The Idea of You: A Novel

In October, there was Paris.

Lulit and I went each year for the FIAC art fair, which typically overlapped with my birthday. When Hayes proposed to join us, I did not decline. That he was so intent on making it memorable awed me. The way he scheduled his TAG Heuer photo shoot to coincide. The way he booked the penthouse at the Four Seasons Hotel George V and insisted I stay with him instead of at the apartment in the 17th that we typically rented. The way he upgraded my and Lulit’s tickets from business class to first without either of us being the wiser—a lovely surprise greeting us at the Air France check-in. “I wanted you to be well rested when you arrived,” he cooed later, over Dom Pérignon in our hotel room. It was the most indulgent working holiday that I could recall, filled with wine and art and turning leaves. And like all time spent with Hayes, it passed too quickly.

He arrived from London Tuesday evening, hours after I did, having just returned from four days in the Dolomites, where the guys were shooting the music video for “Sorrowed Talk,” their planned first release from Wise or Naked.

“I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,” he gushed. He was lying beside me, postcoital, propped up on one elbow, his fingers tracing my cheekbone.

And to me, it was clear: he was falling.

“I can’t do these long breaks. I think you’re going to have to quit your job, sell your gallery, and just travel around with me for the next few years.”

I laughed at that. “And what am I supposed to do with my daughter?”

He shrugged, smiling. “Daniel? Boarding school? I suppose we could always get her a room, hire her a proper tutor…”

“Yes, that sounds doable.”

“Truly. What thirteen-year-old girl wouldn’t want to come on tour with August Moon?”

“What mother in her right mind would allow her thirteen-year-old girl to go on tour with August Moon?”

“Hmm … Point taken.”

I saw Isabelle’s face clearly then as she bade me farewell the previous morning. Her wide blue eyes, her sweet smile. Clueless. She’d made me a card: “Have the Happiest Birthday ever!”

And I knew, no matter how delicately the news was delivered, it was going to shatter her.

I was going to shatter her.

Hayes was smiling, his fingers outlining my lips. “So plan A, then … Daniel? That’s not an option, I take it?”

“That’s not an option.”

“What if I quit the band?”

His voice was soft, so soft I was afraid to acknowledge it. For a moment, the two of us lay there in silence. The question hanging in the air. And then, without saying more, he rolled into me, kissing the corners of my mouth, his hand at my neck, my throat.

“I need more of you.”

“I don’t know that there’s more of me to give.”

“That’s not a good enough answer.”

I smiled, my legs wrapping around his waist, my hands in his hair. “What is it you want from me, then?”

He positioned himself. We’d become lax with the condoms. “Everything.”

*   *   *

I spent all Wednesday with Lulit on the second floor of the Grand Palais, where our booth was situated for the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain. The VIP viewings began at ten a.m., and from that moment on our day was jammed with esteemed collectors and dignitaries, the crème de la crème of the art world. Each visitor slightly more fabulous and well-heeled than the next, speaking myriad languages, all slightly high in the presence of art. And once again I was reminded why I loved what I did. Because to be surrounded by such varied, intriguing types—to be a part of a community where it was admired for bending, nay, expected to bend the rules—was, for me, to be at home.

Hayes spent his day in a studio shooting portraits with a watch.

On day two of the fair, the first day it was open to the public and no fewer than 18,000 visitors filed through, Hayes’s shoot ended early, and he surprised me by dropping by the Grand Palais shortly after five. In a world of iPhones and texts, it was such a shock to see him pop into our booth unannounced, it took a full three seconds to register who this handsome stranger was, and it made me wonder how others saw him. His notable height, his hair, his eyes, his jaw, his broad mouth; black jeans, black boots, and a three-quarter-length dark suede coat. Even if he weren’t famous, he’d be difficult to overlook. And the fact that for this moment he was mine …

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see what you do when I’m not with you … And I thought perhaps you might like some macarons.” He smiled, proffering a Ladurée bag.

I hugged him then. Tightly. And in that brief moment I did not care who saw us. Or what they might have thought. “You know, you’re acting suspiciously like a boyfriend.”

He laughed at that. “As opposed to…?”

“As opposed to someone who just ‘really, really, really’ enjoys my company.”

“Ha!”

Lulit approached us from across the booth where she’d been communicating with a Chinese collector. “Well, to what do we owe this great honor?” She kissed him in the double-sided French way, and with her it did not look awkward.

“I thought I’d see what the hullabaloo was about.”

“But the lines must be crazy. Did they make you wait in line?”

Hayes shook his head, an amused expression on his face. As if he’d ever in his life had to wait in line for anything.

“Thank you, again, for your very generous upgrade.”

“You’re quite welcome. And I brought macarons. You’re to share them.” That last part he directed at me.

“You’re not rushing off, are you?”

There had been nonstop foot traffic at the fair all day, but that late in the afternoon there was a bit of a lull and so I offered to give Hayes a quick tour, starting with our booth: the canvases by Nira Ramaswami, the sculptures by Kenji Horiyama, the mixed-media works by Pilar Anchorena. At turns haunting, inspired, political.

Anders Sørensen, our long-standing art preparator who was responsible for installing our fair booths, had flown in from Oslo at the beginning of the week to set up. We’d sold seven pieces alone during the private viewing, and Anders had already rotated out the sold works and reinstalled the booth. If we managed to sell all eighteen pieces that we’d shipped for FIAC, it would be a banner week. I explained all this to Hayes.

