Chapter XLIII. On Beauty.
XLIII.
ON BEAUTY.
LOS ANGELES.
It takes two weeks to install On Beauty.
The changing over of the space, creating the black box, complete with five staggered double-layered cloth screens of varying widths suspended from ceiling to floor.
The accompanying five projectors and four speakers.
And in the anteroom, the installation of twenty-eight pieces (two of each subject): the black and whites that I have destroyed and then mounted in clean, uniform frames.
I spend the final week overseeing every aspect of the installation with Keely and her team.
And working tirelessly with Kevin, the A/V specialist, to make certain there are no glitches in the womb installation.
The 173 photos that will cycle through methodically on the scrims, and the corresponding audio.
A seventeen-minute recording of chosen sound bites from my fourteen subjects that are assembled to occasionally overlay, mounting in intensity, and then waning, before mounting again.
Some phrases repeated, three times, like rising triplets.
Themes changing, repeating, complementing.
A nod to Schubert’s “Quintet.” The audio set on a different timer than the visuals so that the delivery of sound and image never overlap in the same way twice.
The result being that each viewer, while walking among the scrims of larger-than-life portraiture, has a slightly different experience.
Living, breathing, moving through art. Consuming, while being consumed.
If Los Angeles is good at one thing, it’s making every opening feel like a special event.
There are multiple photographers on site for the On Beauty fete.
Whether they are flocking to get a glimpse of Cressida or there for the art, I can’t be certain, but it feels glamorous.
Art-world types and collectors and Fran’s Hollywood crew.
My guests include my reps from Cherry and Martin, Jane and Sylvie, who have flown in from New York last minute to surprise me, my husband, my kids, Cressida, Hayden, Minnie, Kennedy, Brooke, Anthony, and his wife, Kim.
The space fills quickly. The champagne flows.
And I do my best to breathe through the moment.
To get my anxiety in check. To locate myself in my body.
In my vintage Halston wrap maxi dress in arresting marigold. A modest cut in a daring color.
“You look like a 1930s Hollywood starlet,” Lucie said to me earlier, as we were leaving the house.
“That’s a very specific reference. Is it the dress?”
“The dress, the red lips, the hair.”
A few days earlier, I’d cut it drastically to just above my shoulders, a length I hadn’t worn since high school. A reinvention of sorts. And a conscious choice to separate myself from every other long-haired Westside mom. A desire to assert my individuality. To exist outside of the tribe.
Among all the art world types at the Hammer that evening are the two female gallerists I met with in New York all those months ago.
The ones who canceled my appointment the morning of the accident and whom I’d ultimately turned down to go with Cherry and Martin.
How long ago that seems. How distant. I’d sent an invitation to their gallery as a formality, but when I spot them poring over the pieces in the anteroom, I’m pleasantly surprised.
They are complimentary and gracious. And I think, not for the first time, if I’d not been hit that morning on Montana, how different everything might be.
I might have not been nursing a wounded heart.
A huge part of me hopes that Anouk will show up, unannounced.
That she will come breezing in, in some clingy, sexy dress and her intoxicating perfume.
That she will swill champagne and laugh loudly and bask in the attention of all eyes on her.
That she will casually greet me hello before a crowd of onlookers, but later, under the cover of darkness, she will rub up against me in the womb room and whisper something deliciously inappropriate in my ear.
I am still blushing at the thought when I spot him. There, on the far side of the room. The last person I expect to see.
For a moment the air leaves my lungs.
His attention is wholly on me. His body long, lithe, graceful. His face softer, wiser, gentler than the last time I saw it. A dusting of facial hair. Gray in his beard. He smiles, and I feel it, everywhere.
Laurence Charles Kenter.
I nearly drop my champagne flute.
He makes his way toward me through the crowd. His hands in his pockets, poised. He is wearing a cashmere sweater in moss green that makes his eyes pop. His skin is still golden and his brows are still full and his lashes. His lashes.
“Hi. Cecilia.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Basking in your brilliance. Like everyone else.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know what to say to him. Standing so close so suddenly. Unbearably so, with his tall frame taking up space. Shifting the atoms in the room.
I am aware that eyes are on me here. That I am the center of so much attention. And my face is now flushed and I am beginning to sweat, and that dozens of people will notice. Where is my husband?
I step back from him, square my shoulders.
