TEXT FROM VIVIA PERPETUA DE CAUMONT:
Jesus, Mary, and getting jiggy w’it Joseph! I had no idea you felt that way about me. Thanks for keeping me in your arms. LOL
TEXT TO VIVIA PERPETUA DE CAUMONT:
I, like, can’t even right now. Sorry. That was meant for Gabriel.
TEXT FROM VIVIA PERPETUA DE CAUMONT:
Don’t be sorry. I am actually relieved it was meant for Gabriel. You had me contemplating leaving Luc.
TEXT TO GABRIEL GALLIARD:
You’re in my arms, even when you are half a world away. Be safe, Gabriel.
The next few weeks pass like honey through a straw. Like, seriously, tortuously slow. I’ve never done the long-distance thing before. Or maybe I’ve just never done the in-love thing before. Is it supposed to be excruciatingly painful? Is it supposed to monopolize your every thought, make you feel an itchy restlessness, cause you to lose your appetite, sleep, hair?
Fanny called to check on me, and I asked her the same question. She laughed and said, “You’re either in love, ma cherie, or critically ill. Have you run your symptoms through WebMD?”
I e-mailed Vivia to ask her if she had any advice on how to cope. Vivia did the long-distance thing with a Frenchman for a year. Now, she’s married to that Frenchman. She wrote back in typical Vivia fashion—thoughtful, funny, and filter-free.
To: [email protected]
From: Vivia Perpetua de Caumont
Subj: Re: Long-distance Relationships
Laney,
Keeping it real? The long-distance thing sucks. What helped me was to have crazy hot monkey sex as often as I could—with Luc when he was available for a quick booty-call, with myself when he wasn’t available.
Kidding. Sorta.
When monkey sex and masturbating didn’t work, I would try to keep busy. Focus on your internship, artwork, friends, and building a new, independent life in Paris.
Some days, you will try everything I have mentioned and still feel miserable. You might even wonder if the long-distance thing is worth it. Remind yourself that you only feel miserable because you love someone, intensely. It’s better to feel the pain of missing someone than the pain of not having someone to miss, isn’t it?
Bon chance!
Vivia
I take Vivia’s advice by spending extra hours in the atelier, using paint to express the complexly shaded emotions in my heart. When the light is too weak and watery to paint, I take long walks with Rigby.
We walk to every corner of Paris, swapping trivia about artists who lived and worked there. We dream about what it would be like if we stayed in Paris forever, started an art-themed tour company, and settled down with our French boys. We climb the hills of Montmartre and drink cheap red wine in outdoor cafés. We meet other Bobos—bourgeois bohemians—and discuss the esoteric.
We stay until the bistro lights flicker on and the cobalt, velvet curtain of dusk lowers. Then we walk back down the hill and make our way to Bâtard de Valadon for a bowl of onion soup and crusty baguettes. Robert has become our foster father, ladling us free bowls of fishy bouillabaisse or peppery ratatouille, and plying us with outrageous stories about life in the Marais.
When our bellies are full of cheap wine and free food, and our heads full of delicious conversation, we stagger home to our beds. This is my favorite time of the day, when the gallery is still and the din of the world beyond our walls falls silent, because I lie in bed and read my nightly e-mail from Gabriel.
This is going to sound like my sanity train jumped the track and is tumbling down, down, down the mountainside toward Crazyville, but I bought a spiral sketchbook and am calling it my Journal d’Amour. I have begun filling it with copies of Gabriel’s e-mails and photographs he sends me and my own little wistful, wishful sketches. On the nights when I am really, really missing him, like tonight, I start at the first page and read all of the e-mails.
To: [email protected]
From: Gabriel Galliard 05/05/16
Subj: Missing You
I rode in a convoy with the UN and Red Cross as they delivered food and medical supplies to the people in the besieged, rebel-held Damascus suburb of Qudsaya. The people in this dusty hillside town have been cut off from the world for over a year.
I can’t imagine what these people have suffered, some of them separated from loved ones since the siege began. I have been away from you for less than a week, and I feel disoriented, lost, and a little sad.
Be well, ma fleur.
G.
To: [email protected]
From: Gabriel Galliard 05/08/16
Subj: My Rainbow
A brief note today, and that to tell you how happy I am to have you in my life. It rained all day. A heavy, deafening downpour that kept me from my task. When the skies finally cleared, a rainbow arched from one side of the shelled-out city to the other. The bold, beautiful colors made me think of you, ma fleur, and the way you suddenly appeared in my life, bringing unexpected joy. I have attached a photograph I took of the rainbow. How are you? Have you had time to work on Minority of Souls? I can’t wait to see it . . . and you.
G.
To: [email protected]
From: Gabriel Galliard 05/12/16
Subj: E-mails
I returned to my hotel, hungry, sweaty, and exhausted. Before I met you, I would have eaten, taken a shower, and fallen into bed. But food could wait. All I wanted to do was check my e-mail. I am glad you miss me. Keep missing me, ma fleur. I certainly miss you.
