For a moment, I freeze. I want to tell him the kind of hotel that up until very recently we could have only dreamed of. Where no expense is spared to provide the utmost in relaxation and privacy. Where moneyed honeymooners and robber barons and dilettantes idle andcome inside to fuck and sleep in the afternoon when it’s too hot to do anything else. That kind of hotel.
“Anouk wanted something quiet for her birthday.”
“I think you should come home.”
“Come home?”
He suggests it so casually, as if we are just up the road in Santa Barbara. It took well over twenty-four hours to get here, with stops in London and Doha, and a final hour-long helicopter ride across the tip of the island. We flew commercial, and between the travel time and the jet lag, we lost days. Anouk plans for us to spend two nights at Claridge’s in London on the way back, so we can see Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench inThe Winter’s Taleand squeeze in some shopping in Mayfair. I’m hoping to see Andrew.
My focus shifts to the ocean in the near distance. The soaring coconut palms, fronds dancing in the breeze. And the superlative night sky, the likes of which I’ve never seen. Not even in the countryside in Jamaica. Not even in Cabo. The universe on full display. When we arrived earlier in the week the moon was new, and Anouk and I were so astounded, we covered ourselves in mosquito repellent and spent half the night outside gaping at the Milky Way and the infinite stars. And now, my husband, a million miles away, is asking me to leave all of it behind.
“Come homenow? Why?”
“Because your kids are going to need you, Cile. I need you. We don’t know how bad this is going to be.”
“I only have two more days here, Fran. And then London.”
“Get yourself on a flight tomorrow.”
“Why?What is my coming home going to do?”
“You don’t know what we’re going to find out in the next few days. Please come home, Cecilia.”
I am too frazzled to fight with him. Too discombobulated by the news. A cursory scroll through Twitter reveals fragmented information: amateur cell-phone videos, incomplete news bites, the unconfirmed but escalating number of dead.
Something monstrous has happened in Paris.
I head back inside to alert Anouk. She is positioned so serenely—a cashmere eye mask framing her face, her half-naked body twisted inthe sheets—that for a full minute I debate waking her. Sleeping Anouk is one part luxury, two parts wild child, and it’s endearing to witness her vulnerability.
But her ex-husband is in Paris. Her father. Friends. Cousins. She would want me to wake her up. “Anouk,” I whisper, stroking her arm.
She murmurs something unintelligible, turning away from me, displaying the length of her spine. Her back, newly bronzed, her delicate scapula. In any other situation, I would grab my Leica from the living room and shoot her in the half-light. A nod to Ingres’sGrande Odalisque.“Anouk,” I repeat. “I need you to wake up. I’m sorry.”
She rouses, her long neck swiveling toward me. “Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”
“There’s been an attack. In Paris. It’s pretty serious. You need to check your phone. Listen to your messages. Make sure your family is okay.”
“Putain.” She sits up then, pushing up her eye mask and grabbing for her phone on the nightstand. More annoyed, it seems, than worried.
While she listens to voicemails, I busy myself with replying to texts from my mum and dad, Jane, two friends from college—I’m okay. Not in Paris. Thank you for checking in—before moving on to Facebook and marking myself as Safe. I shoot a quick WhatsApp to various group threads with my Parisian friends. Camille, Salima, Aurélie, Geneviève. I message Khalil. And then I begin searching available flights out.
From the corner of my eye, I see Anouk send off a couple of texts. Both thumbs moving adroitly over the keyboard, in contrast with my single-thumb technique. The luxurious eye mask and the indifferent expression suggest a petulant Holly Golightly. Albeit vaguely ethnic and topless.
After a minute or three, she repositions her mask and settles back into the bed. Not a word spoken.
“You’re going back to sleep?”
“Ben oui.”
“Really? You can sleep?”
“It’s three in the morning. Of course I can sleep.”
I stare at her for a second. And I realize, not for the first time, that I am built differently.
“François wants me to come home.”
“What?”
