Paris, He Said (36 page)

Jayne

When I lived in New York I believe that I felt differently, but in Paris, I realized that I didn’t want my life to be, above all, about the men in it. I wanted them to be an important part of the story, but not more important than my work as an artist. Would it have been different if there hadn’t been any men who wanted to be with me? It’s possible, even probable, and maybe before long I would find out, whether I wanted to or not.

Liesel made good on her promise and wrote us both Wikipedia entries that one day she believes the gatekeeping editors of the site will publish.

Jayne Marks
(born 1983, in Oak Park, IL) is an American painter. She has an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University (2005) and an M.F.A. in painting from Yale (2017). Her work has twice been included in the Venice Biennale (2017 and 2019). Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Space Program grant recipient (2015). Fulbright Scholar 2016–17, Corsica. Personal portrait artist for President and First Lady Obama. Winner of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (2021).

Liesel Freund
(born 1990, in Madison, WI) is an American supermodel. She is also an architect, attorney, master gardener, and financier. Her hobbies include hang gliding, particle physics research, quilt making, boxing, seeing-eye-dog training, equine therapy, and sculpture. She is a vegan and weighs 115 pounds; her measurements are 34-26-34. She speaks fluent Japanese, Chinese, Urdu, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swahili, and English. She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University (2012) and double-majored in calculus and biochemistry. She is also a millionaire and a good cook.

Sofia’s banker turned out to be the buyer for my painting
Vicky and Sheldon at the Brown County Fair
, the one canvas in
Intérieurs intimes
that didn’t sell within the first several days of the opening. Laurent informed me of this purchase, his expression neutral, and my first thought was, “Good. Now one of my paintings, if not six, will haunt the house where her lover lives.”

I was at the gallery when the banker came to claim
Vicky and Sheldon
. He wanted to pick up the painting himself instead of using the delivery service Laurent and André contracted with. He was younger than I expected, around forty, maybe as young as thirty-five. Of course he was very handsome; Sofia surely wouldn’t have settled for someone she didn’t enjoy looking at. Her artist’s sensibilities wouldn’t have permitted it either, perhaps.

The banker had black hair and gray-green eyes—a color I’d rarely seen, almost the color of pine needles. His face had a feminine delicateness—prominent cheekbones, full lips, tended eyebrows—but he was also broad-chested and taller than Laurent. He wore a navy blue suit, a light blue shirt, a green silk tie with tiny yellow and blue flowers. Laurent was at the gallery that afternoon too, and when the banker came in from the street, Laurent greeted him by his first name, Serge. They talked for a minute before they looked over at me; I was sitting at the desk that the assistants usually occupied, pretending to read a book. I had no idea if Serge knew that Laurent was a rival for Sofia’s affections.

“This is the artist, Jayne Marks,” said Laurent, walking over with Serge, who smiled and nodded once, very polite and proper.

I climbed down from the desk’s high stool and offered my hand, conscious of both men’s assessing gazes. I wanted the banker to find me as talented and as attractive as Sofia, but I was embarrassed by this impulse. One of the lessons I’d been learning during the year and a half with Laurent was that I probably wouldn’t ever feel confident that I knew a man’s true thoughts and feelings, not the ones I was attracted to.

“Very nice to meet you,” said Serge. “I am looking forward to seeing more of your work soon.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s so nice of you to say.”

“It is the truth.” He smiled.

“We both thank you for buying Jayne’s painting, as does my business partner, André,” said Laurent.

“It is a gift for my girlfriend,” said Serge. “You know her, of course.”

Laurent’s expression didn’t change. “Yes, I know Sofia.” He sounded so patient. It was costing him, I thought, to be so agreeable with this good-looking younger man who also had the money to spoil his sexy girlfriend as much as he cared to.

“It’s for her?” I said, trying to hide my surprise.

Serge nodded. “She came home after your vernissage and told me how much she liked your paintings.”

“I had no idea if they’d sell,” I said. “And not as quickly as they did, that’s for sure.”

“I knew they would sell,” said Laurent. “But that is part of my job.” He glanced at Serge. “The painting is in the back room, packaged and ready. I can help you take it to your car if you would like.”

