“Can I trust you?” she asked him.
“Well, of course. What can I do for you?” He looked surprised.
“I want you to get a copy of the show that we just did. A video of it, or whatever format it’s on, I don’t know the terminology, I’m sorry . . . I want you to get it as quickly as possible to someone. In America. Here’s his address. I’ve given you e-mail, phone numbers, everything, but it has to be with him by the end of today. Do you understand?”
He was taken aback by the authority in her voice.
“Well, I don’t know how easy that’s going to be, but I’ll look into it for you, certainly.”
Kate pressed the notes into his hand.
“A grand. I want you to do more than just look into it. He has to get it today, okay? Oh, and this note needs to go with it. If you have to type it and send it in an e-mail, you can do that, but it has to get there.”
She handed him the piece of paper. The assistant restrained himself from counting the money, but was evidently thrilled by the bulky weight of the notes that now greased his palms.
“No problem. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure we’ve got a bird up at eleven to send another piece over to L.A.—I’ll stick it on the end of the feed.”
“Bird?”
“It’s a satellite,” he said.
“Of course,” said Kate. “Good.”
new york
beauty note:
Dress:
3.1 Philip Lim.
Body Oil:
Aromatherapy Associates Renew Rose.
Hair:
Ruffles smoothed with Kérastase Vernis Nutri-Sculpt Ultra-Shine Top Coat for Dry, Sensitized Hair.
Eyes:
Shu Uemura Liquid Eyeliner in black.
Lips:
Estée Lauder Re-Nutriv Sun Supreme Lip Balm SPF 15.
Fragrance:
Solange Azagury-Partridge’s Stoned.
Nails:
$10 manicure at Think Pink (West 58TH St. location).
thirty
“I’m sorry.”
She seemed to have done a lot of apologizing lately.
She was at Jean-Paul’s apartment in Greenwich Village, standing at the door with her bag in tow, aware that she hadn’t so much as called him since she’d left him under the sheets. It was early evening. She’d slept all night on the flight from London to New York, her first proper night’s sleep in what seemed like ages. She had one last evening with Jean-Paul, and then who knew what tomorrow would bring.
He looked at her, a flash of reproach clouding his face for a second. Then he grabbed her, hugged her, and kissed her in the doorway. She felt the buckle on the shoulder strap of her bag dig into her shoulder uncomfortably as he pressed his body against hers, but she wasn’t about to pull away. Everything else about the embrace was spot-on. The bones of his pelvis jutted into her; she pressed her thigh against his legs as his hand gripped her bottom. He pulled her into his home, their lips still locked, and tightened his arms around her, walking, guiding her to the sofa. It was only when he pushed her gently down on the wide, brown leather cushions that he allowed her to draw breath.
“You should be sorry!” he laughed. “But then . . . I didn’t call either, so I’m sorry, too.”
He kissed her again, but this time she pushed him away, hand on his chest. He looked at her face, taking it all in, surprised.
“What?”
“I’ve got a few things to tell you.” She looked seriously at him, but it was impossible to keep a straight face. The corners of his mouth kept wrinkling upward; his eyes were smiling brightly.
“I—I’m going to quit my job and move back to Maidstone,” she said. It was the first time she’d told anyone, and it felt good to hear the words thud out, to bring them to life and make them real.
Jean-Paul looked at her blankly.
“It’s a bloody joke, right?”
She could see how it might look. He didn’t even know the ins and outs of the debacle at
Darling.
He must think she was giving up on a career, a new home, possibly even a new relationship.
He knelt on the sofa, body erect, poised to pounce like a tiger. His hair flopped over his face. She sat upright and smoothed it away from his eyes. Their faces were close to each other’s now, but the expressions were different. She looked as if her mind was made up; she had a determined, measured air about her. His eyes were taking it all in, before the words were spoken, as if the pennies were dropping: Kate was going back to England, and that meant the end of Kate and Jean-Paul before it had even begun. From outside she could hear the familiar noise of cop cars. She pictured the yellow cabs, the tall buildings that continued to impress her, the busyness of people rushing about, the blue sky blessing their productiveness somehow, where in England it seemed always gray.
