Vincent and I spend the next few evenings in the great hall, sprawled on the leather couches, catching up. People come and go, knowing we will be there, and join the conversation, before leaving us alone once again.
Vincent wants to know about New York, and I give him all the details. But we both carefully skirt around the subject of Kate and her everyday life with my kindred. It’s unnatural to feel this uncomfortable around my best friend. We know everything there is to know about each other. But we’re both being careful. Tiptoeing around each other’s feelings. And knowing that we both feel weird about it.
Although we don’t sleep, everyone needs their downtime, and in the early hours of Saturday morning, I say good night to Vincent and go back to my room. I try to read but can’t focus. I pull some old drawings out of a cupboard and sort through them. God, I’m glad no one dug through my stuff while I was gone. All the drawings from the months before I left are of Kate. Kate lying on a couch, reading. Kate sitting in a café, laughing. Kate in my studio, lying on her back and staring dreamily at the ceiling as she poses for me.
I toss the sheaf of papers onto a table and realize I’m no longer pining. Following the conversation with Kate, I’ve begun to pull myself back together and am starting to feel like my old self again. Maybe, when I get back from Brittany, I’ll talk Ambrose into going to one of the clubs we used to go to. I could pick up a high-spirited French beauty. Charm her into taking me back to her place. And find solace in the arms of a woman for a few delicious hours. I think back to the last time . . . it’s been a while. Sacha? Or was it Sandra? I can’t even remember her name.
And suddenly I feel empty. Like a century of affairs that felt like a bubbling source of sparkling springwater—water I needed to survive—had actually just been a mirage. A dry streambed in a desert of emotional void. And I know that’s not what I want anymore. I crave something else. Something real, tangible, lasting.
I pick out a sketchpad and some charcoal and take them over to my easel. Who to draw . . . who’s not Kate. I start sketching the lines of Faust’s face. Handsome, square jawline. Deep-set eyes and defined brows. I smile when I think of his unself-conscious earnestness. His natural openness. And I add a few shadows to his cheekbones and some white to his forehead, and here he comes, emerging from the paper. Faustino Molinaro: a hero with a heart.
Satisfied, I flip the paper over the back of the easel and start from scratch. I draw without thinking, my hand moving while my mind drifts back across the ocean to that foreign place I’ve made my home. New York: where I speak the language but don’t yet understand the people. It is still a beautiful mystery to me—the danger that lurks just beyond people’s everyday lives, the vertiginous mix of nationalities, ethnicities, languages, foods, dress, religions . . . everything in the world condensed into one shining city.
I am drawing New York, it’s New York in my mind, but staring out at me from the surface of the paper are the eyes of Ava. Exotic eyes, whose color I haven’t yet figured out. For fear of getting freezer burn. High cheekbones. I pick up a copper-brown pastel and brush it across her face. Warm-dark skin that seems to glow from within. Bow lips, the color of currants.
I sit back and inspect my work. New York. Ava. They are the same in my mind. The same on the page. I can see what people love, what draws her kindred—and apparently mine as well—to her. There’s something about her that makes you want to get closer. To be near her. To have her accept you into her court of admirers. Well, that’s not going to happen for you, buddy, I think. You’re going to have to make your own friends. A few days in Paris haven’t made her warm to me, it seems. She ignores me at the rare meals we’ve all had together and was as glacial as ever when we crossed paths in the garden this morning.
There’s a knock on my door. I yell, “Entrez!” and it cracks open. And, holy crap, speak of the devil. I flip the page with Faust back over, covering Ava’s portrait before she’s able to get a glance.
She steps into the room. “Sorry for disturbing you,” she says, and then, getting a glimpse of my jam-packed walls, begins the gawking process that everyone who walks into my room goes through.
“Wow!” she says, starting at one wall and working her way up and down the rows of portraits. “Are these your saves?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had a hundred years of rescues,” I say. “Demands a lot of wall space.” I stay seated on my stool, body-blocking the sketchpad where her portrait hides under Faust’s.
“I’d say!” she says, stopping at a portrait of a little girl I saved from drowning in the 1960s. “She’s a beauty,” she remarks.
“Went on to found an NGO in Africa. Her group has saved countless lives,” I say. “One of those times when your sacrifice pays off big for humanity.”
Ava moves on to another—a rough kid with glazed-over eyes and a hollow face. “Unlike others,” I continue, “who, even after you’ve saved them, manage to finish themselves off anyway.” She gives me a quick look of understanding and moves on, perusing my walls like a gallery.
“You are talented,” she says.
“Why, thank you,” I respond, half-curious. “But weren’t you the one who introduced me to your clan as an accomplished artist?”
“Honestly,” Ava says, “I’d never seen anything of yours in person. Just some black-and-white photos from old exhibition catalogues . . . before your death, of course. I have no idea what pseudonyms you’ve been using since then.”
“There have been several,” I admit.
“Yeah, well, let’s just say your reputation preceded you,” she says, and gives me a significant look. But what it signifies, I have absolutely no clue.
She strolls over to the couch and, before I can stop her, picks up the sheaf of drawings I tossed there.
“No, wait!” I say, jumping up and lunging toward the stack, but it’s too late, she’s already shuffling through. Kate after Kate after Kate. She stops at one: a drawing of Kate looking up from her café crème. Her eyes are sparkling, and she has a playful smile on her lips. Vincent asked me to draw it from a photo he took of her. I didn’t tell him that I made a copy for myself.
