Nearly Normal

by Cea Sunrise Person

  “Seriously, you all know me,” I said. “I never thought I’d have a year like this. Amazing friends, husband, kids, new house, best-selling book. I’m the luckiest person ever.” I sipped my drink, realizing I could say this aloud because everyone at the table knew what I’d been through. In a way, telling my story had given me permission to be happy—at least in my own mind.

  As I often did, I wondered what Mom’s life would be like now, had she lived. A day didn’t pass that I didn’t think about her, but I had to admit that it was a relief to not worry about her future. Really, there were only two ways I could have imagined it going, and either one would have brought its own world of problems. Given her inability to provide for herself, she likely would have landed on my doorstep or stayed forever with Sam. The first option would have compromised the peace in my family, and the second would have compromised the peace within myself. Though I’d tried to talk to her about it before she died, Mom had never acknowledged that her affair with Sam had made me feel unwanted, expendable and powerless in the years when I needed her the most. As a result, I’d questioned the most fundamental of parental duties, uncertain if I really had a right to expect a mother who was present, supportive and protective. I knew the answer now, of course, but it had taken me decades to arrive here. Though it wasn’t always easy, I was able to put aside my own desires in my kids’ best interests, and it never ceased to amaze me when others didn’t.

  I brought my attention back to the present and turned toward Dianne, who was about to describe her worst moments of the year in her typically funny way. Dianne knew my history better than anyone else at the table. I’d met her at Avery’s preschool, and of all the outlandish coincidences, she had known Papa Dick in the Yukon decades ago when she’d lived there herself. Yes, she’d said with a big laugh when we made that discovery, you certainly have an interesting story to tell with that one! We’d become friends soon after my split with James, and she’d seen me go through some dark times as I struggled to get back on my feet. Sitting here now, I couldn’t help but notice the contrast to my last New Year’s Eve with my second husband. It had marked the end of 2007, the worst year of my adult life.

  My mother had been dead for two weeks, and my split from James loomed three weeks in the future. I hadn’t wanted to do anything except watch The Hills and get plastered on Freixenet, but I’d grudgingly accompanied James to a house party. Besides a couple high on ecstasy, we turned out to be the only guests there, and James promptly fell asleep on the sofa beside me. I drank too much wine, sitting in front of Dick Clark with the host and his girlfriend.

  “What was your best moment of 2007?” the host asked me, making polite conversation, and I came up blank.

  “Finding my son after I thought he’d been kidnapped at Old Navy,” I said dramatically, not bothering to elaborate.

  Later, as James and I rode home in a cab, I watched streams of revellers pour through the downtown streets, thrilled at the prospect of another year. All I could think about was that with the holidays over, James and I would be free to drop the pretence and go our separate ways. But I had nowhere to go, no money, not even a car to drive. It was a lifetime low, but it was also the tunnel I needed to enter in order to see how much lighter it was on the other side.

  And Remy was now a big part of that light. Something I’d learned since being with him was that our value is determined by ourselves, not anyone else—the more you expect, the more you get. With Remy I was able to be myself fully, to ask for support without fear and to be appreciated for the role I played in our family. Just by believing I was worth more, I’d attracted a partner who believed the same. In a way, I had James to thank for this, because without the lessons I had learned by being with him, I wouldn’t have seen how much I needed to move forward toward my own fulfillment. Trying to become the person I thought he needed me to be wasn’t much different from my mother’s approach to Sam and her other lovers, but finally I had put an end to the pattern. And it had turned out well in the end—James and I worked together much better as co-parents than as a couple, managing to put Avery’s well-being above all.

  I caught Remy’s eye across the table and smiled, thinking about the signs I’d been given so many times when I was making a mistake. Had I not ignored those warnings, it was quite possible I wouldn’t have ended up right here. And I felt truly grateful that I hadn’t sacrificed my values to create an easier, but less meaningful, life for myself.

