“I thought I’d take you both shopping,” said Renn. “Unless there’s something else you’d like to do.”
“Shopping?” asked Will, wary. “We don’t need anything, Dad.”
“How about a new sofa? Or some new dishes? Maybe you need a new bed—whatever you guys think.”
“The sofa’s only a year old,” said Will. “It’s fine. Our bed’s fine too. We really don’t need anything.” He could feel his mouth going dry. He had plenty of money, but it came from the trust fund his father had set up for him when he was still a child. Neither he nor Anna ever needed to work, but Anna had been working without interruption since high school; she was now in her first year as a resident in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai. Will, at present, was relying on his father’s money, but he hoped to start filming one of his screenplays in the next year or two, after he found investors to help finance its production. He wanted to shoot his film in Paris, where most of it was set. It was autobiographical, and his father, Will suspected, would not like how he was portrayed. Everyone’s names, ages, and professions had been changed, but Will was sure that his parents and sister would recognize themselves.
Jorie did not think that he was unkind to any of them though, only honest. The story made her sad, she said. His father’s absences and egotism, his mother’s anger and disappointment over her marriage’s dissolution, his sister’s half-blind love for Renn. Will thought that Anna had almost always been too easy on their father while they were growing up, either excusing or pretending not to notice his self-absorption.
What was his father’s agenda, Will wondered, making this too-intimate offer to buy him and Jorie a new bed? Before he lost his nerve, Will asked him.
A tremor of unease passed over Renn’s face when he heard the question, but his reply was casual. “The beds I remember sleeping in during my first couple of trips to Europe were sometimes very lumpy. And the pillows—Jesus, the log-like ones probably would have damaged my neck and spine forever if I hadn’t slept on a balled-up sweatshirt instead.” He paused, glancing at his watch, the platinum Cartier Lucy had given him after his first Oscar nomination. The time-check was a habit he’d had for as long as Will could remember. “I just thought you might need a new bed. Aren’t a lot of Parisian apartments furnished when you rent them?”
“This one wasn’t,” said Will. “I brought the bed with me from our last place. I bought it new. It’s a good one.”
“It is,” Jorie agreed. She reddened and looked down again at her dog. Coquelicot’s ears were upright and alert but her Gloria Swanson eyes were closed.
“Let’s go to the Musée d’Orsay or the Musée Rodin,” said Will. “It’s clearing up, and it’d be good to be outside with all the other tourists.” He forced a laugh, which Jorie and his father ignored.
“All right, art it is,” said Renn. “I’ll go over to the Georges V and check in. Should I meet you at the Musée Rodin around one? If we feel like it, we could make our way to the Musée d’Orsay afterward and stop in some of the antique shops over that way.”
“You really aren’t jet-lagged?” asked Jorie, still shy. Her hand fluttered to her thick dark hair, freshly washed. She had grown it out in the last year, Will having told her once, early on, that he loved long hair, predictable as it was for a man to prefer it to boyish short hair. It fell past her shoulders now; he was touched when she’d started to let it grow. And for her, he had begun wearing brighter colors more often—greens, violets, and reds, rather than his habitual glum browns, blues, and grays.
Will could see something shift in his father’s face, some decision being made about Jorie, that she was as susceptible as anybody to his charm.
“I feel great,” said Renn, grinning. His whitened teeth glowed, a coded message from the alien land he belonged to.
“You’re tough,” said Jorie. “Every time I’ve flown here from the States, I’ve been ready to drop as soon as I get through customs.”
“Dad, why don’t you get going so that we can meet at the museum at one?” said Will. “I have a few things to do before we go too.”
“Kicking me out already?” asked Renn. He smiled at Jorie and shook his head.
“Yes, but you’ll live,” said Will. “We’ll see you at one at the Musée Rodin.”
“Do you let him treat you like this too?” Renn asked, still looking at Jorie.
