lost interest. When everyone moved to solid sculpture (plastic, resin), he moved on to film, making Super 8 reels and blowing up the negatives as stills, drawing on them. A sentence in Paris Match about his work in a group show called it “more interesting than its surrounding pieces.” Not exactly a rave, but it could have been worse, coming from that critic, known as a poison pen.
And now he was back to painting, as though he had returned to the beginning of his career. He was reconvening schoolmates to create the camaraderie that didn’t exist the first time around. It felt like starting over.
Gabriel looked at the address Lise had written down for him. He had never really been to the neighborhood known only by its victory-arch landmark: La Défense. The streets were cleaner here, wider. No clochards begged for change; tourists were absent. The boulevard was filled with midrange prix fixe bistros, punctuated by an authentic-looking Japanese restaurant and an upscale Chinese noodle shop.
He should have brought his Paris de Poche. He wasn’t sure where to find the street, and surely none of the upper-class mothers pushing their prams would answer him, dressed as he was. He went back down into the métro to look up the street on the map.
As he walked, he wondered what Lise’s life must be like. He hadn’t quite guessed she’d be living such a bourgeois existence. How could you go from studying art at France’s most prestigious school to living this far outside the action? She had fallen victim, then, to the vicissitudes and trappings of success. That made sense. The fancy phone, the job at Ambrosine’s. It all fit into a neat little bobo package. Maybe she wasn’t embarrassed by him. Maybe she wanted him to come to her apartment to seduce her, to get a little excitement of the art world that her life now lacked.
There was an elevator attendant. That was rich; someone whose job was to press buttons all day. The cage rose slowly to the seventh floor. The attendant bowed as he held the door open. Gabriel stepped onto the landing and pulled the knocker on Lise’s front door, letting it fall back to its cradle.
A very small person answered the door. He was blond like Lise, with streaks of Nutella on his face. Behind him loud children’s music was playing: synthesizer piano and high-pitched melodies. A small white dog turned circles, yipping excitedly.
“Hello,” Gabriel said.
“Maman!” the child yelled.
Lise came around the corner, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Hey, Gabi, this is … Oh, for … Look at this.” She grabbed the little boy’s face and turned his head toward the door. “There are fingerprints on the door. Geraldine was just here. Go get a towel.”
The little boy ran off. Lise shook her head. “Come in, Gabi. I’m sorry if the place is a mess.” She used the slang word for mess: bordel, the same word that had so confused him when he first arrived in France and couldn’t figure out why everyone claimed to live in a whorehouse. The living room was spacious, a thousand shades of white, and smelled sweetly chemically of new paint. The furniture was modern alto disegno—Noguchi tables, Eames chairs, a Nelson Home desk, a Mies van der Rohe bench, as if she’d received a bulk discount at a modernist design store.
Reading his face, Lise laughed a little. “Giancarlo’s father was a design instructor at Iuav in Venice. He collected pieces.… Don’t make fun.”
“I wasn’t,” Gabriel said. “This is amazing.” He walked toward the window; the apartment looked over the Boulevard Maurice Barrès for a full view of the Bois de Boulogne. The white dog panted at his feet, pink tongue hanging too long out of its mouth. Gabriel toed it away with his shoe.
“Well?” Lise turned on a lamp next to the sofa. “Would you like coffee? I’ll make some.”
Gabriel nodded and Lise disappeared into the kitchen. He looked around the room. A dining table, flat-screen television with hidden wires, an intricately pocketed coffee table. He opened one of the drawers to find a remarkable remote-control collection. There were photos on the mantel of the vestigial fireplace. Gabriel crept closer to look at them.
Lise’s family at Euro Disney, at Chamonix, at someone’s house in the country. Gaggles of children piled in laps, smiling at the camera. Lise at someone’s wedding: A sister? A cousin? Early teenage years, dressed in a long, flowing pink gauze dress, arms folded, shoulders hunched forward