  1988

  Los Angeles

  When I started modelling, I promised myself I’d never be one of them—one of those girls who’d made it by sleeping with someone just because his opinion mattered to the right people. Sex in exchange for a prestigious booking seemed to me no better than prostitution—something my mother might have done, perhaps, if she had been given the opportunity.

  And then I met François. I was eighteen years old and living in Los Angeles. Since getting my driver’s licence two years ago, I’d lost my virginity to Kevin, my first real boyfriend, graduated from high school and moved away from home. Back home in Calgary, I now had a decent enough boyfriend named Jason—serious enough to do long distance but not serious enough to invite him to L.A. with me—and I was getting as much work in this city as I could handle. So when an overweight man smelling of sweet cologne and French cigarettes passed his number to me at an industry party, I barely took notice. I was already annoyed after fighting off a handsome but relentless black man who had followed me around all evening, drunkenly insisting we find a hotel room. “Do you know who I am? I’m the Juice. O.J. Simpson,” he kept saying to me, but the name would only register when I saw him on trial on TV a few years later. I threw the cologne-soaked man’s number into the restroom trash bin and forgot all about him.

  But the fashion world in any given city is a tightly knit one, meaning that anyone with influence or money can easily get whatever information they need. A few days after the party, one of my roommates at the models’ apartment where I was living held the phone out to me. The phone at the apartment rang day and night—back-home boyfriends looking for reassurance, bookers bearing career-making-and-breaking news, mothers urging their daughters to eat more or less, to call their grandmothers on their birthday, to come home. I received plenty of calls from the first two but rarely from the third.

  “It’s for you,” my roommate said. “François something.”

  I took the handpiece, irritated. I never gave my number out. “Yes?”

  “You never called me,” an accented male voice boomed. “I’ve been waiting by the phone for three days.”

  “As if,” I scoffed after a beat, drawing a total blank.

  “It’s the truth. You haven’t left my thoughts for a moment.”

  I let the line fall silent as I tried to remember. French accent, deep voice, no shortage of confidence. It finally came to me.

  “I met you at a party the other night, right?”

  He laughed good-naturedly. “Why, yes. I’m glad I left such a memorable impression.”

  I laughed back. “It’s not that you didn’t. It’s just—”

  “Sure, I know. You have a stream of admirers. Around the block, just hoping for a glimpse.”

  “Well, not exactly. Not even close. I just . . . I was distracted that night, I think. Um, what was your name again?”

  “François de Legare.”

  “Oh. Right.” It was all coming back now. This one had bragged about royal connections, homes in three cities, a best friend who was the beauty editor at French Vogue. You should be a great big star by now, he had said to me without a trace of insincerity, and I had completely ignored him.

  “We talked about dinner,” he continued. “I hope you remember that, at least? How about the Ivy on Friday night?”

  “The Ivy on Friday night. Um, yeah, okay . . . I mean, why not?”

  “I couldn’t ask for a more enthusiastic response. Very well, then, I will pick you up at eight o’clock.”

  “I can just
meet you there. I do have a car.”

  He chuckled softly. “Indeed. The little blue Rabbit, yes?”

  Though François couldn’t see it, my face reddened. In a land where what you drove equalled how much you were respected, my car was a serious source of humiliation: old, rusty and banged in on one side from a recent accident. I didn’t want to spend the money to replace it until I knew I would be staying in L.A., and lately my agency in Paris had been asking me to come back. Besides, I would rather drive my own cheap wheels than sell out. Two years before, while I’d been here for a modelling job, I had accepted a coffee date with a wealthy businessman I’d met at a dim sum restaurant. Two days later, he showed up at my hotel claiming he’d bought me a car. I never did see the actual vehicle—just some dangling keys—but the whole thing had creeped me out.

  “How—how do you know what kind of car I drive?” I asked François.