“Oh no, I’m the one who treats him like that,” she said, laughing and turning to Will with a droll smile.
Renn hugged Will on his way out, his cologne the same one he’d been wearing for years—a scent blended for him specially by a parfumerie in Provence, its top notes sandalwood and cinnamon. The perfume was his father, in the same way that during Renn’s long, oppressive absences in Will’s childhood, a pair of his left-behind shoes or a scrap of paper with a note he’d scrawled that contained some request or directive was. The scent brought momentary tears to Will’s eyes.
When Renn turned to Jorie and took her into his arms, a delighted titter escaped her as he pulled away, his day-old beard catching on a few strands of her licorice-black hair. He said good-bye and disappeared down the hall, in the direction of the faulty elevator.
For a few moments after Will closed the door behind his father, the apartment felt bereft. The shafts of sunlight knifing through the southern windows, the first glimpse of the sun they’d had in nearly a week, seemed to fall on nothing. Previously, each room had seemed happily, even blissfully, inhabited. Over the many months he’d lived in Paris, Will had collected a few pieces of furniture he expected to keep forever: a handmade cherry dining room table—an acquisition that his father had complimented him on, his large hand caressing its smooth surface; there was also a Danish chestnut-brown leather sofa and matching armchairs in the salon where they’d eaten their croissants. Thick, dyed wool throw rugs adorned the floors in the hallway and salon, and in the bedrooms were rugs that Jorie had chosen the previous August from the furniture department at Galeries Lafayette for the elegant but cramped one-bedroom they first lived in together across the Seine in the seventh arrondissement, their street cobblestoned, a bakery on one side of their four-story building, and a stationer specializing in the implements of Japanese calligraphy on the other.
She turned to Will with a guarded look. “He’s nice,” she said. “Nicer than I expected.”
“He is nice,” Will agreed. He would not let himself turn jealous and dour. He had her and he had his screenplays—his work, the whole point of his life, he believed, at last revealing itself to him after he’d moved to Paris.
And one thing, barring tragedy, that he had more of than his father did was time. Renn was in his mid-fifties, Will only in his late twenties. He could imagine, even feel, what was ahead—he would catch up to his father. It wasn’t so much that he intended to replace him, but his own name would begin to matter at some point in the approaching future; people would know that he was someone other than a famous man’s son. Hadn’t this happened, in any case, for men like Michael Douglas and Jean Renoir?
Anna thought it was all so Oedipal and depressing—why did Will persist in comparing himself with their father? Why did he continue to see himself as a victim of Renn’s successes? But Anna, in Will’s opinion, was more driven and focused than he was—like their mother, she had been interested in medicine from an early age, and directly after college had enrolled in UCLA’s medical school and graduated with honors.
“I can see what you mean, though,” said Jorie. “He sucks up a lot of the oxygen in the room, doesn’t he.”
Will nodded. “Yes. He needs a lot to keep the party going.”
“I don’t think I’d want to be him.”
“No, but he’d certainly rather be who he is than some-one else.”
“Don’t you feel the same way about yourself?” she asked.
“Yes, I do, I guess.” He picked up Coquelicot from where she was loitering near Jorie’s feet. The dog stared at him, glassy eyed, before turning her head to look
imploringly at her mistress. Jorie stood before the open refrigerator, the light making her fair skin glow. She wore a short khaki skirt and a flattering black V-neck blouse, and she’d been careful with her makeup that morning too. When he’d complimented her before Renn’s arrival, Jorie demurred and said that she’d done the same things she did every morning.
“You and your father look a lot alike,” she said now, taking out the water pitcher and closing the refrigerator door with enough force to startle Coquelicot. The dog squirmed in Will’s arms.
“I didn’t realize how much until I saw you side by side,” she added.
“I thought you’ve always thought we looked alike.”
She shook her head. “What I said was that I could see a resemblance, but today was the first time I could see it so clearly.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” she teased. “I thought you wanted to be your own man.”