To: [email protected] 05/14/16
From: Gabriel Galliard
Subj: Tell me
You’ve shared with me the large parts of your life, but I often wonder about the million small parts. The inconsequential. Pieces that seem too insignificant to share. I want to gather them all, those tiny pieces. Open my arms and sweep them into my lap, study them one by one. Until I know all of you.
When I was a boy, we played a game called ten questions. You ask the first ten questions that come to mind, and the other person must answer, spontaneously and without reservation. Want to play?
G.
That was the last e-mail I got from Gabriel. It’s been five days. Five long, agonizing days filled with wonder and worry that he has forgotten about me—or, worse, been captured, shot, or beheaded by a wild-eyed, totally twisted rebel.
I was chill the first day.
I was pretty chill the second day.
I was less chill the third day.
By the fourth day, I was completely without chill.
Today, the fifth day, chill has become this totally mythical state of being, as fantastically mythical to me as fairies and unicorns are to others. Chill? That only exists in kids’ books and Antarctica.
This morning, I spent two hours staring out the rain-streaked window at the empty park, replaying the few, dreamy moments I spent with Gabriel. The first day in the gallery, when he was just a suitsexual stranger with a devastating smile. The day we met. The day he brought me daisies. The night he kissed me in the rain.
No matter how hard I tried to focus on the daisies and kisses, my mind kept replaying the scene in La Belle Hortense, when willowy Giselle wrapped her willowy hand around Gabriel’s arm and cooed, “Come now, we are more than mere friends, are we not?”
Are they more than friends? Is Gabriel a player? Did he have a hot and heavy with me in a tunnel on the left bank and then hook up with willowy Giselle in some chic right-bank apartment?
Fanny once told me that the French philosophy about monogamy is quite different from the American philosophy.
“In France,” she said, “women do not weep and wail at the thought of their husbands or boyfriends taking another lover, because they understand fidelity is a cultural phenomenon. Monogamy is not natural, ma cherie; it is cultural. We are the only creatures in the animal kingdom to impose ridiculous notions of fidelity and monogamy upon our mates.”
She went on to tell me about how bonobo apes regularly engage in se
x with multiple partners, male elephant seals typically have a large concubine of female seals, and how even swans, long believed to mate for life, aren’t always monogamous. Swans! Myth cruelly shattered.
So who has it right? The mate-for-life Americans or the free-loving French? Is Gabriel a bonobo ape, swinging from mate to mate, or a mostly monogamous swan, hooking up with one feathery female at a time?
I wish I could affect the casual manner of a French woman, a glass of champagne in one hand, a long, slender, theatrical cigarette holder in the other, a bored What do I care? expression on my face, but I am not an elephant seal. I don’t want to be in a concubine. I don’t want to share Gabriel with Giselle or Genevieve or Gislaine . . . I want to be the only blubbery, barking seal on his beach.
Chapter 22
Laney’s Life Playlist
“I Will Possess Your Heart” by Death Cab for Cutie
“Tattooed Love Boys” by The Pretenders
To: [email protected] 05/19/16
From: Gabriel Galliard
Subj: I am sorry
There have been several suicide bomb attacks in the Shiite suburbs of Damascus. I have been busy photographing the wounded and the family members of the dead. It is a senselessly tragic story without a foreseeable end.
Earlier this week, I was in the north, photographing the last remaining obstetric hospital in Aleppo. Even though it is frequently the target of missile attacks, pregnant women arrive every day to deliver their newborns. It is a sad setting for a happy event.
You wrote in your recent e-mail that you are worried because you haven’t heard from me. I am sorry, ma fleur. I should have warned you that there would be times when I would not able to communicate. I do not want you to worry about me—even though it feels good to know you care enough to worry. I have to go now, but I will send ten questions as soon as I can.
G.
To: [email protected] 05/20/16
From: Gabriel Galliard
Subj: Good Morning, Beautiful
I would like to say that these are spontaneous questions, but I have had several long days (and nights) to think about them (and you).
1. If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would you save?
2. What is your happiest childhood memory?
3. If you could have a superpower, what would it be?
4. What is your greatest fear?
5. You have a long weekend, where do you go and what do you do?
6. If you could live in one fictional place, where would it be?
7. What’s the bravest thing you have ever done?
8. What’s the best present you’ve ever been given?
9. Tell me one dream you have for the future.
10. What are you passionate about?
To: [email protected] 05/20/16
From: Delaney Brooks
Subj: Re: Good Morning, Beautiful
1. If your house was on fire and you could only save one thing, what would you save? My dog, Dalí.
2. What is your happiest childhood memory? Camping with Theo and my Pops. We would look at the stars through his telescope, eat s’mores around a campfire, and catch fireflies in ajar.
3. If you could have a superpower what would it be? The ability to fly, like a fairy.
4. What is your greatest fear? Fear is negative, and I try not to dwell in negative spaces. Sometimes, though, I worry that I will wake up one day and realize my mom was right, that I wasted time with prepubescent diversions, that I have no real talent in art or music, and am destined to spend my life working as a singing unicorn. I will be my parents’ biggest embarrassment: a talentless, homeless drifter who doesn’t own a car or a toilet plunger.