“So your mission here is to sell as much art as possible?”

“It’s not just about the sales.” We were circling the corridors of the second floor, surveying the other midsized galleries. “The fairs are an opportunity to make connections, see what new artists are emerging, how their work is being received. And it’s great exposure for our artists and the gallery. Not all those who apply get in.”

“Who decides where they put your booth?”

“There’s a committee. The larger, blue-chip galleries are always on the main floor. Better foot traffic.”

“Is that something you aspire to? A larger gallery?”

I smiled up at him. I loved that he had questions. I loved that he cared.

Daniel had never been fond of the art world. The proverbial camel’s back had broken four years earlier at MOCA’s annual gala, The Artist’s Museum Happening, where he was content to schmooze with the likes of Brian Grazer and Eli Broad but had little desire to peruse the actual exhibit. When I’d asked him what he thought of the show, he’d swilled his wine and said it was “overrated and self-indulgent,” and I wondered how I’d managed to marry someone so fundamentally different from me. I’d spent that evening fighting back tears and knowing it was over.

“I kind of like where we are,” I said to Hayes now. “If we had an operation like that, we’d have additional gallery spaces in New York, London, Paris, or Japan. Not so easy to manage as a single mom.”

He thought about that for a moment but said nothing.

We descended to the main level. There was so much I wanted to show him, so many spaces and bodies to navigate, that even in three-inch Saint Laurent booties, I was moving fast.

“Don’t lose me,” he said at one point, reaching for my hand. But when he gauged my reluctance, he dropped it and laughed. “We’re going to discuss this eventually. But just … don’t lose me. There are a lot of people here.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

There were a lot of people, although very few in his target audience and so I assumed he would be safe. But I did not know what it felt like to be him, to imagine that at any moment the throng could change and that panic might ensue, especially in the absence of a Desmond or a Fergus. I had no clue what it was to live with that reality.

I slowed my pace and walked beside him, and tried not to think about how people perceived us. Assuming they were paying attention at all. But the thought occurred that maybe we did not have to be holding hands. Maybe our chemistry was palpable enough.

“Are you going to show me what you love?” he asked.

“I’m going to show you what I love.”

I led him to two stunning works by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The New Planet, a large rotating steel-and-colored-glass oloid. And Dew Viewer, a cluster of myriad silver crystal spheres creating multiple reflections. Both mesmerizing, memorable.

“There’s quite a lot of us in there,” Hayes whispered into my ear before the Dew Viewer installation. “All the little Hayeses and Solènes … like two hundred, at least.”

“At least.”

“I like us multiplied,” he said, soft.

“I’m not sure what you’re insinuating.”

“Nothing.” He smiled. “Nothing at all.”

*   *   *

On the way back through the main corridor, we popped into Gagosian, where I introduced Hayes to my friend Amara Winthrop. It was Amara I’d met for breakfast at the Peninsula the morning August Moon did the Today show and made me and everyone else in midtown Manhattan fifteen minutes late. But if she recognized him there in the Grand Palais, she did not let on. Even though I’d used his first and last name and presented him as my “friend.” Not my “client.” I was trying it on for size.

“You’re looking fabulous, as usual.”

I watched as Amara reconstructed her chignon. She wore a fitted peplum blazer over a pencil skirt. The tailoring impeccable, likely British. In grad school, she was the blonde from Bedford Hills who’d intimidated us all.

“Yes … well, you know the drill: multiple degrees, and it still all comes down to your legs. But must sell art, right?”

I smiled at that. Lulit and I had lamented the same on numerous occasions. “Yes. Must sell art.”

“You’re still coming to dinner tonight, yes?”

“I am.”

“Dinner?” Hayes cocked his head.

“I told you about it. It’s my one business dinner this week.”

“I think I conveniently forgot.”

There were two young women, early twenties, circling one of the John Chamberlain sculptures near the front of the booth. It was clear to me they’d recognized Hayes, as they’d kept sneaking looks in our direction. Hayes managed to ignore it.

“She keeps abandoning me,” he told Amara. Which pretty much laid out … everything.

She took a second to compute and then responded, “Well, then, you should come.”

He looked to me, a wry smile forming. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

“Pardon.” One of the young women finally made her approach. “Excusez-moi, c’est possible de prendre une photo? We can take a picture?”

“De l’art? Oui, bien sûr,” Amara replied.

“Non. De lui. Avec Hayes.” She had that adorable way the French had of not pronouncing the H. “You can take a picture with us, ’Ayes, please?”

Hayes obliged them, while Amara looked on, visibly confused. And when he returned to the conversation with “So, tonight…” as if posing for photos with total strangers who knew his name was not completely out of the ordinary, Amara stopped him.

“Oh. You’re somebody, aren’t you?”

“Somebody? Yes.” He smiled.

“Okay, I’ll figure it out. But yes, you should come. It’s a fun bunch. Bring him.” She turned to me before looking back toward my “somebody.” “Make her bring you.”

*   *   *

We had a late reservation at Market on Avenue Matignon. There were ten of us, and they gave us the large table in the back room. It was secluded, sleek, warmly lit. And following a dalliance and a shower at the hotel, I was happy Hayes had joined us. I feared he might be slightly out of his element. But surely all that fine breeding and three years as a world-class celebrity had to amount to something.