“No, no, I think I can manage it on my own,” said Serge.

I could see that Laurent wanted Serge to follow him, but the banker stayed where he was, looking at me inquisitively while Laurent disappeared into the back office. He was gone for no more than a minute, Serge asking me during Laurent’s absence if I minded the rain, which we’d had all week, and who were the artists I’d been most influenced by?

“Gustav Klimt,” I said, “and my coexhibitor, Susan Kraut. Jacqueline Marval too.”

“Klimt, really?” said Serge. “But your work isn’t very much like Klimt’s.”

Laurent reappeared then, carrying my painting, which earlier in the day had been packaged for light travel and handling. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said, answering for me. “An influence is often like a spice in a stew that you do not know you are tasting, but without it, there would be no depth.”

Serge reddened slightly. “Yes, I suppose. You can see that I am not the artist in this room.”

I smiled. “You should be relieved about that.”

“Oh, I am,” he said, his grin foxy. “Bankers have almost no talent. We are only good at counting money.”

“Or losing it in bad investments,” said Laurent.

Serge paused. “Yes, some bankers do,” he said. “That is true.”

After Serge left, carrying off Vicky and Sheldon to their new home with Sofia, a revelation I was still reeling from a bit, Laurent presented me with a check for my percentage of the painting sales. It was more money than I’d ever been given at one time, but I tried not to ogle it. “This should make you happy for a little while,” he said, suppressing a smile.

I laughed. “Yes, for an hour or two at least.”

“What is the expression? Don’t spend it all in one place?”

“That’s the one,” I said. “I won’t. Two places, for sure. Maybe three.”

“Good,” he said. “Then you will be just fine.” He put his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.

“Thank you, Laurent. Thank you for everything,” I said.

“
C’est mon plaisir, ma chérie
. It is what I am here for.”

Within an hour after Serge left, it was time to close the gallery and go home. I had a big check in my handbag, money that I’d already decided to put away for the future. We rode home in a taxi, through the streets of the first and eighth arrondissements, and I stared out the window at the stone buildings already illuminated for the night ahead, at the people in their soft spring coats, some of them hatless and smiling to themselves in the light evening rain. I had tears in my eyes, joy washing over and through me. It was a temporary state of grace, this upwelling of suspense and happiness, but I knew that every feeling I’d ever had was and would be temporary.

About a week after Serge picked up
Vicky and Sheldon
at Vie Bohème, the intercom buzzed around nine o’clock. Laurent and I had finished dinner a half hour earlier, and he was now watching some news program while I worked in my studio on a painting I’d started a couple of weeks earlier, one of Jeanne-Lucie and Marcelle from a photo I’d taken at Place des Vosges the previous fall, Marcelle staring into the camera from where she stood a few inches in front of her mother. Jeanne-Lucie was looking to the left, toward what I remember to be a group of Japanese tourists, the men in dark suits, the women in hats and pretty silk dresses, all of them having just laughed in a loud, jubilant burst.

Laurent got up to answer the intercom, and I froze as I heard the cheerful, static-riven voice that charged into our apartment from the street: “C’est moi, Sofia.” Then a very short pause before she added, “Et Serge aussi.”

Laurent buzzed them in without a reply.

Above all else, I remember feeling irritated. I was not dressed to receive visitors, especially ones as beautiful as Sofia and her banker boyfriend. I stuck my brush in the jar of diluted solvent that I kept near the easel and called to Laurent, “Were you expecting them?”

“No,” he said. “I was not.” He did not sound bothered, though. When I went into the hall, I saw him still standing by the intercom, and he seemed only to be distracted, perhaps a little perplexed. He hadn’t yet changed out of his work clothes—a black cotton-and-silk shirt, slate-gray pants. He was in stocking feet and had made no move to put on the shoes he’d left in the hall by the door.

I was in jeans and the ratty blue T-shirt I frequently painted in. I felt resentful of Sofia for dropping by unannounced, and wondered if Laurent was lying, if he’d known they were coming but hadn’t thought to warn me, though I didn’t really think he had. I went into the bedroom and pulled off the T-shirt, flinging it onto the bed, before putting on another blouse. I chose a grape-colored V-neck, thin and close-fitting. I quickly looked in the mirror over the dresser and pulled my hair up higher in the clip I had subdued it with earlier.