5. You have a long weekend, where do you go and what do you do? I would go to the south of France and walk in the footsteps of Van Gogh and Cézanne. I would find Van Gogh’s Yellow House in Arles and Cézanne’s light-dappled landscapes of Aix-en-Provence.
6. If you could live in one fictional place, where would it be? The Shire, where the hobbits live in Tolkien’s books, because it is peaceful and a hobbit house would be cozy, or Neverland, because I would stay young forever, swim with mermaids, and fly with fairies!
7. What’s the bravest thing you have ever done? Move to Paris to be a starving artist.
8. What’s the best present you’ve ever been given? A bouquet of daises tied with a polka-dot ribbon.
9. What makes you happy? A lot of things make me happy. Scoring a pair of Lucite sunglasses. Vintage clothes. Indie bands. Singing silly songs to kids. Driving in Theo’s Bananarama. Coming home after a long day and putting on my bunny onesie. Reading your e-mails.
10. What are you passionate about? I am passionate about many things: art, music, unicorns, individuality, the environment, John Hughes movies.
To: [email protected] 05/21/16
From: Gabriel Galliard
Subj: Answers to your questions
I enjoyed reading your answers to my questions, especially question nine. I am glad my e-mails make you happy. Before I answer your questions, I need to respond to your biggest fear. You could never be a failure, ma fleur. You are honest, original, brave, and beautiful. You are already a success.
1. If you could travel back to any point in time, what would it be? The day I met you. I could relive that moment a thousand times.
2. If you could fix one of the world’s problems, what would you fix? End violence.
3. If you had to describe your childhood in one word, which one would you use? Rebellious.
4. If you could make a wish upon a star, what would you wish for? I have a job I love, a home in the most beautiful city in the world, and a sexy woman sending me e-mails. What more could I wish for?
5. If you were marooned on an island, what are the five things you would take with you? A survival knife, books, my camera, wine, and someone who lifts my spirits.
6. Do you have any tattoos? Yes.
7. What’s your idea of a perfect Saturday? Sleep in late, hit the gym, go for a ride on my motorcycle, drink wine, make love.
8. What are some traits you find appealing? Loyalty. Honesty. Confidence. Kindness. Originality. Spontaneity. Childish wonder.
9. Do you believe in monogamy? I believe it is possible, for some.
10. What makes you happy? You.
Chapter 23
Laney’s Life Playlist
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” by The Shirelles
“Sweet Talk” by Samantha Jade
“What does that even mean: ‘Monogamy is possible for some?’ Is he saying it’s a theoretical concept? Is he part of that some?”
It has been a week since I first read Gabriel’s answer to my monogamy question, and I have twisted it around in my brain at least 43 quintillion times. I have analyzed every little word, every nuance, but it remains as confounding as a Rubik’s Cube. So, I thought I would toss my confounding cube at my new friends and see if they could solve it. We are sitting on the terrace at Carette, an inexpensive brasserie tucked beneath the colonnade of place des Vosges, sipping tea and munching chausson aux pommes, flaky apple pastries, before we head to the Pompidou Center for a lecture and workshop on the birth of abstraction.
“You like this man, no?” Giorgio asks.
I nod my head.
“You are in Paris to improve your art, not to marry and have the bambini. Am I right?”
I nod my head.
“Okay,” Giorgio says, slapping the table. “If he is a love rat, does this matter?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “It matters.”
“It is most important in France, as in Italy, that you don’t take love affairs too seriously. In Italiano, we say, ‘Figurati.’ This means, ‘It is nothing,’” Giorgio says, his voice rising and falling in time with his wildly gesticulating hands. “A love affair, she is simply a sweet nothing, bella. You enjoy her and move on.”
Maybe Giorgio is right. Maybe I am taking this
all too seriously. Maybe I should borrow a page from Vivia’s book and look at Gabriel as one tall, dark, super-hot holiday fling.
Then again, Vivia’s super-hot holiday fling turned out to be more than a chapter in her book . . . it turned into her happily ever after.
“What do you think, Julia?”
“Seriously?” Julia rolls her eyes, before taking a long drag from her cigarette and blowing the smoke in my face. “You’re asking my opinion about a guy you’ve known for, what, a month? It hardly signifies.” She narrows her gaze. “Have you even fucked him yet?”
My cheeks flush with heat.
Rigby looks at me, her eyes open so wide her fluttery lashes touch her pale, arched brows. She mouths, “What the?”
“Have you?” Julia prods.
I shake my head.
“Well, then,” she snorts, “why all the drama? What do you care if he is monogamous? Like Giorgio said, you’re here for your career. Three F’s, baby. Flirt, fuck, and forget.”
“Julia!” Rigby gasps.
“Rig-by!” Julia mimics, fluttering her clumpy black eyelashes. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard the eff word before? Don’t people curse in Topeka?”
Owning It Page 16