PARIS.
MARCH. 2015.
I wait before I call her. Because I do not want to seem too eager or enamored. And because deep down I fear she wants to discuss details of the Cabo shoot. Perhaps some suppressed memory returned to her. Perhaps it had never been lost. Perhaps she has questions that I am not willing to answer. And so, Tuesday evening, after officially accepting Cherry and Martin’s offer of representation, I pour myself a glass of Saint-Émilion, curl up on the daybed in the den, take a deep breath, and telephone Anouk.
“You are here, finally. You missed all the good parties.”
It takes me a second. Ah, yes. March. Fashion week.
I have outgrown fashion-week parties, or at least I want to believe I have. The primping and posturing. The angling for status. The endless parade of young flesh. In my youth, I found it all fascinating. The models and designers and artists and celebrities—the Sturm und Drang of it all. I’d wanted in. But now it had become tedious, superficial. Every once in a while, Fran and I would venture out to make an appearance for publicity purposes. But given the choice, I’d just as happily stay home and roast a duck.
“What are you doing tomorrow morning? I have an extra ticket to Louis Vuitton. Come and be my guest.”
It is not what I was expecting.
“You’re doing the show?”
“Noooo. I would never do runway now. I’m in a different space. It’s for a new contract. Come!”
I am tempted to laugh atdifferent space. It sounds so California. So hippy-dippy LA. It is only a matter of time before Lucie and Julien start throwing around such colloquialisms. Start sounding too American. My eyes scan the room now—the wall-to-wall bookshelves, the beanbags, the cupboard of board games, and the reading nook. Reminders of our happy life here. Before the uprooting. In LA, our house has a custom-designed media room.
“Thank you for the invite,” I say, “but I can’t. I’m shooting forVoguetomorrow.”
“Oh là là…” she responds, and I laugh. Because as much as I want to be above it all, there is a certain panache associated with the iconic publication, and it is difficult to dismiss.
“I’m having a late dinner with some of my favorite people, in Saint-Germain. Come join us when you are done.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“Pas du tout,” she says. “I’ll text you the information.Bon courage demain.”
We shoot in a large studio in Saint-Denis. A cabal of editors, publicists, stylists, technicians. Hair, makeup, nails. Walking onto such a bustling set and realizing it is mine is still a rush. After all those years as a mere assistant—of carting around Didier’s film, and hoisting Philippe’s lights—it is nice to show up with two assistants of my own.
Victoire de Fleury was forty-seven when François cast her as the lead inSalut, Bordeaux!She’d spent twenty years before that doing theater with La Comédie-Française and smallish roles in midrange projects. But her audition for the role of a struggling single mom unwittingly drawn into a web of espionage floored Fran and his producers. When the film won a coveted slot at Cannes, critics and the public took to it immediately, and Victoire’s life changed seemingly overnight. She was a rising star on the cusp of fifty. A complete and utter anomaly. Particularly for women. Her César nom was just the icing on an already delectable cake.
And she owed it primarily to my husband.
“They like to erase all my lines, and I don’t like it,” she confides to me during our first setup of the day. She is sitting astride a stool before a white backdrop, lush in a white terry-cloth robe, her short blond hair wet and disheveled. Her face nearly nude. Her strength palpable. “American publications, especially. They’re the worst.”
“I won’t let them do that to my photos,” I say. “I can soften them with light, but I won’t remove them digitally. And I’ll make sure the art director gets that note.”
“We can’t all be twenty-three.” She smiles. “I did twenty-three already. I don’t want to do it again. At twenty-three I was insecure, and too skinny, and a mess.”
I sympathize. Although not with the too-skinny bit.
“Anyway, I feel more beautiful now than ever before. Don’t let them tell you your forties aren’t beautiful.…”
She trails off for a bit, and I take a moment to check my light meter. Adjust the f-stop. Pop off a few dozen frames, before hair and makeup step in again to primp her. It feels good to be back behind the camera, my happy place.
“How old are you? Thirty-five? Thirty-seven?”
“Ha!” I lower my voice then and lean in toward her. Jamaican women are notorious for being discreet about their age. I did not know my own mother’s until I was seventeen, on the occasion that she sent me to fetch her purse in her bedroom and I took a peek at her driver’s license. “Forty-five.”
“Noooo.” Victoire’s jaw drops. “It’s true what they say about black skin, no? It doesn’t break.”
I laugh. “Crack.C’est craquer, pas casser. Black don’t crack.”
“Ah.” She smiles. “Either way, you are so lucky to have it.”
