Girl in the Afternoon

by Serena Burdick

  “We’ve done it,” Aimée announced.

  Leonie dropped the chemise she was holding into the basket and squealed like a child as she threw her arms around Aimée.

  “Wait.” Leonie pulled away, propping her hands on her hips. “Let me look at you.” She smiled, and her dimples sank into her ample cheeks, the gap between her teeth fully exposed. “You’ve changed.”

  “Stop it.” Aimée laughed.

  “Your first salon exhibit? They will award you a medal, and you will be famous.” Leonie tucked a strand of fine, brown hair behind her ear and picked up the wet chemise. “Have you told your beloved Édouard? Maybe he didn’t get in this year and you did. Wouldn’t that be shocking?”

  Leonie pinned up the chemise and reached for a pillowcase, giving it a violent shake.

  Everything about Leonie was fresh and vivacious. The slightest emotion lit up her cheeks, and her skin was so delicate that when a hand rested against it, red streaks appeared. When Aimée first saw her standing on the corner of the rue Bonaparte with the other models, she reminded Aimée of ripe fruit. She had a full bust, fleshy arms and hips, and an endearing gap between her front teeth, a quirky imperfection that Aimée found irresistible.

  “Édouard did a dreadful thing I haven’t told you about,” Aimée said under her breath.

  Leonie turned her soft, brown eyes. “You didn’t let him?”

  “Not that.” Aimée slapped Leonie’s arm. “Don’t be vulgar.” She picked up the end of a sheet, and Leonie picked up the other. “It’s just that right before I submitted the painting, he came into my studio and began dabbing away at it.”

  Pinning her end of the sheet, Leonie handed Aimée a clothespin, watching, bemused, as Aimée clumsily pinned hers. “Who would refuse that? You should see it as your good fortune.”

  “What if it’s the only reason it was accepted? What if it wasn’t good enough otherwise?”

  Leonie had little tolerance for self-pity. “You’re either good enough, or you aren’t. A few dashes of someone else’s brush won’t make the difference.” She hoisted the empty basket on her hip. “Besides, it was my lovely complexion that got us in. And, of course, these.” She squeezed her shoulders forward so her breasts pushed up over the handkerchief that was tucked into her bodice.

  Aimée laughed. She envied Leonie. There was freedom that women in the lower classes of Montmartre had, freedoms she was denied. Working-class women could do what they wanted. Go where they wanted. Lounge in cafés with men, drink absinthe, smoke, dance, with no reputation to uphold, or stop them.

  Only once had she said this to Leonie, who was horrified. “I most certainly do have a reputation to uphold,” she said. “You’ve never seen the women with their red lipstick and cheap crinolines.” She told Aimée of being apprenticed to a workshop at nine years old. About the stuffy workroom where women swathed in second-rate perfume gossiped over mounds of tawdry dress material. Leonie narrowed her eyes at Aimée. “You’re not as smart as I thought if you can’t see how free you are. From your bourgeois perch you have no idea what it’s like,” she said.

  Normally, Leonie didn’t bother about their class differences. Modeling for Aimée was a job, and a good one, with regular pay, which was hard to come by. Their friendship seemed natural to her. After all, they were both women, with women’s problems. No use envying one life over another. It was what it was.

  “Come,” Leonie said, sidling sideways through the door with the basket propped on her hip. “Have a cup of chocolate with me.”

  Chapter 7

  On the opening day of the Salon de Paris, the Savaray household was full of commotion. Jacques ran from room to room, getting swept out at every turn.

  Earlier that week a cart had taken Aimée’s painting, and the whole family had stood on the front step and watched the small canvas, crammed in with other paintings, bump down the street like a child being sent out into the world.

  Colette ordered new dresses. She even had one made for Madame Savaray, who opened the box, took one look at the drapes and ruffles, and refused to wear it.

  But, on the morning of the Salon, Madame Savaray found it carefully laid out on her bed where she couldn’t help noticing that, at least, Colette had ordered it in gray. She let her fingers trail over the fine fabric, and decided she’d put it on, for Aimée’s sake.

  Aimée was so nervous she could hardly button her dress. Never had her work hung in any gallery and now, at this very moment, her painting was on display at the Palais de l’Industrie, the most prestigious art exhibit in Paris. Already people were looking at it.

