There was a second of silence and then, “Whew. Well, glad I passed that test,” Bas said, laughing.
“Shut up, you.” Katrine smiled, elbowing him.
Cecilia turned to catch Marc’s attention, but his focus was somewhere deep at the bottom of his glass of Jose Cuervo.
“It’s not rocket science, what we do. It’s basic acting, isn’t it? If you give the talent directions, they should be able to follow,” Elliot said.
“Yes, but sometimes you don’t have the time or the patience to hold someone’s hand and teach them how to be in a moment,” Didier continued. “You’re losing light or the light is shifting. Some of the best moments, it’s not in a studio and you don’t control the elements. So you need the subject to be ready. And if something is reading as uncertain on the model’s face, it’s going to show up in the lens. It’s going to be on the film. Just like that you lose the moment, you lose the shot.
“I need my talent to be confident. To be fully aware of their strength and power. I don’t want someone with just a pretty face or beautiful lines. Yes, I can make that work, but it’s not as interesting. And it takes too much time.”
At the far end of the table, Rafaella flicked a cigarette, her arms crossed before her chest. Her hair was out that night, wild, full. Like a lion, Cecilia thought. “But if you are shooting with someone new, Didier, how do you know it’s going to work? You can’t say, ‘Sorry, I don’t work with virgins.’”
“Didier would definitely say this.” Jean-Luc laughed.
Didier smiled, impish, and then shook his head of curls. “No, I don’t say this. This is rude. But I can see it by the pictures in her book, or at the casting. I don’t book a girl without meeting her first. Usually, it’s a feeling I get. And if I’m not sure, I ask, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ This is enough. Because models love to talk about their boyfriends. Or girlfriends…” He sipped from his drink. “Sometimes they have girlfriends.”
“Which ones?” Emilio said. “You can tell us.”
“Yes. We are not taking notes.” Sandro laughed as he feigned pulling a notepad out of his shirt pocket.
“Sandro wants the phone and the fax,” Pietro said.
“Look, I don’t care which direction someone goes, as long as they are happy. You want to eat pussy instead of sucking dick, it’s your choice, you know. Just do it well. And make sure you enjoy it.”
Cecilia felt her face flush. Across the table, Katrine laughed nervously. Jaya rolled her eyes.
“Didier!” Sarah said.
Beatriz shook her head, part disapproving, part amused. “Oh, Didou. Not in front of the children.”
“They know this. What was the model? When we were in Mo’orea for theCerto Che Sìshoot. With… oh, I forget her name.La négresse blonde?”
“Astrid…”
“Astrid,oui. Swedish. Beautiful. Like a gazelle. With this huge mouth. She told us she liked girls. And I told her she needed someone like me to change her mind, and she said to me… you know what she said? She said, ‘I bet I eat pussy better than you, Didier.’”
Cecilia heard James clear his throat from four seats over. Emilio emitted a long, low whistle—more admonitory than amused. And Maren was twirling her signet ring at breakneck speed.
“So I said, ‘Okay, we make a bet.’ But we couldn’t find anyone on the set who was willing to judge the competition.”
Beatriz scoffed, putting out her cigarette. “Beh. You couldn’t change me.”
“I tried, though, yes? It was a valiant attempt.” He said the last bit in French.
“What was it you said to me that one time? In Paris, after Thierry’s show? ‘The best part about being a successful photographer is that you have your choice of beautiful women, and no one ever says no.’”
“Eh, non, non, non. I never force any woman to get into bed.”
“You don’t have to. They trip over themselves for your attention,” Beatriz continued. “There’s always one. On every job, there’s always one.”
It came quickly. The glass. So fast Cecilia wasn’t sure who had thrown it. But it careened in on a diagonal from the far side of the table and collided with Marc’s margarita, sending both glasses crashing onto thestone tiles below. The fragments landing somewhere between Marc and Didier.
For a moment there was silence while everyone registered what had just happened.
“Whoa.”
Marc reached down, in slow motion, and lifted one wet Birkenstock in the air, shaking off residual tequila. “Whoa,” he said again. “That could have been really bad.”