  “I saw you leaving the party. I waved at you, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Um, okay, do you have a pen, then? I’m at—”

  “Darling, please. I know where you live. Until then?”

  I paused. Something about this was totally grossing me out. I remembered perfectly well what François looked like, and there wasn’t one living cell of my being that was attracted to him. And if I wasn’t attracted to him, what other reason was there for going on a date?

  “Yes,” I said finally. “Until then.”

  One thing was certain: François knew how to pull out all the stops. He picked me up in a white Rolls-Royce, and though I was initially embarrassed by the thought of getting into such a pretentious vehicle, it took me a humiliatingly short amount of time to get used to it. Inside, I found a single pink rose waiting on my seat. There was a telephone resting in the console, something I’d never seen before. When I commented on it, François held it out to me.

  “Go ahead. Call your mother,” he said with a grin, but I just laughed. Mom was the last person I could imagine discussing with the likes of François de Legare.

  By the time François pulled up to the restaurant an hour later and handed his keys over to the valet, I felt like I was stepping out of his vehicle into a completely new life. Paparazzi clogged the guarded entrance, hopeful for a glimpse of a movie star or two. “What have you been in?” a short man asked me as his camera flashed in my face, but François put his arm around me protectively and guided me inside.

  Once we were seated, he ordered martinis for us.

  “Um, I’m not much of a drinker,” I said, holding my hand up, and it was true. My efforts to avoid the partying model lifestyle meant that I’d only had alcohol a few times in my life, and each time, I got raving drunk within an alarmingly short time.

  “Very well. Champagne, then.”

  Our drinks arrived, and I sipped the bubbles slowly; it tasted more like grape juice than booze. I didn’t protest when he refilled my glass, even though my head was already beginning to feel wavy. At the end of my third drink, I leaned forward and mustered up the courage to divulge the truth.

  “Just so you know, I, um . . . have a boyfriend. Like, back home and stuff.”

  “Of course you do. How could you not?” he replied lightly.

  I smiled back at him, but even through my drunken rose-coloured glasses, I had to admit that the sight of him repulsed me. His skin was so deeply tanned it looked like leather, he wore fake-looking blue contact lenses over his naturally brown eyes, and his jowl was firmly residing in double-chin territory. Not to mention that he had to be at least fifty years old. But François seemed at peace with his physical shortcomings, maybe because he wasn’t truly interested in me.

  “Seriously,” he said, throwing his hands up in sincerity. “You may find this hard to believe, but I am only here to help you. I see in you a potential that comes along very rarely. The thing is, my best friend is the beauty editor at French Vogue. We grew up together, went to the same school. We went in our own directions, but I always gave her my word that I would send the best of the best her way should I come across it. Beautiful girls, but more than that. True beauty, true talent. And you have both. Your body is thin, long, lithe like a young filly. Your eyes . . . they sparkle, the colour of the deepest green seas. Your lips are the shape of sensuality itself. Your hair is thick and heavy, like silk. Your teeth . . . they could use a little work, but with a little effort could be perfect too. You are the whole package. Do you know how often I come across someone like you?”

  “Uh, no.” I ducked my head, both embarrassed and disconcertingly charmed by his words. Teeth thing aside, none of my boyfriends had ever described me as flatteringly as François just had. And neither had any of my bookers, which, if I were honest, would have meant a whole lot more.

  “I’ll tell you how often. Almost never.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled at me. He wasn’t so bad when he smiled. “I have helped others, you know,” he went on, and then named two top models of the moment. “Have you heard of them?”

  “Of course,” I replied, trying not to look impressed.

  He nodded. “I discovered them. Sent them to the right people. And look where they are now.”

