He said, “You don’t wear any other jewelry.”
So he’d been looking at her ears, her hands. He might be referring to the absence of a wedding ring.
If she’d been in Paris for any other reason, if she’d had the time and boredom, she might have entertained the possibility of a fling. What did it matter if he was a drunk, a con artist, if she was only going to use him? And the way he kept staring at her legs, he didn’t seem to mind the difference between their ages.
After the divorce, Fiona had dated so much that her friends had joked about getting her a reality show. But that was a long time ago. She’d gotten busy with the shop, with other things. And after Claire disappeared, she and Damian spent a good deal of time on the phone. It wasn’t romantic, but it filled some need. A shoulder, albeit two thousand miles away, to cry on. She still dated on occasion, but the dates were rote now, and so was the sex.
It was pleasant enough, she’d grant, that Jake was sitting here talking to her about how he needed new hiking boots. It was nice that he believed she was here on vacation. And as Serge came out and almost forcibly removed the water glass from her hand, replaced it with the glass of wine she’d left on the kitchen counter, as she looked out the window to the darkening walls of a Parisian street, she could almost believe it was true.
It was seven p.m. A decent chance Arnaud would be staked out by now. Fiona took off her watch and stuck it in her pocket so she wouldn’t stare at it all night.
Jake said, “Tell me the story of your life.”
“My life,” she said, and laughed. She’d never been good at that. Her life had been tumultuous, but the basic rundown always sounded boring.
She told him her degree was in psychology, that she’d started college when she was twenty-four, that she’d married her professor and then divorced him. That she ran a resale shop. She left out that it benefited AIDS housing; this was not part of the romantic, carefree version of the story, and she really didn’t care to hear his follow-up questions.
He said, “Does the psych degree help you run a shop?”
She thought she felt the phone, but when she looked her screen was blank. A phantom buzzing, the vibrations of her own nerves.
She said, “My daughter was born when I was still a student. So I finished school, but things got away from me.”
“Got it,” he said. “Got it.” Although he couldn’t have.
When the buzzer sounded again, Richard rushed out to answer.
The journalist—Corinne—had brought a bouquet of dahlias and an apple tart. She had silver hair, a bracelet of smooth green beads. The kind of woman who seemed made entirely of scarves. She already knew Richard and Serge, kissed their cheeks warmly. She had a digital recorder, but otherwise you’d have thought this was a purely social engagement.
“We’ll speak English,” Richard said to her. “Partly for Fiona, and, ah, Jacob here, but mostly—you know, if I’m going to be quoted, I want to sound smart. I’m still sharper in my native tongue.” He winked at Fiona.
Corinne laughed and said, “Yes, but what then, when I translate you back to French? You’re at my mercy!”
“There are worse things, are there not, than to be at the mercy of a beautiful lady?”
“You see how he does!” Serge said. “He flirts himself to a good interview!”
As they gathered at the table, as Serge carried out a basket of rolls, Richard explained that Corinne’s husband was a major art critic, and that her piece for Libération was openly personal as well as reportorial.
Corinne said, “Only because I love you so much!”
Jake, thank God, was quiet. Fiona would have felt personally responsible if he’d made a fool of himself. He was still nursing his cocktail, she was relieved to note.
Fiona had snuck the phone with her, tucked it under her leg again. It was nearly eight o’clock now. Across the room, the balcony door was cracked open. It had warmed up late in the day, and now a pleasant breeze swept through.
Corinne asked Richard about his most recent work, the large-scale images that would apparently comprise half the show. A photograph of a mouth, Fiona gathered, would consume an entire wall. Fiona was surprised; she’d assumed this was a retrospective.
Serge’s Moroccan stew had lamb and apricots, and its spiciness didn’t hit you till after you’d swallowed.
Jake, who’d brought a notebook but left it on the couch, piped up to ask questions—smart ones—about Richard’s age, though not in so many words. How his work had changed, physical limitations, the scope of his career. “It’s funny,” Richard said, “when I was your age, I assumed it would all be downhill after fifty. Well. Ageism is the only self-correcting prejudice, isn’t it?”
Under the table, Fiona flicked open her email. A message from Damian, asking if there’d been any news in the past four hours. An update from the dogsitter.
Jake went quiet again, listening to Richard talk about his preparations, listening reverentially to Richard and Corinne reminiscing. Jake was the one person in the room to whom this was Richard Campo, the man from the documentary, the talent behind that iconic photo of the little girl atop the Berlin Wall, the scandalous presence behind the Defiling Reagan series. It was so different when you’d known the person first.
Fiona wondered what Damian would say if he saw her sitting here relaxing—if he’d wonder why she wasn’t out searching, or if he’d be glad she was taking care of herself, letting the detective do his job. Progress was being made this very moment, even if she wasn’t the one making it.
She tuned in to Richard joking with Jake. “You want to be my assistant? I’m constantly looking for new assistants.”
“Because he’s impossible to work for,” Corinne said.
“And I promise you the pay is terrible. Even worse than journalism!”
Serge explained to Fiona that Corinne would give a party for Richard tomorrow night—or rather, her husband would, at their home in Vincennes.
“You’ll come,” Richard said to Fiona. Fiona nodded, but she didn’t mean it.
“Can you tell me,” Corinne said to Richard, “about the video installations? I do want to write about those. The world doesn’t know you well for video.”
“This is the fault of the world,” Serge put in.
“Well,” Richard said, and he looked straight at Fiona, as if she were the one who’d asked. “The irony is, the raw material’s quite old. These are videos I recorded on VHS through the 1980s. In Chicago. You know, VHS was a nightmare to work with.”
Fiona caught his meaning, finally, and tilted her head. The eighties in Chicago. Video.