.
Signature dark ’90s lips, likely Mac’s iconic “Paramount.” A sculptural nude against a sun-soaked wall, her oval face tilted up to the sky.
This last one I’ve never seen but there’s no mistaking the contrast, the shadows, the California light.
“Is that Herb Ritts?”
She looks up from her dressing table, a pink blending sponge in hand. “Did you know him?”
“I wish. He was legendary.”
“Vraiment. He was really special. The best ones are always special.”
It’s an interesting word choice.
She returns to busying herself with her makeup, and for a moment I watch, studying her process.
The contouring of foundation, the faintest smattering of powder.
You can tell a lot about a woman by how she puts on her makeup.
What she likes about her face, what she does not.
But after a while observing feels intrusive, and I look away.
I have no idea why she’s brought me here.
My focus returns to the black and whites.
There is a faded Polaroid of her, young, laughing, mounted in a shadow-box frame, and accompanied by a peacock feather, a line drawing of a jagged coast, and a crumpled cocktail napkin.
An abstract still life, the composition eerily familiar.
Beside it is a sublime shot of Anouk and Frederick on their wedding day.
Her radiant in a diaphanous silk sheath.
Long sleeves, deep neckline, bespoke tailoring.
Timeless, elegant. Him beaming, his stubbled jaw nestled against her neck.
A slight, raven-haired boy clutching her hand.
This must be Sacha, the son from her first marriage.
I recognize him from the tabloids. Where is he now?
I wonder. With his father in Paris? Or here, somewhere in this palatial house? A brooding teenager, skulking about.
I check my watch. I will need to pick up my own skulking tween at three o’clock.
Our new assistant, Parisa—brought on after the accident to transport the kids around town and help out as needed—is off today.
Julien is staying after school for track practice, but Lucie has to be driven to ballet.
I am still not used to this. The driving everywhere.
The allotting for time. I have gone from somewhat-sophisticated urban professional to quasi-suburban chauffeur. Blink of an eye.
“So did you become a photographer yourself?” Anouk asks.
“I did. But fine art, mostly. Not so much fashion.”
“Waouh, c’est génial! And you’re with a gallery?”
“In Paris, yes. I’m meeting with a few here.”
“What is it like? Your work?”
I find this response challenging, always. The idea of summing up a life’s obsession in two sentences. Most people, I find, are looking for something conversational, vague, and perfunctory. But the way Anouk holds my gaze in the mirror demands more.
“It’s a dialogue, usually,” I start. “A conversation I’m wrestling with in my head. Typically, it’s part of a bigger theme. And then it becomes a collection, or an installation. Sometimes a film.”
“What are you wrestling with lately?”
I smile at that. “Beauty. And our consumption of it.”
She nods at me, returns to painting her face. And then says, offhandedly, “Or maybe its consumption of us.”
It lands.