“Is this not okay?” His voice, deep, familiar. It’s been so long.
“Um. No. It’s…”
“I’m sorry. Anouk invited me. I thought she told you I was coming. I would never have just shown up. I’m sorry.”
Anouk??
It takes a moment to register. How? Were they friends? Had she returned to his class? Had she mentioned it and I’d forgotten?
“It’s fine,” I say.
It’s not.
“It’s just … unexpected…”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“I can go.”
“No. It’s fine. Don’t be silly. You’re here already. You’re here.” I laugh awkwardly. My hands are shaking. None of this makes sense. “How are you?”
“I’m good. I’m very good.” He smiles, taking me in. His energy is serene, but his gaze is direct, and the combination is unnerving.
“You look great. And this. This is all great,” he says, gesturing to the walls. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“She told me your work was amazing. Not that I ever doubted it. Your work was always amazing.”
“Thank you,” I repeat.
I don’t trust myself to speak beyond small talk. My heart is racing. My thoughts are racing. What is he doing here? What has Anouk told him? And what could I possibly say to this man whom I once loved more than I loved myself? This person who destroyed me. Over and over and over again.
“Can I get you some champagne?”
“I’m fine for the moment, thanks.”
“Cecilia. Excuse me.” Keely suddenly appears at my side, and I am grateful for her interruption. “I wanted you to meet Elizabeth Brysk Cohen. Another board member. She’s blown away by the womb room. Can I drag you away for a half second?”
“The womb room?” Lorry raises an eyebrow.
“That’s not the official name. That’s just how I refer to it.”
“I’ll bring her right back,” Keely says, and then extends a hand. “Sorry, Keely Devonshire.”
“My apologies. Keely, this is Lorry—Laurence Kenter. Lorry, this is Keely, the curator of my show.”
“Nice to meet you, Keely. It’s a very impressive show.” He smiles. “Go,” he directs to me. “Go meet important people, and let them tell you how much they love your art. We can catch up later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ll look for you in the womb room.”
Not thirty seconds after I’ve stepped away from Keely and Elizabeth, Jane intercepts me in the atrium, just outside of the entrance of the gallery, where I’ve retreated for a breath of air.
Even before she opens her mouth, I can read everything in her eyes. She saw him. She saw us.
“Holy shit, CeCe. Was that Lorry?”
I nod, holding on to my poker face.
“What is he doing here? Did you know he was coming? Did you invite him? Does he live here now? Have you two been in touch? What the fuck??? How did you not tell me any of this? Are you dying?”
“Did it look like I was dying?”
“It did. A little bit.”
“Yes, I’m dying. What is he doing here? Why is he here? Why now? Shit. Where’s my husband?”
“He’s inside. I just saw him in the black box. Talking to Cressida James. Holy crap, Cressida James is at your opening. You are so big-time now.”
“I’m not. I’m not. I’m just me.”
“You’re you, but you’re big-time. You look fabulous. I love your hair. Your work is fabulous. The art world recognizes that. Your fellow artists recognize that. You and Fran are like this powerhouse couple. It makes sense that Lorry would come back now. Looking like a snack.”
“A what?”
She looks at me, cocks her head. “Are you not on Black Twitter? Never mind. Just, congrats. On everything. This is your moment. Shine, shine, shine!” She takes me by the elbow then, leading us back into the gallery and the anteroom, which is buzzing with people looking at my work.
Dissecting it. Analyzing it. Judging it. Coming to their own conclusions.
It’s a wee overwhelming.
I need more champagne. I need reinforcements.
I find Francois in the corner, eventually, and I am surprised by how much his presence comforts me.
How warm and at ease I feel when he places his palm on my lower back.
He is talking to Arturo Ferri, one of his new close friends and the cinematographer of Azimuth.
Arturo, an artist in his own right, is incredibly flattering about the installation.
And Fran nods and beams like a proud father.
A knowing twinkle in his mercurial eye. And I think, for the first time in a very long while, that perhaps we will make it.
This man, with his crazy French curls and his cheekbones for days and his sharp jaw and the twin moles on his cheek and his sleepy smile.
This man who can be infuriating and untrustworthy and unreliable at times, beautiful, brilliant, supportive, and doting at others.
This man who contains multitudes. The full charcuterie board.
For whatever reason the universe has, he is the one I have ended up with. He is still in the picture.