When we were still dressing at the George V, I received an amusing text from Amara:

Just googled your boy toy. WTF? How’d you swing that??? If you don’t want to come out with us old artsy-fartsy types, I will totes understand. I probably wouldn’t either. But I’m going to need details later. Many. Xoxo

But at the restaurant, she maintained her discretion. It was a lively group: Amara; Lulit; Christophe Servan-Schreiber, who owned galleries in Paris and London; the painter Serge Cassel, one of Christophe’s artists; Laura and Bruno Piagetti, collectors from Milan; Jean-René Lavigne, who was with Gagosian’s Paris outpost; Mary Goodmark, an art consultant from London; and us.

There was more wine than I could keep track of, and we were loud. The Italians especially. Hayes and I sat on the banquette side of the table, our backs to the window, flanked by Christophe, Lulit, and Serge. He managed to hold my hand the entire night. And I did not stop him.

“So how do you know Solène?” Christophe asked my date. We’d been there for the better part of an hour and were working our way through the shared appetizers: scallop tartare with black truffles and black-truffle-and-fontina pizza. Half of the table was discussing the sale of an Anish Kapoor the previous day for an alleged two million dollars. The others were trading war stories of art fairs past, Mary and Jean-René filling us in on what we’d missed at Frieze London. Which left Hayes fielding questions from the revered art dealer.

He grinned, turning toward me. “Solène”—his voice was deep, raspy, full of innuendo—“how do I know you?”

His fingers slipped between my knees then, and I could feel myself getting wet. It took so little with him.

He smiled and turned back toward Christophe. “We’re very good friends.”

“Are you a student?”

“No,” he laughed.

“An artist?”

Hayes shook his head. “A budding collector.”

“Have you seen anything special yet at the fair?”

“Hmm.” Hayes contemplated for a bit, and I feared he’d retained nothing from this afternoon. “The Basquiats were particularly compelling,” he said finally. “Angry, deranged. But he always seems to be that way, doesn’t he? His demons evident in his work.

“There were a couple pieces in Solène’s booth by Nira Ramaswami that I was quite keen on. Very poetic. Melancholy. And the Olafur Eliasson installations. You could lose yourself in those. Truly…”

If I could have buried myself in his lap and sucked his dick right then and there, I would have. Who was this person, and what had he done with my art neophyte? At best, I had expected him to regurgitate some of my interpretations, but these were all his own thoughts.

“Sì, mi piace molto. I love this, the Basquiat,” Laura spoke up from across the table. “How you can feel … il dolore. Come si dice?” She turned to Bruno beside her, her black bob swinging. Laura had alabaster skin and generous lips. She wore a gorgeous tomato-red dress, its deep neckline showcasing her swan-like throat.

“Pain,” Bruno said. He was older than Laura, more salt than pepper, with a distinct jaw and a villa on Lake Como.

“Sì. You feel the pain. I love.”

“I don’t need to feel the pain,” Lulit contributed. “I appreciate that most artists are a little crazy—no offense, Serge—but I don’t always need to feel that in the work. Sometimes I just want to look at it and be happy.”

“Like Murakami,” I said, “in certain doses.”

“Like Murakami, yes.” She smiled. “There’s so much negativity in the world, sometimes I need art to just lift me.”

Hayes was swishing his Cabernet Sauvignon around in his glass, in a manner that was slow, hypnotic. “Maybe there is pain in Murakami’s work, but we just don’t feel it because it’s his minions who carry out his genius.”

We all turned to look at him then, intrigued.

“What is it you do?” Christophe asked. He had one of those accents you could not quite put your finger on. A French father, British mother, Swiss boarding schools. An international soup, quite common in the art world.

“I’m a singer-songwriter. I’m in a band.”

“What kind of music?”

“Pop, mostly.”

Serge, Jean-René, and Lulit had continued on the negativity thread and begun discussing the disturbing rise of anti-Semitism in France over the past year and the large number of Jewish people who were migrating as a result.

“C’est horrible,” Jean-René said, leaning in from his far end of the table. “C’est vachement triste, et ça va continuer à se dégrader, c’est sûr. Si personne ne fait rien, ne dit rien … On va attendre jusqu’à quand? Comme la fois précédente? Non, pas question!”

“Pop music, that’s nice,” Christophe continued, ignoring the weight of the conversation at hand. “And do you have gigs?”

“I do. We do.” Hayes nodded.

“And do you play … what … like clubs?”

Amara spoke up from across the table. “Oh, Christophe, he’s humoring you. Hayes is in that pop group August Moon. They’ve sold a gazillion albums and have quite a following. Of teenage girls mostly.”

“That is you! I thought it was you!” Mary nearly spit out her wine. “I saw you boys on Graham Norton the other day. You were so charming. You made all the girls so happy. My nieces are going to flip.”

“Really?” Christophe was amused. “Are you famous? Is he famous, Solène?” He leaned across to me.

“In certain circles,” I said, squeezing my date’s hand.

“But clearly not this one,” Hayes laughed.

“Boy bands are like the Murakami of the music world.” Amara grinned, pleased with her observation. “No one focuses on the pain behind the genius. We can just look at you and be happy…”

Hayes contorted his face for a moment. “In certain doses?”

“In all doses.” She smiled.