Ava stares at the drawing and then up at me. She’s put the pieces together. Smart girl. Damned insightful. “She’s why you ran away.”
Vincent wants to know about New York, and I give him all the details. But we both carefully skirt around the subject of Kate and her everyday life with my kindred. It’s unnatural to feel this uncomfortable around my best friend. We know everything there is to know about each other. But we’re both being careful. Tiptoeing around each other’s feelings. And knowing that we both feel weird about it.
Although we don’t sleep, everyone needs their downtime, and in the early hours of Saturday morning, I say good night to Vincent and go back to my room. I try to read but can’t focus. I pull some old drawings out of a cupboard and sort through them. God, I’m glad no one dug through my stuff while I was gone. All the drawings from the months before I left are of Kate. Kate lying on a couch, reading. Kate sitting in a café, laughing. Kate in my studio, lying on her back and staring dreamily at the ceiling as she poses for me.
I toss the sheaf of papers onto a table and realize I’m no longer pining. Following the conversation with Kate, I’ve begun to pull myself back together and am starting to feel like my old self again. Maybe, when I get back from Brittany, I’ll talk Ambrose into going to one of the clubs we used to go to. I could pick up a high-spirited French beauty. Charm her into taking me back to her place. And find solace in the arms of a woman for a few delicious hours. I think back to the last time . . . it’s been a while. Sacha? Or was it Sandra? I can’t even remember her name.
And suddenly I feel empty. Like a century of affairs that felt like a bubbling source of sparkling springwater—water I needed to survive—had actually just been a mirage. A dry streambed in a desert of emotional void. And I know that’s not what I want anymore. I crave something else. Something real, tangible, lasting.
I pick out a sketchpad and some charcoal and take them over to my easel. Who to draw . . . who’s not Kate. I start sketching the lines of Faust’s face. Handsome, square jawline. Deep-set eyes and defined brows. I smile when I think of his unself-conscious earnestness. His natural openness. And I add a few shadows to his cheekbones and some white to his forehead, and here he comes, emerging from the paper. Faustino Molinaro: a hero with a heart.
Satisfied, I flip the paper over the back of the easel and start from scratch. I draw without thinking, my hand moving while my mind drifts back across the ocean to that foreign place I’ve made my home. New York: where I speak the language but don’t yet understand the people. It is still a beautiful mystery to me—the danger that lurks just beyond people’s everyday lives, the vertiginous mix of nationalities, ethnicities, languages, foods, dress, religions . . . everything in the world condensed into one shining city.
I am drawing New York, it’s New York in my mind, but staring out at me from the surface of the paper are the eyes of Ava. Exotic eyes, whose color I haven’t yet figured out. For fear of getting freezer burn. High cheekbones. I pick up a copper-brown pastel and brush it across her face. Warm-dark skin that seems to glow from within. Bow lips, the color of currants.
I sit back and inspect my work. New York. Ava. They are the same in my mind. The same on the page. I can see what people love, what draws her kindred—and apparently mine as well—to her. There’s something about her that makes you want to get closer. To be near her. To have her accept you into her court of admirers. Well, that’s not going to happen for you, buddy, I think. You’re going to have to make your own friends. A few days in Paris haven’t made her warm to me, it seems. She ignores me at the rare meals we’ve all had together and was as glacial as ever when we crossed paths in the garden this morning.
There’s a knock on my door. I yell, “Entrez!” and it cracks open. And, holy crap, speak of the devil. I flip the page with Faust back over, covering Ava’s portrait before she’s able to get a glance.
She steps into the room. “Sorry for disturbing you,” she says, and then, getting a glimpse of my jam-packed walls, begins the gawking process that everyone who walks into my room goes through.
“Wow!” she says, starting at one wall and working her way up and down the rows of portraits. “Are these your saves?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had a hundred years of rescues,” I say. “Demands a lot of wall space.” I stay seated on my stool, body-blocking the sketchpad where her portrait hides under Faust’s.
“I’d say!” she says, stopping at a portrait of a little girl I saved from drowning in the 1960s. “She’s a beauty,” she remarks.
“Went on to found an NGO in Africa. Her group has saved countless lives,” I say. “One of those times when your sacrifice pays off big for humanity.”
Ava moves on to another—a rough kid with glazed-over eyes and a hollow face. “Unlike others,” I continue, “who, even after you’ve saved them, manage to finish themselves off anyway.” She gives me a quick look of understanding and moves on, perusing my walls like a gallery.
“You are talented,” she says.
“Why, thank you,” I respond, half-curious. “But weren’t you the one who introduced me to your clan as an accomplished artist?”
“Honestly,” Ava says, “I’d never seen anything of yours in person. Just some black-and-white photos from old exhibition catalogues . . . before your death, of course. I have no idea what pseudonyms you’ve been using since then.”
“There have been several,” I admit.
“Yeah, well, let’s just say your reputation preceded you,” she says, and gives me a significant look. But what it signifies, I have absolutely no clue.
She strolls over to the couch and, before I can stop her, picks up the sheaf of drawings I tossed there.
“No, wait!” I say, jumping up and lunging toward the stack, but it’s too late, she’s already shuffling through. Kate after Kate after Kate. She stops at one: a drawing of Kate looking up from her café crème. Her eyes are sparkling, and she has a playful smile on her lips. Vincent asked me to draw it from a photo he took of her. I didn’t tell him that I made a copy for myself.
Ava stares at the drawing and then up at me. She’s put the pieces together. Smart girl. Damned insightful. “She’s why you ran away.”
