Chapter XXXV. Young Woman with Peonies, Updated.
XXXV.
YOUNG WOMAN WITH PEONIES, UPDATED.
LOS ANGELES.
On a Wednesday afternoon in early June, while picking up crudités for Lucie’s sixth-grade end-of-the-year pool party, I find myself face-to-face with Cressida James in the express line at the Brentwood Whole Foods.
Not that I’ve previously given it much thought, but I would not have guessed that A-listers shopped in supermarkets like the rest of us.
Surely they have personal chefs or house managers to handle such banal tasks.
Or maybe they do it every so often to break out of their bubble.
The thought of Anouk beheading broccoli comes to mind.
Cressida is buying two cartons of organic raspberries and what looks like thirty peonies at roughly six dollars a head. A price tag I have difficulty accepting knowing they’d grown abundantly in our yard in Westchester.
She recognizes me, which I find impressive. But then, I realize, there is no one else here in the Brentwood Whole Foods who looks even vaguely like me. Possibly no one else in Brentwood at all.
“I must tell you, your son is the sweetest, most polite of all of Eryx’s friends. Which I imagine he owes to his impeccable upbringing.”
“Thank you. That’s lovely to hear.”
“You should know. I’d want to know if it were my child. Always ‘may I, please, thank you, you’re welcome.’ It’s very endearing.”
“Glad to hear that some of it stuck.” I laugh, knowing that it was as much Olive Chen’s training as it was mine.
“How are things going with Francois’s movie?” she asks.
“Good. They’re doing a couple of minor pickup shots, otherwise he’s just editing around the clock.”
“There’s quite a bit of buzz. They’re still scheduled for a December release, right? To be eligible for awards season?”
“Yes,” I say, suddenly aware that we are being watched. That shoppers behind us, before us, two rows over are all sneaking peeks in our direction. They can’t stop themselves. It’s a sickness.
She is California casual in blue jeans and a black button-down. Her signature blond hair piled high in a bun. Minimal makeup, no sunglasses. She could be any beautiful Westside mom, I think. But she isn’t. And I find the public’s reaction equal parts fascinating and unsettling.
“Are you heading back to France for the summer?”
“Ideally, in August, but our plans are still kind of up in the air. Fran’s schedule keeps shifting and I’m working on a big project.”
“What kind of project? I don’t even know what it is you do, I’m sorry.” She laughs.
I tell her. About On Beauty. About the Hammer. About my work in general. It feels good to give it voice. The majority of people I run into in LA haven’t asked. The assumption that I don’t work outside of the home. That I don’t have a career of my own.
She’s attentive while I speak. Even as the cashier rings up her exorbitant peonies.
It’s not until I’m paying for my prepackaged crudités that I notice the wall of photographers lining up outside the windows on San Vicente Boulevard.
How brazen they are, a dozen or so swarming the front entrance, peeping through the glass above the organic laundry detergents.
But also not entering the facility. I imagine there are laws in place.
“That sounds absolutely brilliant,” she says, her body angling in toward mine, her back squared to the window.
“Thank you.”
“No, really. That’s an installation I would love to see. Please send me an invitation when it opens.”
I nod, still disturbed by the mass of paparazzi.
And amused that she is able to tune them out.
And it is then, as I am sticking the tray of veggies in my Merci Paris tote, that I realize that Cressida James’s singular attention might be more a calculated effort to keep her face from the cameras than a genuine interest in my art. Not that I hold that against her.
“Are you looking for more subjects?” she asks. “Because if you are, I’d love to be considered. I have a lot to say on the expectations of beauty after thirty years in this industry.”
Her proposition floors me. Up until now our interactions have been polite and cursory. Planning sleepovers and playdates, brief exchanges in her wraparound driveway. Commentary on the weather. “Really?” I say now.
“Absolutely.” She smiles. “I’m swamped through the end of the month, and in August, we’re in Italy—Puglia is having a moment now—but if the beginning of July works for you, I’d love to do it.”
“I would love that! I’d be honored. Yes, early July works.”
“Perfect. I’ll connect you with my assistant and she’ll get it all sorted.”
“Wonderful. Thank you,” I say, as we head for the side door. And for a moment, I pause. The paparazzi looming. “Are you okay with this? Do you want me to walk you to your car? Or get security to escort you, or something?”
She smiles, that wide, uninhibited Cressida James smile.
“That’s very kind of you. No, it’s okay.
I’m used to it. It just … comes with the job.
” And with that, she withdraws a pair of large sunglasses from her bag, pops them on her unmistakable face, tips her head down, and walks toward one of the four black-on-black Range Rovers in the parking lot.
Less than a week following my Cressida encounter, I have the pleasure of shooting Tamsin Desai, the young actress from the Azimuth trilogy, when she is in town for meetings.
We do it at my studio, accompanied by two photo assistants and one hair-and-makeup person.
She is dynamic before my lens. Soulful almond-shaped eyes, a square jaw, generous mouth.
Jet-black hair and skin like amber. She talks about her acting journey.
How both her parents were doctors in Hertfordshire, and she the oldest of three.
How she was on her way to med school when she accompanied a friend to a commercial audition in London, and the casting director insisted she read for the part.
How she booked it. Got an agent. Got into an intense conservatory class.
And then booked another and another. And then, after a series of grueling auditions—including the original with the casting associate, two callbacks with the casting director, one callback with Francois, a work session, and a screen test—she booked Azimuth Rising.
