She wraps one hand around Jeremy’s elbow and the other around Chantal’s arm. She maneuvers them toward her tent at the far end of the bridge. Only then does Jeremy realize that the skies have opened and the rain is pounding on them.
“Lindy!” he shouts. He feels a sudden panic, as if she has disappeared in the middle of this chaos.
“I’ll be there in a minute!” Lindy calls back.
Jeremy turns-she is right behind them and then she turns toward a young man with a clipboard and begins talking to him in French.
“Let’s get out of all this!” Dana shouts.
“All this” is the storm, the relentless grumble of thunder, the clatter of rain on the iron bridge, the movie people herding equipment in every direction. And Pascale is braying over the loudspeaker. Jeremy can’t understand a word she says.
Dana’s assistant opens the flap of the tent as if she’s been waiting all day to save her boss from the rain, and Dana shouts, “You’re a love!” as they rush through-first Dana, then Chantal, then Jeremy. The assistant follows them and leads Dana behind a screen, where she helps her out of her wet clothes. Jeremy knows the young woman-she’s been with Dana for a couple of years now. He likes her more than most, because this is all she wants-not her boss’s job, just this: to make her boss’s job a little easier. She’s a simple girl, and there aren’t many of those in the movie industry.
“Don’t say a word,” Dana says from behind the screen. “I know what you’re thinking. I know you’re horrified.”
“You’re horrified?” Chantal asks Jeremy.
“He’s horrified. I warned him. But still-I wanted you to come. Wait. Let me dry my hair. Go on, Elizabeth. Would you get them hot tea? I can do the rest.”
Elizabeth emerges from behind the screen. She hurries to a makeshift kitchen: hot pot, small fridge, all set up for a few hours’ shoot on a bridge in the middle of the Seine. Jeremy is still amazed by what the film industry can pull off-not only on the screen, but for the working lives of its stars.
“Is it the nudity?” Chantal asks Jeremy quietly. Does she not want Dana to hear? No, she is encouraging me to speak, Jeremy thinks. She knows that in a moment Dana might answer for me.
And oddly, he wishes Dana would answer for him. He doesn’t quite know why he’s so upset. It’s not the nudity-it’s the absurdity of the scene. It’s something else: It’s Dana.
“You would not do that,” Jeremy says to Dana as she steps from behind the screen, wrapped in a plush robe, a towel turban around her wet hair.
“What would I not do?” Dana asks.
“You would not sit there and watch them.”
“You don’t know my character,” she says simply.
“No one would watch them.”
“It’s a fantasy.”
“But it’s a playing-out of someone’s inner desires. To watch her husband and his lover? That’s absurd.”
“What would I do?” Dana asks.
“I don’t know,” Jeremy says quickly. “I guess-you’re right-I don’t know your character in this film.”
“What is she like, the role you play?” Chantal asks. She leans forward, eagerly taking it all in. For a moment, Jeremy had forgotten about her. They have switched to English. Chantal speaks perfect English! She has an American accent! Again, everything shifts in the kaleidoscope that is this young woman. I know nothing about her, Jeremy realizes. And I thought I-he stops his own thought. What did he think? That he wanted to sleep with her? That he wanted to love her? It seems ridiculous to him now. He’s as foolish as the man swinging his dick on the set.
Dana takes a teacup from her assistant and sips at it. “I play a wealthy American woman who has come to Paris with her husband. She shops while the husband has his business meetings. But at some point during the day she finds him strolling through the park with a young girl-”
“Who wrote this film?” Jeremy asks, interrupting her. His heartbeat is fast, his palms are damp. It’s clammy in this tent and the rain beats heavily on the canvas, creating a kind of hum like a beehive nearby.
“Claude,” Dana says. “The young man you met at dinner.”
“He’s a kid,” Jeremy snorts.
“A very bright kid.”
“What does he know about love?”
“You’re so funny, darling,” Dana says.
Jeremy looks at her, surprised.
She is smiling at him, her wide, gracious smile. She reaches out and touches his arm. “Not everyone knows love like we do.”
Jeremy is lost. He can’t find any words-in any language. His mind churns and comes up with nothing.
And then the flap of the tent flies open and Lindy dashes in, laughing.
“Oh my God, that was wild! Wild! How did that happen? I mean, the storm in the middle of the scene! It was like you planned it that way.” She shakes her body like a wet dog and water flies everywhere. She is radiant-the shine of her scalp seems to light up her face.
“And that girl on the bed,” Jeremy says. “That was pornography.”
“You’re still here,” Lindy says, staring at Chantal.
“Lindy-” Jeremy says.
Chantal stands. “I must go.”
“No,” Dana says. “She’s being rude. You’re my guest now. Please stay.”
Chantal looks at Jeremy. He nods. “No reason to leave,” he says weakly.
Chantal looks at her watch. “The lesson is over anyway. And I will be meeting two other tutors.”
“How do you speak English so well?” Jeremy asks.
“It is a long story,” Chantal says.
“I bet she had an American boyfriend,” Lindy says. “That’s the way to learn a language. In bed.”
Chantal smiles and her face flushes.
“I will walk you out,” Jeremy says.
“No need-”
“Please,” he insists.
She nods. She turns back to Dana. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she says in French. “Thank you for the opportunity to watch you work.”
Dana steps toward her. She kisses Chantal on both cheeks.
“You are a lovely girl,” she says. “I’m glad my husband had a chance to spend his week with you.”
Again, Chantal’s cheeks flush. She turns to Lindy.
“Why do I need luck?” Lindy asks.
Chantal just smiles.
She walks out of the tent and Jeremy follows.
The rain has stopped and the bridge is in the process of a remarkable transformation. A group of young men in black T-shirts that read Boss’s BOYS shovel sand on the wooden deck of the bridge. The bed is gone and someone has moved a palm tree into its place.
“Pascale has lost her mind,” Jeremy mutters.
Chantal laughs.
“This is like magic,” she says.
“I guess it is,” Jeremy says with a smile. “I’m a little too serious.”
“I like that,” Chantal says.
They are speaking French again-it is the language they have shared all week and Jeremy finds it hard to speak to her in English. He wishes she didn’t speak English at all; somehow that has changed things between them. If he gets stuck, he could have an out. But he didn’t know that all week. He just kept pushing on, into unfamiliar territory.
“You didn’t really need French lessons, you know,” Chantal says. “Your French is excellent.”
“But I needed you to guide me along the way,” Jeremy says as they walk away from the set and toward the
