“We went to a couple of Golden Globes parties. But we knew no one and no one really knew us. So we just walked around in circles trying to pretend we fit in.” I chuckle at the memory. “Hollywood types really like to celebrate themselves.”
“Have you not made any friends?”
“Mmm… not exactly. Although I did almost kill Anouk Ferrand with my big American car.”
“No!!”
“Yes. It wasn’t pretty. But I went to her house to apologize, and she was very nice.”
Khalil cocks his head, removes his rimless glasses, and cleans them delicately with a silk handkerchief from his suit pocket. The light catching his cuff link just so. A lesson in elegance. I think about how growing up Black and female I was reminded time and time again that I had two strikes against me and so had to be twice as good at everything I did. I imagine succeeding as Muslim and Arab in France is the same. Particularly in the art world. The pressure to be exceptional.
“Pay attention to that one,” he says before replacing his glasses. “She’s… peculiar.”
“How so?”
He pauses for an instant, choosing his words.
“She runs hot and cold,” he says, eventually, and before I can get him to elaborate, Khalil has turned toward the far wall and is surveying my prints. “So what do you think? It’s not bad, no?”
“No. Not bad.”
The French do this. They say “not bad” when they meanvery good.
“There is a real sadness to it, I think. But at the same time, hope.”
I nod. I have not told Khalil about François’s infidelity. I have nottold anyone besides my therapist. But sometimes I think he can see right through me, through my art. My insecurities, my dreams, my fears.
We met when I was new to Paris, and he was just starting out. When we each had fewer responsibilities and more time to linger overcafés crèmeand wax philosophical about race and ethnicity in the art world, and its lack of darker faces. In fifteen years, he’d ascended in status, opened two additional Parisian galleries, and was looking to open a fourth abroad. He’d outgrown photography as a medium, but he’d held on to me.
Finding an LA-based dealer who was similarly discriminating and loyal was not going to be easy.
“How is the new project going?”
“Slow.”
He turns to look at me, catches something in my eyes. “You can’t rush art, you know,” he says.
“Tell that to my husband.”
At that, he smiles. “That’s not art. That’s commerce.”
“Cecilia! Come, let me get a good look at you. A little rounder in the face, but still pretty.” My mother embraces me later that evening in Westchester. It is how Olive June Chen (née McPherson) has always greeted me. A brief, often biting observation of the physical, accompanied by some sort of loving remark. She couldn’t stop herself. It had taken years of therapy to realize this was a reflection of her and not me. But by then the damage was done.
“Leavemi likkledaughter alone. She’s perfect just the way she is,” my father chimes in.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
The two of them stood in the entryway of my Auntie Lolo’s home in Armonk. Matching Cheshire cat smiles on their faces. My mother in a conservative A-line dress and pearls, her once-long hair held back with a demure headband. My father in a dark suit and tie, jacket removed. His hair silky, silver. Any roundness in my face came from him. My mother’s was the perfect oval. But my father’s face was stillimpish, wide, open, the face of a young boy. A brownish Chinese boy who’d run barefoot through the dirt roads of Annotto Bay with his brother and sisters in his youth. A boy who would go on to perform well at school in Kingston, travel to London to study finance, return to his native island to work for its largest bank, marry his high school sweetheart–cum–beauty queen, have two kids, and then take a huge risk in leaving a familiar life behind to migrate to the States. Things had turned out well for him. Expat children notwithstanding.
“Come in, come in. Don’t let the air out. Lo and Warren aren’t paying to heat the whole neighborhood.
“How was the ride?”
“Same as always. Loud businessmen drinking Michelob and playing card games,” I say, referencing a certain subset of Metro-North commuters.
“They don’t do that in France?”
“We’re not a loud people. Well, maybe at football matches…”
