by Densie Webb
Mostly starving artists when I met them, their paintings have taken on mythical proportions over the past century and I often wonder what they would think of their work being held in such esteem—on display in the New York Metropolitan Museum and auctioned at Sotheby’s for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Some would no doubt scoff, call them fools. Others would berate them for waiting so long to recognize and appreciate their genius. Still others would likely feel humbly validated for their life’s work.
As we enter the exhibit hall, I hear a tour guide with a group of eager-to-learn patrons and I have to stop myself from correcting her. They always get something wrong.
Andie has stopped in front of a Monet, “Poppy Field, Argentuil,” leaning into it to read the didactic. The painting, of Monet’s wife in the middle of a field of brightly colored wild flowers, brings to mind Danielle in a flowing white dress. But I am with Andie now. I can only hope that Danielle would forgive me my feelings for this beautiful young woman standing next to me, so full of life. That she would understand and wish me all the happiness I might muster. I can hear her silky voice, “Vincent, mon trésor, you have suffered so; you deserve to be happy.”
“Vincent, you’re hurting me.”
Andie’s voice pulls me from my imaginings.
“I raise her fingertips to my lips. “I didn’t realize.”
She removes her hand from mine, rubs it and shakes it out before taking my hand again—because that is where it belongs—smiles and her heart hums, though she has no outward reaction.
“Oh, I love this one,” she says, pointing at an early Monet. “My father wanted to be an artist. He went to art school in New Orleans; that’s where my parents met. We had lots of art books at home that I flipped through for hours and hours when I was kid. I didn’t know the names of the artists at the time, but I loved looking at the paintings.” She pauses. “He never got to do what he really wanted to do; he ended up working for the city. I was never one hundred percent sure what he did all day in his cubicle.”
“Did he still paint?”
“He had a little space in the attic, where he set up an easel and he would disappear up there sometimes. I never even asked him about it. I’ve always regretted that—not asking.”
I change the subject to stunt her growing melancholy. “This one is titled ‘Garden at Sainte-Adresse,’’’ I say, as we step in front of another painting. “It’s believed that the figure in the white hat was Monet’s father and this one, his cousin. But the relationship with his father was strained that summer, because of his illicit relationship with Camille Doncieux, who later became his first wife. The poor woman died not long after her second pregnancy.
“He later remarried a woman named Alice Hoschedé. They lived together and had children while she was still married to her first husband. In fact, before Camille died, the four of them lived under one roof for a time. Imagine your mistress and your wife under the same roof. It was quite scandalous. But he didn’t care.”
Her eyebrows furrow and she tilts her head to the side. “How do you know all that?” She laughs and I laugh with her, before continuing, “He suffered from depression off and on and he destroyed hundreds of his paintings because he was displeased with his work. Or perhaps it showed him something about himself he didn’t want to see. Pablo Picasso said that art is a lie that makes us see the truth.”
She’s still looking at me with a mixture of curiosity and surprise.
“Art history is a hobby of mine,” I say and lean in “Monet’s is a delicious story, don’t you think?”
I’m still staring at the painting, when the words get stuck in my throat, but I want her to know this truth, at least. “This one was a favorite of my wife’s.” Andie’s eyes widen. “She passed.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Art was an important part of her life. And mine.”
“How long were you married?”
“Five years.”
“When did she die?
Certain that she won’t probe further, I simply say, “She died suddenly.”
I feel my sorrow burrowing deep into her soul, as the gossamer bond between us grows stronger by the minute. But I am uncertain as to whether it will be strong enough to withstand the greater truth of who—no, what I am. I should regret walking into Lizzie Borden’s, but I can’t unsee her, untouch her, unkiss her, unknow her.
And I wouldn’t, even if I could.
Chapter 16
Andie
I feel his pain. I mean I actually feel it wrapping around me. Sorrow, grief, regret. The same bottomless pit I fell into when my parents died. I wonder if he feels the connection too, but I don’t dare ask. He would think I’m a nut case. He looks at the painting again.
