Chapter II. Once Upon a Time in Paris.
II.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN PARIS.
PARIS.
The offer came in on a Friday in October.
It was late in the evening, and we were entertaining.
Our monthly dinner with dear friends, the Sadous and the Picards.
Six adults, five children, nestled tightly around our dining table, in the great room of our apartment in the ninth arrondissement.
An apartment we had recently renovated precisely so we could entertain such large groups.
There was lamb, wine, laughter. Jazz on vinyl.
An hour in, when the kids had up and disappeared into the den, the conversation had turned to Valérie Trierweiler, the former girlfriend of Francois Hollande, and her recently released memoir detailing his affair and its aftermath.
In France, no one is exempt from infidelity.
Not even the president. My Francois was atypically silent, and sometime between the salad and the cheese course, he stepped away to check his messages.
He returned visibly buzzing but said nothing.
“All good?”
“Oui.”
It wasn’t until our guests had departed and Lucie and Julien were in their bedrooms, likely feigning sleep, that he came out with it.
“They want me to do the trilogy.”
“Which movie?”
“All three.”
I set down the wineglass I’d been washing in the sink and turned to look at him. Lean, lanky, forty-two, a smattering of gray dotting his chin and temples. The faint promise of lines crinkling his mercurial eyes, and now this. A three-picture deal with Sony. Everything was going to change.
“They said all three?”
“Oui.” He nodded, his lips widening into an unabashed smile. A child at Christmas. “All three. Shooting concurrently.”
“When do you start?”
“Janvier.”
I did the math. Two months and one week before our lives would be uprooted, disrupted, compromised. It would not be the first time. But three movies: the prep time, the filming, the editing process. It could take years.
“Where?”
“In California, for the most part. Interiors and green screen in Los Angeles. And potentially the Mojave Desert, Canada, and Bolivia.”
He’d said it quickly, and in French. And I wasn’t certain if the intent was to confuse me or to make it less painful. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
For a moment I did not speak, and he leaned in and held my face, his fingers playing over my earlobes. His lips at my ear. We’d been together for fifteen years. Married for thirteen. He knew my weaknesses. All of them.
“Cette opportunité … c’est incroyable, Cecilia.”
“I know. I know … How incredible?”
“Fifteen for the three. Plus we are asking for back end.”
My knees buckled beneath me. “Fifteen? Million?”
“That is what they are offering. But we go back now and ask for more. Seems greedy, non?” He laughed, low, almost sinister. “Putain. It’s the American way.”
I’d met Francois when he had nothing. In the spring of 1999, when I was still adjusting to the move to Paris, and we were both struggling artists, assisting the same photographer. I wanted to be in museums. Francois wanted Hollywood.
And now, two independent films, one critically acclaimed drama, and one moderately budgeted production–cum–international hit later, it appeared he was going to get it.
It was not a surprise. They’d been dangling the project for months.
A trilogy based on Azimuth Rising, a dystopian sci-fi book series from the ’70s.
There had been copious emails and phone calls and checking of quotes and availability.
But nothing was definite. He’d been on edge.
We both had. Waiting … waiting … for our ship.
We were not exactly suffering in France. We each had the respect of our industry peers, invitations to the most coveted parties and events, favorable write-ups in Télérama. But this, this was success on an international level. This was American money.
“Fifteen,” I repeated. “Million.”
We could buy a place in the country, a larger studio space for my work. Fly my parents in twice a year. First class.
He nodded slowly, the left side of his mouth quirking up just so. His sleepy French smile, I called it, equal parts sexy and infuriating. And the tell that he’d moved on from We’re going to be obscenely rich! to I need something from you.
“What?”
“Pourquoi tu dis ‘what’?”
“Because I know you.”
He laughed then, for a moment, and then grew serious. “I want you to come with me. To California. For the entire shoot.”
His request was loaded. He had never suggested I join him on location before.
That I step away from my own work, from my art, from my life.
That we displace the kids. Pluck them out of school.
Separate them from their friends. Our lives had often revolved around Francois, yes. But in less obvious ways.
Then again, he’d never booked a job that would take him away from us for so long. He’d never been offered this much money. The balance had shifted.
I turned back to the wineglass in the sink. But said nothing. There was more there. He was respectful not to bring it up.
“You don’t have to stop working on your project,” he said. “You can shoot there, find subjects there. We can get you a rep, a gallery, even.… Tu peux faire comme tu veux. Tu peux faire n’importe quoi.”
I could do whatever I wanted.
He made it sound so simple. He, who had just been given the gift of all gifts. But Black, Asian, female, over forty, an outsider … I did not imagine LA would hold the same for me. There was a reason I’d left New York all those years ago. Well, two. Maybe three.
“Think about it, Cile. Please.”
“We don’t know anyone in Los Angeles,” I said. This was not entirely true. But I did not think it wise to bring up exactly whom it was I knew in LA, and so I pivoted. “We won’t have any friends.”
“We will find some. Je te promets.”
“We can bring the cat?”
“We can bring the cat.”