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@berenice22
L'amour, L'amour
L’amour, L’amour
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DO YOU REMEMBER the Countess de Lave in Claire Booth Luce’s 1939 classic, The Women?
“L’amour, l’amour,” she exclaims while drowning herself in champagne. “That’s French for love.”
But, what is it? L’amour, for which everything must be sacrificed. L’amour, in the name of which everything may be justified. Is it an emotion? An ineffable feeling of affection so tender that one cannot…
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The Kiss
SENECA SAID THAT THE LESS WE DESERVE GOOD FORTUNE the more we hope for it. Nonetheless, I have never lost sight of the importance of being thankful for it; for my luck that, despite the challenges of life, has always followed me wherever I have travelled. The park in Paris that I called home is one of the most sought after spots in the city. There, only the sound of birds chirping and…
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You've Come a Long Way Baby?
You’ve Come a Long Way Baby?
SHE WAS EVERYWHERE YOU LOOKED when I was thirteen: in Ship ‘n Shore and Lady Clairol ads, Bobbie Brooks and Jonathan Logan spreads, and on the covers of Ingenue and Seventeen Magazine. In 1965, she was the girl who made you believe that, yes, blondes do have more fun. If ever there was a face that represented “the California Girl,” it was Terry Reno’s.
But, for me, more than anyone, she…
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The Circle
I ONCE KNEW A WOMAN WHO, without warning after eighteen years of what had appeared to be a highly successful marriage, served her ambitious and renowned husband with divorce papers.
In shock, the debonair New York businessman, who had given his wife everything that cosmopolitan life could offer, asked her: “Why?”
“Why?” she responded, partly amused. “Because, my darling . . . I would rather be…
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
With his fingers to his lips, as they always were, when he was in thought.
IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT THE TONGUE IS A FAR MORE effective weapon than the sword. And nothing amused Pitou more than a woman who knew how to wield hers. As with most Frenchmen, the delicate game of wit never ceased to amuse him. I’m not speaking of humor. There is a difference between humor and wit. One leaves you…
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"How We Doin?"
“How We Doin?”
Suzy in Norell, by Milton Greene (1952)
AS A YOUNG WOMAN, I DESPERATELY WANTED TO BE TALL. I envied Suzy’s five-foot-ten stature. The thought always left Pitou perplexed.
“But, you’re perfect,” he would tell me, “just as you are.”
Shaking his head, he would remind me at night while we were in bed how I had been made to fit inside of his arms. Grabbing me by the waist, he would pull me in towards…
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"I Can't! I Can't!"
“I Can’t! I Can’t!”
SOMETIMES, WHEN I AM FACED WITH an exceptionally difficult challenge, or when I am just plain feeling sorry for myself, I stop to take stock of my surroundings. I live in a particularly beautiful place and pausing to recognize this fact always fills me with an immense sense of gratitude. Where I wake up, the morning air is filled with the scent of pine; where I fall asleep, the night sky, with…
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"Tell Me Everything About You!"
“Tell Me Everything About You!”
Looking back on my life, I often wonder why my path has crossed with so many others. Was there a purpose for our meeting? Did these myriad individuals, some significant–others seemingly not, have something to teach me? Have I attracted everyone I have known into my life? Or are the people whom I have encountered simply the result of God rolling the dice? I don’t have answers to these…
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“Bérénice...Wake Up!”
“Bérénice…Wake Up!”
HE HAD LOOKS, CHARM, ELEGANCE, INTELLIGENCE, WIT—in short, everything. Everything, except money. And, even that he should have had, given the love and trust that his maternal grandmother, Julia Rols de Rop, felt for him. A wealthy widow by the time Pitou was fourteen, her last will and testament had left everything to her only grandson—purposefully excluding her spendthrift daughter, Ghislaine,…
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“ A Toast…To the Next President of the United States.”
“ A Toast…To the Next President of the United States.”
TENACITY. DOGGED, UNFLINCHING DETERMINATION. They are my most distinctive traits. And, at Merrill, they would serve me well. Yet, in spite of the theatre I had provided for the secretaries in the office elevator, in the fall of 1972, I had nagging doubts about my chances of ever becoming an Account Executive. I lived under no illusions. As pleased as Rosenthal seemed by my enrollment in…
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"Oh Yeah? Just Watch Me"
“Oh Yeah? Just Watch Me”
WITH THOUGHTS OF EVER RETURNING to California buried deep within the neo-cortex, I contemplated what most women in 1972 still deemed impossible: landing a job as a female stockbroker on Wall Street—without a college degree, at the ripe old age of twenty.
“Il faut un peu de patience,” Gérard cautioned. “Mais, finalement…pour quoi pas?”
Gérard had a hee-hee-hee kind of laugh. I can still hear it…
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"Elle Est Bien"
“Elle Est Bien”
IN OVID’S NARRATIVE, the Cypriot sculptor, Pygmalion, carved a woman out of ivory and named her Galatea. So fair was his work of art that he fell in love with it while quietly wishing for a bride who would be the living likeness of his ivory girl. One day Pygmalion kissed his ivory statue and found that its lips were warm. Kissing it again, he touched its breasts and found that the ivory had…
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"Don't Worry About It. You Still Have Two Weeks."
“Don’t Worry About It. You Still Have Two Weeks.”
THE FIRST RULE OF LOVE: when you know you have it, fight for it, sacrifice for it; or watch…as it slips from your fingers. Love is a jealous ruler who seeks unquestioning, unfailing allegiance.
It was Halloween, and Pitou still hadn’t called. Pacing our little apartment, I lamented to Debbie that, in the ten weeks we had spent in Paris, there wasn’t a single other man whom I had met and with whom…
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"Et Moi, Alors?"
“Et Moi, Alors?”
with Suzy, 1954
He had the reputation of a playboy, a misnomer if ever there was one. Other than that he had remained a bachelor since his divorce from Suzy Parker in 1961 and, in the ten years after, was seen around town with an uninterrupted string of beautiful women, Pitou had none of the attributes, nor any of the toys, of the typical playboy. No race cars, no cigarette boats, no death-wish…
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"I Fell On My Baby Bottle"
“I Fell On My Baby Bottle”
BY THE TIME I WAS NINETEEN, I had been on several blind dates—only one of which had gone well. It had been at the beginning of my junior year at Westlake when some friends had paired me with Jonathan Harshman Winters IV, son of the brilliant comedian, Jonathan Harshman Winters III. A senior at Harvard Military Academy, “Jay” had instantly captivated my attention with his good looks, quick wit and…
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The List
Westlake, circa 1969, (Click to View)
EVERYONE KNEW Arrelle Warwick was out of her element in California. The antithesis of the west coast girl from the Sixties, her destiny lay in Europe or, at the very least, on the east coast. Arrelle and I were fast friends in our senior year at Westlake. We ditched study hall together, double-dated, and when the time came, we both enrolled at the same New…
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Culture Shock
Entry of 34 rue de Lübeck (click on the photo to visit the neighborhood)
THE CLOCK ON THE MANTLE READ 6:00, and Debbie had just gotten out of bed. From the living room of our one bedroom apartment at 34 rue de Lübeck, I could hear her feet shuffle along the oak parquet flooring as she walked toward the adjoining double doorway. Yawning, she looked at me as I sat on an eighteenth century…
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