by Luanne Rice
I paced the sleek room. The heavy architectural details were set off by shades of brown, cream, and black. I should have been wearing a Chanel suit with alligator sling-back shoes. I was in desperate need of an ebony cigarette holder. The room’s sophistication daunted me. I grabbed my blue jeans and pulled them on. I didn’t even brush my hair. Grabbing my black bag, I hurried down the hall and knocked on Jason’s door.
“Yes?” he said, leaning against the doorframe in his silk robe. In my apartment the fine fibers would have caught on a splinter or a rough spot, but the Crillon’s heavy enamel paint made the wood as smooth as metal.
“Let’s bust out of here,” I said.
“And go where?”
“I don’t know. You know Paris, don’t you? Will you show me a few sights?”
“Darling, dressed like that you are barely fit for the Latin Quarter. I mean, the Ugly American. Is the Latin Quarter what you had in mind?”
“Sure. Anything.”
“She who just auditioned for Balfour the Great One,” he said, and I didn’t reply. “Okay,” he said dubiously. “Give me a bit to get ready. We’ll take separate elevators down, if you don’t mind. You are really too, too déclassé.”
“Why don’t I just meet you on the wall by the fountain? And spare you the embarrassment.”
“Fine. Thirty minutes.”
It took fifty minutes, but I didn’t mind. I leaned on the concrete wall by the Place de la Concorde and shivered in the chilly air. I felt excited, the way I used to feel when my family would travel to Washington, D.C., for spring vacation and we would prepare to tour the Lincoln Memorial by night, the Smithsonian by day. Cherry blossoms, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Capitol Rotunda, the Botanical Gardens. One time we had seen the Washington Senators play a twilight doubleheader.
Jason’s mother was French; he would know all the good places to go. Leaning on that wall, my head tossed back to view the obelisk against the blue sky, I felt independent. The trouble had been (I told myself) that I depended too much on my sisters. On boyfriends. I had not developed a circle of good friends. There was Susan, of course, but soon she would go on tour with Hester’s Sister. Besides, Susan alone could not be considered a circle of friends. I thought of Sam, and the pain I felt was fresh. I had stopped wondering what had happened to his letter: it was probably lost in the mail, held up at the airport (but which airport? It had to pass through so many), the address smeared and unreadable. It didn’t matter. I was pulling back. I was the one who didn’t trust my old feelings (“Oh, those old things?”). Or the strength of his. Better to simply rise on the crest of a movie audition.
Jason, looking like a smash in his supple leather jacket and matching pants, walked along the promenade. He wore a maroon scarf around his neck and smoked a black cigarette. The wind blew his brown hair straight back, accentuating his receding hairline, but he still looked strikingly handsome.
“My, you’re so continental,” I said.
He bowed. “And you look like a rube.”
“I’m sick of riding in limousines and feeling très élégante. Take me somewhere meaty.”
“Somewhere meaty? Let’s see. The Rive Gauche…over by the Sorbonne.”
“Is that very blue collar and grimy?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s very Greenwich Village. Where the bourgeois mingle with the intellectuals and pretend they’re bohemian.”
“I’d rather go somewhere different.” I wanted him to take me to visit his mother. I could just imagine how thrilled she would be to see us. I pictured her: a stooped old lady, frail, white hair, lace doilies everywhere, a portrait of De Gaulle hanging above the mantel. “Didn’t you say you have relatives here?”
He gave me a sharp look. “No, we are not going to visit them. My old aunts. They would die if they ever saw me coming.”
“Your old aunts?”
“Yes, my mother’s sisters. And that’s all you’ll get me to say about them. Didn’t you say you wanted to see the Rodin Museum?”
“Wait, your mother had two sisters? Three girls?”
“Yes, three girls, just like you insufferable Cavans. Now drop the subject, and let’s walk. I’ll take you to see The Kiss.”
“Jason, is your mother still alive?”
“No, dear. Not since I was twenty-six.” Taking my arm, he led us toward the Seine. A breeze followed its banks, blowing my hair into my mouth. We crossed a low stone bridge; a sightseeing boat chuffed toward us, the guide’s voice wafting out of a loudspeaker.
