Chap­ter 25

Celia was shoot­ing a movie on loca­tion in Big Bear for three weeks. I knew that going with her wasn’t an option, nor was vis­it­ing her on the set. She insist­ed she would come home every week­end, but it felt too risky.
She was a sin­gle girl, after all. I was afraid the pre­vail­ing wis­dom erred too close to the ques­tion What do sin­gle girls have to go home to?
So I decid­ed it was the right time to go to France.
Har­ry had some con­nec­tions to film­mak­ers in Paris. He made a few calls on the sly for me.
Some of the pro­duc­ers and direc­tors I met with knew who I was. Some of them were clear­ly see­ing me just as a favor to Har­ry. And then there was Max Girard, an up-and-com­ing New Wave direc­tor, who had nev­er heard of me before.
“You are une bombe,” he said.
We were sit­ting in a qui­et bar in the Saint-Ger­main-de-Prés neigh­bor­hood of Paris. We hud­dled in a booth in the back. It was just after din­ner­time, and I hadn’t had a chance to eat. Max was drink­ing a white Bor­deaux. I had a glass of claret.
“That sounds like a com­pli­ment,” I said, tak­ing a sip.
“I don’t know if I have before met a woman so attrac­tive,” he said, star­ing at me. His accent was so thick that I found myself lean­ing in to hear him.
“Thank you.”
“You can act?” he said.
“Bet­ter than I look.”
“That can­not be so.”
“It is.”
I saw Max’s wheels start turn­ing. “Are you will­ing to test for a part?”
I was will­ing to scrub a toi­let for a part. “If the part is great,” I said.
Max smiled. “This part is spec­tac­u­lar. This part is a movie-star part.”
I nod­ded slow­ly. You have to restrain every part of your body when you are work­ing hard not to look eager.
“Send me the pages, and we’ll talk,” I said, and then I drank the last of my wine and stood up. “I’m so sor­ry, Max, but I should go. Have a won­der­ful evening. Let’s be in touch.”
There was absolute­ly no way I was going to sit at a bar with a man who hadn’t heard of me and let him think I had all the time in the world.
I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away, but I walked out the door with all the con­fi­dence I had—which, despite my cur­rent predica­ment, was quite a lot. And then I went back to my hotel room, put on my paja­mas, ordered room ser­vice, and turned on the TV.
Before I went to bed, I wrote Celia a let­ter.

My Dear­est CeCe,
Please nev­er for­get that the sun ris­es and sets with your smile. At least to me it does. You’re the only thing on this plan­et worth wor­ship­ping.
All my love,
Edward

I fold­ed it in half and tucked it into an enve­lope addressed to her. Then I turned out my light and closed my eyes.
Three hours lat­er, I was awak­ened by the jar­ring sound of a phone ring­ing on the table next to me.
I picked it up, irri­tat­ed and half asleep.
“Bon­jour?” I said.
“We can speak your lan­guage, Eve­lyn.” Max’s accent­ed Eng­lish rever­ber­at­ed through the phone. “I am call­ing to see if you would be free to be in a movie I am shoot­ing. The week after next.”
“Two weeks from now?”
“Not even, quite. We are shoot­ing six hours from Paris. You will do it?”
“What is the part? How long is the shoot?”
“The movie is called Boute-en-Train. At least, that’s what it is called for now. We shoot for two weeks in Lac d’Annecy. The rest of the shoot you do not need to be there.”
“What does Boute-en-Train mean?” I tried to say it the way he said it, but it came out over­processed, and I vowed not to try again. Don’t do things you’re not good at.
“It means the life of the par­ty. That is you.”
“A par­ty girl?”
“Like some­one who is the heart of life.”
“And my char­ac­ter?”
“She is the kind of woman every man falls in love with. It was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten for a French woman, but I have just decid­ed tonight that if you will do it, I will fire her.”
“That’s not nice.”
“She’s not you.”
I smiled, sur­prised at both his charm and his eager­ness.
“It is about two men who are pet­ty thieves, and they are on the run to Switzer­land when they are dis­tract­ed by an incred­i­ble woman they meet on the way. The three of them go for an adven­ture in the moun­tains. I have been sit­ting here with my pages, try­ing to decide if this woman can be Amer­i­can. And I think she can. I think it’s more inter­est­ing that way. It is a stroke of luck. To meet you at this time. So you will do it?”
“Let me sleep on it,” I said. I knew I was going to take the part. It was the only part I could get. But you nev­er get any­where good by seem­ing amenable.
“Yes,” Max said. “Of course. You have done nudi­ty before, yes?”
“No,” I said.
“I think you should be top­less. In the film.”
If I was going to be asked to show my breasts, wouldn’t it be for a French film? And if the French were going to ask any­one, shouldn’t it be me? I knew what got me famous the first time. I knew what it could do a sec­ond time.
“Why don’t we dis­cuss it tomor­row?” I said.
“Let’s talk tomor­row morn­ing,” he said. “Because this oth­er actress I have, she will show her breasts, Eve­lyn.”
“It’s late, Max. I’ll ring you in the morn­ing.” And I hung up the phone.
I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, con­sid­er­ing both how beneath me this oppor­tu­ni­ty was and how lucky I was to be giv­en it. It’s a hard busi­ness, rec­on­cil­ing what the truth used to be with what the truth is now. Luck­i­ly, I didn’t have to do it for very long.

Two weeks lat­er, I was back on a film set. And this time, I was free of all the but­toned-up, inno­cent-girl stuff that Sun­set had pinned on me. This time, I was able to do what­ev­er I want­ed.
It was clear for the entire shoot that Max want­ed noth­ing more than to pos­sess me him­self. I could tell by the way he looked at me in stolen glances that part of my allure to Max the direc­tor was my allure to him as a man.
When Max came to my dress­ing room on the sec­ond-to-last day of film­ing, he said, “Ma belle, aujourd’hui tu seras seins nus.” I had picked up enough French by then to know he was say­ing he want­ed to shoot my scene com­ing out of the lake. When you’re an Amer­i­can movie star with huge boobs in a French movie, you quick­ly learn that when French men are say­ing seins nus, they are talk­ing about you being top­less.
I was ful­ly will­ing to take my top off and show my assets if that was what it took to get my name back out there. But by that point, I had fall­en mad­ly in love with a woman. I had grown to desire her with every fiber of myself. I knew the plea­sure of find­ing delight in a woman’s naked body.
So I told Max I’d shoot it how­ev­er he want­ed but that I had a sug­ges­tion that might make the movie even more of a sen­sa­tion.