Chapter XXX. Wintertide. #2
Without saying a word, Lucie shuts the freezer door, and shirks back toward the breakfast nook.
I lower my voice once she’s out of earshot. “Please don’t do that again.”
“What? She’s getting a little bottom.”
“She’s twelve, Mummy.”
“Well, I didn’t have a bottom like that at that age.”
I close the faucet and turn to look at her.
Recently she has allowed her grays to grow in, and they pepper her hairline, wiry and silver, juxtaposed with the chestnut brown.
There are lines crossing her forehead, an “eleven” between her eyebrows from years of scolding, scrutinizing, judging.
Her lips are thinner now, the skin on her neck like crepe.
She will only grow older, less beautiful in her eyes … the Miss Jamaica finalist.
We don’t lose our beauty. It simply changes. But I doubt my mother viewed it that way. And I wondered what that did to her psyche.
“I’d like to shoot you.”
“I’d like to shoot you, too.”
I smile. “With my camera, Mummy. For my project.”
“Oh,” she says, her hands instinctively smoothing her hair.
“Not right now, but when I come back in the spring. So you have sufficient time to prepare if you’d like.”
“Oh good. So I can enjoy my Christmas, then?”
“Yes. You can enjoy your Christmas. Eat all the ice cream you’d like.”
Late the following night, Andrew and I are wandering the aisles at Walmart, getting in the last bit of shopping before everything closes.
We did the important stuff at the mall in Boca earlier in the day.
But the miscellaneous items—wrapping paper, tape, golden Birthday Cake Oreos—those are best left for after-hours scavenging at the megastore, the likes of which I’d never seen in New York and I’ve mostly avoided in France.
And with it, a healthy dose of Americana.
It has become somewhat of a ritual for Andrew and me, winding our way through the double-wide aisles, mocking things American, while still filling our massive carts with items we couldn’t find in our adopted homelands.
Because it never fully leaves you, America.
There is always invisible string tugging you back, reminding you of the grandeur you left behind.
Walk-in closets and multiple-car garages and refrigerators that dispense filtered water in three forms.
“So how are things in LA?” he asks me, navigating his cart down one of the grocery aisles. Fran and Colin had stayed behind to watch Die Hard with the kids, and it’s the first time Andrew and I have spent any real time alone.
“It’s nice. Pretty. I don’t know that I could live there long term, but two years seems doable.”
“Are there Walmarts?” His inflection has changed. More of a British lilt. He’s been gone too long. We both have.
“On the Westside of LA?”
He smirks.
“Have you found your people yet?”
“Not really. No.”
“It never really feels like home until you find your people,” he says, grabbing a box of Froot Loops with Marshmallows. “Ooh. Love these things.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“No, really.”
“I have a girlfriend.”
It comes out of nowhere. It feels huge, but at the same time I know that the term is flexible, and I can spin it, if necessary.
“That’s nice,” he says, and returns to weighing his options of junk cereals. And then he pauses and turns back to me. “A girlfriend? Like…? Okay.”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” His eyes light up then, and he laughs. “What the fuck, Cee? Did not see that coming.”
“Neither did I.”
“Is your husband aware of this?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh-kay,” he says, again slowly. “Who does know?”
“No one. Well, ostensibly her husband. But he’s okay with things like that.”
“Oh, Jesus fuck. She’s married?”
I nod, reaching for a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, before remembering I can get them in LA. Although, certainly not at Whole Foods.
“Who even are you?”
“Your big sister.”
“Are you enjoying it? What am I asking you? I don’t wanna know this stuff. I mean, I want you to be happy in your life, so that’s important. But like … is this just some kind of exploratory phase for you, or—?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because it can be hard out here. It’s not all Halloween and Pride parades or whatever you think it is.”
“I’m well aware of that, Andrew. Thank you. And I’m not saying I’ve undergone this drastic change or anything, I’m just saying I like her.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then, “You like her enough to blow up your marriage? Because those kids, man. Those kids are great. And any big decisions you make affects them. Profoundly.”
“I know, Drew.”
“Just saying. And Francois is an awesome guy.”
“He’s not that awesome.”
He stops then, looks at me. A lifetime of reading each other’s secrets. “Oh, CeCe, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It happens. Men, right?”
“Is this some kind of retaliation?”
“I don’t know. Maybe at first, but … I don’t know.”
“Fuck,” he says.
“Do not say anything to our parents.”
“Never.”
“And stop cursing. You are not too old for them to disown you.”
In Paris, I have my people, Salima and Camille, whom I met when our firstborns were all in la crèche together.
Aurélie and Geneviève from art school. Postcollege, I’d had my New York crew, a collection of my closest friends from high school, college, work, and junior year abroad.
We’ve since dispersed to various corners of the world, but those women are definitely my people. In Los Angeles, I have Anouk.
And only Anouk.