“Danielle was an art critic.”
Danielle Dubois. Even her name is beautiful. I envision a sophisticated woman as gorgeous as he is—porcelain skin, flowing hair, perfect body, mingling with the art crowd, going to fashion shows, traveling around the world. I glance at my nails, chewed ferociously, and I vow that this time, I’ll stop.
I say again, “I’m sorry, Vincent. Do you want to leave? We don’t have to stay.”
“I’m fine,” he whispers.
He turns to me, sweeps my hair behind my ear and kisses my forehead, before lifting my chin up so my eyes meet his. “We’re fine.”
Like a lightning bolt flashing across the sky, I’m in his head again, in his heart. I feel love. No, I actually see it. But that’s so insane. He doesn’t even know me. His cool lips on my skin soothe me, yet at the same time the sensation is primal, animalistic. Then, like a wisp of a dream I can’t quite grasp hold of, the feeling is gone.
His eyes flicker in a moment of reluctant understanding, before he says, “Follow me.”
In the museum restaurant, he pulls my chair out for me just as he did at Lizzie Borden’s. I wonder where he picked up such old-fashioned manners. From his mother? His dead wife? As much as it goes against my nature, I have to admit it makes me feel special. I never expected David to open a door for me. I wouldn’t have expected him to let me go first in a lifeboat if I ever found myself on the Titanic with him. And I never intended on taking his last name (though the fact that it was Donkersloot made it easier—Antoinette Donkersloot? I think not). But I’m not going to suggest Vincent stop this incredibly sweet gesture in the name of feminism.
The museum café is a fifty-fifty mix of New Yorkers, tourists. The difference is easy to spot. Tourists are the ones dressed in bright colors, clutching bags of souvenirs from the gift shop, snapping photos with their phones. New Yorkers are dressed in black, looking disinterested, disengaged. I may be dressed in black, but I’m far from disinterested.
I order a Portobello mushroom on rye, kettle chips and a diet lemonade, but Vincent insists he’s not hungry. Instead, he orders a scotch. A double.
“Are you vegetarian?” he asks.
“For about five years. I just got to where I couldn’t stand the thought of killing something just for me to enjoy a meal, you know? Now, the thought kind of makes me sick.”
His expression suggests he feels the same way. “Oh, are you vegetarian too?”
“Me?” He shakes his head and looks off into the distance. “I desperately wish I were.”
“I can give you some pointers, if you want.”
He shakes his head. “Not for me, I’m afraid. I try to tempt him a time or two, waving a chip in his face, but he politely declines.
I glance at his drink. Skipping lunch and drinking a double instead? It occurs to me that this could be the chink in his shiny exterior.
“So, which of the Impressionists is your favorite?” he asks as he twirls his glass and the ice clinks against the sides.
“Mmmm.” He’s caught me with my mouth full. I put my hand over my lips, chew and swallow as quickly as I can. “Well, I don’t know if I can be totally objective. I’d have to say Monet, but I’m not sure that has to do with your art lesson o
r the connection to my dad.”
He hesitates, takes a sip of his drink, definitively sets the glass on the table and says, “If you don’t mind me asking, how did your parents die?”
It’s a subject I’ve always tried and failed to avoid when asked and I’ve been asked a lot. I sigh and sit back in my chair. “They died in a car accident when I was fourteen. Drunk driver.”
“You were so young. I’m truly sorry,” he says and I feel he truly is.
“We were on our way back from my high school play. I was Emily in 'Our Town.' only I'm the one who survived. Ironic, right?” I try to smile, but it feels more like a grimace. “I actually had adolescent fantasies of becoming an actress, but after the accident I always associated it with nothing but sadness and grief."
Though I've had years of practice retelling the little I remember of the accident, the little that I'm willing to share, this time my voice cracks, my eyes burn. In the backseat of the car, I had been chattering nonstop about the play, basking in their praise, wanting more. My father looked in the rearview mirror to smile at me one last time. He didn’t see the car swerving into our lane. If I had just shut up… The image of their bodies painted in blood visits me at night, along with a smothering sense of guilt.
