Chapter VIII. Salut, Bordeaux!
VIII.
SALUT, BORDEAUX!
PARIS.
I wait before I call her. Because I do not want to seem too eager or enamored.
And because deep down I fear she wants to discuss details of the Cabo shoot.
Perhaps some suppressed memory returned to her.
Perhaps it had never been lost. Perhaps she has questions that I am not willing to answer.
And so, Tuesday evening, after officially accepting Cherry and Martin’s offer of representation, I pour myself a glass of Saint-émilion, curl up on the daybed in the den, take a deep breath, and telephone Anouk.
“You are here, finally. You missed all the good parties.”
It takes me a second. Ah, yes. March. Fashion week.
I have outgrown fashion-week parties, or at least I want to believe I have.
The primping and posturing. The angling for status.
The endless parade of young flesh. In my youth, I found it all fascinating.
The models and designers and artists and celebrities—the Sturm und Drang of it all.
I’d wanted in. But now it had become tedious, superficial.
Every once in a while, Fran and I would venture out to make an appearance for publicity purposes.
But given the choice, I’d just as happily stay home and roast a duck.
“What are you doing tomorrow morning? I have an extra ticket to Louis Vuitton. Come and be my guest.”
It is not what I was expecting.
“You’re doing the show?”
“Noooo. I would never do runway now. I’m in a different space. It’s for a new contract. Come!”
I am tempted to laugh at different space.
It sounds so California. So hippy-dippy LA.
It is only a matter of time before Lucie and Julien start throwing around such colloquialisms. Start sounding too American.
My eyes scan the room now—the wall-to-wall bookshelves, the beanbags, the cupboard of board games, and the reading nook.
Reminders of our happy life here. Before the uprooting.
In LA, our house has a custom-designed media room.
“Thank you for the invite,” I say, “but I can’t. I’m shooting for Vogue tomorrow.”
“Oh là là…” she responds, and I laugh. Because as much as I want to be above it all, there is a certain panache associated with the iconic publication, and it is difficult to dismiss.
“I’m having a late dinner with some of my favorite people, in Saint-Germain. Come join us when you are done.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“Pas du tout,” she says. “I’ll text you the information. Bon courage demain.”
We shoot in a large studio in Saint-Denis.
A cabal of editors, publicists, stylists, technicians.
Hair, makeup, nails. Walking onto such a bustling set and realizing it is mine is still a rush.
After all those years as a mere assistant—of carting around Didier’s film, and hoisting Philippe’s lights—it is nice to show up with two assistants of my own.
Victoire de Fleury was forty-seven when Francois cast her as the lead in Salut, Bordeaux!
She’d spent twenty years before that doing theater with La Comédie-Francaise and smallish roles in midrange projects.
But her audition for the role of a struggling single mom unwittingly drawn into a web of espionage floored Fran and his producers.
When the film won a coveted slot at Cannes, critics and the public took to it immediately, and Victoire’s life changed seemingly overnight.
She was a rising star on the cusp of fifty.
A complete and utter anomaly. Particularly for women.
Her César nom was just the icing on an already delectable cake.
And she owed it primarily to my husband.
“They like to erase all my lines, and I don’t like it,” she confides to me during our first setup of the day.
She is sitting astride a stool before a white backdrop, lush in a white terry-cloth robe, her short blond hair wet and disheveled.
Her face nearly nude. Her strength palpable.
“American publications, especially. They’re the worst.”
“I won’t let them do that to my photos,” I say. “I can soften them with light, but I won’t remove them digitally. And I’ll make sure the art director gets that note.”
“We can’t all be twenty-three.” She smiles. “I did twenty-three already. I don’t want to do it again. At twenty-three I was insecure, and too skinny, and a mess.”
I sympathize. Although not with the too-skinny bit.
“Anyway, I feel more beautiful now than ever before. Don’t let them tell you your forties aren’t beautiful.…”
She trails off for a bit, and I take a moment to check my light meter. Adjust the f-stop. Pop off a few dozen frames, before hair and makeup step in again to primp her. It feels good to be back behind the camera, my happy place.
“How old are you? Thirty-five? Thirty-seven?”
“Ha!” I lower my voice then and lean in toward her. Jamaican women are notorious for being discreet about their age. I did not know my own mother’s until I was seventeen, on the occasion that she sent me to fetch her purse in her bedroom and I took a peek at her driver’s license. “Forty-five.”
