Finding Myself in Fashion (16 page)

As the week progressed, the city's romantic and adventurous spirit overcame us in spurts. In between fashion shows and all the bickering, we went on mini shopping sprees. I had been shopping for Bekky and Joey for years, trying to guess what might appeal to them. Now, it was exhilarating to see them make their own choices. The adventure continued as I sneaked them into the Christian Lacroix show and taught them the art of scamming a seat. (Wait til the last minute and nonchalantly ease your way in. If the rightful owner shows up, make a quick exit.) Watching the brilliant Lacroix collection cruise down the catwalk from the front row was a dream come true. “The dresses look like Fabergé eggs, Mum,” Joey astutely noted.

In the days that followed, sporadic squabbling was
de rigueur
, and complaints about everything from the way the milk tasted to the flavour of the coffee were constant. I grew to appreciate the girls' iPods, which allowed them to escape into their own little worlds and gave my aching ears a rest. Joey made her way through the Musée d'Orsay listening to Death Cab for Cutie, while Bekky was tuned to classic Kinks. At Shakespeare and Company, the famous St. Germain bookstore, Bekky went for James Joyce's
Ulysses
, while Joey opted for Sartre's
Nausea
— more welcome distractions to keep the bickering at bay.

Excitement ensued one morning when Bekky bravely took a Hemingway walking tour and met a nice young man from B.C. She made plans to meet him at the Louvre the next day. I occupied Joey by taking her to Angelina's for hot chocolate and then to the Balenciaga exhibit at the Musée
de la Mode. Unfortunately, we learned that Bekky's “date” was a no-show (perhaps because she got to the Louvre fifteen minutes late). But my heart really broke for Bek the night we went to the cinema to see
Marie Antoinette
. There was a torrential downpour, and Bekky had left her hotel room windows open. When she got back, she discovered that her precious journal, in which she had been keeping copious notes, was totally drenched—a sopping, smudged disaster! I worried that the bleak episode might mar our entire trip.

By the end of the week, I was exhausted from trying to give them the time of their lives so they'd fall in love with Paris as I had done so many years ago. I finally realized something: You can't expect your children to be inspired by the same things that moved you. Nor can you instil in someone the same kind of passion just because you feel it. There were many times on the trip when I felt I was jamming square pegs into round holes, and several occasions when I wondered why I had even bothered trying to realize this fantasy of mine. But finally, on our last night, sitting under the stars at Café Ruc, both girls made it all worthwhile when they thanked me for bringing them to Paris. Bekky even ventured to say that perhaps she'd move to Paris one day. And when I asked them to write a few paragraphs each for
The Globe and Mail
, so I could add their observations to the end of the story I was writing—just to give readers an idea of what their take on the week was—I was blown away by how inspired their comments were, how sensitive they really had been to things I assumed had gone unnoticed, and how grateful they were finally to have been in the eye of this ultra-fashionable storm I had grown to love. So that's one more lesson learned, I suppose: Never underestimate your kids.

TENNESSEE STUD

GETTING IT RIGHT often takes time. Seasons come and go, fashions change, and remaining true to yourself is often painfully trying. Sometimes staying fashionable is about following your head. And sometimes, it's about following your heart. The most successful collections—and the most successful designers—are those that manage to walk the line between practicality and fantasy, a very precarious place to be. Sometimes, a designer will strike out with a collection and get panned by the critics. But that kind of failure rarely heralds the end of a career. The following season, the same designer can come back stronger than ever. What's important is experimenting with new directions. After all, no guts, no glory.

When my relationship with Jack ended, I yearned to find someone who saw the world the way I did—a kindred creative spirit who could read the poetry in every line of life. Someone who got the music, who could always make me laugh. I longed for such a complete about-face in my personal life because the last few years had been so inexplicably lonely for me. I was on a mission to find Mr. Right.

You might imagine that being in the public eye has some advantages when it comes to meeting people—after all, you're constantly “out there” in a
variety of social situations. But in my experience, “out there” can be a rather wretched place. First of all, as a woman who has achieved a degree of public success, you can be intimidating to men who would rather have the spotlight to themselves. Then there are those guys who are put off by all the attention that comes with being a well-known face. They prefer anonymity and resent the constant scrutiny that comes with the territory. I should have known my marriage was in trouble when I first heard Denny tell someone that being out with me was like “being with a neon sign.” I had worked for so long to build my visibility, but now it seemed like some kind of curse.

