I Am Having So Much Fun Without You (5 page)

Not only was I infuriated with Anne for keeping it a secret,
I was disgusted by the bourgeois stench of the entire thing. I'd always found Anne's snobbery charming and sexy; it amused me to think of her filthy-rich family whose perfect little princess was living a double life in Boston: exemplary paralegal by day, whiskey-drinking
suceuse
by night. But this was different. This was geographical. This was going to touch upon our life. If we did move back to Paris as we'd been discussing, her parents would be something else entirely, no longer a foreign entity to be mocked over mimosas, but legal in-laws: phone-calling, Sunday-­visiting, snooty, noisy in-laws with influence and authority over my new wife.

Initially, I loved the fact that we got married in a silo without giving the slightest thought to her family, my family, my country, hers. We were in love and we got married and the rest of the world could go shove it. But while I watched Anne sniffle over her untouched plate of chicken, I realized that our bubble was more fragile than I thought. We couldn't shut out the external factors forever. I started to wonder what would happen if and when we crossed the ocean. What side of Anne-Laure de Bourigeaud would greet me on her home turf?

After several tearful phone calls with her mother, two perforated round-trip plane tickets to Paris appeared, courtesy of the Bourigeauds. It was time to meet the in-laws.

 • • •

We planned our first official visit for a long weekend in October, and went straight from the Charles de Gaulle Airport to Anne's parents' place in Le Vésinet, thirty minutes outside of Paris. After a series of awkward cheek kisses and “nice to finally meet-you”s, we proceeded outside to the patio, where Madame had set up the aperitifs, skirting around the elephant in the garden by agreeing that it was, indeed, quite warm for October.

It quickly became clear to me that the Bourigeauds had spent the month before our arrival setting up a pros and cons list that must have looked a bit like this:

PROS (regarding Richard)

∙ speaks fluent French (without too much of an accent, according to Anne)

∙ has an appreciation for culture and the arts

∙ is European

∙ is loved deeply by Anne

∙ appears to love Anne back

∙ well-enough traveled

CONS (regarding Richard)

∙ will probably make no money in his chosen line of work

∙ comes from a modest family (probably with bad teeth)

∙ is a stranger (probably with bad teeth)

∙ is not French

∙ is not Catholic

∙ is not rich

I passed with flying colors through the first round of questions: the fact that my parents were on their fortieth year of marriage seemed to help my case a great deal, as did the fact that I spoke a rudimentary amount of Spanish, bringing my “spoken languages” tally up to three. But things got dicey when Alain de Bourigeaud inquired just what kind of artist I was.

“He's a
pop culturist
, Dad,” Anne said, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Like Houellebecq, but for visual art.”

I almost spit up my white Burgundy at the words
pop culturist
.

“Pop
politics
,” I ventured. “It's . . . I try to provoke thought.”

Both Alain and his wife, Inès, stared at me blankly, clearly expecting some kind of follow-up. But I couldn't think of a single work of mine that didn't make me sound spastic.

“He's putting together his thesis show now, actually,” went Anne. “About the rise and fall of popular figures? How one movement can lead to another movement, influence trends. Like, for example”—Anne put her hand on top of mine—“he has this series of Russian dolls that tracks the commoditization of the food industry all the way up to the cult of Martha Stewart?”

Her mother cocked her head. “How interesting. Who's that?”

Lunch passed without further incident, or rather, without any incidents at all, the mark of a successful luncheon in the Bourigeaud
maison
. When the final forkful of redfish was laid to rest on top of patterned china, Anne's mother suggested that Anne and she do the dishes before dessert. We'd had soup before the entrée, and a cheese and salad course after that—there were a
lot
of dishes to be done. I suspected that the time had come for me and Mr. B to have a little chat.

Sure enough, as the women began to clear the table, Monsieur asked if I wouldn't like to see their garden in more detail. (“Inès is simply a wizard with outdoor plants!”) I accepted, catching Anne's eye as I walked toward the door. She gave me a thumbs-up, an out-of-character gesture that reminded me of my RISD roommate, Toby, who used to flip me the same hand signal after his morning visits to the loo.