“Well, I seem to have gotten you onto the Left Bank,” Jason said, the instant we stepped onto land. “We’ll go to Les Invalides.”
Les Invalides. The name reminded me of Nuremberg, of the Holy Ghost Hospital. Jason and I walked through the square, the huge hospital buildings towering overhead. The heels of his boots clicked on the cobbles.
“There,” he said, “is the Hôtel Biron. Inside is the Rodin Museum. Rodin had his studio there at one time. Isn’t it perfect?” Jason regarded the building with one eye closed, as though it were his own architectural masterpiece.
“It’s gorgeous,” I said, trying to remember every detail so that I could tell Margo. Just as in Vicenza I had visited the Church of San Lorenzo, so that I could tell Lily about the frescoes by Montagna and Buonconsiglio. My private art historians.
Jason and I toured the museum, and I bought postcards and a book for Margo. “You mind if I run to the men’s room?” Jason asked when we were standing in the sculpture garden.
“Not at all.” I sat on a bench. I pulled a pen out of my bag. I looked through the postcards I had just bought; there were two of The Kiss, that most passionate sculpture of two lovers entwined. On the back of one I wrote:
Dear Sam,
I am back in Paris, thinking of you. Soon I shall return to New York. I saw this sculpture, and I remembered Watch Hill. The thunderstorm in the turret room…I can’t wait to see you. Your letter never arrived in Nuremberg.
Love, Una
Then I found a French stamp in my wallet; I had bought twelve from the concierge on my last visit. I fixed it to the card. Jason returned a moment later, touching his fly to make sure he had closed it. The motion was surreptitious; he had not intended for anyone to see. But I saw. We walked toward the Latin Quarter. I dropped the card into the first postbox we passed.
That night Emile Balfour came to the Hôtel de Crillon to buy me dinner in Les Ambassadeurs, the hotel dining room. I wore a sapphire jumper over a black body stocking. My eyes were rimmed with matching blue shadow, and my eyelids looked like bluebird wings. I had never seen my eyes themselves look bluer. Nothing was too outrageous in Paris; I wanted to make heads turn. Just before Emile rang my room, I tried to reach Sam in New York. His phone rang fourteen times before I decided he must still be uptown, at his Columbia office.
Les Ambassadeurs, just off the hotel lobby, is spectacular. It is paneled in ten different varieties of marble and has the most extravagant flower arrangements I have ever seen. Emile’s hand rested lightly on my waist as we passed through the room, beneath the crystal chandeliers and a ceiling medallion painted with clouds. A frieze of cherubs ran around the room; I glanced up at the fat little angels instead of at the tables full of people who were watching us and pretending not to. Little angels watching over me and Emile Balfour, protecting us from evil forever and ever amen. I thought of them as agents of my father. Would he approve of this meeting? Yes, as long as I didn’t invite Emile upstairs for a nightcap.
Emile and the maître d’ stood erect, like armed guards or subordinates, while I sat down. Then Emile took his seat, and we smiled, listening to strains of piano music.
“Well,” he said, still smiling. “I have something to tell you.”
I already knew. I could tell by his pleased expression, by the way he tapped his knife with perfectly manicured fingernails. I smiled back with what I hoped was a curious expression on my face. A waiter came to ask what we would like to drink, but Emile and I
were engaged in smiling at each other, and the waiter soon left.
“I am prepared to offer you Anya,” Emile said. “You will be perfect for her. You have an elusive quality about you…but you have been told that before, non?”
“No, not exactly,” I said, my heart racing, wanting to hear more.
“You are well-known in the United States, but by a very precious group. Your viewers are dominantly female.”
“That’s true,” I said, seeing an image of dominant female viewers: dressed in tattered loincloths, muscled and brown, sun-bleached hair askew, dragging their men around by their neckties. “Mainly women watch the show, but there are some men—”
Emile waved his hand, dismissing the need to say more. “We want you because you are a newcomer to movies, but a proven talent. With a very loyal following. New but not new. We have it both ways. Also, it is very camp to cast a big soap opera actress.”
