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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.
