Brenae’s videos were the greatest puzzle to me. In Packing, Brenae’s sensuality flowed through the entire work, the camera lingering on the lushness of her gestures, the way she cradled her gun. Beautiful and powerful, she ruled every frame. In Lesson in Red, Brenae’s assailant pinned and obscured her body until the red filter soaked them both. Brenae’s face was pained, her voice anxious. Her words hurt. Two women more different could not be imagined, and yet they were both Brenae: the radiant genius and the victim.

And instead of probing deeper, I was waiting, futilely, to meet the actress who would play young Françoise Gilot—also brilliant, and also physically and emotionally abused, first by her father and then by Picasso. Picasso admired young Gilot’s intellect and poise, and his nightly talks with her were a master course on the artist’s mind. He also shoved Gilot on a bridge over the Seine and threatened to toss her in. He held a burning cigarette against her cheek and offered to brand her. He mocked her body shape after she’d borne him a child. “Every time I change wives, I should burn the last one,” he told her. “That way I’d be rid of them.” Gilot stayed with Picasso for a decade anyway. I wanted to ask the actress what it felt like to embody such a heroine.

Kaye called me while I was finishing my salad, staring across the butcher-papered table at the empty blue plate that I had told the waiter not to clear. Just in case.

“She’s on the way to the airport,” she said glumly. “They want her in New York early for media now. There’s a lot of buzz for the play. Everybody loves Picasso, I guess.”

“Gilot’s the one who’s still alive,” I grumbled. My notes on the artist, stuffed in my purse, were baking in the heat.

“Did you take a day off? I’m really sorry.”

“I had it off already,” I said. “I’ve been digging into some new ideas to pitch magazines.”

Kaye sounded relieved as she hung up, and I clung to that as I paid the ridiculous bill and walked out in my ridiculously overpriced suit into a whole block spangled with posters for the next Harry Potter movie. I was lying to Kaye, or I thought so at the time—but long after that October afternoon, it struck me that if I hadn’t come back early from that lunch break, I might not have seen what I saw next. And if I hadn’t seen it, I might never have known the real story of Brenae Brasil.

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