“Thank you.” It took a supreme physical effort to remain seated. I willed myself to not fly to the telephone and call Sam, Margo, Lily, Chance…I sat on my hands instead.
“Those men at the studio,” I said. “Were they producers?”
“Yes.”
“And they liked me?”
“They like who I tell them to like. They give me total artistic control, or they don’t get me to direct. You are prepared to spend four months on Corsica next summer?”
Next summer. Now it was October, and I would have all winter to prepare myself for the part and to leave home. Home: Hudson Street, New York, the eastern seaboard, the United States. I had never lived outside the United States before; I had taken vacations in St. Barthélemy, Canada, and Scotland before, and I had just spent over two weeks touring Europe. But I had never lived in a foreign country. Could Corsicans speak English? I thought of a thousand questions, but I didn’t ask them. I just sat there, smiling with ecstasy at Emile while he ordered champagne, and thought of the things I would miss most. Not New York in the summer. But other things. By then Lily’s baby would be six months old. I would miss half of its first year. And Matt and Margo would be married, and I could take another vacation at the Ninigret Inn. By then it would be family turf. Sam. I would miss Sam.
“What did you mean when you said it was camp to cast a soap opera actress?” I asked.
“I am already imagining promotion for the film. It will be unlike anything I have done before. No lonely landscapes, no stormy seas. It will be very forties, with a red heart framing you and your lover, and splashy graphics. It will be fantastic.”
I thought this over, feeling slightly disappointed that Together Forever would not be a typical Balfour film. “Who will play Domingo?” I asked.
“Another unknown. We have not cast him yet. He will be French.”
Horrible thought! “I don’t speak French—will I have to learn it?”
Emile laughed loudly. “Una, you can’t learn French in eight months. I mean, you can learn what the words mean, but forget speaking it like a Frenchman. No, we’re filming in English. Everything about Together Forever will be new for me. New faces, new style. It will be larger than life. What did you think of the script?”
“I adored it,” I said, grinning at the memory. I shivered with pleasure at the idea of being Anya. The part was a little camp; it was funny in ways that Balfour heroines never were.
“So, you accept the part?”
I tilted my head. “I’d say yes, but I have to talk—”
“Of course, of course. You need an advisor. But it will mean fabulous things for your career. The next time we dine here, everyone will be looking at you instead of me.”
The champagne arrived; this time Emile allowed the waiter to open the bottle. He raised his glass to toast.
“I drink to your mystery,” he said.
“My mystery!” I put on my best Mata Hari face.
But Emile was serious. He rested his arm across the back of my seat, waiting for my giggles to pass. “You laugh?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
“A little,” I said, feeling stupid for saying so, so soon after I had had such obvious difficulty stopping.
“But why? When you are so veiled? Isn’t that mystery? Do you think I read you wrong?”
“Oh, no.” Vehement headshaking. “Not at all. I’m flattered, and I guess flattery makes me nervous. So I giggle.” Giggle, giggle.
“You see. That is just what I mean. An actress like you, with millions and millions of fans, and you are uncomfortable with flattery. I find that a fresh quality.” He touched the back of my neck with one finger.
Now I knew what was happening. Emile ordered our dinner, speaking to the waiter but watching me the entire time. Bring her to Paris, send out the word that you are lovers, offer her a part, and make your word come true. I would end up in bed with Emile Balfour before the night was through.
Our beautiful food looked like paint on a palette. The delicately sliced vegetables, so bright against the saffron sauce…the tiny sprigs of mint…the tiny pink sea urchins…the thin slices of rare beef. Midway through our entrée, a waiter whispered something to Emile. He raised his eyes toward the medallion of clouds, then leaned toward me. “A telephone call which I must take. You will excuse me for a minute?”
“Oh, of course.”