Once outside, I realized I'd best not beat around the bush. In fact, I wouldn't even circle it. Just jump right in there, Richard. There's a good dog.

“Monsieur Bourigeaud,” I began, in the rather dressed-up French I reserve for the old guard, “I'm sorry things turned out like this. I don't have as close a relationship with my family as
Anne does, so I wasn't thinking, really, of other people. I know we acted hastily. It's just—they don't like to fly?”

Mr. B threw a weed over the hedge into the neighbor's yard. “If Anne cared so much about her family, I think she would have thought to introduce us to you beforehand. Or at least invite us to the wedding. That might have been nice.”

I assured him that my own parents hadn't been invited either, an interruption he dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“Look, son, I don't know you well enough to decide whether I like you or not yet, but Anne certainly seems to, so I suppose that's good enough for now. But I want to get one thing straight: you need a job.”

Deeply rattled, I explained as calmly as I could that I didn't just sit around all day flinging paint upon the floor.

“I
sell
things, you know. In a proper gallery.”

“I'm sure of it. Surely. But you're both young, still. Anne's going to be a great lawyer, but she's got a lot to learn.” He reached down and tugged at another weed, treating me to a conciliatory view of his bald spot.

“If you do move back to Paris, we can help you get settled. I have lots of connections, friends who could be helpful, and I want Anne to be happy. I mean, that's all Inès and I want.” He rubbed his chin, as if deciding whether or not to pursue this line of thought. “I'm an art lover myself, Richard, and I hold a great deal of respect for the work. But until you've got an established name in the business, I'd love to see you aim for something to rely on, a predictable income from a respectable source. I imagine that's not too much to ask in exchange for her hand?” He clapped me on the shoulder with his manicured paw. “What do you think?”

Knowing full well that disagreeing would lead either to an imposed divorce, forced exile in England, or the disinheritance
of his only daughter, I agreed as, of course, I had to. Monsieur seemed genuinely pleased, and shouted out to the washerwomen inside that we'd be having digestifs with our café.

Upon our return, the changed energy between us was enough to signal that I had been accepted. Inès embraced me, and Anne smiled with weary gratitude. Inès launched immediately into the planning of our second wedding, insinuating that the first had simply been a rehearsal for what would certainly be the grandest, most unforgettable day of our lives.

“After all,” Madame added as she put out the saucers for coffee and cake, “everyone likes seconds!”

 • • •

That meeting with her parents was probably the first time I felt like there was someone other than Anne whom I couldn't disappoint. Nowadays, there are loads of people in my life to let down—my daughter, my gallerist, the baker at the
boulangerie
who looks absolutely crestfallen when I don't have exact change—but up until then, it had just been Anne and me. There were fewer expectations. There were so many fewer things to do
wrong
. We simply had to love each other and earn enough for an occasional dinner out. It was easy. Easy! Love was all there was.

But no one tells you what you start
doing
to each other when you wed. People talk about the stability and the comfort of knowing that you have someone who will always have your back; they speak of the convenience of pooled assets and tax benefits and the joy of raising children, but no one explains that six years into it, a simple request to
Pick up a half pound of ground turkey and maybe some organic leeks?
on your way home is going to send the free, blue sky crashing down like a pillory around your neck, see you clutching your paper number at the
butcher's, ashamed to be just another sucker bringing white meat home.

And no one tells you what it's going to feel like when the mystery is gone, or about the roots of repugnance that will twitch and rise inside you when you realize that your spouse has met the actual person behind each name in your phone's repertoire, that she knows exactly how much wine you've drunk on any given evening, knows when you are constipated, that she has stooped over to pull your graying chest hair from the drain, and that the familiarity between you has transformed from something comforting into something corrosive. You can't believe that you used to spend entire afternoons with your tongues inside each other's mouth. Can't remember when it started: the tit for tat, the scorecards, the bonus points and penalties for things promised and not done. No one explains that the busier you become with your careers and house and children, the more time you'll find to disappoint each other; squirreling away indignities like domestic accountants. Tallying regrets.