“Thank you for that. That was awfully kind. I think…”

She nodded, sipping from her Vittel. “There’s a lot of good in what you do. You wouldn’t have that following otherwise. I mean teen girls and all their angst and craziness, that is the most difficult age to make happy…”

“Besides middle-aged women,” Mary added.

“Besides middle-aged women,” Amara laughed, “and you’ve clearly cornered the market.”

“No pressure,” he chuckled.

I squeezed his hand again. It was good for him to hear that his art was appreciated, especially in this judgmental crowd. Although, in truth, it probably should have come from me.

“And how do you know so much about art?” Christophe continued.

Hayes smiled, his hand sliding to my knee again. “I have an exceptional teacher…”

*   *   *

I could not get him home fast enough. I could blame it on the wine, on Paris, on him spouting informed opinions on Murakami and Basquiat, but in the end it might have just been the knowledge of what he was capable of. Of the magic I felt when I was with him.

“You were so charming, Hayes. You made all the girls so happy…”

We were in the elevator en route to the eighth floor when I quoted Mary, pressed fully against him, my mouth on his neck.

“I did. I do.”

“Why don’t you show me … how you make the girls so happy?”

He chuckled, salacious. “Here?”

“Here.” My hand slipped in the opening of his coat, finding his belt.

“No.”

“No?” It was not a word I was used to hearing from him.

“There are cameras here.”

I looked up into the corners of the elevator. He was right. And it struck me, the idea that I’d never given them much thought, and that Hayes had a very different awareness of privacy.

“I assume you don’t want your daughter seeing how I make you happy.”

“No. Probably not.”

*   *   *

“Are there cameras here?” I asked when we’d reached our floor and were approaching the door to the penthouse.

He was fumbling in his pockets for the key card. “Typically, yes.”

“That’s too bad, then.” My hands found their way back to his belt, quickly unfastening it, the clasp of his pants, his zipper.

“Fuck,” he laughed, grabbing my wrist. “Was it something I said? Was it the truffles?”

“Yes.” My fingers slid into the front of his pants. Hayes and his perfect dick. “The truffles.”

“Fuck,” he repeated, closing his eyes. We remained there for a moment, in front of our closed door, me jerking him off in our semi-private hallway of the George V. Cameras be damned.

“You’re going to get us into trouble.”

“I am?”

“You are.” He stopped me finally, brandishing the key card and pulling me inside.

Hayes shut the door behind us and threw me up against the wall, hard. “Where were we?”

“Truffles.”

“Truffles.” His mouth was on mine as he wrestled off my coat. His hands moving over the surface of my dress, hiking up the hem.

“I wasn’t done.”

“Weren’t you?”

I shook my head, freeing myself from his grip, dropping to my knees in the narrow foyer.

We didn’t even make it to the living room.

“Bloody hell…” His hands were in my hair, his coat still on, his pants around his calves. Hayes, in his happy place.

But as much as I’d come to adore his reaction, as much as I’d come to adore him, I hated that the act gave me so much time to think. And always my mind went to dark places. What the hell was I doing with someone so young? And how in God’s name had I ended up here, on my knees in a five-star hotel, sucking some guy in a boy band’s dick? And dear Lord, please don’t ever let my daughter do this. The things you never see coming.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Solène.” He stopped me before he came, pulling me up from the floor and pinning me once again to the wall. “Is this what Paris does to you? We’re going to need to come here more often…”

“I’m okay with that.”

“I can tell,” he slurred, his fingers sliding into my panties, sliding into me, easy. “Fu-uck.”

“That’s an awful lot of ‘fucks.’ Even for you.”

He smiled, peeling off my underwear. “Are you counting?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t.”

He did three things seemingly at once then—lifted me off the floor, thrust his dick inside me, and placed his wet fingers in my mouth—and suffice it to say, I forgot every dark thought I had had two minutes prior.

*   *   *

Somewhere in the throes of it, with my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and my dress twisted and bunched around my torso, I came to the realization that in all our years together Daniel had never fucked me like this. Not even in the beginning. He wasn’t this strong, he wasn’t this big, he wasn’t this uninhibited, and he certainly wasn’t this passionate. And I got the feeling that for all Hayes and I had already done, there was still so much more of him he had yet to reveal.

We came. And I had a vague awareness of hearing myself cry out and him pressing his fingers against my lips before we fell to the floor.

“Fuck.” He was laughing, lying prostrate in the foyer. His pants still around his ankles, his coat and shirt and boots still on.

“What’s so funny?” I crawled on top of him to kiss his dimples, to feel his warmth.

“You. You. Are. Loud. Mrs. ‘I’ve Never Been a Screaming Girl.’”

I was still catching my breath. “Did I say that?”

He nodded, his eyes closed. “In New York. At the Four Seasons.”

“How do you remember that?”

“I told you: I remember everything.”

He was quiet for a moment, his hand playing in my hair.

“And now I’m always going to remember how much fucking noise you made at the Four Seasons in Paris.”

I laughed. “Great.”

He nodded again, drowsy. “It was great. It was better than great. I like you loud. Happy Early Birthday, Solène Marchand…” He drifted off for a second, and when I kissed him, he whispered, “I’m falling in love with you. I’m just going to put that out there, because I can. Because you told me I couldn’t if I was sleeping with anyone else, and I’m not, so there you have it…”

“Shhh.” I put my finger over his mouth. “You’re talking in your sleep.”

“I’m not sleeping,” he said, his eyes still closed.

