In the winter of 1985 my teenage French girlfriend left the apartment on Impasse Dantzig to meet with her modeling client. Her destination a 5-star hotel on the Rue de Rivoli was a marked counterpoint to our 15th arrondisement atelier. Candia was 17. Her rendezvous was with an Italian. I figured she would stay the night and drank myself stupid at the Nouvelle Eve before wandering through a light snowfall to the borders of Paris.
No lights lit the windows of the second-floor duplex. I went inside and opened the door, expecting an empty bed, certainly not men’s Gucci loafer on the floor or the yelps of primal rutting upstairs. My vision went red and I yanked the telephone out of the wall.
The noise didn’t pierce Candia’s passion, but the bald Italian man with the flabby stomach noticed my foot right before it contacted with his head. He was out cold and I could have strangled Candia, except her death wasn’t worth five years in a French prison, so I scourged her naked into the snow street, then packed all my things.
They didn’t amount to much.
I stole the Gucci loafers.
It seemed the right thing to do and exited the atelier. The gendarmes’ understanding of a ‘crime de passion’ might have been challenged by my American citizenship and I hailed a taxi, giving the driver the address. “51 Rue de Campagne Premiere.”
Christa Worthington lived there. She was gone on assignment to Milan for Women’s Wear Daily. The key was under the mat. I opened the door. The apartment was cold. I couldn’t find the heat and lay on her bed covered by two duvets. My sleep was deprived by repeating visions of Candia and a fat bald Italian. He was no Dean Martin.
The next morning I woke at dawn and walked towards the cafe on the boulevard. Most of Paris was still asleep. A limosine stopped on the corner. A well-dressed man got out of the back and staggered to the door. It was Yves St. Laurent.
Style.
One word and he was heading into a dentist’s office.
Early morning toothache?
Pas du tout.
He rang the buzzer and looked over his shoulder. The eyes behind the tinted glasses failed to register my existence. Nothing I wore was label. The limo driver tensed behind the wheel. I kept on walking. Yves St. Laurent was not Italian. He was a great couturier and the world lost a genius today with his passing in Paris.
“Yves.”