“C’est qui?” Maurice asks.
“The director?” Vivienne leans forward to catch my eye.
I nod, vaguely. A mouth full of duck.
“Ah, oui? C’est chouette,” Sophie adds.
“I didn’t get to meet you, but I was the stylist for Élodie Cloutier during the press tour ofL’Amour est le Miel,” Clément says, proudly.
“Oh, really? Small world.” I smile.
“Carrément!”
Sixty-one. That is the number of hours I’ve been in Paris without hearing her name or seeing her likeness. This is not to say that I haven’tthought of her. Them. But just that no one has brought her up to me. Just that up until that moment I have not had to feign normalcy in a crowded room when inside I am unraveling.
He’d chosen Ph?Tài, a Vietnamese restaurant in the Asian Quarter, one brisk November evening. Small and inconspicuous, the perfect venue to unload his burden. In public, because he knew my proper colonial upbringing would not permit me to cause a scene. And enough off the beaten path that we would not likely run into anyone we knew. The fact that he’d planned it made it all the more painful. I sat there in shock, speechless, tears streaming into my soup, while he held tightly to both my hands on the table. So I would not flee? Pick up a knife and stab him? I could not be sure. He’d used the wordsindiscretionandimprudent, and said something about it being brief and insignificant—as if that would somehow lessen his betrayal. As if in that moment I would loathe him less.
The director and his young starlet. What a fucking cliché.
Our waiter is catering to the table in the far corner. I attempt to catch his attention to order more wine, but fail. For a moment I consider fleeing to the toilet, but I am on the inside banquette, and I don’t want to inconvenience three-fourths of our party to get there. It’s a problem I have, not wanting to inconvenience others. Not wanting to agitate or complain. But it hardly seems fair that a perfectly lovely evening should be ruined by the ghosts of my past. In truth, Élodie was François’s ghost. But I managed to carry her with me. Like an albatross.
“Franchement, Cecilia. You didn’t tell me your husband was a big movie director!” Anouk exclaims.
“Ha. I guess it didn’t come up.”
“Maybe the concussion.” She smiles at me. She is giving me an easy way out.
“Yes,” I say. “Maybe that.”
“Maybe that,” she repeats, sipping from her drink. And then, almost too casually, she adds, “But now I can’t help but wonder what else you are hiding.”
My journals are not in the back of our bedroom closet. The more recent ones, yes. Along with copies of the November 2013 issue ofBeaux Artsfeaturing an exclusive on my short film,Broken, theVanity FairFrance issue with the profile claiming us as Paris’ new It couple, and thePremièremagazine with the extensive write-up on Fran. But the older diaries, from my twenties and teens and elementary school, have been moved elsewhere, and I have spent the morning tearing through every random box in our apartment desperate to find them. To unearth the details of that week in Cabo. To separate fact from the story I’d embellished in my head. If none of it was significant enough for Anouk to remember, then maybe it hadn’t been momentous at all. But then what did she think might be worth hiding?
I am tempted to call François, but it’s twoAMin California, and I know with preproduction he has not been getting enough sleep. Plus, he will not think this an emergency.
What I do find is two large archival photo boxes stashed behind his extensive, overpriced sneaker collection. His Common Projects and Brunello Cucinelli and Prada. When we first got together and I’d teased him about spending far too much money on shoes, he told me I wouldn’t understand because I wasn’t French. A lot had changed since then.
The boxes themselves are nondescript. And in the home of two photographers, there were plenty of their kind, but it’s the location of them that throws me. For a moment, I consider not opening them. I am not a wife who snoops. And yet he has given me sufficient reason to do so. And so, before I can overthink it, I remove the lid of the first one.
Inside, I come across storyboards forLes Choses S’Effondrent,En Cas d’Urgence, andPlus Ça Change, Fran’s short and first two films. His sketches, painstakingly detailed, recalling a much different time in our lives. When we had two little ones and no money. But we had happiness. We had trust. We had hope.
However, it’s the contents of the second box that surprise me. Photos of me. Black and whites and contact sheets and work prints. A chronicle of our earliest years. Our newly besotted years. When I, andI alone, was his muse. Like Sophie, I imagine, spilling into Alain’s lap. Entranced, enamored, oblivious to the outside world. But here, our moments stolen and documented, like love notes written in shadow and light. There are candids and close-ups and portraits and nudes. Some far more provocative than others. The base of my neck. The small of my back. His hand between my thighs. The memory so distinct, I quiver, dropping the print. And then sit beside it on the floor, spreading the photos into a skirt around me.
On the backs he has jotted down notes in his delicate cursive. Book titles, song lyrics, thoughts to remember. Potential names for future works.Once Upon a Time in Paris,Hike Up Your Skirt a Little More,Crash into Me,Voyeur,The Morning After,Secrets and Lies,Cecilia,Nue.
He loved me once. And maybe he keeps these images to remind himself. Maybe he keeps them hidden to forget.
I am still looking at the photos when my phone vibrates on the nightstand, the number now familiar.
“Salut.”
“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice deep, gravelly. Morning Anouk.
“Nothing productive, unfortunately…”
“Come meet me for lunch and a little shopping in the Marais.”
“Sounds tempting…”
