"Good old crotchety Cézanne. And Hortense, his wife: the ball and chain," Joe said with a wink.
"Hey!" I shot back. "What about 'Theory shits,' what he said to his painter pals in Paris, Monet and Pissarro and the others, before he took off for the south, never to look back."
"A man who knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to go after it," Joe said.
We worked to patch things up under that pale Provençal sky that seemed as if it could cleanse any human sin. I thought Joe was angry at me for thanking Andre and everyone else first at the ceremony, but he sneered at that. "Andre?" he said, exaggerating the name (Ahhhhhndray). "All right, the man has talent, but all Andre does is Andre."
I decided I'd skip that part. "Is this about you taking that electrical work? You don't have to."
" Really? You took an apartment in Los Angeles; now we have two rents to pay."
"It's just temporary, and I can handle both, Joe; it's way cheaper than a hotel." I made my voice small because money talk could cause an avalanche.
"Do you think about what you're doing, Ardennes?"
"Taking the apartment? I'll get more work if I'm out there. . . . I wish so much you'd come, just for a little while. The cats could fly out too."
"I'm saying: Is this what you want?" His tone was like a clamp on my throat.
"It's what I do, Joe; I'm an actor. It's just, I— what do you want me to do, act in documentaries?" I'd done everything in my life to be doing what I was doing; what was I supposed to make of Joe's question? Was I any different than Cézanne going after his art? "I don't see your writing saving the world from hunger—"
"—Just forget it!" he cut in. (That was his fallback position.)
After a tense silence I said, "I couldn't have done the award without you. I can't do anything without you."
He dismissed that idea. "Ah, cut it out. You won all by yourself. Just keep me out of the cheesy stuff is all I ask. I'll boost my own career."
Oh, I said to myself, I shouldn't have called him a writer. He is a writer! I felt so helplessly sad. It was impossible to keep guessing at what was going to work with Joe. It seemed like I was wrong seventy- five percent of the time. I must have looked like unhappiness incarnate, my face falling like a car wreck. Joe put his arms around me. "It's all right, don't fret, Ardennes."
I brightened like a dumb flower that can't help itself when the sun peeks out from behind a cloud. I muttered the word cerise into his warm shoulder. We finished our picnic in peace and that night had magnificent c'est ci bon French sex. The next morning I was briefly recognized for my prize— it was all over the newspapers that week. I was afraid Joe would get mad again, but he was quiet as I thanked the concierge of the inn for congratulating me. He presented us with a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape, asking first if I preferred red or white. Then he asked us to wait one moment while he ran back inside to present us with a bottle of white as well, kissing first me and then Joe on each of our cheeks.
Joe beamed. " Looks like pretty good wine," he said, holding up the Châteauneuf.
We returned home to a pile of scripts for me to read. All I wanted was to bask in springtime New York, rest up and be normal again, cook us dinner, walk the city, visit friends. Instead I picked up walking pneumonia. "At least I get to be here for longer," I told Joe. "No one would hire me now. I look like an old sock." He nursed me with teas and soups and antibiotics. I slept while he wrote, the cats keep ing vigil at the foot of the bed. I weeded through the pile of mostly junk scripts as spring outside heated up toward summer. By the end of July I was back at work, on location in New Orleans, a supporting role again. Whatever cachet I'd gained from the Cannes win had little currency across the Atlantic. Harry blamed the haircut.
I finished my bowl of cereal and, tiptoeing, took a shower and dressed.It was ten o'clock. No signs of life from Andre under his pillow. His cell phone, on vibrate, rock-'n'-rolled on the dining table. I looped the MAID Please Make Up This Room sign, on the side that showed a sleeping, smiling quarter moon and a Do Not Disturb message, over the door and went out. One of the maids I'd seen before down at the main hotel greeted me in Spanish. The others spoke to me in Spanish first too. I have picked up a blush of sun on my naturally pale olive skin, but do I look Latin? Andre tells me I am secretly Ethiopian, calling me his dark mistress. I am occasionally taken for Mediterranean but never for a great beauty, though my grandmother would have had me believe otherwise. "Striking" has been used to describe me in reviews. Godard's Anna Karina comes to mind: unassumingly sexual, but look closely and the nose is just the wrong side of big, the teeth a disappointment, the mouth wide for her angular chin, yet so intriguing on camera, even into her sixties. Or take Anouk Aimée: Is she beautiful? Is she in a class with the gold heat of Bardot or Grace Kelly's burnished radiance? What is beauty anyway? I mean, what does it mean? Joe always said beauty had to be earned. Good thing the camera liked me because in person I think I'm funny- looking, with big light brown hair and faded blue eyes, large teeth— none of it quite going with my skin tone. I don't know about all this supposed darkness either. Andre says it comes from the inside. Does he mean that I am dark, as a metaphor?
"A metaphor, yes," he once said. "But, more, you are not white."
I look white to me, in the mirror. Maybe the darkness metaphor is why I was offered so few leads.
Annoyed, Andre told me I knew perfectly well the camera ate me alive and served me up to a responsive audience. I didn't respond that I knew nothing perfectly well. And he didn't add that I couldn't expect the lead if I quit.
Leaving him to his sleep, I walked down the steep hill, out the heavy security gate and on down to the avenue, pulling my new magenta silk scarf closer around my neck. The verdigris cotton sweater I'd tossed on was not sufficient against the morning chill so I walked faster. At least the jeans and sneakers made sense as I practically trotted to Hollywood Boulevard. When I lived and worked here I never walked the Walk of Fame. I tried not to step directly on the actors' names. I've never heard of half the immortalized stars; why, for example, did Dolores Hope merit a star?
I moved along in my usual interior way, taking in the street while trying to remain invisible. "What?" I said, sensing someone pushing through my barrier. It's not unusual for me to be mentally miles away.
"Excuse me," said a youngish man. I think it might have been for the third time. " Would you agree to be interviewed for television?"
"What?" Luckily my sunglasses were large and dark.
"It's for the Style Network."
I thought, sure, Hollywood Boulevard: Jason from Friday the13th, Elvis, Batman, Darth Vader, Tinker Bell out trolling for tourists dumb enough to pay to have their photos taken with them; why not a pseudo TV shoot? I assumed I was supposed to be impressed, flattered, the tourist rube from Podunk suddenly on TV. "Why me?" I said, sarcastic. "Do I look stylish?"
"Yes," he said, "as a matter of fact, you do." And, pronto, a camera was thrust in my face, and a miniboom. Out of nowhere the personnel appeared, including the babe who would interview me, made up to seduce: coiffed, petite, pretty and perky. The director took over, telling me what questions I'd be asked. "It's about a new perfume," he explained, upbeat and positive, as if he were making an important feature, not a grade- B infomercial. Another fellow held high a smoky- glassed bottle of perfume, reached for my wrist, and sprayed two clouds of an organic, peaty, nighttime scent.
The camera started to roll. "No!" I said palms up to protect my face. "No, no, no!"
The camera stopped. The operator peered out from behind his giant lens. "Hang on a minute," he said, "isn't