We were quiet for a long time, there on the floor, until I could feel his semen seeping out of me, dripping between my thighs. All the little Hayeses and Solènes …

“How do you suddenly know so much about art, Hayes?”

For a moment he didn’t respond, and I was certain he’d passed out, but then he smiled, faint. “I read a book.”

“You read a book?”

He nodded. “Seven Days in the Art World. I thought I should probably learn something about what you do…”

And in that instant I was thankful that he was half asleep. Because asleep, he could not see me cry.

*   *   *

On Sunday, after two full days of killing time, Hayes became restless.

“Please stay,” he begged from his position strewn across the bed, where he was watching me dress for my fifth and final day at the fair.

It was a quarter after eleven, and I had to be at the Grand Palais by noon. “You’ll have me all day tomorrow. Promise.”

“Not good enough. I want you now.”

I laughed, zipping my skirt. “Again?”

He smiled, resting his cheek on his folded arms, his hair fluffy and in disarray, a pair of black Calvin Klein boxer briefs his only attire. “I just want to be around you. Don’t go. Please.”

I finished putting on my earrings and Hayes’s borrowed watch before making my way over to him, cradling his face in my hands. “You are very, very, very irresistible. You know this. But I have to work. Please respect that.”

He lay there, allowing me to muss his hair and kiss his lips, without responding.

“I’ll text you later, okay? Okay?”

He nodded. This was Hayes, vulnerable.

*   *   *

That afternoon the Grand Palais felt slightly more cavernous than usual, and I could sense it in the air: the end of a beautiful thing. We had two pieces remaining unsold, and Lulit and I were already talking about Miami in December. The installation, the parties … It wasn’t quite half past three when I looked up to find Hayes striding into our booth.

“Do you know what today is?” he began the conversation. No greeting, no kiss.

Lulit and I exchanged looks.

“Sunday? October twenty-sixth? The last day of the fair?”

“It’s the last day of your thirties,” he said.

“Shhh,” Lulit laughed. “No one says that stuff out loud.”

“Sorry. It’s true…” He paused while a French couple who’d been admiring one of the Kenji Horiyama sculptures exited the booth. “So…” he continued, making his way over to me, “I’m taking her.”

“You’re what?” Lulit said.

“I’m taking her,” Hayes repeated, his hand encircling my wrist. “May I take her? I’m taking her.”

“Hayes, I’m working.”

“She’s working.”

“It’s your birthday, it’s Paris.” His angelic face broke my heart just a little.

“I know and I appreciate that, but we have all day tomorrow. We have tonight.”

“If I buy something, will that make a difference?” His eyes were scanning the walls.

“I don’t want you to do that.”

“What if I want to do that?”

“I don’t want you to do that,” I repeated.

Lulit caught my eye then, and the expression I read on her face left me cold. She was entertaining his offer. Knowing full well that he would go to extremes to close the deal. Her eyes said it all: Go. Sell. Art. To rich white men.

“No.” I shook my head.

“What’s still available?” He turned to Lulit. “She said there were still two left. Which ones are they?”

“There’s a Ramaswami. And one of Kenji’s sculptures.”

“Which Ramaswami?” he asked, and Lulit gestured accordingly.

Nira Ramaswami’s work, typically oil on canvas, detailed the plight of women in her native India. Forlorn figures in fields, young girls at the side of a road, trusting brides on their wedding day. Stirring, passionate, dark eyes and solemn faces. They had always been compelling, but the Delhi gang rape in December 2012 brought about a surge of interest in the subject matter and she was suddenly in high demand.

“This one?” Hayes’s eyes lit up. “I like this one.”

Sabina in the Mango Tree.

“It’s not cheap.”

“How not cheap is it?”

“Sixty,” Lulit said assertively.

“Thousand?”

“Thousand. Euro.”

“Fuck.” Hayes paused. His eyes going from Lulit to the painting. Of all Nira’s pieces in the fair, it was the most uplifting, hopeful.

His hand was still encircling my wrist. “If I buy it, will you let me take her?”

“No. Hayes, do not. I’ll be done at eight.”

“Will you let me take her?” he repeated to Lulit.

She inclined her head, ever so subtly.

“Good. Done.”

“Hayes, you’re being ridiculous. I’m not going to let you do this.”

“Solène. It’s already done.”

I stood there, stunned. “This feels a little like slavery. White slavery.”

“Except I’m buying your freedom, I’m not buying your services. Don’t overthink it.”

*   *   *

We made our way through the throngs on the first floor and out onto the street, Hayes leading me by the hand the entire time. It felt so open and obvious, and all I could think was how the European art world would be talking about the fact that I’d abandoned my partner to engage in a patently inappropriate affair.

There were girls when we stepped out next to the Champs-Élysées. Many. It was Sunday afternoon, after all. And when Hayes took a moment to don his sunglasses and a gray knitted cap, I stepped away from him and crossed my arms.

“Are you just going to pretend we’re not together?” he asked as we made our way to the taxi queue.

I laughed, uneasy. I did not want a TMZ repeat.

“Whatever.”

There was a family in line ahead of us with two young daughters and a son. They recognized Hayes immediately and after much squealing and cooing in Japanese, they wrangled a photo out of him. As usual, he was amiable.

I stayed just off to the side, with the teenage son, bundled against the wind.

