“I’m sorry. It was horrible of me.” She trails off then, her eyes avoiding mine. “The entire time we were shooting, on the Île de Ré, he talked about you. He talked about you and the kids. How much he loved you… The shoot was intense and stressful, and he hated that you were so far away. Hehatedit.”
I stand there, my heart racing. My throat, dry. I am not certain what to say. I’m not sure why she’s telling me this. I attempt to focus on being in my body. My feet in my shoes. But I’ve had too much champagne. And I don’t want to think about Anouk and her mindfulness techniques.
Île de Ré. It was the location forL’Amour est le Miel. They spent six weeks shooting there in the fall of 2011. The kids were in school, naturally, and with the exception of a brief visit during the Toussaint holiday break, I did not go to the set.
François did not come home once.
He did not complain about the separation. At least not that I could recall. He did not belabor the distance. But then again, I was bogged down with mom duties. Perhaps he had, and I hadn’t registered it. Perhaps I had forgotten.
“Is that all?”
She nods.
“Thank you,” I say, and then continue to the bathroom.
It haunts me during the car ride home. Élodie’s words. Her need to bring it up. To apologize. To describe his state of mind during their shoot. Which clearly could not have been his state of mind a near year later at the Venice Film Festival when he slipped up and transgressed. And then again. And again. And possibly, again.
And as I remove my shoes and pull off my fake lashes in the back seat of the Navigator, François still abuzz beside me, I wonder what it was that had clicked over for him. What made him give in to those impulses that week. Was it the attention? His star on the rise? The idea that with a certain level of celebrity the regular rules did not apply? Celebrity made people messy.
Or was it something else? Was there something I’d not been giving him?
We arrive at the house in Rustic Canyon and are dropped off with little fanfare. I hobble up the driveway beside my husband, who has placed his Saint Laurent suit jacket over my shoulders, sheltering me from the cold. His arm draped loosely around my waist. My eight-hundred-dollar shoes in my hands. My lashes in my purse. The driver watching us from the road.
I imagine what we must look like to him. Our architectural house in our upscale neighborhood. Our landscaped garden and designer clothes. Multiculti, cosmopolitan, successful, artsy, chic. A variation on wealth and privilege that, if I thought about it long enough, would make my own stomach turn. How far we’d come. How quickly we’d become comfortable with it all.
From the outside, I imagine this life might look perfect. Beautiful, flawless. On the surface, perhaps it was.
But inside, it had begun to consume me.
He is wearing the shirt I bought him in London. Black, silk, expensive. Black wool trousers. His hair is neatly coiffed, full, thick, dark. No stubble on his chin. Just cheekbones for days, and that sharp jaw, and the twin moles on his cheek, and I remember why I fell for him.
We are in the executive suite at the boutique hotel near Saint-Sulpice. The third Tuesday of the month. He watches me take off my coat from across the room. A sly smile playing over his lips. We have been here before.
“You’re late,” he says.
“Am I?”
He nods, slow.
“Take off your dress.”
I don’t own many dresses. They’re not practical for my job. And in a boys’ club, I don’t want to stand out any more than I have to. So, pants. But for our Tuesday rendezvous, it has always been dresses and skirts.
I am wearing a full-length slip beneath. Because I know he likes it. Because something about silk against my skin feels both chaste and illicit. And French.
He makes his way across to me. Pushes me up against the wall. One hand flat against the paneling, the other cradling my face. His thumb runs over my cheek, my lips, forces its way into my mouth. His body presses up against mine, wool trousers scratchy against silk. He is already hard.
I reach down to unfasten his pants and he does not stop me. My hand stealing inside the opening. Finding him. Familiar. For a moment he lets me have my way. And then he spins me toward the wall. Grabbing my hip with one hand, lifting my slip with the other.
At the moment of entry, I brace myself. Hands splayed against the paneling. But something glitches.
Again.
I gasp, and in an instant, I am on the other side of the room, watching him.
Watching.Us.
His hands sliding over my hips, smooth on silk, up to my torso, cupping my breasts. His pelvis moving against my ass. He leans in tonuzzle the side of my face and I watch myself angle my head toward his.
