MARCH–APRIL. 2015.
Lucie’s ballet school is in a strip mall in Pacific Palisades. There are things that I have a hard time wrapping my head around since moving to California, and how a reputable ballet school finds itself situated in a strip mall is one of them. Up until December, Lucie was taking eight classes a week at le Centre de Danse du Marais, a prestigious school in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Paris, in a formerhôtel particulierthat dates back to 1600. The Ballet Theatre of Westchester, in Tarrytown—where my father carted me every Saturday morning for years—was housed in a historic Neo-Georgian building from the 1920s. The Palisades strip mall strikes me as mid-’80s, at best. But the school came highly recommended, with an exceptional director and teachers all trained in the Balanchine technique—and so the Palisades Academy of Dance it was.
On the days we don’t have Parisa, I wait for Lucie in the parking lot. She files out of class with her fellow dancers, full of laughter and light, and I am overjoyed to see her with her new friends. But the Wednesday following my return from Paris, I decide to venture inside the studio, hoping to get a glimpse of my ballerina in action. I don’t. The interior doors are closed, and so I stand in the waiting area with a handful of other moms anticipating the girls’ exit. There are no men here. Either carpooling duties have fallen entirely to the female sex, orthe dads who’ve been roped into chauffeuring have been instructed to wait in the parking lot.
Once again, I am the only one who looks like me. There’s a cluster of blonds chatting in the center of the room. They could easily be taken for a sorority. Long, beachy, center-parted hair, faux-tanned skin. Most are wearing Lululemon, although it’s six thirty in the evening. A few are in skinny jeans with strategic tears at the knees. I imagine they are all about my age, but some have had work done and it’s difficult to tell.
The one anomaly is the Asian American woman seated on the bench lining the far wall, scrolling on her phone. She is dressed very chicly: flesh-colored three-inch slingbacks, a tailored black dress, a large Céline tote with a laptop peeking out. I don’t see many working moms on the Westside, and so I start to fantasize about what it is she does. Lawyer, banker, consultant… Whichever, she is an outlier.
I am transfixed by the Westside Woman. By how similar so many look. How they are all effortfully thin, veiny forearms from too much yoga, faces drawn yet plumped, hair colored and styled, impeccable pedicures, and wrinkle-free smiles. They are a tribe. In Patagonia and Uggs. In Range Rovers and Audis. In Cartier Love bracelets. I wonder what beauty it is that these women are consuming en masse. Who and where are their influencers? Goop? Tracy Anderson? Karyn Grossman? Garth Fisher?
I am mulling this over and wondering how I might work it into my current project when one of the blonds approaches me.
“Hey,” she says. She’s wearing a hooded cashmere cardigan, Anita Ko spike stud earrings. Her freshly balayaged hair hangs past her shoulders. She is both slouchy and expensive. “Who’s your person?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you here to pick up someone’s child?”
I stare at her for a second. In France, strangers don’t approach you and start up personal conversations for no reason. “Yes,” I say eventually. “Mine.”
“Oh, I’ve just never seen you here before. I’m Allie.” She smiles, offering her hand. “Mackenzie’s mom.”
“Hi, Allie.” I do my best to be pleasant. It is not the first time I’ve been mistaken for the nanny. “I’m Cecilia.”
“And who’s your child?”
“Lucie Charlot.”
She tries to place her, but it takes a moment. “Oh, the new girl! From Paris! Mackenzie says your family is French?”
“Yes.”
She cocks her head, her blue eyes sizing me up. “Your English is so good. You have absolutely no accent.”
At that I laugh, genuinely. “I should hope not. I grew up in New York.”
“Oh, I was about to say, you don’t look French.”
For a moment, I say nothing. I want to tell her that the millions of French citizens from Martinique and Guadeloupe and Réunion, who look not unlike me, are legally 100 percent French. But it hardly seems the time or place for a geopolitical lesson.
“So your husband is French?” she continues.
“Yes.”
She nods, cocks her head in the other direction. I can only imagine what’s going on under all that swinging balayage of hers.
“What brings you guys to LA? Work?”
“Yes.” I nod.
“Is your husband in the business?” It’s an innocuous question, but it agitates me: the fact that she assumes we have moved here for my husband’s work, and not mine. The fact that she is right.
“Yes,” I say, and nothing more, hoping she’ll stop her barrage of questions. She doesn’t.
“Mackenzie says Lucie is a very good dancer. Even though she’s the youngest. She’s one of the best in their group.”
This is likely true. On our arrival Lucie was placed in the Intermediate II class, which was mostly twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. My daughter was rather proud of that fact.