In the cab, Hayes rattled off some address in the Marais to the driver, and we rode in silence down the Champs-Élysées, through the Place de la Concorde, and along the Quai des Tuileries, continuing east.

At some point, I reached for his hand on the seat and he pulled it away. “You’re angry? With me? After what you just did, you’re angry with me?”

He was staring out the window at the Seine, the Musée d’Orsay, and points south. The light was beautiful at this time of day. Even through the gray, everything was tinged gold and russet with the changing leaves. It dawned on me that I had not seen the late-afternoon sky in almost a week.

For a while, Hayes did not speak. And when he finally did, his voice was soft. “I’m angry at myself. I just wanted to spend the day with you.”

“I know. And I appreciate that. But you can’t just blow in making these grand gestures, like you’re in a Hugh Grant movie. You can’t … buy me … or my time.”

He turned to me then, gnawing at his bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”

“And I told you I had to work, and you didn’t respect that. Which is completely selfish and rude. And entitled.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“You can’t always get what you want, Hayes.”

He held my gaze for a minute, not saying anything. We were whizzing past the Louvre on the left.

“Do you even want that painting?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is beautiful. But that’s beside the point. Purchasing art shouldn’t be something rash, or manipulative. It should be this pure thing.”

He smiled faintly. “You’re a bit of an idealist, you know.”

“Maybe.”

He was quiet again, but he reached out and hooked his pinky finger around mine on the car seat, and that tiny motion was enough.

“Why don’t you want to be seen with me?” His question took me by surprise. “Why? Why are you so uncomfortable? What are you ashamed of? What do you think will happen when people find out? We’re together, are we not?”

“It’s complicated, Hayes—”

“It’s not. I like you. You like me. What does it matter what anyone else thinks? Why do you care?”

“How do you not?”

“I’m in a boy band. If I cared what people thought of me, then I’ve clearly entered the wrong line of work.

“Seriously, Solène, why do you care? I mean I want to protect your privacy because I don’t think Isabelle should find out this way. But if there’s another reason you feel uncomfortable being seen with me, then I need to know what that is.”

I was quiet as the taxi snaked past the Hôtel de Ville and into the Marais. Parisians out on the streets in droves.

I so wished I could not care, about the million and one things that were holding me back from completely falling for him. “I don’t know where to start,” I said.

“Start from the beginning.”

Just then the cab pulled to a halt, and our Arab driver announced, “Trente, Rue du Bourg Tibourg.”

“Oui, merci, monsieur,” Hayes said, pulling out his wallet. His British-accented French, oh so charming.

We stepped out of the taxi and into the narrow street before Mariage Frères, the renowned teahouse. Of course he was taking me to tea. It was four o’clock, after all.

“Mariage Frères!”

“You know this place?”

“I love this place. My dad’s mom used to bring me here. And lecture me about being French. A hundred years ago … before you were born.”

He smiled wide, taking my hand and leading me inside. “I knew there was a reason I picked you.”

“You picked me?”

He nodded. We made our way back to the restaurant area of the shop and waited to be seated. Hayes gave his name. Apparently, he’d made reservations, which I found amusing, that all along he’d had the audacity to believe he was going to pull off this quasi-kidnapping.

“Why did you pick me, Hayes?”

“Because you looked like you wanted to be picked.”

I laughed, uneasily. Our fingers were still entwined. “What does that mean?”

“That means exactly what you think it means.”

He let that sit there for a while, saying nothing else.

The host seated us quickly, a small table toward the back. But the room was well lit, and there was no hiding who my date was. It might have been his height, his hat, his sunglasses, but heads were turning. Again.

“The best part,” Hayes said, leaning into me, after we were seated and given our menus, “was that you had all these adorable little rules that were completely arbitrary.”

“You don’t forget anything, do you?”

“I don’t. So don’t make me any promises you don’t plan on keeping.”

I wasn’t sure if he was saying it to be clever, but it stayed with me for a long time.

“So tell me,” he continued, “tell me why you don’t want to be seen with me. Is it the group? Is it the age difference? Is it the fame thing? Is it not having gone to university? Is it all of them combined? What is it?”

I smiled at the list he’d imagined in his pretty head. “Not having gone to university?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know how your mind works. Arbitrary, remember?”

I took a moment to drink him in. His hair sticking in twenty-one directions since he’d yanked off his beanie. His Botticelli face.

“I am entirely too old for you, Hayes.”

“I don’t think you truly believe that. I mean, do you like me? Do you not have fun when we’re together? Do you feel like I have a problem following the conversation?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t think you really believe that. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. I think you care what other people might be thinking, or saying, and that’s what’s fucking you up.”

I paused. “How do you not care?”

“Do you know how much shit gets said about me? Do you know how many fucks I give? Zero.”

I sat there, watching him finger his sunglasses on the table.

“Do you know what they’ve said about me? I’m gay, I’m bi, I’m sleeping with Oliver, I’m sleeping with Simon, I’m sleeping with Liam, I’m sleeping with all three at the same time. I’m sleeping with Jane, our manager, who is attractive, but no. I’ve slept with at least three different actresses I’ve never even spoken to. I have ruined no fewer than four marriages on three different continents, and I have at least two kids … I’m twenty. When the fuck would I have crammed that all in?”

I started to laugh.

“I wish I was making this up, Solène, but I’m not. Which is why you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Oh, and Rihanna may or may not have written a song about me. Because we may or may not have had sex…”

“Did you have sex with Rihanna?”