And after years of emotional stockpiling, no one said how you would find your way into another woman's body like an infant finding his thumb, how it would unclog the years of muck and allow you, on your walk home now, to stand in line at the butcher shop with your joy for life intact, appreciative and optimistic and tolerant of the old woman in front of you who can't decide between veal or chicken because why should she rush? The world is full of choices, each more delightful than the last.

Why is it called “cheating”? Is it all that bad? I married my lover, time turned her into my sister. Truly, badly, I want my lover back. But we've twisted each other with our unspoken failures and our building scorn. A near decade later, we're warped. We are polluted. The well of love is black.

5

BY THE
beginning of October, it was looking more and more likely that the British would join the United States in military action against Iraq. I was back at my favorite news kiosk, rifling through headlines inspired, apparently, by the lexicon of cowhands (
HE'S GOT 'EM, GO GET 'EM!
), trying to brainstorm ways I could develop an Iraq-themed project without coming across as a desperate opportunist, when I got a call from Julien that he needed to see me.

I found Julien in the gallery's storage closet, standing on his head. The watercooler next to him belched out a bubbly glug.

“Julien,” I said, blinking. “What the fuck.”

He bent one leg back and then the other, tucked his head against his kneecaps for several seconds before getting up.

“It's good for stress,” he said, dusting off. “Did you meet Bérénice?”

I confirmed my observation of the Toulousian receptionist but did not share the fact that I found her reception skills somewhat lacking, as she had neither greeted me nor offered to take my coat. “How long has she been here?”

“She just started, but already . . . here.” He pushed open the door for me so we could exit the closet. “Let's go to my desk.”

Julien's desk was less cluttered than usual. Whether this was for the benefit of his new intern or accomplished by the intern herself, I have no idea, but I do know that Bérénice was one of those girls with a really severe bird look to her. Instead of making herself busy while we talked, she sat there across the room from us, peering over with her freaky eyes.

“Bérénice, dear, do you think you could pop across the street for a bit and bring us back some sandwiches? Ham and cheese? And get one for yourself.”

Julien got up to deposit some euros on her desk, which she stared at for a while before unceremoniously stuffing them into the front pocket of her jacket.

“It's very strange,” Julien whispered, as she headed for the door. “She doesn't have a purse.”

Once she was gone, Julien shared with me the shake-up of the morning.

“This British fellow,” he said. “He wants you to bring the bear.”

“Sorry?”

“They want you to hand-deliver it, the painting. It's Bérénice that talked to them this morning, so of course I called them back and said she was new here and that we don't do deliveries by the artist and so forth, but . . . they're incredibly persuasive.”

“Wait, so you talked to this guy. A
guy.
”

“Yeah. The Dave fellow. They'll cover your travel expenses, plus a thousand euros.”

I crossed my arms and tried to make sense of it. And couldn't.

“But, why?”

“Apparently, they practice this New Age form of art collecting. He said it was part of the process that you deliver the work yourself.”

I got up and started pacing. “You have to agree, right, that this is a little too coincidental? Who else would want me to go all the way to
London
—and how am I going to do that, by the way, the thing's bloody gigantic—except for
her
?”

Julien picked something from his teeth. “I admit that it's unusual. It's definitely strange.”

“What if it
is
her? What would that mean?”

“I guess it would mean that she wants to see you again. And that she has an inordinate amount of free time. I don't know what to say. Do you think you'll do it? The guy says they might not buy it if you won't.”

I exhaled hugely and looked up at the ceiling that was yellowed from all the cigarettes that had been smoked beneath it.

“And when do they want me to do this?” I asked.

“I told them you had some time off coming up, over the Toussaint.”

“You suggested my
vacation
?”

“You'll be in Brittany,” he replied. “Just a ferry ride away. Bring your family with you. Visit your parents. Turn it into a vacay.”

“Right, fantastic. A reunion between my ex-mistress and my wife.”

“Well, you need to think about it. I told them we'd get back to them in two days.”

