Кэндес Бушнелл - Four Blondes

I smile fakely, and the photographers are so surprised they don't take any pictures.

"Comment?" says one, who is short with floppy gray hair and bad teeth.

"Pourfume, " I say badly.

"Ah, pourfume, " they say, and nudge one another jocularly. One of them hands me twenty francs and winks at me and I wink back and then I set off, walking down the red carpet that lines the sidewalk of the harbor in honor of the festival, thinking: Every day this carpet gets dirtier and dirtier and I get more and more polluted, and why is Hubert coming, he's doing it on purpose. Again.

I wander into the narrow streets of Cannes, which are filled, predictably, with French people, all of whom seem to be smoking. I pass a small cafe filled with gay men, who, unlike gay men in New York, have long hair and are trying desperately to be women. One of them looks at me and says, "Bonjour. “

And that's when I realize I may or may not be being followed.

I turn around.

A small girl with long blond hair, clutching three red roses wrapped in cellophane, stops and stares back at me.

I glare at her and move on.

I find a tabac and go in. More French people smoking and laughing. Near the entrance, a Frenchwoman says something to me which I automatically tune out, although I believe she's asking me if I want a croissant or maybe a ham sandwich, so I snap, "Je ne park pas Franqais. " Then I ask the man behind the counter for Marlboro Lights, and once outside, I light up a cigarette, fumbling with the awkward French matches and I look up and there's the little girl.

Again.

"Madame ... , " she says.

"Vous etes un enfant terrible, " I say. Which is basically all the French I can remember that has anything to do with children. She says, "Vous etes trds jolie. “

I begin walking quickly back to the boat. "Madame, madame," she calls after me.

"What?" I say.

"You would like to buy a rose? A lovely red rose?”

"Non, " I say. "]e n'aime pas lesfleurs. Got it? Get it, kid?" And I can't believe I am being so mean to a small street urchin, but I am.

"Madame. You come with me," the child says. "No," I say.

She tries to take my hand. "You come with me, Madame. You must come with me.”

I shake my head, holding the cigarette up to my lips.

"Come, Madame. Come. Follow me.”

"Non, " I say weakly. And then for some reason, standing on the crowded street in the middle of Cannes during the film festival in the terrible heat, I begin crying, shaking my head, and the small child looks at me and runs away.

Another evening, on the—what?—third or fourth day in the south of France, and Dianna Moon and I are riding in the back of an air-conditioned Mercedes limousine with The Verve blaring as we crawl along the crowded streets of Cannes toward the Hotel du Cap, where we have been invited to have dinner with prominent movie people. Dianna won't stop talking, and I keep thinking about how, when Hubert and I first started secretly seeing each other, my phone was tapped.

"The thing about it," Dianna says, once again oblivious to anything but herself, "I mean the thing about this whole movie star business which no one gets is that you have to work so hard. You're my best friend, Cecelia, so you know I'm not being an asshole about this, because God knows, Jesus knows actually, that I was always going to be a star and I think I make a fucking good star, but it's never-ending. So, you know, people ought to understand why I get fucked up. Getting fucked up ... if s like a mini-vacation. It's the only way I can ever get any fucking relaxation." And she takes a swig out of a bottle of champagne and I want to tell her to stop talking because I'm still so hungover I'm going to get sick or kill someone.

"What did you think of Fabien?" she says. "Oh. Was that his name?" I say. I look out the window at the white tents of the festival as the Mercedes crawls to a stop.

"I thought he was adorable. I've always wanted to sleep with a Frenchman," she says. And I do not point out that she must have already slept with four or five. Not counting the one in the bathroom at Jimmy'z in Monte Carlo.

Through the window, I see that the small girl with the flowers is standing by the side of the car.

"I wonder if I should import him. To L.A.," Dianna says, laughing loudly as the girl taps on the window with the flowers.

"Madame," she mouths. "Madame, you must come with me.”

The Mercedes lurches forward. I turn to stare out the back window at the little girl, who waves sadly.

"Ohmigod," I say.

Dianna takes a moment to focus on me, and I find, sadly, that I am grateful. "I can't believe Hubert is coming," she says. "I told you my plan would work. As soon as you left, he realized he was a complete fuckwad, and now he's crawling back. Aren't you happy?”

She takes my hand and kisses it as I open the window a crack to let out some of the smoke.

In the bar of the Hotel du Cap, if s the same scene as it was the night before and the night before that and lunch the day before and lunch the day before that. Everyone is drunk on champagne and raspberry cocktails. There's the same group of twenty-five-year old women, all tall, all good-looking, dressed in evening clothes, who spend half their time in the bathroom and half their time trying to pick up anyone famous. There are the badly dressed up-and-coming English movie directors. The perfectly dressed German distributors. Kate Moss. Elizabeth Hurley, whom I hate more than any of them because she's "overexposed." And Comstock Dibble, the five-foot tall mega-movie producer who, even though he must be at least forty-five, still has acne. Out on the balcony, he's mopping his face with a napkin and shouting at the waiters to put two tables together and to take chairs away from other patrons. Dianna is dressed in Goth. We sweep through the lobby the same as we always do. We are someone and we will always be someone, especially when we come to places like this.

"Comstock! Carol Darling!" Dianna screams, in case anyone hasn't noticed her. She's already too drunk, tottering on black strappy sandals, steadying herself on a stranger's shoulder who pats her arm and rolls his eyes.

"Hello, Dianna," Comstock says. "You were in the papers today.”

"I'm in the papers every day. If I'm not in the papers, it's not a good day.”

"You were in the papers too," Comstock says to me, sweating inexplicably, since the temperature has cooled down to about seventy. "But I know you hate being in the papers." He leans in intimately, as if we are the only two people in the place. "That’s the difference between you and Dianna.”

"Is it?" I say, lighting what is probably my fiftieth cigarette of the day.

Suddenly there are other people at the table, but no one introduces anyone.

"They say you're here without your husband.”

“He has to work.”

"You should have an affair. While you're here. In France. Everybody else is.”

"Hey Comstock. I hear you've been looking for a mistress," Dianna says loudly. "I hear you've propositioned every French actress under the age of twenty-five.”

"I'm casting. What can I say?" Comstock says, and I put my napkin on my lap and wonder what the hell I'm doing here.

But where else is there?

"Tanner is the one who's fighting off the girls," Comstock says.

I look up and see that it is indeed Tanner Hart, my Tanner, who is older but thanks to the wonders of plastic surgery doesn't look much different than he did five years ago when he was selected as one of People magazine's Fifty Most Beautiful People, and he sits down and puts his hands up and says, "Don't hassle me, baby," as I stare at him in a sort of alcoholic shock.

"Have a bellini," he says, pushing one toward me. "When this festival is over, Tanner is going to come out the big winner. We sold Gagged all over the world today," Comstock says. "I'm thinking nominations. Best Actor. Best Picture.”