Perfect Strangers

Chris and Olivia have lunch at Cafe Blanc. Chris wears aviator sunglasses and looks like a model. He announces that Olivia must return to New York, where he can have security watch her at all times. Due to his government position, Chris has “enemies,” and he says they’ll use Olivia to get to Chris. Olivia wonders if Emerson’s death involved Chris and politics, but he says it didn’t. He recites the police’s conclusion: Emerson was a victim of “gang wars”—a bullet hit her when it should’ve hit a gang member.

Chris cries, and Olivia comforts him while thinking of James. Chris affirms his love for Olivia and warns her that he’ll forcibly bring her back to New York if she doesn’t go on her own.

Afraid that Chris has hired men to kidnap her, Olivia is shaky when she returns to the apartment. Her new phone, which James got her to replace the one she broke, rings. It is James, who is in Germany, and Olivia relays what happened between her and Chris at lunch. James assumes Chris is still in love with Olivia. In James’s background, Olivia hears male voices, but they don’t speak German. She also hears footsteps.

James tells Olivia to look in the dresser drawer, and she finds sexual body jewelry featuring three butterfly clamps. James wants her to try it on and send him pictures. He assures her that the phone is unhackable—he got it from a friend who produces them for governments. Olivia jokes that she doesn’t know how to put the jewelry on.

Returning to the topic of Chris, Olivia details his threat. James orders her to hide in his apartment, telling her that she’s been at risk for years, and he’ll explain more in person. Olivia hurriedly packs and goes to James’s apartment. She types in the password—her name spelled backward—to open the door. Inside, she finds a wall filled with books, black-out windows, and a plethora of guns. Afraid again, Olivia leaves James’s apartment.

Olivia’s fright scares a taxi driver, who takes her to the Saint Germaine Hotel. She tells the man at the front desk that she fought with her boyfriend, and he agrees to register her as Madame Pollitt. The name alludes to Maggie Pollitt, a character in Tennessee Williams’s play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The play became a movie in 1958, with Elizabeth Taylor playing the role of Maggie, and the man thinks Olivia looks like Taylor. 

Using her phone’s digital assistant, Olivia asks about James, but the phone provides the same information as Kelly’s husband. She asks to see a picture of James, but the phone can’t produce one. The phone also refuses to divulge its manufacturer, but it has extensive data on Olivia, who learns that James created a file for her when they first met at Cafe Blanc.

When Olivia asks, the phone explains Emerson’s death: She was killed at a Washington, DC, political rally for Chris, who was a New York congressperson at the time. An assassin wanted to kill Chris; instead, they accidentally shot Emerson. Chris lied, and Olivia believes James is lying, too.

James rushes into the hotel room, and a frightened Olivia throws a lamp at him. She threatens to jump off the balcony, but James mentions the security lock. He promises not to hurt her and tells her he loves her. Gunshots erupt from outside the room, and James fires back with a gun that has a silencer. As they escape, he flippantly discusses potential honeymoon spots for him and Olivia.

Olivia and James drive to a farm where they board a small plane, which James pilots. After an hour, they land in a field and get into a Mercedes. They drive to Provence, an idyllic region in southeast France. The setting prompts James to quote the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi.

In the car, James admits that he’s an assassin but with ethics: He won’t harm women or children and only agrees to shoot nefarious men. Further, he demands photos from the respective funeral, which are the source material for his drawings.

James didn’t intend to meet Olivia, but he was aware of Chris, who uses his ambassador position to enrich himself as an international arms dealer. Olivia suddenly remembers Chris meeting with shady men at home and receiving mysterious documents. James tells her that Chris works with assassins, but James has never worked for Chris. He then vows to kill the man who murdered Emerson.

Olivia settles into her new home—James’s stone mansion, which is surrounded by lavender fields. Olivia feels conflicted over James’s promise to kill the man who killed her daughter. She wants vengeance but as an “educated woman,” she feels guilty for not embracing an enlightened form of justice.

In the library, James reads Hemingway’s posthumously published memoir, A Moveable Feast. He pours her a whiskey. They discuss the link between power and killing, and James details what he has discovered about the events that led to Emerson’s death. Chris was working on a chemical weapons deal, and a delay prompted him to request more money to bribe customs officials. The people he was dealing with didn’t like how Chris changed the terms and tried to make an example of him. However, the person they hired was “sloppy”—instead of firing from a stable spot across the street, he shot from a moving car.

Olivia remembers holding Emerson, the blood stain, and her open eyes. She realizes that Chris divorced her to keep her safe, and the men at the hotel were people Chris hired to bring her back to the United States. James suggests that the men wouldn’t have treated Olivia kindly and promises that she is safe in the mansion. She can leave, but she won’t: She loves him.

James reveals that artistic background is a fabrication, as is his ALS. He knew Kelly’s husband looked into his background because he received a notification, but he promises not to lie to Olivia again. He also agrees to kill the man who murdered Emerson, saying he will bring Olivia the man’s “head on a platter” (464).

Olivia and James have intense sex before James goes to Germany to kill the man who murdered Emerson. James returns with a black eye and the head in a leather satchel. Olivia doesn’t look at the head, so James buries it in the lavender fields.

Olivia finishes her novel and discovers that she’s pregnant. They playfully discuss gender roles and parenting. James has quit his job as an assassin, and he says he might want to be the parent who stays home and cares for the baby.

One day, James brings home a wall calendar featuring pictures of fall on the East Coast. When Olivia notices the calendar’s sponsor—the Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg, New York—she screams as her life in Provence abruptly vanishes.