I move around her, slow, capturing her in silhouette and light. The angle of her shoulder, the slope of her breast, the dip of her waist, the crest of her hip. At one point, I reach out to muss her hair and just making contact is electric. Her eyes flit up to me, her lids heavy, a wry smile on her lips.
“I hope you’re making me beautiful,” she says.
“As if you could be anything but.”
“I’m not nineteen anymore.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
Anouk laughs, and then is quiet again. And I remind myself that she is my subject and not my lover. That in this moment she is merely a study of shadow and light. That she is art, to be captured. And not flesh for consumption. But it is not unlike shooting Lorry that summer in East Hampton. Him supine in the grass, his gold-flecked eyes and dark lashes and furrowed brow. How I had loved him.
“What are you thinking?” Anouk asks. Her voice both warm and gravelly.
“Nothing.”
“You went away for a minute.”
I shake my head and then reach for her arm, repositioning it along her side, exposing her breasts. “May I?”
She acquiesces. Her eyes following me as I move around her, find my light, check the meter, shutter clicking, moments preserved. Her smile knowing, her gaze intense.
Eventually, when I have what I need, I lower my camera. “I am thinking that you are everything you were when you were nineteen. And then some.”
She throws her hand over her face in what feels like a moment of shyness, her first with me.
“You’re flirting with me.”
“When does your husband come home?” I ask. Saying it feels dirty.
“Not until Sunday.”
“Fuck,” I say. It’s information I would rather not know. “I should go.”
I slip into the changing room to grab her a towel. But she is already up and putting on her street clothes when I return. I busy myself with breaking down the light stand, folding up my reflectors, packing away equipment.
It’s close to five thirty, and by now Parisa has dropped Lucie off at ballet and fetched Julien from track practice. I still need to prepare dinner, scoop up Lucie, feed both kids, help him with his science project and her with her Lady Macbeth monologue. The night stretches out before me.
When I finally turn back to Anouk she is standing in her underwear, buttoning up her shirt.
“Let’s go away,” I say.
For a moment she doesn’t respond, and I can’t tell which of us is more surprised by my proposal.
She takes her time, finishes her buttons, a smile slowly playing over her lips. “Where shall we go?”
“I don’t know. Santa Barbara? Palm Springs?”
“Oh, you mean local.” She laughs. “I’ve been thinking the Maldives. The Seychelles. Tahiti.”
I am stunned. The realization that she is comfortable spending big money in a way that I may never be, no matter how many Hollywood movies François makes. The idea that she’d already assembled her own list of places for us to go. And the freedom she had, unencumbered by responsibility. Her only child an ocean away.
“I can’t get away for more than three days. Fran is on location, and I have the kids. It would have to be during a stint when he’s home.”
“How about Memorial Day?” she asks after a minute, stepping into her jeans.
“Memorial Day might work.”
“Good. It’s a date. I’ll choose the destination.”