“Noooo.” Victoire’s jaw drops. “It’s true what they say about black skin, no? It doesn’t break.”
I laugh. “Crack. C’est craquer, pas casser. Black don’t crack.”
“Ah.” She smiles. “Either way, you are so lucky to have it.”
There is no polite and honest way for me to respond, so I let it slide.
“How is Francois doing?” she asks, after the stylist steps in to readjust her collar. “I saw they cast Idris and Cate. C’est incroyable, non? It must be a dream for him. LA. A big Hollywood franchise. All that attention. I mean, you two get attention here, but Hollywood is on a different scale.”
“He seems to be handling it fine.”
This is true. Fran has been surprisingly even-keeled during this project. More disciplined and organized than I have ever known him to be. Singularly focused during his “office hours.” And yet a part of him had remained accessible to us. We hadn’t lost him entirely to the production. Yet.
“And how are you liking LA?”
“I’m still warming up to it. Trying to find my place.”
Victoire says nothing for a few moments while I return to photographing her. She is a natural, her eyes coming to life the second I hold up the lens. There is a sparkle to her, a light.
“You know, Cecilia, it’s very different than here, yes.
A bit of a culture shock. Everyone is important or wants to be important.
And for many, it’s more about the business than the art.
But you should just enjoy it. Make the most of your time there.
Because you won’t be there forever. Paris has been here for two thousand years.
It’s not going anywhere. But think of LA as an adventure.
Don’t be afraid to do all kinds of different things.
Try something new. Unexpected. Use it for your art.
Don’t think of this as just Francois’s opportunity. It’s a gift for all of you.”
It’s not bad advice. The idea that even though America might hold reminders of my past, there was new territory to discover. I just needed to give myself permission to do so.
We wrap early enough for me to rush home and shower before joining Anouk and her friends at Allard, a charming bistro in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
The entry, in a narrow foyer opposite an open kitchen separating the front and back rooms, feels delightfully cozy.
Like being in someone’s immigrant grandmother’s railroad apartment.
The complete antithesis of everything shiny and new and sprawling in LA.
It feels safe here. A place where one could swill red wine and eat bread without judgment. Where one could have an affair.
I find them in a corner in the back room.
Anouk and her loyal subjects. She spots me and waves me over.
She is wearing minimal makeup but candy-red lips.
Her hair slicked back and tucked behind her ears.
And once again I am thrown by her beauty.
I wonder if she feels as Victoire did. More beautiful now than she did at twenty-three.
More sure of herself. But perhaps not. Beauty is a fickle mistress.
“Cecilia!” She sings out my name as if we are old friends.
There’s a variation of musical chairs as she makes room on the ruby-colored banquette beside her before introducing me to the group.
There’s Vivienne, the French-Vietnamese fashion doyenne, a contributing editor at Elle; her companion, Maurice, an older Swiss gentleman; Alain, a thirtysomething painter; Sophie, his twentysomething muse; and Clément, a handsome stylist, originally from Haiti.
Anouk introduces each with such adoration and zeal, I marvel at the intensity of her relationships.
“Et voilà! This is the woman who almost killed me!” Anouk laughs. “I told them all about you.”
“All?”
“Most.” She smiles, coy.
“Alors,” she says once I am settled in with a Cab in hand. “Have you been here before? The duck is amazing.”
“I love duck.”
“Moi, aussi.” Her eyes dance. “They do it beautifully here. For two. We can share.”
“Perfect.”
“Perfect.” She reaches over then and squeezes my hand, and I am hit with this rush that feels equal parts middle-school acceptance and grown-woman girl crush. This close, I can smell her perfume. Rose, cloves, cinnamon.
“So how was the shoot? Cecilia shot for Vogue today,” she announces to the table.
“Ah, oui?” Vivienne looks up from her amuse-bouche, some sort of celery-root soup with shaved truffles. “Mais, c’est génial. The collections?”
I lean forward to get a good look at her, on the opposite side of Anouk.
I recognize her face from countless society and fashion blogs.
Late fifties, early sixties-ish, sharp cheekbones, an angular black bob with a streak of silver at her cowlick.
One of those women with impeccable style and endless confidence. The kind I longed to be.
Paris was full of them.
“No. Not fashion. Just a sitting with Victoire de Fleury.”