Chapter XII. The Elephant in the Room. #2
“You could have asked.”
“I wanted to see your work. To see if you were any good.”
“And?”
“Pas mal.” There it was again. Not bad.
“The series with all the faces from Jama?que. Really exquisite,” she continues.
“And the short film in black and white, the lovers in Broken. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Like if you were to mix Merchant Ivory with Truffaut, but with des Noirs.
C’est exceptionnel. And the series Bright Young Thing. Waouh! It’s visceral.…”
My breath catches. The latter was a series of intimate portraits I’d taken of Lorry the first summer we were together.
The lines of his face, the furrow of his brow, the flecks of gold in his arresting eyes.
The backdrop, the lawn at his parents’ cottage in East Hampton.
A six-bedroom gray-shingled Cape Cod on West End Road with a wraparound porch and a manicured yard that looked out onto the Atlantic.
We were nearing the end of a memorable week in that house, and I’d shot him one afternoon, supine in the grass.
He’d been teaching me about global warming, inspired by his current read, ironically titled Compost This Book!
He’d had the weight of the world on his beautiful shoulders.
Poor little Lorry Kenter, surrounded by endless privilege and wealth, and yet tortured.
Somehow, I’d captured that, and then some.
“It was a lifetime ago,” I say.
“They’re really intense. Like you can feel something is going on in those photos. With the boy. Who is he?”
“An old friend.”
“A friend? Who would look at you like that? Who you would look at like that?” She smiles, coy. “I don’t think he’s just a friend.”
“Lorry,” I say. And as always, it catches in my throat. “I was utterly in love with him. And he broke my heart. Three times. Even looking at those photos, all these years later, is still painful.”
I didn’t tell her that it was like picking at a scab. A scab that had never fully healed. That was thickened and discolored and still oozed pus when I least expected it.
“I think we all have one of those,” she says.
A server steps out onto the terrace then, proffering a tray of minicupcakes. I decline, but Anouk smiles, selecting a red-velvet one. In LA, I’ve noticed, women typically abstain from desserts, or share one or two in a group. In France, desserts are taken very seriously. And not shared.
“So,” she says, mid-bite, while I am snapping the view with my phone, “where is he now?”
“Here, actually. In Los Angeles.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Not in seventeen years…” I pause. “… and nine months. But who’s counting?”
She nods, takes another bite. “Mathias Bonnaire. He was mine. I was seventeen. He destroyed me. I thought the best way to get revenge was to become a big model, so he’d have to see my face everywhere.
A reminder of what he gave up. And that eventually he would come crawling back. He did. But by then I didn’t want him.”
She finishes her cupcake, then crumples her napkin. “Dismissing him was delicious.”
For a moment, I say nothing, musing on her calculated vengefulness. I’m distracted by her tongue darting to lick a smudge of icing at the corner of her mouth.
“What does Lorry do?” she asks. “Is he an actor?”
“Oh God, no.” I laugh. I could not think of anything worse than dating an actor. Well, maybe a musician. I’d done that once. It was not pretty. Also, date was a charitable word.
“I believe he’s now teaching mindful-awareness classes.”
“Noooo. Vraiment? Ici? What did you say his name was?”
I freeze. A realization setting in. The possibility that she could know him. “Lorry Kenter. Sorry, Laurence. Laurence Kenter.”
It takes her a minute, and I can see the wheels turning. “Lau-rence!” She says it with the French pronunciation. It makes Lorry sound far more alluring than he probably is. “Lau-rence Kehn-teur.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yes! I mean, not well, no, but he used to teach at the Meditation Station on San Vicente. I took a few of his classes and did a workshop with him once. He was really good. I think he opened his own practice.”
Of course he did. Of course she had.
“Seventeen years, huh? I assume he doesn’t know you’re here?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“You should find him. Let him see how beautiful you are. How accomplished.”
“I don’t think he’d care.”
“They always care.”
She turns her head then and surveys the sweeping view, inhaling deeply, as if to ingest it. “The project you’re working on now, on beauty. It’s a photo series?”
“An installation,” I say. “With photos, yes, but not static. At least that’s how I’ve been conceptualizing it. It’s still early.”
“I’d love to hear more about it. When you’re ready.… Have you been to the Hammer?”
“I haven’t, no.”
“I’m on the board.”
I have heard great things about the Hammer, a UCLA-affiliated museum featuring historically overlooked and emerging contemporary artists.
“They do an excellent job of showcasing newer artists. And it’s a beautiful space.”
“I’ll have to check it out, then.”
I watch as she swills the last of her cranberry water, and then angles her head back toward the house.
“Well, shall we go back in?” She smiles. “And pretend that it’s not incredibly awkward to be the only two Black people at a fundraiser for Africa?”
“I am so glad you said that.”
“Oh, please. I can’t tell you how often I am the only one in the room.
And when I mention it, I often hear ‘Oh, I hadn’t noticed.
I never think of you as Black.’ Whether it is because of my complexion, or the fact that I’m French, or whatever, I don’t know.
But in this country especially, that’s a loaded thing to say.
I was really glad when you agreed to come.
Actually, I was really glad when you showed up at my door. ”
There was something so direct about her delivery. So free of guile.
I was trying to remember my initial impression of her. How she struck me those first couple of days in Cabo. Before the kiss. Before everything went south.