“Are you happy?” he asks at some point, drawing me into him. Kissing the top of my head.
“I am.”
“You should be. You’ve done incredible work.” He turns into me then, rubbing his thumb over my earlobe, kissing my lips. Sexy, but not overtly so. “Je suis si fier de toi, chérie.”
“Merci.”
“Where is your friend? Anouk? I thought she would be here, non?”
I shrug, noncommittal. “I thought she would be here, too.”
“Mmm,” he says, his nose nuzzling my neck. “I’m sorry she’s missing this. You smell nice.”
I laugh at that. “Thank you.”
Later in the evening, when the crowd is thinning somewhat, and my toes, in Gianvito Rossi heels, are beginning to numb, Lorry approaches me in the atrium.
“Your work is exceptional, Cecilia. I’m just—” He shakes his head, a wry smile on his face. “—processing.”
“Process away.”
“I saw your cousins. Which was nice. Here and in the exhibit. And it was good to see your mom’s photos and hear her voice. I miss the Jamaican accent. She looks great. And I recognized Audrey and Alex and Pilar. Bizarre seeing all these familiar faces, twenty years after the fact.”
“Yes, I imagine.”
“That’s great that you’re still close with all of them. And Anouk, of course. Some really exquisite photos of Anouk.”
I nod. “It’s kind of hard to take a bad picture of her.”
“Apparently,” he says. And then, “You know, the entire time, in the womb room, I was thinking, Why aren’t you in there?
Like, Why didn’t Cecilia do a self-portrait and include herself with all these other beautiful women?
It would have been nice to see her face.
It would have been nice to hear her thoughts.
And then I realized—” He pauses, his head inclining toward the gallery. “—these are your thoughts.”
I let it sit there for a second.
“These are my thoughts.”
“Yeah.” He smiles, his hands in his pockets. “So thank you for that. Thank you for allowing me into your head. Allowing all of us into your head.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looks around a bit, rocking in his boots. He’s stalling. I know his telltale signs.
“Are those your kids wandering around? The teens that kind of look like you?”
I nod. “Lucie and Julien, yes.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“And your husband? Is he the good-looking French guy that seems to know everyone?”
“Yes.”
He nods. Smiles a little. “He looks not unlike what I imagined your husband would look like.”
Some part of me wants to kick him.
For so long, I imagined my husband would look like him.
That the man standing before me would change his mind and show up magically in Paris with a handwritten poem and a daisy and some profession of undying love.
And that I would jump at the gesture. This I held on to even after Fran and I had started dating.
Even after we moved in. This I held on to right up until the pregnancy test came back positive and I realized I would have to make a choice.
Hold on to the little life I had built an ocean away from everything I knew and everyone I loved.
Or hold on to the dream of the boy from Connecticut.
The choice had been made for me.
“Can I see you sometime?” Lorry asks then. “Can we grab lunch or something? Would that be okay with you?”
“Sure. Lunch would be great.”
“Good. I’d like that.” He smiles, holds my gaze. “You really look great, Cecilia.”
“Thank you.”
“I like the necklace.”
I reach to finger it. My gift from Anouk. The stone cool and reassuring against my skin. The memory of the darkened road in Bel Air. The way we’d fled.
“Thank you.”
He extracts his cell phone to take down my number and I am thrown by the image of Lorry Kenter, former self-described technophobe, mindful-awareness guru, toting around an iPhone 7.
Oh, LA, ruining the best of us.
When there are only a handful of us left and the Hammer team is cleaning up, and Keely is raving about the reception, and I have changed into ballet flats, Sylvie approaches me.
Her demeanor, typically aloof, has been different all night.
And there is something there that strikes me. Something like admiration.
“I know tonight must have been overwhelming for you,” she says, her expression sincere, “but I just want to say how incredible your work is, CeCe. Like, absolutely riveting. I had no idea what to expect, but I am so ridiculously proud of you, cuz.”
For a moment, I’m thrown. Sylvie does not hand out compliments easily. Especially to me. I anticipate a backhanded follow-up, but there is none. Just her, standing there, beaming proudly.
“Thank you, Syl.”
“You’re doing it. You’re doing the art thing.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re succeeding.”
“Thank you,” I say, again.
“You didn’t sell out. And that makes me so proud. Go home and get some sleep,” she says. “Because the phones will be ringing off the hook tomorrow. Well done.”