“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”
The sirens grow louder still and then stop. An ambulance pulling up in front of the cars, the lights still circling.
“I was in an accident. In front of our coffee shop. In Santa Monica. On Montana. Please come.”
“Putain. Où sont les enfants?”
“They’re at school. They’re fine.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Maybe,” I say, and then, unexpectedly, I begin to cry.
“Ma belle, ma belle.” François’s voice is smooth over the phone, hypnotic. “Don’t move. I’m on my way.”
“Fran,” I say, as I lean back and close my eyes. “It’s Anouk. I almost killed Anouk.”
“Anouk…?” He pauses, waiting for me to fill in the silence.
“Ferrand. I just almost killed Anouk Ferrand.”
II.ONCE UPON A TIME IN PARIS.
PARIS.
OCTOBER. 2014.
The offer came in on a Friday in October.
It was late in the evening, and we were entertaining. Our monthly dinner with dear friends, the Sadous and the Picards. Six adults, five children, nestled tightly around our dining table, in the great room of our apartment in the ninth arrondissement. An apartment we had recently renovated precisely so we could entertain such large groups. There was lamb, wine, laughter. Jazz on vinyl. An hour in, when the kids had up and disappeared into the den, the conversation had turned to Valérie Trierweiler, the former girlfriend of François Hollande, and her recently released memoir detailing his affair and its aftermath. In France, no one is exempt from infidelity. Not even the president. My François was atypically silent, and sometime between the salad and the cheese course, he stepped away to check his messages. He returned visibly buzzing but said nothing.
“All good?”
“Oui.”
It wasn’t until our guests had departed and Lucie and Julien were in their bedrooms, likely feigning sleep, that he came out with it.
“They want me to do the trilogy.”
“Which movie?”
“All three.”
I set down the wineglass I’d been washing in the sink and turned to look at him. Lean, lanky, forty-two, a smattering of gray dotting his chin and temples. The faint promise of lines crinkling his mercurial eyes, and now this. A three-picture deal with Sony. Everything was going to change.
“They said all three?”
“Oui.” He nodded, his lips widening into an unabashed smile. A child at Christmas. “All three. Shooting concurrently.”
“When do you start?”
“Janvier.”
I did the math. Two months and one week before our lives would be uprooted, disrupted, compromised. It would not be the first time. Butthreemovies: the prep time, the filming, the editing process. It could take years.
“Where?”