I had several girlfriends who were meeting men online—but that was something I could never feel comfortable doing. Too many people knew me, or at least thought they knew me. It would just be too embarrassing to put myself out there like that. And while you might suppose that the social aspect of my work would make it a cinch to meet all sorts of interesting guys, any woman who works in fashion will tell you that about 98 percent of the men she meets play for the other team. I never gave up hoping that the man of my dreams might be around the next corner, but I started thinking that a little divine intervention might be in order if I didn't want to be alone for the rest of my life. All my friends were aware that I was eager to meet someone, and that I might be willing to entertain a blind date. The problem was, there was a shortage of straight, single, age-appropriate guys around. I would just have to be patient.

In September 2006, four months after my relationship with Jack ended, I was in New York covering the spring collections when my friend Deenah Mollin called.

“Jeanne, do you remember H.?” she asked.

H. was a Nashville musician and record producer who had worked with one of America's legendary country stars for years. And he was a dear friend of Deenah's ex, who was also a musician. I recalled meeting H. about five years earlier at a dinner in Toronto, when he had just left his long-suffering wife for some aspiring young starlet, a Jewish girl who had moved to Nashville from Upstate New York, changed her name, and desperately wanted a recording contract. I tried not to be
judgmental at the time, though the thought of it all made me cringe. But H. seemed to be a really nice guy, and while he was a little older than me and a tad rough around the edges, I remembered him as hip, witty, and charming as all get-out. He kept teasing me about being a “fashionista.” And when he uttered the word in his thick southern drawl, it struck me as outrageously funny. We had got along like a house on fire. Little did I know that H. was about to literally set my house on fire! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

“Sure, I remember him,” I said. “Why, what's up?”

“Well,” said Deenah, “he was really attracted to you when he first met you, and he always asks about you. I was talking to him the other day, and he said he was in New York. When I told him you were also in New York, he said he would love to meet you for a drink. Interested?” she asked.

“Whatever happened to the young girlfriend?” I asked. Deenah informed me he wasn't with her anymore. My schedule was jam-packed, and I was running around to the shows at my usual hectic pace. But hey! If H. was up for a late-night rendezvous, I figured it might be fun to catch up. “Sure,” I said, excited to actually be going on a date. “Tell him to call me.”

The next day, the drawl on the phone was unmistakable, and H. had me laughing within seconds. I suggested he come by my hotel bar for drinks at around ten that night, once the last show we were covering was over. When I got back to my hotel, I slithered into my best pair of skinny jeans and the cool new Isabella Fiore boots I had just bought in L.A., which had “Faith, Hope, and Love” embroidered on them. Maybe they'd bring me luck. I went downstairs to the lobby to wait.

Minutes later, a tall, lanky guy sporting a Kangol cap, wire-frame spectacles, an oversized plaid wool shirt, faded blue jeans, and Frye boots moseyed into the lobby carrying a very unfashionable big plastic bag. It was raining, and he was a little wet. “Hi, baby!” H. said as soon as he saw me. He looked much craggier than I remembered him, but there was something so loose and relaxed about his manner that he seemed like a breath of fresh air.

We headed for the bar, and I asked him what was in the bag. He told me it contained some of his personal effects, the last few things he had left at his ex-girlfriend's apartment. Apparently, the aspiring starlet was living in the Big Apple now as a Broadway chorus girl.

“Whoa, that was frightful,” he drawled. “I need a drink.” H. ordered a Jack Daniels and proceeded to tell me that he had just come from his ex's place, and she had given him a really hard time. I wasn't sure what he meant, but I chose to ignore the drama and try to get to know him better.