  Struggling with the last button at the base of her neck, she heard the clock chime in the hall and knew they were late. Instead of hurrying as she should have, she went to her dressing table and slid open the top drawer. Inside a bronze ormolu box lay her stone necklace. She hadn’t worn it since Henri left.

  She held it up to the window. It pivoted on its string, and the clear stone caught the light and sent an oblong rainbow of color to the opposite wall. Unbuttoning the top buttons of her dress, Aimée slipped the necklace over her head and tucked it into her bodice.

  As she took her best gloves from their box and wiggled her fingers into the soft leather, she felt the weight of the stone pulling at her, along with the familiar longing for Henri, barely perceptible, yet still very much alive.

  * * *

  Auguste waited in the parlor for the ladies to come down.

  He stood over the chess table, twirling a white pawn between his fingers and remembering the first time Henri beat him at a game of chess. The checkmate had come out of nowhere, and Auguste shot his head up and looked at his son with genuine admiration. Henri had looked mortified, and Auguste, understanding the confusion it causes when a boy discovers he can beat his papa, had given Henri a smile and said, “Well done, my boy. Well done.” Still, Henri had hung his head and apologized.

  The apology had angered Auguste. He wanted Henri to be more competitive, have more sportsmanship, so he forced the boy to play another game, making sure he beat him that time. Auguste remembered how he’d gloated, showing Henri how it was done.

  Flipping the pawn upright, Auguste tucked it back on its square. He reached for a black pawn, moved it forward two spaces, and drew his bishop out at a diagonal. He would teach Jacques chess in a few years, and he’d let his son win every game if that’s what it took to build up the boy’s confidence.

  The clock struck the hour. They were late. Auguste looked into the empty hall, and considered calling for Colette to hurry up. But that would anger her, and the thought of her anger—even now, after a decent night’s sleep—felt exhausting.

  Auguste considered himself a judicious, levelheaded man, fair, good with people. Only when it came to Colette did a sort of insanity rise up in him, or at least that’s how he saw it. And these days she was taking everything out of him. Their arguments escalated, and they weren’t followed, anymore, by stormy lovemaking. Early in their marriage, the arguments were a harmless game, each trying to one-up the other until someone gave in and they collapsed into each other’s arms. But after Léon died, Colette wouldn’t let him touch her, not until the day they fought like they’d never fought before. Over what Auguste couldn’t remember. It wouldn’t have mattered. They needed the fight. Colette smashed a mirror with her pearl brush, and Auguste put his fist through the wall. It ended with Colette on her knees in tears, Auguste sinking to the floor to comfort her.

  After that, only a passionate fight could arouse them.

  Only now, when Colette started in, Auguste just felt overwhelmed and incredibly tired.

  The first time he retreated midargument, Colette threw a teacup that shattered on the back of his head. He almost grabbed her, but that was exactly what she wanted, so he forced himself to walk straight out of the room, cutting off her shrill scream with a decisive, satisfying click of the door. In spite of the blood trickling down his neck, he had felt delighted that he hadn’t given in, which m
ade him realize how much power he’d handed her all these years.

  Auguste reached across the chessboard and picked up the black king, balancing the hefty piece in his hand. He had no idea of the crippling events that would unfold over the next few months, and he couldn’t have predicted his part in them. But he would think back to the moment he stood waiting, unable to call up to his wife, seeing his powerlessness so plainly, like the king in a chess game who can only move one hopeless space at a time.

  * * *

  Colette had always had a temper, but the rage inside her now was different. In some dark corner of her mind, she knew it had started the moment she saw Henri kissing Aimée the night before he left. Her daughter’s back had been pressed up against the wall, and her hand clutched Henri’s as he bent over her in a kiss that reminded Colette of what it was to be desired. They were tender, but desperate, and Colette felt a surge of anger—How dare they—and then a deep longing, and something she refused to acknowledge as jealousy.