But she had made her decision. She knew it was the right thing to do, in spite of Lise’s protests. She didn’t know whether she’d be back in New York ever, but she’d had adventures, she would take with her happy memories, life-enriching experiences, and if there was one thing she’d learned from what had happened to Lise, life was all about living. Her friend needed her—she would never have said so herself, naturally, but for a while at least, it was time for Lise. To throw herself back into this crazy world of looks and looking, Kate needed to be able to immerse herself totally, and this, for now at least, was out of the question. Jean-Paul or no Jean-Paul.
“Lots of things have happened since I last saw you.” She attempted to explain, holding his hands.
“You don’t need to explain,” he said. “Look, Kate, it’s okay. What we have—had—it’s been so much fun, a magical time, really. And it’s not that I don’t care that you’re going, because I do, of course I do. But we ’ad fun, and if it’s meant to—”
“Shh! Don’t say it,” she said. She had a strange sensation, a feeling that she might actually cry, but it wasn’t from a sense of loss about what was to happen to Jean-Paul and Kate. It wasn’t self-pity either. More the sense that she was on the brink of realizing and enacting changes that would shape who she was going to be in the future, her very being. It was frightening to be so in control after the last few crazy months of flitting from story to story, city to city, living on the adrenaline rush. She knew, Jean-Paul knew, theirs was not a big dream about love. It was a fun fling, on a balmy, perfect evening in New York. They were honest with each other, and that was worth more than any empty protestations about how much they loved and needed each other. Because they didn’t. Not really. They would be friends, she hoped, e-mail buddies, and maybe they’d see each other again, maybe they’d pick up where they left off, but the timing was all wrong for now. And that was just the way it was. She didn’t mind; neither did he. It was perfect.
And if she was to be honest with herself, she knew she had feelings, ones she hadn’t even begun to deal with yet, for another, her Mr. Imperfect Perfect, who right now was hopefully watching a tape of her apologizing profusely on TV. What would he think of her now?
“Come . . . we ’ave one more night together? Let’s do some of your crazy naked dancing!”
And so they did. And more than dancing. For most of the night, in bed, out of bed, in the shower even, the stereo on full blast with all their favorite tunes, until they collapsed, dozily, into each other’s arms to sleep off what remained of the night.
“Fuck, that was great!” he said, lying back like a sated lion.
“Yup!” She sighed.
Kate sat up suddenly. Something was wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he’d sounded so different this time, so . . . so . . . He had said it with a perfect English accent.
“Say that again!”
“Fuck! That was . . . great?” They looked at each other. He paused, didn’t know what to say all of a sudden.
And then she realized. The “flat” instead of “apartment,” the “bloody hells,” the “brilliants,” the “lovelys” and the “nices.” The growing up watching
Blue Peter
. The preferring
EastEnders
to
Coronation Street.
The Anglophile parents!
“You’re English, aren’t you!?” She pulled the sheets over her breasts, immediately on the defensive, her face incredulous. She grabbed a pillow and started whacking him over the head with it, aggressively.
“You’re bloody English!!! All the time, you were putting on that ridiculous, cheesy, camp Maurice Chevalier accent, and what was all that about?”
He raised his hands to protect himself from the volley of goose-feathered blows raining down upon him.
“Kate . . . Kate! Let me explain, please. . . .”
She stopped for a second.
“Sure thing, Jean-Paul, or do I call you John? Plain old John? Only I haven’t . . . finished . . . beating . . . you . . . up yet! I can’t believe it!”
She punctuated each word with a pillow thump, then lay on the bed, fists clenched by her head, facedown into a pillow. “I can’t believe you!!” She was shouting now, her voice tailing off into giggles of sheer incredulity. It was a situation so bizarre she didn’t know whether she should laugh or be angry.
He stroked her hair gingerly, like a cat tentatively stretching a paw out into the pouring rain, but she pushed him away.
“Look, Kate . . . I—I—I came here fifteen years ago, and no one cared. It was full of English artists, American artists, trying to make a name for themselves. So I put on this accent. My mum was half French, so I knew how to do it. . . . I guess it’s not strictly a lie, as that makes me a quarter French.”
“It is a lie, Jean-Paul, of course it’s a fucking lie! And I’m English, and you lied to me! Me! I feel like such a fucking idiot!”
