“No, but this is not a nice thing to say. It’s honest, but it’s not nice,” Anouk continues. “Because people think such a thing is a blessing and I should be grateful. Which I am, mostly. I know it’s a gift. But I am also aware of how it works against me. How it puts me in difficult positions. How there’s an expectation… How there’s maintenance, upkeep. How demoralizing it can be when what you are known for is something that you can’t control. That you did not create. That you were randomly given, and which can always be taken away. Not a skill or an achievement. Just genetics. Chance. How people assume you’re not smart because you can’t possibly have beautyandbrains. How other women can resent you. How men can expect things from you.…”
She trails off for a bit. I watch her mull something over, hold back, pivot.
“There’s something about not being responsible for what makes you special that can really eat away at you,” she says, leaning in. “The modeling business can destroy your soul. The way they build you up, and then cast you aside when someone younger and hotter comes along. The way they discuss you and pick you apart, like you’re a commodity. Which you are. But also, you’re a person. And that person kind of gets forgotten. And you realize just how much they’ve been feeding off you.Consumingyou.”
She pauses then, and for a moment I lose my place in my list of questions.
“Do you ever want to quit?”
“I’ve stepped back a lot. I stopped for a while after I had my son. I needed some time to settle into my new identity. I tried some otherthings. Drawing, painting, collage. But then I had the divorce and my mother got sick.… In the end, I got sucked back in. And then after I married Frederick, it wasn’t that I needed the money, but that I longed for the feeling of independence. Of being something besides ‘the glamorous wife.’ Being a part of creating something that would be out in the world. That would last. And there was something about the glamour and attention I missed.” She smiles at that. “But I wanted to do it on my terms. I was older and more in control, and it was easier for me to say no.”
“Could you not say no when you were young?”
She takes her time. Reaches for her cup of coffee, realizes it’s empty. And then, “Not as much as I would have liked. But much of that time is a blur.”
Not for the first time, I wonder if she is referencing our week in Cabo. The pieces I’d been grasping for since fate brought us back together. The minutiae I could not have known. I was not there for everything. But more and more, I am starting to suspect that I was there for some of it.
She pulls back from the microphone then and removes her headphones. “Can I trouble you for another espresso?”
“I didn’t want to say this when you were recording, but this town is full of women who’ve used their beauty as a commodity,” Anouk says when we are settled in the kitchenette, sipping our coffees. “Not just models and actresses, but all the pretty girls who move here hoping for something big. Sometimes that something big is just ending up with someone who can provide a certain lifestyle. Multiple homes, luxury vacations, designer wardrobes, private schools. You can find that everywhere, to some extent. But here it’s much more…” She trails off, fanning her left hand in the air.
“Condensed? Prevalent? Ostentatious?”
“Yes.” She smiles. “All of that.”
“I’ve noticed.” I don’t want to mention that she is one of those women. That I did not think her occasional jobs for Louis Vuitton and Guerlain were paying the mortgage on a one-and-a-half-acre parcelnorth of Sunset in Brentwood. And a five-bedroom in Aspen. That I realized that marrying the considerably older, often absent Ironman billionaire could be seen as a transaction.
But so, too, is staying with an adulterous filmmaker. Isn’t it?
“I love that you don’t fall into that,” she says, her gaze direct. “Even though you could. But you actually do something you’re passionate about and that means something. I love that you’re an artist. That you find a subject that interests you and you dissect it and probe it and analyze it and reassemble it and present it in a way that compels people to look. I wish I had a talent like that. Many of my friends here have hobbies or pursuits, but their lifestyles don’t depend on them. They can give them up when they become tiresome or too much of a hassle. But you, you persevere.”
I’m quiet for a moment, sipping my espresso. I don’t tell her that not persevering has never really been a choice. Not coming from my parents and my island, and my family that expected, no,demandedgreatness. Not when they’d sacrificed so much. Quitting was not an option.
And I’m amused that, one generation removed, Anouk seems to have escaped that. Maybe her mother, who migrated from Martinique to Paris in the ’60s to study nursing, had felt differently. But perhaps not. Maybe the French had a different relationship with the descendants of their former property. Maybe she had less to prove.
“What are you thinking?” she asks, her fingers meeting mine on the counter, interlacing. Her intention suddenly shifting. And I am reminded again of this thing between us, this pull.
“What is this, Anouk? What are we doing?”
“We’re making art, no?”
“That’s not what I’m referring to.”
She pauses, sips from her cup. “I like you. I like being with you. Why do we have to put labels on it?”
There is no good answer to that. Not if I intend to spare her my current state of anxiety and desire for affirmation. For all my wanting to view this relationship as a muse for my art, as an adventure, I am realizing I’m built differently. Maybe it was the thing with Minnie, or Sacha’s mention of Delphine. Maybe I have gotten too close to Anouk. But I’m starting to grasp that perhaps I’m unable to have acasual dalliance. Perhaps I need my relationships to be labeled and categorized. Like rolls of shot film.
“We’re having fun, are we not?” Her fingertip traces the back of my hand. When I don’t respond, she leans in, kisses me fully on the mouth. The soft of her lips and the bitter of coffee an odd juxtaposition.
“Are we not?” she repeats, trapping my lower lip in her teeth. Her body edging up off the counter, closing the space between us. Curves and planes pressed against mine. I am reminded of something. The taste of metal. The sharp pain of glass. Her mouth.
My body responds immediately. Everything, all at once.
“We need to finish.”
“Okay,” she says, eventually. “Let’s.”
XXVI.THINGS BEAUTIFUL AND TEMPORARY.