  The morning Colette dressed for the Salon de Paris, she pondered how lucky Aimée was to be supported in her art. Colette’s papa would never have done such a thing. When she was seven years old, her papa made her play the piano for a roomful of people. She’d stared at her sheet music in terror, forgetting everything she’d learned. The room was silent, everyone waiting. Even though she knew she’d get a beating afterward, she began banging away nonsensically on the keys, tears streaming down her face. More than anything, she wanted her papa to stop her. But he only watched until she’d exhausted herself, turning to the room when she was finished and crying, “Utterly talentless!” then, laughing, “It’s a good thing she’s pretty. Otherwise we’ll never get rid of her.”

  If he could see her now. Colette craned her neck to view the back of her dress, pleased with this new look. It was the latest fashion, teal silk with brown stripes, long fitted sleeves and a boned jacket bodice. Finally the cumbersome crinolettes had gone out of style, and a woman could walk into a room without popping through the doorway like a cork, Colette thought, tilting her hat.

  She turned from the mirror as Jacques came running into the room. “Maman!” He grabbed the bottom of her dress, and she almost scolded him for pulling at it, but stopped herself.

  Jacques, precious, little Jacques, was the only part of Colette’s life that felt sweet and good, the only part where her anger softened. If he were naughty, she’d forgive him instantly, taking him in her arms and kissing him all over his soft face. If it weren’t for Marie and Madame Savaray, the boy would be quite spoiled.

  “My darling, little love.” Colette picked him up. “Where is Marie? Are you running about the house all by yourself?”

  The boy giggled and pointed to the door.

  “Well, then, let’s go see if we can find her,” Colette said, and walked out as Jacques pulled a satin streamer on her hat and sent it trailing to the floor.

  Chapter 8

  The Salon de Paris was unthinkably crowded, and the unpleasant smell of warm bodies mingled with the sting of varnish in the central hall as the crowd moved like a single body up the grand staircase.

  It took the Savarays two hours to locate Aimée’s painting. The rooms opened one into the other, and they kept going in the wrong direction, having to loop back and start again. Of course they stopped to view the most talked about pieces, and every few feet they ran into someone they knew. By the time they found the S section, Aimée was high strung and agitated.

  The small canvas was not hung well. It was positioned high on the wall and overpowered by a neighboring canvas full of bloody horses and muscular men. Looking at Leonie perched sideways at a table with her strange smile, Aimée’s enthusiasm, all the buildup for this moment, dropped out from under her. It was pathetically commonplace, her technique precise and formulaic. There was nothing original about the painting other than the light-color scale she’d used, and that would only draw criticism from this crowd if anyone even bothered to stop and study it.

  The disconcerting voice inside Aimée’s head, the doubtful, skeptical one, had been right all along. Her art had become her self-worth, and it wasn’t very good.

  “Not the best placement,” Colette said to Madame Savaray, who stood with a tight-lipped scowl, arms pulled to her sides trying to brace herself against the inevitable stranger who might, at any moment, bump into her.

  “Well, at least it’s not up there.” Auguste pointed to the paintings crammed near the high ceiling.

  Colette brushed her hands together as if shaking off any responsibility for her daughter’s mediocre work. “It’s uncomfortably bright, and there’s far too much color. I don’t know why I didn’t notice that before.”

  Aimée bristled. Her parents were so boringly conventional. “Better to be noticed for originality than not noticed at all,” she said. “Édouard would understand.”

  Colette rolled her eyes. “Édouard, Édouard,” she laughed, hooking her arm through Auguste’s.

  Madame Savaray thought it a fine painting. Although—and she did hate to agree with Colette—it was much too bright for her taste. Regardless, she was no art critic, and she didn’t see that her opinion on color held any importance.

  “Fine work, my dear,” she said, but all Aimée heard was obligatory praise. “Come along now.” She took Aimée’s hand and drew her away from Auguste and Colette, who had moved on to a painting of a half-naked woman in repose. “There’s more to see, and I, for one, don’t know how much more of this stuffy place I can take.”

  Five rooms later, after looking at a sickly depiction of a dead fish, Madame Savaray excused herself and sat down on a green circular sofa in the middle of the room, insisting Aimée go on without her.

  Pushing through throngs of people, Aimée made her way down the stairs to the M section. Édouard was standing in front of his painting, Gare Saint-Lazare, gesticulating with grand gestures as onlookers pressed closer. When he saw Aimée he tipped his hat and smiled.