Jean-Paul straddled her, tried to turn her around to face him, but she wouldn’t budge. “Kate. Kate! But what could I do? Once I started, it was impossible to stop. And I couldn’t risk you telling Alexis or whoever.”
It was odd to hear her Frenchman talking so much like an Englishman. Could an accent really make such a huge difference to a career?
She wriggled round finally, and lay on her back glaring at him sulkily. “And did it? Did it make such a difference to your fucking career?!”
He looked directly in her eyes; his voice was soft, serious.
“Well, yes. That was the weird thing. It worked. I tell you, once people thought I was different, they looked at me in a special way. People like Alexis treated me like some exotic specimen, actually looked at my art as opposed to judging me as yet another pretentious young artist with aspirations above his station.”
“Oh, and that makes it all right, does it? You know what? You know what, Jean-Paul?”
That was the problem. She couldn’t think of “what.” His was an odd kind of lie, because it wasn’t as if he owed her any kind of loyalty or honesty. She supposed it wasn’t so different from the world she inhabited, the world of beauty, where you judged and were judged by appearances always. This was no more of a lie than getting highlights, she supposed, or having a face-lift. So it made better economical sense to be French? Well, why not? It was all too much to take on board. Kate rolled over with her back to him. She needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow she had to go to the office, and then fly back home. It made her feel exhausted just thinking about it. She wondered how Lise was getting on. She wondered whether Steve was curled up in bed beside her, or fetching her mugs of tea. She knew he would be. She hadn’t told Lise what she was planning on doing. She would be giving up a lot here. A job—if it hadn’t already given up on her. Her own apartment. An imposter. But maybe, she would be gaining something else. Someone else. Someone not bloody John Paul from . . . England!
“Jean-Paul!” She rolled over angrily to face him. “I’m really pissed off with you!”
She hadn’t noticed that he’d leaned in closer to her, so that now she was within an inch of him, their noses almost touching. Such impropriety when she was trying so hard to be angry, distant, made her laugh. He laughed, too, and seized the opportunity to embrace her once more.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I would have told you, honest.”
“You so wouldn’t!” she said.
They held each other fondly, like good friends and old lovers. She knew she would keep in touch with him. She wasn’t sure how often, or when, or how much she would value his friendship, but she would.
The light started to eke its way in through the slatted wooden blinds. Kate flung her arm over his chest and nuzzled her head until it was comfortably ensconced in the crook of his arm. She fell asleep.
In the morning she awoke with a start. She had so much to do. She had to pack up her apartment and head to
Darling
’s offices. But Jean-Paul was having none of it. He had prepared her a tray of breakfast: a pile of pancakes with butter, sugar, and wedges of lemon and a mug of steaming tea. His face was animated; he had something to tell her.
“Hello, love.”
She had forgotten he was now English. It was disconcerting. “Oh, God,” she said, then rolled away, face back into the pillow.
He was dressed already, wearing jeans and a gray cashmere V-neck sweater.
“Listen, I’ve had a brilliant idea.” Brilliant. It wasn’t just a bad dream then. He carefully handed her the mug of tea.
“Go on then, what?” It was definitely a good thing she was going back to England. Let him sort out his identity crisis by himself.
“I’m going to open up this flat.” There it was again. “Flat” not “apartment.” “I’m going to make it into an installation, an artwork.” He looked energized about something, but she was none the wiser as to what he was talking about.
“I’ve been thinking about it all night. I’ve been drawing how it’s going to look, and it’s going to be amazing!” He beamed, a grin stretching from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat. Of course, now that he was English he would know exactly where Cheshire was.
“Okay . . . but I’m still not getting it,” she said, grumpily.
“Don’t you see? All my assumed Frenchness, living another life, another persona! That’s my real artwork!” he said. “Never mind my paintings, which will now become the paintings of someone else, the paintings of Jean-Paul Suchet. . . .
This
artwork will be amazing! Imagine, over fifteen years of living as someone else, as an imaginary being. If that isn’t art, what is? And this flat will be my testimony to it all, the witness to how we fabricate our lives, go through them pretending to be someone else, never quite facing up to who we might be, or who we could be.”