“Do
you
think it's Lisa?” I asked, sitting.

“I don't know,” he said. “I didn't. But now . . . I guess it might be.”

We sat in silence for a while; I worked on biting the nail of my thumb off, and Julien stuck his into the rubber tunnel created by his telephone cord.

After a while Bérénice came back with the sandwiches. Faux crab for Julien and some kind of grilled vegetable concoc
tion for me. She claimed—preposterously—that they were out of ham.

As we sat there eating lunch, thoughts about conspiracies trampled through my head. Why would the U.S. government go to such transparent lengths to prove that weapons of mass destruction existed when even their men on the ground said that they didn't? Why would any self-respecting
boulangerie
be out of ham baguettes at noon? What would I do if Lisa was the buyer? Could I really deliver a painting to her doorstep and take off without delving back into the horizontal and upright and other corporal positions that had gotten me into so much trouble in the first place?

“I wanted to tell you,” attempted Julien through a mouthful of baguette, “I have a potential buyer for that painting of the bikes. Which leaves me with, what's next? Do you have anything in mind?”

“Well, you're not going to like this,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “But I was thinking—and it's just thinking—about maybe doing something on Iraq?”

“Politics?” He frowned. “I don't know, Rich. I don't really think of you as a political guy.”

“But this is cops-and-robbers bullcrap,” I said. “It's a
farce
. Have you seen the headlines?”

“So, what—you want to do some paintings of George Bush on a stick horse?”

I laughed. “That's good, actually. But no. I was thinking,” I ran my hand down my pant leg, inventing an itch. “I was thinking that I might go back to installations.”

“An installation.” He grimaced. “About Iraq?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “I want to do something timely, you know? Something that has meaning. Something that doesn't have anything to do with all of this.” I swept my
hand out to encompass the key paintings in the room.

“But
politics
?” Julien protested. “That's not really your thing.”

“Well, it certainly
was
my thing before—”

“Or it's not your
clients'
thing. You've got a fan base now,” he continued. “Collectors. Or, collectors of a certain sort. People like your work. It's nostalgic. It looks good next to curtains.”

“Curtains,” I said, darkening. “You're serious.”

Equally miffed, he went into the storage room and returned with two cups of instant coffee and some sugar packets. I was feeling disrespected. I took two packets instead of my regular one. “Listen,” he continued, setting down the java, “you know I believe in you. But even the Damien Hirsts of the world understand that there is money in being consistent. His preserved sharks, his rotting cow heads, it's all coming from the same place of provocation and power. But he's not sentimental. You are. And you can't go from being sentimental and apolitical to being politically involved.”

“So you're saying I can't do art with an opinion?”

“Art with an agenda, no.” He drank his coffee in one shot. “Or rather, I'm saying you can't sell art with an agenda
here.
That's not what I rep you for. That's not why I took you. And that's not why most of the paintings in this show have sold.”

“But this is who I
am
, Julien; the key paintings were a lark.”

“They're a gift horse, Rich! You could do endless versions of them: former offices you've worked in, places you've vacationed, rooms in your childhood home. You've stumbled on a brand.”

“I need to do this
now
,” I said, lowering my voice. “I want to feel like I'm a part of something. I'd like to be respected.”

“Knowing that every painting here is going to sell doesn't make you feel that?”

I let my gaze drift down the hallway where
The Blue Bear
was hanging, massive and alone. Anne lied when she said she
didn't care if I tried to sell it, and I knew that, and I included it in the show anyway. And it had sold.

“I don't know,” I mumbled. “I just want Anne to like it.”

And there it was. Despite the genre of work that
The Blue Bear
represents, Anne had been proud of it because it reflected a real sentiment. A vulnerability. A stated fear. Up until the other key paintings, I'd taken on real topics, maybe not a
war
per se, but I had opinions on world issues that stemmed beyond the domestic questions that plagued my mind of late: Is there anything more dispiriting than boneless chicken under plastic? Was Camille going to turn into the kind of child who uses eye rolls instead of words? Would my wife forgive me? Beneath my posturing around the Iraq conflict and my quest to find a smart idea, part of me just wanted Anne to respect my work again.