We sat in the bar for a good couple of hours, totally engrossed in our conversation, me regaling him with tales of my old rock-and-roll days, him making me laugh out loud with his hilarious perceptions of the fashion world and his endearingly self-deprecating ways. He talked about how proud he was of his two beautiful grown daughters. And he also shared the pain and sadness he felt because of his severely mentally and physically disabled son. His love for that special child—his eldest— was particularly profound. That explained why there was something so world-weary about this guy, a kind of inner sadness. My heart went out to him, and I sensed that this aspect of his life had made him a bigger, more compassionate person. But H. kept coming back to the lighter side of life, and with his witty observations, constant wisecracks, and huge guffaws, he had me laughing more than I had laughed in a very long time. I was amazed how refreshingly different this guy was from anyone I had known.

Round about midnight, we decided to stroll through Times Square and get an ice cream. I was a little unnerved at first when he grabbed my hand, but soon I was merrily trying to keep up with his big, long strides. This was fun, I thought. New York took on a new complexion, miles away from anything to do with fashion. H.'s cellphone kept buzzing, and he constantly checked the text messages that were pouring in, complaining it was his ex, distraught over his departure. “I told her I was meeting you for a drink. She's probably all jealous now,” he said. “But I'm not breaking down!” he added, with fierce determination. Again, I chose to ignore the shenanigans going on between these two and just be happy that I had found a cool new friend.

It was 2:00 a.m. by the time H. walked me back to my hotel. We said our goodnights, and he left me with a CD of his music to listen to. As soon as I got back to my room, I put it on, crawled under the covers, and savoured every last note of his wonderful bluesy style. About a half hour later, he called to say goodnight, asked me how I liked the CD, and told me how pumped he was about reconnecting with me. I told him he would have to come to Toronto and pay a visit to my farm.

In the days and weeks that followed, my life became a blur of entertaining emails and late-night calls from H. Our conversations often lasted for hours, sometimes until four or five in the morning. We talked about everything: art, religion, politics, human nature, our families, our histories, our hopes, our dreams. I discovered that he was well educated, a devout Christian, and a dedicated father. The downside was that while he had achieved success in the past, he had fallen on hard times in the present and scarcely had two cents to rub together. But his sense of humour was so profound and his insights so brilliant (I thought) that it didn't matter to me. I was falling for this crazy guy, hook, line, and sinker. He told me he had to see me again, and about a month after our fateful New York rendezvous, right after I had returned home from covering the next round of Paris collections, he was on his way to Toronto.

I met him at the airport and was a little shaken by his far-from-suave appearance. But I quickly erased that thought as the charm surfaced. I couldn't wait to take him to the farmhouse, where I could cook for him and we could spend a cozy couple of days listening to great music, watching old movies, and getting to know each other better.

Before I continue, I want to say that now, in retrospect, telling this story as honestly as possible, the whole thing seems unsavoury and wrong to me. I suppose I was so desperate to reinvent myself, to go for what I thought I wanted, to get a cool new boyfriend and recapture a kind of long-lost passion that I threw myself into this relationship with reckless abandon. I know it happens to people all the time. I'm just incredulous at how sadly desperate I must have been.

H. and I and my dog, Beau, made the short trek out to the farm. It was that glorious time of year when the fall colours were peaking. We
sat on the couch for hours, quietly listening to some CDs he had made for me, so many of the great old tunes I'd grown up with—a fabulous compilation of rock and pop and R&B. He understood it all so well: which riffs were genius, which lyrics were amazing, the brilliance of each production. Finally, I had found someone who “got the music”! I felt honestly happy and wildly content for the first time in years.

All day, H. had been religiously tending to the living-room fireplace, taking a kind of macho pride in the sizeable fire he had built—one that raged more intensely than any fire that small hearth had ever seen. At around 1:00 a.m., as we were nodding off on the couch watching
Charade
, I detected smoke. I went over to the fireplace and saw a small curl of smoke that seemed to be coming out of the floor behind it. “Oh, no!” I said. “Looks like we may have some sort of chimney fire!” H. got up to investigate and told me that maybe we should call the fire department. I called 911, telling the woman who answered that we may have a small chimney fire and asking her to please dispatch someone to help us. Because it was so late, and we had only a volunteer fire department in the area, I was worried that it might take a while for someone to get there. But there was nothing we could do to hurry them along. I went over to the fireplace again. The curl of smoke was still there, but now it seemed to be coming from the gap between the floorboard and the hearth. I dashed to the kitchen and opened the trap door leading downstairs. The entire basement was engulfed in smoke!