“I am,” he said. “But my dad’s a good-looking guy. I don’t mind if we look alike.”
Jorie laughed. “You’re both beautiful.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t say that.”
She was pouring out two glasses of water; she frequently berated him for not drinking enough of it. She set the pitcher down and looked at him. “You don’t need to be coy. You know you’re very handsome.”
That wasn’t what he meant, but he said nothing. He petted Coquelicot’s soft head for another second before setting her back on the floor, her twiggy legs briefly shaking before she found her footing. He took the glass of water Jorie had poured for him, thinking that he should kiss her, but he didn’t.
“I’m going to work at my desk for a little while,” he said.
“All right,” she said, turning back to the sink. “I’ve got some work to do too.”
He went down the hall to the room with his writing desk and for several minutes stood before the window that overlooked the courtyard. Madame Reiss was down there, arms akimbo, dressed in a knee-length mouse-gray skirt and light-blue blouse, monitoring the portly, redheaded gardener, Serge, who had what looked like an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. With a small watering can, he was giving what Will assumed was fertilizer to the potted fruit trees and geraniums lined up along the passageway that led to the street. They had likely received more than enough rainwater in the last five days.
The clouds had almost entirely dispersed, the sky now an arresting blue. In the streets that bordered their building, Will could hear the growl of motorcycles and the car horns of harried drivers. About a mile away was the Champs-Élysées and the weathered monuments built to commemorate the country’s imperial forays, its wars and colonizing incursions. Or, as Jorie had once said, its burning and pillaging of faraway places and people.
He sat down to check his email, tuning his radio to a rock station that played more American music than French. Jorie passed by in the hall, speaking softly to Coquelicot.
Dad’s here now. Everything’s fine, he wrote in reply to an email his mother had sent in the night while he was sleeping fitfully, assailed by doubts about his father’s visit. Jorie, however, had been completely submerged, as usual. He envied her seemingly effortless ability to fall quickly and deeply asleep. She was the cherished youngest child of a close-knit family of five; she rarely ever complained about her parents or older siblings. She loved her work too, freelance graphic design, which she did from the apartment in her own study. Her three steady clients were a Canadian medical supply company, an American fitness chain, and a coffee-roasting business based in Berkeley; they paid her well, and she had time to do whatever she and Will felt like doing in the evenings; many of her afternoons were free too. She was a year younger than he and, as often as not, in a lighthearted, teasing mood. He was still in awe of her.
Lucy had visited them a few months earlier with Michael, her new husband. He was a friend from college Lucy hadn’t seen in close to thirty years when their paths crossed at a breakfast place on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena one morning before she was due at the clinic where she practiced pediatric medicine four days a week. Will and Anna both liked Michael, who was funny and kind, this kindness deployed equally in his treatment of the people he loved and with strangers—poorly skilled waiters, people who accidentally stepped on his heels, store clerks who scowled at his awful French. He’d known Renn in college too, and like Lucy, he wasn’t cowed by or overly envious of Renn’s fame.
Dad’s staying until Monday, then straight back to Toronto, I think. It’s good that Jorie’s here. She likes to talk. So does he, needless to say. You know that I’m not always so good at it.
I’ll keep you posted. Hope you and Michael are doing well. Anna told me that she saw you two for dinner a couple of nights ago. I’m glad she’s not seeing that Glass guy anymore. He was such a jerk to her. I know she’s still pretty cut up about him though.
Let’s hope she’s on to someone better very soon.
Love, Will
When he and Jorie met Renn at the Musée Rodin, The Thinker glamorous and striking in its muscular familiarity as they rounded the garden path near the entrance, Jorie’s compliment from earlier was still on Will’s mind. He knew that it shouldn’t matter if his girlfriend thought his father was a beautiful man, but her words bothered him, and he almost let out a harsh bark of laughter when the woman selling tickets at the museum’s interior entrance recognized Renn and waved the three of them through, hardly glancing at Will and Jorie. “Monsieur Ivins, bienvenue. How nice of you to come to see Monsieur Rodin’s art. Please let us know if there is anything you will need during your visit.”