 • • •

That night, Anne and I had a dinner party at the house of friends who had recently moved from Paris to Versailles. This was happening more and more now, the exodus of creative people in their thirties to suburbs they'd made vicious fun of ten years prior. The last time we'd been to Synneve and Thierry's, he'd dropped the word
wainscoting
into the conversation. Thierry might be a faithful husband, but he's started to think about decorative paneling in his spare time. By our midthirties, we're all fucked.

We'd gotten a babysitter for Camille, a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence that had us both in noticeably improved moods. The prospect of an entire night to be enjoyed with people who were over four feet tall coupled with the uninterrupted flow of traffic on the normally gridlocked A13 made the atmosphere in the Peugeot register at “cordial” instead of its default “tense.”

Anne had on her “special night” perfume, a heady mix of
bergamot and neroli, along with a silk rose blouse and wide-legged, wool pants with heels. Nervous about sharing the news that now, not only had I sold
The Blue Bear
, but as further penance, I also had to deliver it to London, I opted for a warm-up topic that was safe and flattering. I said I liked her shoes.

“Humph,” she scoffed. “They're old.” She pushed into fifth gear.

The unexpected lack of traffic wasn't leaving me much time. I stared at the passing high-rises out the window, television satellites clinging perilously to the grids of narrow balconies.

“So I've got news,” I said, my jaw tense. “About
the
Bear
.”

“Oh?” she said, downshifting. I thought I detected a note of hopefulness in her voice.

“I went to see Julien the other day, and it turns out . . . it's really strange, actually.” I fiddled with my seat belt. “They want me to deliver it. The buyers. They want me to bring it to London myself.”

I watched Anne's face take on an expression of incredulity I'd seen her use when she was presented with evidence that wouldn't hold up in court.

“Julien said it has something to do with the way they go about art collecting. I don't know, it's spiritual or some such.”

In reply, she sighed. “This doesn't sound right to me. In fact, it sounds absurd. Has he ever had a request like this before?”

“I don't think so,” I said, staring at my hands. “I didn't ask.”

“Well, what did you tell him?”

“Well, I told him—I told him . . . they're going to pay me, so I told him yes.”

She turned to look at me. “How much?”

I stalled. “A thousand.”

She laughed out loud. “That's ludicrous.”

“Plus expenses.”

“You can't be serious, Richard. Put things in perspective. You don't know these people, Julien doesn't either, you're going to have to trek across the Channel—”

“They've put a deposit down, I'm sure of it,” I said, not actually sure of that at all. “I just feel like . . . I mean, it's pretty fascinating, right? The request itself? Maybe I could document the trip or something.”

She rolled her eyes. “And when is this supposed to happen?”

“That's the thing, actually,” I said, with a little cough. “Over the Toussaint?”

“Oh, perfect!” she cried. “Do these people even exist? Or is this some kind of elaborate plan to get out of seeing my family?”

“Julien's thinking was that I'd be just a ferry ride away.”

“
Julien
thought this,” she said. “Right.”

“I don't know,” I said, slumping deeper into the car seat. “I kind of feel like I don't have a choice. I wouldn't go for long—take the ferry over, stay with my parents, drop the painting off, come back. I mean, you could always come with?”

“Oh, God, no,” she replied. “I want a real vacation. I don't want to spend sixteen hours on a
boat
.” She shook her head. “This is what happens when . . .”

She didn't need to finish her sentence. I knew that what she meant to say was that I never should have sold it.

“Do what you have to,” she said, switching lanes.

As we drove, I pictured what would happen if the buyer
was
Lisa. What it would mean if she had actually bought the painting—the position it would put me in, a pawn wedged in the bosom of flattery and despair. But as much as a large part of me wanted to see her again, to test whether or not I was still susceptible to her pull, I knew that if I went over there and Lisa
really was the buyer, it would be an irreparable betrayal of my wife. Again.