Soon Sofia and Serge were ringing the doorbell and Laurent was letting them in, their laughter and greetings carrying down the hall as I came out of the bedroom. Sofia was wearing an emerald-green dress, and as she had on the night of my opening, expensive silver jewelry; she looked like a starlet, her face shining with almost belligerent good health, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the admiration of everyone who saw her. Serge was in jeans and a black sweater; he was also aglow—in his case, in the lone, bright light of Sofia’s regard. “We’re not going to stay,” she announced after I said hello and pretended to be happy to see her. “But I wanted to give this painting to you, Jayne. I made it just for you.” She offered me a small square brown-papered package.

I glanced at Laurent. He was looking at her, his face relaxed with pleasure, and although I tried, I couldn’t catch his eye. It all felt like an ambush, and I was so jealous of her, of the feelings Laurent obviously still had for her. At the same time, I hated myself for reacting this way and knew that I didn’t deserve his fidelity. It bothered me too that she didn’t seem at all threatened by me, even here, in what had become my home.

“You made me a painting?” I asked dimly.

Why? I thought, pulling off the package’s wrapping, all four of us silent. The thick paper was heavy and intractable in my hands.

Sofia’s painting was of a little black-and-auburn dachshund, its eyes deep brown and expressive, almost entreating. It was perfect—adorable, really—but how strange that its creator would think I would welcome her gift wholeheartedly, as if I had no idea of her history with Laurent.

“Her name is Madame Tussaud,” said Sofia. “She belonged to my grandmother. Laurent has told me that you like dachshunds. They are my favorite dogs too.”

“She’s beautiful,” I said slowly, not looking at Sofia. “But are you sure? You should sell this painting. Someone would probably pay a lot for it.”

She laughed. “Oh, no, no, no. Sometimes I like to paint for my friends. I love your painting, the one Serge bought for me, and I wanted you to have one of mine.”

There were, of course, six of her paintings in the hallway already, just beyond where we stood, but I didn’t mention that. She knew they were there.

“For your studio,” she said. “Or the bedroom?” She laughed, darting a look at Laurent. “The kind of dog that will not wake you up in the middle of the night.”

He laughed too. I looked at Serge, who was smiling, oblivious, it seemed, to any subtext.

“You will have to come and visit her,” said Laurent. “Maybe you can both come for dinner later this month. Jayne likes to cook.”

“Do you?” said Sofia. “I do too.”

Of course you do, I almost said. “I do like to cook, but I think we’d be better off going to a restaurant. I’m not sure I want to subject you to any of the new recipes I’ve been trying lately.”

Sofia nudged Serge’s side. “He will eat anything,” she said. “And I at least will taste anything.”

They left soon after this, refusing Laurent’s offer of a drink. They were going to see a movie, a new Almodóvar film. “Would you like to come too?” Sofia asked, looking at me before Laurent.

“No, but thank you for asking,” I said. “I should get back to work.”

“Oh, yes, go back to your work so that you can make me another brilliant painting,” said Sofia, her smile unforced.

After they left, I looked at Laurent for a long moment, waiting for him to say something for himself, but he only made a show of admiring Sofia’s painting of her grandmother’s dog. “Very meticulous and honest,” he said. “As always. Very nice of her to give it to you too, don’t you think?”

“I don’t understand why she would,” I said, exhausted by her clever act of one-upmanship, or whatever it was supposed to be.

“Sofia is your fan,” said Laurent, “and naturally, she hopes that you will like her work too.”

“There are six of her paintings here already,” I said.

“Yes, but this one is yours. The others are not.”

For a moment I considered leaving the apartment, going to Jeanne-Lucie’s, but even though I believed that she would have welcomed me, I did nothing but go down the hall and into the study. I thought of Colin in New York and wondered if he was thinking of me too, lying in his own bed—alone or with another woman. I knew that he could very well be seeing someone new—his bedside lamp off, the tiny basketball hoop perched like a bird of prey on the back of his door, his new girlfriend’s head against his shoulder.