There is no polite and honest way for me to respond, so I let it slide.
“How is François doing?” she asks, after the stylist steps in to readjust her collar. “I saw they cast Idris and Cate.C’est incroyable, non? It must be a dream for him. LA. A big Hollywood franchise. All that attention. I mean, you two get attention here, but Hollywood is on a different scale.”
“He seems to be handling it fine.”
This is true. Fran has been surprisingly even-keeled during this project. More disciplined and organized than I have ever known him to be. Singularly focused during his “office hours.” And yet a part of him had remained accessible to us. We hadn’t lost him entirely to the production. Yet.
“And how are you liking LA?”
“I’m still warming up to it. Trying to find my place.”
Victoire says nothing for a few moments while I return to photographing her. She is a natural, her eyes coming to life the second I hold up the lens. There is a sparkle to her, a light.
“You know, Cecilia, it’s very different than here, yes. A bit of a culture shock. Everyone is important or wants to be important. And for many, it’s more about the business than the art. But you should just enjoy it. Make the most of your time there. Because you won’t be there forever. Paris has been here for two thousand years. It’s not going anywhere. But think of LA as an adventure. Don’t be afraid to do all kinds of different things. Try something new. Unexpected. Use it for your art. Don’t think of this as just François’s opportunity. It’s a gift for all of you.”
It’s not bad advice. The idea that even though America might hold reminders of my past, there was new territory to discover. I just needed to give myself permission to do so.
We wrap early enough for me to rush home and shower before joining Anouk and her friends at Allard, a charming bistro in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The entry, in a narrow foyer opposite an open kitchen separating the front and back rooms, feels delightfully cozy. Like being in someone’s immigrant grandmother’s railroad apartment. The complete antithesis of everything shiny and new and sprawling in LA. It feels safe here. A place where one could swill red wine and eat bread without judgment. Where one could have an affair.
I find them in a corner in the back room. Anouk and her loyal subjects. She spots me and waves me over. She is wearing minimal makeup but candy-red lips. Her hair slicked back and tucked behind her ears. And once again I am thrown by her beauty. I wonder if she feels asVictoire did. More beautiful now than she did at twenty-three. More sure of herself. But perhaps not. Beauty is a fickle mistress.
“Cecilia!” She sings out my name as if we are old friends. There’s a variation of musical chairs as she makes room on the ruby-colored banquette beside her before introducing me to the group. There’s Vivienne, the French-Vietnamese fashion doyenne, a contributing editor atElle; her companion, Maurice, an older Swiss gentleman; Alain, a thirtysomething painter; Sophie, his twentysomething muse; and Clément, a handsome stylist, originally from Haiti. Anouk introduces each with such adoration and zeal, I marvel at the intensity of her relationships.
“Et voilà! This is the woman who almost killed me!” Anouk laughs. “I told them all about you.”
“All?”
“Most.” She smiles, coy.
“Alors,” she says once I am settled in with a Cab in hand. “Have you been here before? The duck is amazing.”
“I love duck.”
“Moi, aussi.” Her eyes dance. “They do it beautifully here. For two. We can share.”
“Perfect.”
“Perfect.” She reaches over then and squeezes my hand, and I am hit with this rush that feels equal parts middle-school acceptance and grown-woman girl crush. This close, I can smell her perfume. Rose, cloves, cinnamon.
“So how was the shoot? Cecilia shot forVoguetoday,” she announces to the table.
“Ah, oui?”Vivienne looks up from her amuse-bouche, some sort of celery-root soup with shaved truffles. “Mais, c’est génial. The collections?”
I lean forward to get a good look at her, on the opposite side of Anouk. I recognize her face from countless society and fashion blogs. Late fifties, early sixties-ish, sharp cheekbones, an angular black bob with a streak of silver at her cowlick. One of those women with impeccable style and endless confidence. The kind I longed to be.
Paris was full of them.
“No. Not fashion. Just a sitting with Victoire de Fleury.”
“Vraiment?! Oh, I love her!” Clément pipes up. “She was incredible inSalut, Bordeaux! Formidable! She should have won the César.”
“Yes,” I say. I do not mention it’s my husband’s movie. Or that he was nominated as well. I have learned that doing so changes the arc of the conversation. “She’s quite lovely.”
“Where are you from?” he asks. He has a splendid bald head and a chartreuse scarf jauntily knotted at his neck. “You look familiar. And you’re not French.”
He says this, like everything else that has been spoken tonight, in French. And it amuses me that after eighteen years in this country, I still come across as an outsider. The lengths I’ve gone to lose all semblance of an accent, to look and dress the part, to acquire that perfect mélange of haughty and insouciant, to master all the subtleties, right down to the messy chignon—and still I’d failed.
“How did you know?”