He gave me a look then that I could not quite decipher. It seemed equal parts How dare you think I did? and How dare you ask me?

“Does Rihanna even write her own songs?”

“You’re missing the point here.”

“I’m sorry. Go on.”

“I’m really happy when I’m with you. I get the feeling you feel the same way. And if that’s true, I don’t think you should give a fuck about what people may or may not think of our age difference. Furthermore, if our ages were reversed, no one would bat an eyelash. Am I right? So now it’s just some sexist, patriarchal crap, and you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who’s going to let that dictate her happiness. All right? Next issue…”

Our waiter came to the table then, and naturally neither of us had looked at the menu.

“Encore un moment, s’il vous plaît,” Hayes said, dismissing him.

When he’d parted, Hayes leaned forward, grabbing both my hands. “I think when we go home, you need to tell Isabelle the truth. I don’t think we can do this again without telling her. I don’t think it’s fair to her. And I want to do this again.”

“We’re covering a lot today.”

“I’m trying to get it all in before you turn forty.” He smiled his half smile. “Plus when we’re at the hotel I can’t seem to manage a proper conversation because I have a hard time thinking about anything but fucking you.

“So…” He sat back, opening his menu. “Fancy a tea?”

*   *   *

After, outside, heading north on the narrow street, Hayes wrapped his arm around me, protective.

“Let’s find a tabac,” he said. “I want a cigarette.”

I looked up at him, amused. “Oh-kay…”

“I didn’t have sex with Rihanna,” he announced, and then he grinned. “But not for want of trying. Apparently, I’m not her type.”

“You’re not bad enough.” I smiled.

“I’m not bad enough.”

“You’re bad enough for me.”

*   *   *

We spent the early evening wandering through the Marais and over to the Île Saint-Louis, where we strolled down the Quai de Bourbon to the Place Louis Aragon, the western tip of the island that looked out over the Seine and the Île de la Cité and Notre-Dame and all the things about Paris that were magical to me. We sat there huddled on a bench, drinking in the view and each other, until our appendages were numb. It was the perfect place to watch the sun set on my thirties. And it very well may have been worth 60,000 euros.

*   *   *

Later that night, Hayes and I slipped into the bar at the George V for a drink and some inspired people watching. The room was insufferably old-world: cherrywood panels, stenciled parquet floors, velvet drapes. Charcoal drawings of foxhunts and eighteenth-century-style portraits gracing the walls. There were various couples dallying over thirty-dollar cocktails. Curious pairings, unexpected. Perhaps not unlike us. We surveyed it all from our perch on the chintz sofa beside the fireplace.

For all its pomp, Hayes seemed decidedly at home in the stodgy bar, swilling from his Scotch like one of the landed gentry. He was so poised and comfortable in his skin; so natural, it was beautiful to watch.

I assumed his family’s country home, somewhere in the Cotswolds, was not too different from this. And for a minute I deigned to imagine what that life would look like. A life with him. Weekends in the garden and corgis and sheep. Dinner parties in London during the Season. And then, just as quickly as I’d entertained it, I shook it off. What the hell was I thinking?

“Is this a trend?” he said. We’d been there for the better part of an hour, listening to the band’s music drift in from the Galerie. Standards mixed with watered-down contemporary pop, “Mack the Knife” and Pharrell’s “Happy.”

“Is what a trend?”

“This.” Hayes angled his head, gesturing subtly to the rest of the room. Among the clientele, there were no fewer than seven mixed-race couples. And five of them were comprised of sixty-something white men with forty-something Asian women.

“It’s kind of par for the course in California.”

“This exact age spread? It’s a little peculiar, no?”

I shrugged, sipping from my champagne cocktail. “Eva, Daniel’s girlfriend, is Asian. Half.” I had not made it a habit of discussing Eva. In all the months we’d been together, I’d mentioned her half a dozen times in passing.

He squeezed my hand. “Sorry. For bringing that up. Does it bother you?”

“It bothers me that she’s young.”

“How young?”

“Thirty.”

Hayes chuckled. “Thirty is not that young.”

“Shut up. It is.”

“Well, look at it this way: You’ve won, right? Because I’m considerably younger than that.”

I smiled at him. The thought had not crossed my mind. I’d never set out to get back at Daniel so much as I’d set out to get on with my life. It was not a competition. But that was part of the beauty of Hayes being twenty. That occasionally we saw the world completely differently, and at times it was refreshing.

“Hayes, you know when you’re forty, I’m going to be sixty, right?”

“I love it when you talk sexy,” he laughed.

“Just stating a fact.”

He took a sip of his drink then and leaned into me. “You understand that you’re going to be attractive well into your fifties.”

“Well into my fifties?” I laughed. “That old?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “Michelle Pfeiffer…”

“What about her?”

“In her fifties. Still fucking sexy. Julianne Moore, Monica Bellucci, Angela Bassett, Kim Basinger … Not saying they’re age appropriate for me. Just saying those women aren’t going to stop being sexy anytime soon.”

I sat there, drinking him in. His cheeks flushed, his hair standing on end. His young face in this very grown-up room. “You carry this list around in your head?”

He smiled. “Among other things.”

“Have you ever been in therapy?”