I prodded julienned bits around my plate, creating wells of sauce. Moments passed, and tension flooded my brain. I felt that I had a very short time to decide what to do. All through this trip I had lamented tradeoffs. Give me love, I give you sex. Give me love, I give you loyalty. Give me a part in your next movie, I give you anything you ask. It wasn’t as if they had to torture me to do it. I went willingly up the golden stairs. All the men I had slept with had been nice, attractive, loving. I could truthfully say that I loved them all—then and now. Even John Luddington. We had given each other pleasure, and they had given me the feeling of love.
When Lily and I were in high school and Margo was still in eighth grade, we had believed the lyrics of love songs: Oscar Hammerstein, Carly Simon, Jackson Browne, Cole Porter. I thought of one now and hummed it while gazing at the frieze of cherubs. My sisters and I would drive along, six breasts abreast in the Volvo’s front seat, singing songs while Margo smoked and Lily gave the tit to oncoming cars. Would it be so bad for me to sleep with Emile Balfour? I wondered about that for a while, then I hated myself for wondering it. Three weeks ago I had fallen in love with Sam Chamberlain. Did it matter that I hadn’t heard from him? I knew it shouldn’t. I knew that I should coast on blind faith, counting the days until I could return home again. His was the sort of love I had been seeking all these years. Emile was only a director, albeit handsome as hell, offering me a lovely part and loads of lovely money. It was time I learned the difference.
When Emile returned I had eaten all the julienned strips off my plate. I grinned widely. “Anything important?”
“Nothing that can’t wait.” He summoned the waiter and ordered espresso and glace caramel.
As if given the nod, a tuxedoed man sidled to our table, tape recorder in palm, and spoke to Emile in French. Emile graciously gestured at the empty space across the table, and a waiter whisked over a chair. I figured it out. I was an old hand at this. Emile had tipped this reporter that we would be dining at Les Ambassadeurs, and that he would be welcome to interview us after dessert had been ordered.
The man made a ceremony of clearing a space for the tape recorder, turning it on, and blowing into the speaker. Then, leaning his folded arms on the white tablecloth, he looked solemnly from Emile to me. “There is a rumor,” he said without inflection, as if he were about to ask us about graft or corruption instead of a movie.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but I don’t know your name.”
The man looked wildly at Emile, then relaxed. “Pardonnezmoi. I am Claude Troublais, Mademoiselle Cavan. I am a journalist.”
“But you already knew that, didn’t you, Una?” Emile asked, twinkling at me. I nodded.
“There is a rumor,”
Claude began again, “that you have just signed Mademoiselle Cavan to do your next picture. That filming will take place on Corsica. Is that true?”
“Claude, everyone knows I will shoot my picture on Corsica. I have already been quoted in the press. It is truth, not rumor.”
Claude cracked his first smile. “Okay, but what about Una Cavan? We have heard that contracts are being negotiated, and here you are at Les Ambassadeurs. Who is your agent, Mademoiselle?”
“Georgianna Atwood,” I said, thinking how tickled Georgie would be to read her name in the gossip columns.
“And is it true? That she is negotiating with Emile Balfour’s lawyers for your contract?”
“Una would rather not discuss that, Claude,” Emile said, cupping my hand with his. He patted it, keeping it under cover. “Let us just say that if we are lucky we shall have her.”
“Then she said yes?” Excitement danced across his face, as if he were asking his brother or best friend about popping the question.
Emile nodded at me, letting me know I should speak for myself. “Probably,” I said.
“Magnifique!” Claude said, clapping his hands together. Then he turned to Emile and started questioning him in French, the way Arnaud had that time at Palace. I was excluded, but this time I did not mind. I sat there feeling liberated of indecision. I was Una, not Delilah or Anya. I loved Sam Chamberlain, not Emile Balfour. I would thank Emile profoundly, but I wouldn’t sleep with him out of hope or gratefulness. I would act in his movie. People of the world would read “Celebrity File” and think that Emile and I were lovers, but I would know that we were not. Sam would know that we were not, because as soon as this interview was over I would call to tell him. Meanwhile, waiting for Claude to go away, I looked around the dining room, at each diner, at each cherub, and I hummed “Loads of Love.” For that moment, I was full of it.