“Thank you. That’s very nice of you,” said Renn, smiling at the woman; her long brown hair, penciled eyebrows, and red lips were dramatic, but she wasn’t pretty. He was always gracious, despite how often he’d experienced the same scenario. Will knew that this graciousness was one reason for his father’s success—fans did not race to their blogs to publish acidic gripes about his father’s refusal to sign an autograph for their paraplegic daughter or cancer-ridden brother because he was late for an appointment with his psychic or personal trainer.
“Let’s go out to the gardens,” said Jorie. “It’s turned into such a gorgeous day.” She looked at up Renn, smiling. “You must have brought the good weather with you.”
Will could feel people looking sidelong at his father as they walked the path bordering the sprawling back gardens where sculptures stood on pedestals situated among the trees, but no one approached them, and Renn pretended not to notice that he was being noticed. Since moving to Paris, Will had observed that Europeans were generally more polite than Americans, but he knew it was inevitable that someone would eventually approach them, asking to shake his father’s hand, asking for a photo and an autograph.
It wasn’t until they were inside the museum again, in the room with the famous kissing couple, that someone did. Jorie looked on, amused, as a middle-aged Australian couple, the woman taller than her bearded companion, both dressed in shorts and T-shirts, his T-shirt a plain blue, hers black with the Eiffel Tower in silver sequins on the front. “Is this your favorite Rodin sculpture?” she asked Renn, her words emerging in a nervous rush, her face and neck turning pink as she spoke.
Will turned and fled the room. He heard his father pause and stare after him, his reply to the Australian woman spoken to Will’s retreating back. “That’s my son,” he heard Renn say. “He’s very serious about art.”
He and the woman laughed. Will could feel his own face burning now.
The woman’s reply was inaudible but her tone conciliatory. He was embarrassed to have descended so quickly into a fit of pique, and after a minute or two passed, he went back to join them, but Jorie and Renn were no longer in the gallery. Only the Australian couple remained, pretending to inspect The Kiss.
This time it was the man who spoke as Will passed them. “We’re sorry that we interrupted you and your father,” he said, contrite. His friendly face was mor
e lined and sun-chapped than Will had previously noticed. Was he the tall woman’s father rather than her husband?
“No, no, you didn’t,” said Will. “I just wanted to see what was in the next room.”
The man apologized again, unconvinced. “Your father and his girlfriend went that way,” he added. He pointed with a blunt, freckled finger toward the south gardens.
Will nodded, suppressing a sudden flare of confused panic.
The Australian opened his mouth, but then thought better of it. The woman hovered behind him, contrition also on her face. Will could easily picture them returning to the unimaginable town where they lived, telling their friends about how unpretentious, how charming, Renn Ivins was, but his son? What a surly git.
Outside a flock of starlings circled the garden before heading west. The air was more humid and warm than when they’d arrived; it felt to Will as if it were withholding damaging secrets. He spotted Jorie and his father immediately. They stood right in front of him, at the base of the steps leading down to the garden, laughing with three new strangers. Renn’s hand was on Jorie’s shoulder, her animated face filled with the pleasure of his attention—this man whose films, she’d sworn to Will, had never unduly impressed her, except for The Zookeeper, the first film Renn had directed. The one that had won him all the Oscars, Bourbon at Dusk, she’d found too manipulative. “Pure melodrama,” she’d told Will, and until now he’d believed that she meant it.
He didn’t know why he needed her bad opinion of his father. He had many other things to think about; his screenplay about his family was good, possibly very good. Jorie had read it and loved it, and so had Luca, Will’s most trusted friend. Luca was lazy but also smart; he’d studied film in college and did not hand out undeserving praise.
The Virginity of Famous Men Page 27