I clear my throat and sit up straighter in an attempt to keep it together. "Anyway, Mack’s family took me in. It’s hard to explain how tough it is at that age—at any age, I guess—to lose your parents. I couldn’t bounce back and I got pretty self-destructive—drugs, drinking. Stupid, I know. But Mack’s parents were awesome. Especially her mom. I owe them, and Mack, everything. They’re my family.”
I’m oversharing again, lowering my emotional force field, making myself vulnerable. Before I can decide if I’m embarrassing myself, he reaches out and lays both of his hands on mine. It triggers a flashback to his passionate kiss. I feel the electric jolt that shot through me, the brick wall scraping against my back, my rapid breathing. And his rejection. I slide my hand back and take a deep breath.
“I’ve never even visited their graves. I guess I’m not a big believer in the afterlife. Once someone has died, they’re just gone, you know? There’s no coming back.”
He frowns. Maybe he’s religious? Well, shit. I’ve said the wrong thing. Again.
“I’m so sorry Andie. I do understand the grief of great loss.”
Now I feel bad for not expressing more empathy for the death of his wife. His wife.
“I guess we’ve both suffered loss,” I say. “How did she die, your wife?”
He looks surprised, like he’s unprepared to answer the same question he just asked me. He picks up his glass and finishes off his drink.
“It was a rare infection.”
And there it is again. His excruciating grief over her illness, her death, is now mine. A thousand needles stab at my heart, cutting my composure into shreds. But this time I’m hit by an even darker dimension to his pain. It feels layered, compounded. There’s something else…
He’s looking at me, as if he knows what I’m feeling, and says, “Danielle didn’t suffer. It was over quickly.”
“Maybe we should talk about something more pleasant,” he says as he gestures at my empty plate and smiles. “I see you didn’t enjoy your lunch.”
Feeling his mood shift, I laugh and wipe my lips with my napkin.
He takes out his money clip again and, along with a generous tip, lays cash for the bill on the table.
“I noticed that money clip in the cab. It’s awesome. Where did you get it?”
He holds it out, slowly rubs his thumb over the delicate engraving and stares at it.
“It was a gift.”
I don’t have to ask from whom.
****
When he brought me home from the museum, he planted a chaste, handshake-of-a-kiss on my lips and when he backed away, I felt cheated as I was, once again, left standing on the steps alone, watching him walk away. I reluctantly took out my keys, entered the lobby, greeted Joseph, and spotted Vincent’s jacket still resting on the counter. We had both forgotten. I grabbed it and opted for the stairs instead of the elevator to give me more time to process the day’s events and work out some of my frustration before Mack bombarded me with questions. Each step I climbed brought the memory of another sensation—his embrace, his honeyed voice, his scent.
I was sure there must be a perfectly logical explanation for his second swift departure—he was tired, or he was coming down with a cold. Or maybe he’s serious when he says he wants to take it slow. But then I remembered that first night at Lizzie Borden’s and him leaving with that leggy brunette. The memory pokes a canyon-sized hole in my taking-it-slow theory.
Before I had walked into the apartment, I threw my shoulders back, plastered a smile on my face and opened the door. Mack was stretched out on the sofa, watching Netflix on her laptop. She slipped her glasses on her head and peered over the monitor. “You’re back early. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. He said he had to get back to work. Something about a late delivery at the florist.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Well, maybe next time. So, how was it?”
I took a breath. “A ten. Definitely a ten.” I felt myself blush.
She sat up, spring-loaded and shoved the computer onto the coffee table, rubbing her palms together in anticipation of vicarious thrills.
“Why didn’t you say so? Hallelujah! Your dry spell is finally over. And with a Greek god no less.”
“Relax, Mack. We didn’t have sex.”
