Occasionally, my mother would take me on location with her, if it meant we could spend a weekend in New York or a school vacation in another exotic locale, courtesy of somebody else’s expense account. Her regular clients, Ralph Lauren and Longines, each needed her once or twice a year for shoots to cover everything from print ads to in-store collateral. In a few days of shooting, the ad agency had everything they needed for a year, and my mother got her mojo back for a few months, like a shot of adrenaline to her personality. These long-term contracts were the glue that held her together. She knew it was a gift to be employed after the age of thirty in her business.
She loved me, but I never got the sense that she loved driving me to dance class or attending parent-teacher conferences. She never volunteered at school like the other moms, preferring to raise money for AIDS awareness. I don’t recall her ever baking for a bake sale, bringing snacks to soccer, or waiting in line to sign me up for, well, anything. This was celebrity parenting in the days before it was good PR to have a baby and churn out quotes to magazines about how your children “kept your grounded” and “gave you a new set of priorities.” My mother clearly found the business of motherhood much less interesting to her than the business of modeling.
She wasn’t exactly Suzi Clements Blakely, PTA president.
For a couple of weeks a year, while in front of the camera in Aspen or Montana or Manhattan, my mother had a life beyond her family. She would pretend that she dreaded everything about the assignment—the frantic dieting and facials beforehand, the fittings and the fuss on set, the travel and hotel hopping—but she didn’t hate it at all. She loved every second. My father and I would share eye rolls when she complained about “eating cabbage soup for two weeks straight.” But every time we headed to LAX in a town car, she’d shake her blond head and say, “Suzi Clements, back in action.”
I found the endless hours of hair and makeup and lighting to be incredibly dull, but when I was a cute tween, everyone made a big deal over how much I looked like my mother, patted my head, and smiled. Usually the manicurist offered to do my nails, or the stylist would trim my hair. For a few years, it was special, something I could take home and tell my friends about. Their moms were lawyers or accountants, not supermodels. I was special because she was special.
But eventually, the magic wore off. I liked being with my mother, but not being on location. Mainly, I sat in a corner with a book and watched Suzi Clements operate as the center of attention. She thought it would make me want to follow in her footsteps, treating it like a Take Your Daughter to Work Day with a side of Look at Me, How Fabulous Is This? But the trips had the opposite effect, convincing me that the last thing I ever wanted to do was be a model. The sheer number of people touching her face, head, and body at the same time was a turnoff to me.
As Suzi Clements, my mother flirted with everyone, from assistants to the art directors, but especially with the photographers. I remember a Ralph Lauren shoot in Montana once, seeing my mother cozy up to the handsome, but very young, photographer, and being shocked by the complete personality change. Who was this laughing, touchy coquette? Around Pasadena, my mother was all business, all the time. Warm enough, but never inappropriately attention seeking. She kept people at arm’s length, partly because she liked her ice-princess reputation and partly because she didn’t have to feign friendships with others. She was Suzi Clements Blakely, after all, a tad too good for the average mother.
Once, after a few glasses of wine, I told Tai about my mother’s set behavior, and his jaw dropped a bit, because Tai revered both my parents for different reasons, and he wondered aloud, “Oh my gosh, it’s hereditary. Do you think that’s why you fell for Casey? The whole photographer thing?”
Maybe, maybe not. But I know when I stopped going on location with my mother: after a brutal few days in London where my mother was shooting a watch spread in various locations from Wimbledon to the Victoria and Albert Museum. She was styled as a glamorous jet-setter that loved life and sipped champagne at all hours. By day three on set, I thought I was going to lose my mind. I had recently started in on an early feminist phase combined with eco-activism, and the whole modeling world was the opposite of what I believed in at the moment. Plus, I was at the height of my awkward stage, at age fifteen—tallish, flat chested, wearing braces and a permanent scowl all set off by my purple glasses I’d seen a character wear on Full House. The cute was gone. Nobody wanted to do my nails or trim my hair anymore.
As I read Women Who Run With the Wolves hidden behind a rolling wardrobe, I heard a young, impossibly chic British assistant stylist whisper about how I must have gotten the milkman’s genes, because I couldn’t possibly be “the spawn of the two most attractive people in the world. How do Suzi Clements and Henry Blakely create such a dreary being?” When another assistant stylist suggested that I might blossom, Snarky Stylist said, “She’s no swan. And she’s probably no Blakely.”
The swan bit, I understood; the Blakely bit, less so. My mother adored my father, didn’t she? I literally hid in the bathroom of a posh town house the rest of the day, refusing to come out, alternating sobs and screaming at my mother about wanting to go home. I could never tell my mother exactly what the stylist had said, but I know she suspected that it was deep and cutting. The stylist was gone by lunch, but her comments were enough to undermine my self-confidence throughout most of high school and beyond.
And now these letters addressed to “Suzannah.” Not even my socialite grandmother called my mother Suzannah. She was Suzi from the minute she was born. There was something more intimate, jarring even, seeing my mother called by her full name. Polly was right; this was personal.
Who on earth called my mother “Suzannah”?
The driver and I had been parked out in front of the InterContinental for a half hour, waiting for Nate to finish up his meetings. I’d texted him a few details but not many because I knew he was in meetings. His only response was “Out by 5.” Not an emoji kind of guy.
When Nate opened the door of the car, I was startled. “Wow, look at you.” Nate climbed into the back seat of the sedan. The driver hopped out to handle his bags. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Is everything okay? Did something happen?”
“Blackbird knows my parents. Or knew my dad and refers to my mom as ‘Suzannah,’ which nobody does, by the way. She has always, always, always been Suzi, except to my dad, who called her ‘Love.’ And Blackbird claims he has something of my father’s, which he was desperately trying to return to my mother five years ago, but my mother never bothered to open the letters. Six of them over three years that she never even opened. This makes no sense. Is that what this is all about?” It all came out in one breath.
Nate took it in stride, considering he’d been talking about advancements in laser technology all day. “You know you have to start at the beginning of this, right? Walk this all back a bit so I know what’s going on.”
“Of course. I’m overwhelmed with information. How were your meetings?” I tried to sound interested, but Nate wasn’t fooled.
He shook his head. “You don’t have to pretend to care about my business, Joan. I get it. Now, what happened?”
The driver pulled away from the hotel into the light Saturday-night traffic.
“Polly figured out the location in seconds. It was a hair salon, and she’s like a salon savant. It had nothing to do with art or architecture, but everything to do with hair. A salon at Galeries Lafayette.” Nate shook his head. “A very famous department store—all gilt and glass and steel on boulevard Haussmann. Get it? Like the clue. Courtesy of Blackbird, I had a wash and set at the salon where the Joan of Arc bowl cut was created.”
“Ah. That’s unexpected. And pretty clever. I gotta give that to Blackbird. And to Polly. We weren’t even close.” Even Nate was susceptible to warm and fuzzy feelings for the guy.