“I definitely didn’t think I was beautiful growing up,” she confides, when I am interviewing her after the shoot.
“I had older cousins who got all the attention. They had lighter eyes and lighter skin. And I learned pretty young that that was valued in my community. I have one cousin who’s been on multiple Indian dating sites, and often they ask you to describe your complexion, and the optimum complexion type is ‘wheat.’ She says every man is looking for someone wheat-colored.
I’m rather dusk-like.” She laughs. “So I think I’m going to stay clear of those. ”
Later that evening at home, I’m in the dining room, listening to the recording, and marking the parts I want to highlight, when I get a call from Anouk. Distractedly, I answer.
“Have you seen this week’s Us magazine?” she asks. No Hello. How are you? Am I interrupting something?
“No. Should I have? I’m not in the habit of reading tabloids.”
“I’m not either, but I was at my facialist’s today and happened to pick it up in the waiting room. Imagine how surprised I was to see you on page twelve.”
“What? Me??”
“You. Yes. In Us magazine. With Cressida James.”
“Oh.” I laugh. “Did they catch me in the background?”
“Background? No. You are very much together. You are standing very close and having some kind of intimate conversation.”
Something about her tone jolts me. It’s slightly brusque, almost accusatory. I get up from the dining table then and slip out into the courtyard, taking care to close the doors behind me.
“We were at Whole Foods, Anouk. I bumped into her on line.”
She pauses for a moment, and then, “There’s more than one photo. And the caption reads, ‘Cressida James shops for flowers with a girlfriend.’”
“A girlfriend. Like a friend who’s a girl. Not her girlfriend. Tu comprends la différence, oui?”
“Mais oui, je comprends,” she says, her pitch rising. “But you never mentioned you were close.”
“We’re not. You know that Julien is good friends with her son. We bumped into each other at the supermarket and talked. That’s all.”
I am quiet for a second, anticipating her response.
Confounded by her irritation. She can’t possibly be jealous.
Can she? Aren’t I just one of a series of obsessive friends?
Or did something shift? Do I suddenly mean more?
But surely Anouk doesn’t think I’m out here having relationships with other women.
Or men, for that matter. And certainly not with A-list celebrities.
Between her, Fran, the kids, and my work, I barely have time for myself.
“I am allowed to talk to other women, right?”
“Don’t be silly,” she says. “Of course.”
“Because you haven’t exactly defined what this is. And so if there’s no definition, I assume there are also no rules.”
For a second, she says nothing. I want to ask her about Delphine. About Minnie. But those questions warrant an in-person conversation.
“Are there rules, Anouk?”
She pauses again. And then, “There are no rules, Cecilia. I’m sorry I snapped at you. It just took me by surprise.”
I’m quiet for a bit, staring into the plunge pool. Listening to the whir of the filter, the tree frogs, the night. “There is no one else, Anouk. There’s just you.”
I can hear her breathing, but the line is otherwise silent.
“I have to go,” I say, eventually. “I need to finish organizing these recordings.”
When I reenter the house, Francois is standing at the kitchen island, pouring himself a glass of Casamigos. I don’t know how long he’s been standing there. I don’t know what he’s seen, heard.
“Hey,” I say, trying to appear casual. Failing.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Everything okay?”
He takes a swig of his drink, nods, and then starts back toward the bedroom. “You keep taking phone calls in the courtyard, I’m going to start getting suspicious.”
In the first week of July, after the American election had whittled down to a two-person race and the rest of the world was reeling from the outcome of the Brexit referendum, I shoot Cressida James at her home.
The images are moody, atmospheric. Sultrier than her typical portraiture.
Lace camisole, smudged smoky eyes, slept-in hair.
Shot lying across a daybed, gauzy curtains in the background.
We are both happy with the photos, but it’s her sound bites that I find invaluable.
She talks freely about aging in Hollywood.
How consuming the upkeep. Facials, peels, Botox, filler.
How everyone has his or her line that they refuse to cross.
How she is torn between the need to pivot to directing or producing, as the interesting roles for women her age become fewer and further between.
How she’s very aware of the ideas about beauty she is passing on to her daughters.
Particularly Lilah, the one from Ethiopia.
And she confides that she regularly agonized over who she used to be.
The fact that her younger self had been immortalized on film and revered for two decades, and that the public still wanted that fresh-faced, unlined English rose.
That she felt tortured because she could no longer give them that.
“I had to let all of that go. I had to find an inner peace at forty-two, because I was so tired of playing the game. I’m in a much better space now.
But I used to have this dread of turning fifty.
Because I kept hearing, ‘No one wants to fuck you after fifty.’ You know who especially doesn’t want to fuck you?
Men over fifty. It reminds them too much of their own mortality.
So, you know, my clock is ticking. Tick. Tock.
“In this business, at a certain age they’ll call you things like elegant, classic, timeless.
You might still be beautiful … but it’s a distant beauty.
It’s a beauty removed. Like art. It’s not a beauty that asks to be fucked.
They don’t want to fuck you. And often if they don’t want to fuck you, they don’t want to hire you.
“This industry recycles. It doesn’t take the old and make it new again so much as it kicks the old aside to make room for someone new. Is that recycling? Perhaps it’s cycling out. The circle of life. Anyway, fifty … ticktock.
“Might just move back to England and get a cottage in the Lake District. But now with Brexit … God, that’s a mess. This world.” She shakes her head, exasperated. “So much hate.”
This, I think, this is what I want to share with the world. This is why I make art.