Chapter XLVII. The Morning After.
XLVII.
THE MORNING AFTER.
SUNDAY.
A bunch of them had met up for dinner at a local seafood place the night before. Cecilia had not had an appetite, but she went with the hope of seeing Anouk. Of checking to make certain she was okay. Of getting to the bottom of what had happened. But Anouk did not show. Neither had Didier.
And so she’d gone back to her hotel room and made numerous attempts to reach Lorry, but to no avail.
When he didn’t answer his phone in Manhattan, she’d called his parents in Greenwich; it was the weekend, after all.
But at each turn she was confronted by an answering machine.
And she didn’t feel comfortable leaving more than one message, for fear that she would look like a clingy girlfriend desperately trying to hang on to the younger boy who’d decided they should be taking a “respite.” Which was indeed what she had become.
And so that morning, bereft and bleary-eyed, she and Marc and the other assistants packed up their belongings and took the vans over to Querencia Bay to pick up the others en route to the airport.
As usual, Didier had requested they come to his casita to oversee transferring his luggage—including his cameras and equipment, and the bag of shot film, colloquially known as “the football”—because he did not trust the bellhop or resort with something so valuable.
Marc headed directly over, but Cecilia took a quick detour to the front desk in the reception hall to pick up a package Sarah had left for her.
The makeup artist had taken an early flight to Miami but had told Cecilia at dinner that she would have something waiting.
Cecilia was surprised to find a small shopping bag of beauty products.
A couple of blushes suitable for her complexion, three lip glosses, a facial wash, a clay mask, and the Japanese eye cream.
Inside was a small note: CECILIA, LOVE TO SEE A WOMAN IN A MAN’S JOB. KEEP DOING WHAT YOU DO.—S.
Cecilia was touched by the gesture. She knew makeup artists often handed out partially used or unused products to the talent following a big shoot, but no one had ever set anything aside for her before.
No one had viewed her as more than the photographer’s second assistant. Most could not remember her name.
She was still inspecting the items in her bag as she made her way through the winding paths to Didier’s casita, which was why she almost missed it.
But something familiar crossed her peripheral vision as she neared the fork by the row of southern-facing oceanfront suites.
She turned her head. And there, in the archway of one of the entrances, just a few yards down the path, she spotted a mane of hair. Dark, wild, unmistakable.
Rafaella was beneath the portico, her back against the arch, and standing in front of her, leaning in, with his hands pinning both of hers to the wall above her head, was Elliot.
Elliot Lyons-Thorpe with his perfect hair and posh-boy-pretty face.
Cecilia was in such shock that for a moment she could not look away.
His face was buried in the side of her neck.
Her eyes closed, mouth ajar. His body pressed up against hers.
Their fingers entwined. Rafaella lifted a skirted leg to wrap around his narrow hips, and Elliot dropped one hand to move between her thighs. Cecilia’s breath stopped.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” She turned and scrambled down the path, her footing faltering on the uneven stones.
When she was out of their line of vision Cecilia stopped to collect herself. She wanted to run and tell Marc, but she realized this entire week had been full of secrets, and doing so might lead to the discovery of her own.
She arrived at Didier’s frazzled, coming across two bellhops near the entrance already loading the cameras and lighting equipment—the utilitarian Pelican cases and the Tenba bags—onto their respective golf carts.
There were nine cases and four Tenba bags, not including Didier’s personal luggage.
Marc was overseeing the process, counting and recounting and tagging everything.
“Hey, goof. You okay?”
Cecilia nodded.
“Did you see your girlfriend?”
She looked him square in the face, shaking off the shock of what she had just witnessed. “I don’t have a girlfriend, Marc.”
“Just messing with you, Cee. His duffel and backpack are in the living room. I’ve got everything else.”
Cecilia entered the main room of the casita, and spotted Didier through the open back doors.
He was pacing on the terrace overlooking the bluffs, shouting in French into a cordless telephone, the sea beckoning behind him.
Inside, seated on the banquette on the far side of the room, looking like she hadn’t a care in the world, was Maren in a familiar oversized chambray work shirt unbuttoned to her sternum, white jeans, gold Panthère de Cartier watch, a sly smile on her lips.