He laughed, loud. “No. Are you trying to tell me something? I’m surprisingly well-adjusted. Have you ever been in therapy?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm…” He cocked his head. “Interesting…”

“How old is your mother, Hayes?”

He paused for a moment, and then: “Forty-eight…”

Shit. It was uncomfortably close. Although certainly not surprising. “Do you have a picture of her?”

He picked his iPhone up from the coffee table and began scrolling through. Eventually he handed it over. It was the two of them, in what I gathered was the countryside. Hayes was wearing a Barbour jacket and Hunter Wellies and looked ridiculously English. She, Victoria, was suited in full riding regalia. She held her helmet in one hand, and the lead to a handsome horse in the other. Hayes’s head was turned to face her, and the look in his eyes was one of complete and utter adoration.

She was beautiful. Tall, reedy, with porcelain skin and an unruly ponytail of wavy black hair. She had his wide smile, his dimples, his eyes, although the crow’s-feet were more pronounced. Her features were slightly softer, but there was no mistaking this was his mother.

“Who’s the horse?”

He smirked. “That would be Churchill. And I’m quite sure she loves him more than me.”

I laughed. “Now, that’s something for your future therapist.”

Hayes collected the phone from me and stared at it before closing the image. Quiet.

“What is it about you and older women, Hayes Campbell?”

He took the time to empty what was left in his glass and sign the check, a wry smile spreading across his mouth. “Who have you been talking to?”

“No one.”

“You were Googling.”

“You told me not to. Remember?”

He bit down on his lip, shaking his head. “Nothing. There’s nothing about me and older women.”

“You’re lying.”

He started to laugh. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“I’m not letting you off that easy.”

His sigh was audible. “I like all kinds of women.”

“You like older women. You have a definite type.”

“Are you my type?”

“I’m guessing so.”

He smiled, sinking back into the couch. “You think I meet plenty of hot, almost forty-year-old divorcées on the road?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

He snorted, crossing his arms in front of his chest, defensive. It was not his typical stance.

“Tell me about Penelope,” I said.

“What about her?”

“Where did it happen, the first time?”

“Switzerland.”

“Switzerland?”

He nodded. “Klosters. I went with Ol’s family on a ski holiday.”

I started to laugh. “The family invited you to ski in Switzerland, and you fucked their daughter?”

“To be fair, she fucked me.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. He sat there, guarded, a cryptic smile on his perfect face. And all I could think about was sitting on it.

“Okay. Let’s go upstairs.”

*   *   *

I turned forty. And the world did not end. The firmament did not move. Gravity did not suddenly forsake me. My breasts, my ass, my eyelids were all pretty much where I’d left them the night before. As was my lover. In our big, big bed, his head on my pillow, his arm draped over my waist, clinging. As if maybe he were afraid to let me go.

It was indulgent, as birthdays go. There was pampering and lovemaking and foie gras and a two-hour stroll along the Seine and autumn in the air and Hayes. Adoring, attentive, kind Hayes.

In the early evening, while I prepped for our celebratory dinner, he watched me from his perch against the counter in the master bath. The room, like everything else in the penthouse suite, was luxurious. Exceptionally appointed, flawless marble, an infinity tub. Although Hayes would not give me an exact figure, I knew it was costing him thousands of dollars a night. Which was absurd, despite the fact that TAG Heuer was picking up half the tab.

He stood there in black dress pants and a white shirt still unbuttoned, his hair blown dry and uncharacteristically neat. Gone were the boyish curls.

“What are you thinking over there?”

He shook his head, smiling. “I was thinking that you putting on makeup was somewhat redundant.”

I laughed, applying eye shadow. “It’s not a lot.”

“I like when I can see your skin. I like your skin.”

“My skin likes you.” This was not untrue. It may have been Paris, or the change in climate, but it seemed to me that I was glowing.

He smiled, absorbing the process. The liner, the curling, the mascara. “You’re unfolding the flower again.”

“Am I?”

He nodded. “Even though you’re covering yourself up … Watching you do it reveals more of you.”

I put the mascara wand down then, meeting his eyes in the mirror. Thankful that, despite all the reflective surfaces in this gleaming salle de bains, the lighting design was particularly warm. It made my lingerie considerably more forgiving. Although I was not going to focus on that, because forty did not look terribly different than thirty-nine.

“Who are you, Hayes Campbell?”

He smiled, his hands burrowing in his pockets. “I’m your boyfriend.”

“My twenty-year-old boyfriend?”

“Your twenty-year-old boyfriend. Are you okay with that?”

I grinned. “Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice.” He’d appropriated my words, which I found amusing.

“Then, yes … I am very okay with that.”

“Come here.”

I inched over to him. I had grown to love his “come here” and where it often led.

He took my wrists in his hands then, his thumbs on my pulse points. “No watch?”

I shook my head, holding his gaze.

“Just as well,” he said, leaning in to kiss me. And then I felt it, a slight pinching on my right wrist.

Eventually, he pulled away and I glanced down to discover an exquisite gold cuff bracelet adorning my arm. A one-inch band of delicate filigree work, Indian in design, intricately wrought and trimmed with pavé diamonds. Arguably the most singularly beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever seen.

“Happy Birthday,” he said, soft.

My eyes met his. There were a thousand and one things I could have said, but none of them would have been quite right. And so I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him, close. For a very long time.

When we finally parted, I saw it—just beyond his shoulder, and in every corner of the room. Us, multiplied.