What's Mine and Yours(41)

“Hard at work, hunh?” Jemima waved over a server.

“It’s my first day off.”

“Do you think you could incorporate calling your wife into your day off?”

“Noelle called again?”

“Last time, she tried eleven times in a row. I was this close to blocking her number. But thank God, I haven’t heard from her in a few days.”

“Me neither.”

“And that doesn’t worry you?”

“She left some messages about a party in the neighborhood. Nothing important.”

“Not to you, no,” Jemima said and shook her head at him, too familiar. He liked this side of her, how frank she was, how she didn’t measure her words, worry about how she might be received. It was obnoxious, the product of her whiteness, her youth, her too-good fortune in life. It put him off when he noticed that unflustered air in men, but it was different somehow with Jemima.

He watched her shuck off her leather jacket, so small it seemed to be a piece of clothing for a doll. A constellation of sweat spread over her upper lip, the mounds of her breasts.

Jemima was a junior publicist at the French office of the house that had agreed to put out his book of photographs. She had served as his handler the last few weeks while he worked. She coordinated his meetings with the editor, people, and businesses of interest. The book was tentatively called Paris in Black and Brown, and while he was sure he would never earn out the advance, the deal included this trip, and it had come at the perfect time, just when he needed out of Golden Brook. There was a clause in his contract about the option of another trip, if he needed more shots. He didn’t think he’d have to use it, although it all depended on Noelle.

A server wandered over to collect his plate. Nelson pressed his finger to the dish, licked the sugar off his fingers, the memory of butter. Jemima ordered them salads, a carafe of white wine.

“So is this a real meeting? I thought we were all done. I leave in two days.”

“I know, I’m the one who booked your flights, remember? I’m here to ask you to stay.”

Nelson stared at her, disbelieving.

“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s a request from the house. They’ve got an offer for you.”

A playwright had heard of the project and wanted to work with Nelson. He had written a play about a French woman, a widow, whose son was killed by a terrorist. She was having an affair with a Muslim man, and the death of her son threatens to tear them, and their community, apart.

“Community?” Nelson repeated. “Is this a joke?”

“He wants to incorporate your photographs in the set. Blow them up, get them printed on silkscreens. It would be a beautiful way to show the work. You’ve heard of this guy before, right? He does very edgy stuff. Likely to get a lot of buzz. French nationalism, Islamophobia, suicide bombing, cross-cultural love—it’s all there.”

Their salads arrived, and Jemima went on, trying to sell him on the project, while she divided their food. She picked out the eggs and baby potatoes from her salad, depositing them on his plate, so that soon she was left with nothing but vegetables and hunks of pale pink fish. It wasn’t one of her more charming qualities, the way she ate, as if she didn’t want to, as if food were a nuisance to be tolerated with the fewest number of calories allowed. She stayed away from the bread basket, too, although they were here, in Paris. This was perhaps the only way in which she wasn’t entitled, the only way in which she denied herself. Nelson helped himself to the bread. He doused the salad in oil. He asked how many days the project would add to the trip.

“You’d have to go through the script together and do some mockups of the set. It could take a while.” Jemima was noncommittal as she guzzled her wine.

“I’ll have to talk to my wife.”

“One more thing, it isn’t paid.”

Nelson laughed. “Then I’m out. What do they think? This is my summer internship?”

“You’ll still get your per diem, and we’ll keep you at the hotel. Just think of how good this will look on your CV. Think of it as free publicity.”

It was absurd to take career advice from Jemima, he knew. She was shortsighted and young, and she wasn’t an artist. She dealt in emails and lunches, buzz.

“I can’t work for free. I’ve got a family.”

“Correction—you have a wife. And you don’t seem too worried about her most of the time.”

Nelson didn’t like the way she was talking, as if she knew anything about him and Noelle.

“Don’t make that face,” Jemima said. She was talking and chewing at the same time, a sliver of fish lolling around in her mouth like a second tongue. “I didn’t mean to upset you. But there’s no way you can turn this down, and I don’t mean because of the book. You’re not ready to go home. I can tell.”



Afterward, in his room, Jemima put on a robe and went to the balcony to smoke. They were visible from the street below, Jemima bare legged, Nelson back in his pants and undershirt. The wind whipped her hair around her face, she offered him her cigarette, and Nelson couldn’t help but think they were merely acting out their parts—the artist and the lady, two Americans in Paris, a white woman on the verge of the rest of her life, and her black lover.

Sometimes, he had this feeling that his life was being watched, that other people could see not only what he was doing, but into his mind. He tried to revise his thoughts, as if they were a soliloquy someone might overhear. There was nothing romantic about this moment, the traffic below, Jemima tapping away at her phone.