Her shoulders slumped. “No? Well, I guess my definition of a ten is different than yours.” She looks at me for a second, waiting for more.
“He’s incredibly polite—opens doors, pulls out chairs for me—chivalrous even.”
“Hmmm. Not sure that’s a good thing. Is he expecting you to play the part of Guinevere?”
“If he is, he’s in for a big disappointment.”
We both chuckle at the thought of it.
“So, what did you talk about? His blue eyes? His great hair?”
“He talked about his wife.”
“WTF? He’s married?”
“Was. She died.”
“Geez, Andie. Kids?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t ask.”
She shakes her head. “My advice? Be careful. It sounds like he’s got some serious emotional baggage. I mean, how old is he—twenty-six, twenty-seven? She couldn’t have died that long ago and well, living up to an idealized memory is tough.” She wraps both hands around her coffee mug and fiddles with the handle. “You don’t know what’s going on behind those baby blues.”
Chapter 17
Vincent
I call Andie to wish her luck on her first day. “I was hoping I could come by your office and treat you to lunch?”
She hesitates and clears her throat.
“Did I wake you?”
“It’s okay. I need to get up. Um, I’m not sure if I’ll even have time for lunch on my first day. Instead of lunch, can you come over to my apartment after work?”
She doesn’t sound herself. “Is something wrong?”
“Just nervous, I guess. I’ll text you when I’m on my way home.”
I hang up, wondering if my attempt to act human, to take it slow, to connect with Andie before I reveal my ugly truth has sprung from nothing more than false hope.
My connection with Danielle was far less complicated. There were no devastating secrets, no trolls under a bridge lying in wait. Everything about us was exactly as it appeared from the moment I first laid eyes on her.
It was the summer of 1860 when I spotted her across the room at a neighbor’s pendre la crémalillère, a housewarming, and sensed that she was restless among the girls tittering in the corner. When she turned in my direction, she didn’t lower her eyes demurely; she looked directly at me and smiled.
I instinctively knew she was different from the other young women I typically encountered, who were more interested in my family na
me, my position as a professor at Ècole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, and that I would be a good provider, than if they might love me. Or even whether I would love them. She later confided in me that she knew I was the one, before we were even introduced. It was something in the way I had looked back at her, without hesitation, without concern of propriety. And she wasn’t intimidated by my scrutiny of her.
She was beautiful, yes, but she was so much more—she possessed a determination, a will that wouldn’t be bent. She refused to adhere to convention, to dress appropriately, to be coquettish. Her hair, which fell onto her shoulders, was the color of freshly ground paprika and she had a fiery temper to match.
Whenever she walked into a room, heads turned and eyebrows arched. Her pére began handwringing each time she opened her mouth to speak, while I found myself hanging on her every word. The burgeoning feminist movement in France, the political revolution taking place—topics typically confined to sitting rooms thick with cigar smoke—were never off-limits for Danielle.
As one of a select few female art critics in Paris, her words were criticized far more than the art she wrote of. She welcomed the challenge.
When I asked her father for her hand, I believe he was relieved to have his radical daughter married off. But I felt blessed, to spend my life in the company of this brilliant, beautiful woman, for her to have my children, for us to grow old together—I couldn’t ask for more. Yes, she loved me deeply, but I adored her.
It was as if I had been blind before and she let in the light for me see the infinite possibilities before us. As we lay in our marriage bed, her warm cheek against mine, her sharp citrusy scent seducing me, she whispered a promise, “rien ne sera jamais nous change” (nothing will ever change us).
I want to make a promise to Andie, but my time on this earth has taught me that promises are nothing more than ardent wishes that can disappear into the ether like dewdrops in the midday sun.
Chapter 18
Andie
I hang up the phone, reach for my glasses, and try to focus on the day ahead. Instead, my head fills with imaginations of Vincent—his soft lips on mine, his smooth hands on my body as he whispers in my ear what he wants to do to me. My fantasy is cut short by Mack’s very real words from last night. “Be careful.”