She was flipping through a Vanity Fair. Her legs crossed, a navy Tod’s driving moccasin dangling off one foot.
She was, to Cecilia, effortlessly chic. She, in her pretty white skin.
“Hey there.” She smiled, smug almost. “Did you guys have a good time last night?”
“It was okay.”
“Hmm.” She nodded. And then, “Too much sun yesterday. We decided to stay in.”
Cecilia paused. We? Was that the royal we, or was she referring to herself and Didier?
Were they an established item? Cecilia wasn’t sure if she was supposed to already be aware of it, or if this was Maren’s way of letting her in on a secret.
Or perhaps bragging. Although why she would brag after Friday’s dinner ended so appallingly, Cecilia had no clue.
“Alors…” Didier came bounding into the room then, dark sunglasses, freshly shampooed curls, smelling of grass and tobacco and sun. “Fini.”
“How’d it go?” Maren asked.
“On verra. We’ll see. I really want this fragrance campaign.”
“I know you do.”
“I think these pictures could do it.”
“I didn’t see the Polaroids,” she said.
“There were none.” Didier turned toward Cecilia, standing near the entrance of the room. She had clearly walked in on something. “On y va, petite Cecilia? You ready?”
“Cecilia’s always ready,” Maren said.
And then Cecilia noticed it: the right collar of Maren’s oversized shirt was faintly frayed. Maren was an impeccable dresser. She did not do ripped jeans or distressed denim or frayed collars. Not even by accident. Cecilia realized why the chambray shirt looked familiar. It belonged to Didier.
“C’est vrai,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.
“I don’t know what I would do without this one.
She keeps me in line.” He crossed the room then to collect his Hermès duffel and backpack in the corner.
He handed the backpack to Cecilia and then turned back toward Maren, still flipping through her magazine. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Treat yourself to a massage.”
“Already scheduled.”
“Call me when you land.”
“Will do.”
“We got some good pictures.”
“We did. They’re very happy. You’ve made a lot of people happy.”
Cecilia watched as Maren closed the magazine, tossed it onto the coffee table, and rose, striding confidently across the room.
“But not you?” He reached for her wrist, and she pulled it free.
“I’m still deciding.”
“I want that fragrance campaign.”
“You said that already.” She smiled, handing him the blazer that was flung across the chaise in the corner. “I’ll work on it. Travel safely,” she said. And as she passed by Cecilia on her way toward the door, she added, “Sorry about your hand.”
Cecilia, Marc, and Didier rode with the bellhops up to the front of the resort.
Cecilia and Didier in one golf cart, Marc in the other.
Didier was making small talk with the driver about the area—the new resort they were building farther up the coast, the golf course they were excavating across the highway—but Cecilia remained silent.
Absorbing the moment as their cart made its way across the bluffs.
Winding through serpentine roads, past luxe villas and oceanfront suites, skirting pink tourists in sun hats and brown women in housekeeping uniforms and gardeners in work boots, through arbors of palm trees and alleys of bougainvillea, which felt both natural and out of place in the desert climate.
This place, Cecilia thought, this paradise, where so much had gone sideways, felt like a facade.
Some kind of manufactured Shangri-la. And it dawned on her then that the images they’d captured over the past week, the ones logged and labeled and divided into separate plastic Baggies with processing notes for the lab, and crammed into the football in Marc’s hands, shared that same element of deceit.
Something wholly fabricated out of others’ blood and sweat and tears and dignity, to sell a lie.
Lorry was right. It had little to do with art. They were selling frivolous fantasies.
They arrived eventually at the reception hall, joining up with the rest of their party.
The two vans and the VIP bus were lined up in the driveway.
The bellmen in their crisp guayabera shirts loading the myriad pieces of luggage.
Much of the group was clustered beneath the portico, getting in their farewell hugs.
Including Rafaella, deep in an animated conversation with Pietro and Emilio, and Elliot, standing off to the side with Hugh, listening intently to whatever it was he was saying, both feigning normalcy.
As if they hadn’t just engaged in a torrid liaison.