  “Wow,” I said, feeling my eyes widen. For any model, landing a booking for Vogue magazine, whether it be American, French, Italian or British, was the pinnacle of success. The type of modelling I did—clothing and lingerie catalogues, TV commercials, advertisements for everything from skincare products to banks to holiday destinations to ironing boards—paid well, but it lacked glamour and wasn’t the gateway to top-model stardom. I’d always been realistic about my potential as a model, and to me a booking as prestigious as Vogue had seemed out of reach. My face was just a little too ordinary, my nose and hips not quite narrow enough; and of course there was the issue of my teeth. While they weren’t horribly crooked, a single jutting top tooth meant my smile didn’t meet the standard of perfection required for me to really go far. If there was one thing in the world I wished my family had been able to provide for me—besides a completely different childhood, that is—it was braces. There wasn’t a day that passed when I didn’t think about what a difference that one thing would have made in my life. But sitting here across from François, I wondered if maybe I’d set my career sights too low.

  “Anyway,” François said abruptly, tearing into a new piece of bread. “Your boyfriend. Lucky man. Tell me about him?”

  I glanced away. The last thing I felt like talking about right now was my boyfriend, whose university lifestyle and hometown charms suddenly seemed ridiculously unsophisticated compared to François’s high-rolling reality.

  “How about . . . we don’t,” I replied, lifting my glass, and François grinned at me.

  Apparently François didn’t believe in wasting time. The day after our dinner, he called me again.

  “I faxed Helene your photo,” he said. “She called me back right away to say how beautiful you are.”

  “Wow. Really?” I responded, hating the hopeful leap of my heart.

  “Really. May I take you to lunch to celebrate?”

  “I don’t know. Is there . . . something to celebrate?”

  He laughed. “My dear, one of the most influential people in the fashion world thinks you’ve got what it takes. I would say so.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Thank you. How about tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow it is.”

  This time there was a yellow rose waiting on the passenger seat. “For friendship,” François said with his Aspirin-white smile.

  After lunch, he was driving me back to my apartment in Westwood when he veered off toward Beverly Hills. My belly jumped nervously.

  “Um, is there an errand you needed to run?” I asked lightly, suddenly aware that the man beside me could very well be a serial killer. A cold memory from my childhood swept over me, of riding beside a man who had picked Mom and me up when we were hitchhiking. He put the moves on Mom and then refused to pull over when she rebuffed him, making both of us certain we were seeing our last day.
It was fear that saved us; I was so terrified that I almost had an accident on his seat, so he was forced to pull over, and we made our escape.

  But François laughed reassuringly. “Don’t worry, darling, just taking a little detour. If you’re going to meet Helene, you’ll need something to wear. Don’t all girls love to shop?”

  I looked down at my outfit. I was wearing my Levi’s 501 jeans and favourite black eyelet Anti-Flirt bodysuit, bought in Paris the year before. I thought I looked fine, and besides, I wasn’t interested in being in debt to François.

  “But I don’t—”

  “No buts. Your birthday is coming up, right? Think of it as an early birthday gift.”

  A minute later, he pulled up to the Azzedine Alaia store and parked. My jaw dropped. Alaia was only my favourite designer in the whole world. As I waited for François to open my door—I was already getting used to his ways—I ran through the gamut of justifications in my head. We went into the shop together.

  Half an hour later, I emerged wearing a tight black dress with straps that crossed over my back. I had wanted to take it off to bring home—after all, it was a little on the sexy side for daywear—but François had insisted I keep it on. After catching a glimpse of the twelve-hundred-dollar price tag, I figured it was the least I could do.

  It wasn’t long before François and I were talking on the phone daily and going out a few times a week. It never moved beyond friendship, and I almost always met him on his turf. I tried my best to keep him away from my apartment, which currently housed eight models and was a mecca for gossip. But one day, I agreed to let him pick me up for lunch. I was ready for him when the doorbell rang, running to get it in hopes of escaping before the other girls saw him. I knew exactly how the scenario looked, and though I’d seen all of them doing versions of the same thing, I still prided myself on being the one who wouldn’t be sucked in by lofty promises and expensive dinners. I breezed out the door, shutting it quickly behind me.