  Leaving his audience, he came through the crowd to her, looking very grand in his top hat and white double cravat.

  “My dear.” He pressed his lips to the top of her glove. “Congratulations. You’ve made it into this madness.” He rested his arm lightly on her waist. “It’s criticism as usual,” he whispered, guiding her past walls of paintings neither one of them had any interest in viewing. “The Salon rejected two of my paintings this year. And this after the success of Le Bon Bock! The ill-mannered lot of jurors infuriates me as much as anyone.” He grinned at her. “But, here we are, giving our blood in hopes of a medal. I suppose the reviews can’t get as bad as they were for the Salon des Refusés, poor devils. I told Monsieur Renoir they’d be in for it, undermining the values of the académie, shoving antiestablishment down the jury’s throats.”

  Aimée paid no attention to the critics. The paintings at the Salon des Refusés had awed her: Berthe Morisot’s The Cradle, Edgar Degas’s The Laundress, and Monet’s Impression, Sunrise. Those artists captured air, rhythm, truth, and simplicity. They were on the edge of something exciting, something reckless.

  “The jurors are the same lot who ran screaming from Wagner as if the music had stung them,” she said, the warmth of Édouard’s hand a small fire on her hip. “They’re not looking to be excited or intrigued, certainly not shocked. They’re looking for tradition and stability. It makes them feel safe.”

  “Like yourself?” Édouard said.

  Aimée glanced at him, not sure if he’d meant it as an insult, or a challenge, but Edouard kept his gaze straight ahead and only gave a squeeze to her hip that made her feel certain it was a challenge.

  * * *

  After a short rest, Madame Savaray left the upstairs rooms and went down to the lower level.

  When she first saw the painting, she didn’t think much of it. A little village dashed off in rather sloppy brushstrokes. It was the girl who caught her attention. She sat idle in the grass, staring straight out at Madame Savaray, who gave a small gasp when s
he leaned in. Straining her eyes, she read the title Girl in the Afternoon.

  Her chest heaved. It was not a moment she could have predicted, and yet it came as one anticipated, dreaded. She should have been prepared, with a plan, but she stared at the painting with no idea what to do.

  “Grand-mère?”

  Madame Savaray whipped around to see Aimée and Monsieur Manet standing directly behind her.

  Stepping quickly in front of the painting, she cried, “Oh, here you are!” Her voice strained and unnaturally cheerful.

  Édouard tipped his hat. “Madame Savaray, you’re looking magnificent. That dress suits you admirably.”

  She gave a tight smile, her eyes darting around Édouard’s shoulders and over Aimée’s head. Viewers who had looked eager earlier, now appeared tired and disinterested, not to mention wilted, which was exactly how she felt. That, and stricken.

  “Are you quite all right?” Aimée asked.

  Madame Savaray noticed Édouard’s hand linger over Aimée’s for just a moment. “Perfectly,” she said. “Where are your parents?”

  “I haven’t any idea.”

  “We were just making our way to the garden,” Édouard said. “You look as if you could use a bit of air yourself.”

  Madame Savaray nodded. “I most certainly could.”

  “Ah, there’s Monsieur Lerolle.” Édouard shot his hand in the air. “I must go say hello. Let us meet up in the sculpture garden, yes?” he said, and disappeared into the dust that rose from the thousands of feet shifting over the cast-iron floors.

  Aimée looked suspiciously at her grand-mère, who had not moved from the painting. “It can’t be all that bad,” she joked, taking a short step around Madame Savaray who was forced to step aside.

  Aimée had gotten it into her head that Leonie must be modeling for someone else and that her grand-mère somehow thought this was a betrayal. It took her a few moments before she recognized the figure sitting on a lawn in front of a church, the curved line of the girl’s nose, her slight frown, and the tilt of her chin as she lifted her gaze, her expression confrontational, as if challenging the viewer. It was her, but it was her in a place she’d never seen, in a place she’d never been. And it was this she stood trying to make sense of, feeling strangely displaced. When she finally understood, a flush of heat surged through her, and there was a fierce ringing in her ears. The room seemed to tilt and slide away as her grand-mère’s hands anchored onto her shoulders and pulled her away.