Cecilia scanned the flock, looking for Anouk.
She wasn’t certain how she would say goodbye in this crowded space.
How she could possibly part from her and convey all the emotions she was feeling without coming completely undone.
But she knew she couldn’t get in that van without saying something to the girl she’d left prone on the beach.
She didn’t have much time to belabor the fact, as she and Marc were tasked with tracking the placement of the numerous cases and bags, which were divvied up between the vans. And so they missed out on all the hugs and air-kissing.
At some point, Bas ambled over to where she was standing near the back of one of the vans, loading luggage. In sunglasses and an Abercrombie & Fitch baseball cap turned backward, Bas was a Bruce Weber fever dream come to life.
“Hey, you.” He greeted her with a faint smile. It barely cracked his dimple.
“Hi,” Cecilia said. “I think they’re putting you in the fancy bus.”
“I know. I just … Were you not going to say goodbye?”
It threw her. His demeanor, soft, genuine, so unlike his usual effervescent charm. And the fact that once again he’d singled her out.
“Oh. I’m sorry. No, of course.” She leaned into him awkwardly. But even standing on her toes in her Chuck Taylors, she found it difficult to hug him properly. He was that tall. “’Til next time.”
He’d wrapped one long arm around her waist, squeezing her and lifting her momentarily off the ground.
“Oh.”
“Sorry.” He laughed, placing her down. “It was a pleasure working with you, Cecilia.”
“You too, Bas.”
“You’re a good person,” he said. And then he lowered his voice, tucking his face in beside her ear. “Don’t stay in this business too long. It will make you bitter.”
She was still thinking about his words when she saw her.
Anouk had emerged from the reception area, motioned to the bellhop which vehicle was hers, and then made a beeline to the bus, not stopping to congregate with the others beneath the portico.
She was wearing a short-sleeved white button-down, blue jeans.
Her hair pulled back into a loose knot. She wore not a lick of makeup nor sunglasses.
And so there was no disguising all she’d been through.
Her face was puffy, wan. Her eyes red. She looked, Cecilia thought, even younger than nineteen.
Paola had caught up with her just outside of the bus, handing off a small shopping bag that Anouk tucked inside her duffel.
From her vantage point, a few yards away, Cecilia could just barely make out their conversation.
“Va bene?” Paola asked, a concerned expression on her face.
“Just a little too much sun, yesterday. I’ll be fine,” Anouk said, before thanking her and making her way to the bus doors.
She did not stop to acknowledge Cecilia.
Cecilia watched as Anouk began to climb into the bus, and as she reached for the handrail the left sleeve of her shirt edged up, revealing a pattern of deep-purple bruises at the back of her arm, the imprint dark, angry.
Then, just as quickly, Anouk lowered her arm and the bruises disappeared beneath the cotton material.
“Do you have room for one more? The other van’s full.” Marc appeared at Cecilia’s side with a large Tenba bag.
“Um…” It took her a moment to register what he was saying.
“Bag Three,” he said. “I have One and Two. You now have Three and Four.”
“Right.” Cecilia snapped back into assistant mode, the idea that she was responsible for thousands of dollars of equipment. And whatever she’d been attempting to grasp in the moments before was gone. “Got it,” she said to Marc, taking the camera bag. “I have Three and Four.”
When she was finished reconfiguring the luggage, her eyes trailed back to the VIP bus. The others were beginning to get on, Anouk nowhere in sight.
For a moment, Cecilia thought about making her way on board, if only to say goodbye.
But she realized how awkward the gesture would be, how obvious to everyone else who’d witness it.
And what would she say? There was no casually bringing up what had transpired between them.
Maybe Cecilia had imagined it to be more than it actually was.
Anouk had ignored her, after all. Maybe their connection was just physical.
But even so … what did she think was going to happen?
That they were going to become pen pals?
Date? Besides, Cecilia still had Lorry to contend with. Cecilia still had her life.
And so when Didier bid farewell to Rafaella and Elliot and the others, and climbed into the van with a resounding, “Bonjour, les enfants! On y va?” Cecilia closed the back doors and followed him.
She still had her life.