by Amy Plum
But something happens to prevent us from spending time with her. Charles saves a kid who falls off a boat. Gets himself mangled in the propeller. And Kate decides that watching him come home in pieces is unbearable. It reminds her too much of her parents. She tells Vincent that if that is what being a bardia is all about, she can’t stick around to witness his own violent deaths.
She breaks up with him. He, of course, is devastated. Stops eating. Starts acting like his old self pre-Kate: robotic, emotionless. He tries to build a wall around his heart, but the hollow look in his eyes speaks the truth. His heart isn’t even there to protect. It’s with Kate, and she’s gone.
She leaves an empty hole behind her. There was this feeling of optimism and joy in the house when she was around that’s now turned into a void. Like Vincent, I feel hollow. Sad. And as the days pass, I begin to realize I’ve grown to care for Kate. Not as my best friend’s girlfriend, but as someone in and of herself. And I realize I miss her.
EIGHT
I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME. IT’S Vincent who’s lost his girlfriend, not me. But I feel a sense of loss all the same. It’s not like Kate has been around all that long, but the times that I did see her really left a mark on me.
Out of sight, out of mind, I tell myself. And then I do the thing that makes the most sense—I call a girl. Nothing like a beautiful woman to wrap your arms around to chase the blues away. But even an evening with lovely Portuguese Carli ends up with me walking home afterward and lying around staring at the ceiling, feeling strangely unsettled until morning.
Vincent is punishing himself. He barely eats. Whether in training or, on a couple of occasions, facing numa, he fights like a madman. He doesn’t allow himself to look up whenever we pass her house. Once Charlotte, volant, told him that she saw Kate a few blocks away coming toward us, and he turned around and headed the opposite direction.
One night we’re walking around Belleville, doing surveillance in Geneviève’s neighborhood, and I ask him how he’s doing. Thinking he might need to talk about it. He turns to me with empty eyes and says, “You were right before. It was stupid of me to even try to be with Kate. The only thing that makes me feel any better is knowing that she’s better off without me. She’ll meet some human guy and fall for him and lead a happy, normal life. It’s what she deserves.” The words pass through his lips, but it’s like a specter speaking. Vincent is no longer there.
I thank the gods that I’ve never fallen for someone the way he has for Kate. But though I applaud my good sense in managing my love life, something in me feels almost jealous of the deepness of feeling Vincent has for her. Besides the fierce loyalty I feel for Vincent and my kindred, I’ve never felt that much emotion for anyone. And secretly, I’m glad Kate’s no longer around because something in me fears that I, too, would have become more attached.
I don’t know what to do for my friend, so I just make sure I’m as present as possible. Not like he notices that I, or anyone else, is around. But I want to be there in case he ever decides he needs me.
The only thing that breaks the fog of sadness hanging over La Maison is Charles’s erratic behavior. He disappears for long periods of time, and even his twin doesn’t know what he’s up to.
So Charlotte and I trail him and discover that he’s stalking a human. For hours every day, following around this woman who turns out to be the mother of the child who died in the boat accident. The one he couldn’t save. He watches where she goes, and slips into her building to leave anonymous flowers and gifts in front of her door.
His sense of guilt outweighs his self-control, and though Charlotte, Ambrose, and I each speak to him individually—trying to talk some sense into him—he’s sliding down a slippery slope and about to hurtle face-first into danger.
The last straw for Charlotte is when Charles attends the child’s funeral. She tells JB. After JB puts him on probation, Charles flips out. He yells at everyone that he’s had enough—he wants out. And then he takes off. We search for him the next few days, but we can’t locate him, even with the help of the rest of Paris’s kindred.
It’s about then that Charlotte overhears Kate’s sister and grandmother at a café and discovers that Kate’s apparently taking the breakup as hard as Vincent is, and her family is worried.
She sits across from me on my green couch in my studio, sipping carefully at the steaming mug of tea I’ve made for her. “Georgia even mentioned returning to New York,” she sums up.
Why does my heart skip a beat when she says that? Kate a whole ocean away? That’ll just about kill Vincent, I think. And then I realize that it’s not just concern for my friend that I’m feeling. I don’t want Kate to go. I want her to come back to us, even if it means that she’ll always be at a distance from me—friends, no more than that, I remind myself. But I do care about her. I even . . . I push the next thought aside and say, “We’ve got to tell Vincent.”
“Well, that’s what I initially thought. But what can he actually do about it?” she says, concern furrowing her forehead.
“He’s got to do something,” I reply. “The only reason he’s not fighting to keep her is that he has this misguided view that she’s better off without him. Which may, in fact, be true. But he has a right to know that she’s suffering as much as he is.”
We leave my studio and zigzag down a labyrinth of cobblestone streets, past medieval wooden beam-and-plaster buildings that are so old that they’re leaning. Charlotte slips her arm through mine and we walk companionably toward the river.
“Where do you think he could be?” Charlotte asks me after moments of silence. I know automatically who she’s referring to.
“I think Charles is here. In Paris. Hiding out. Needing some time to himself.”
Charlotte nods. “I wish he had never met Madeleine,” she mutters. “But he hasn’t fallen in love since her, and it’s been sixty years. I know it’s stupid to think there’s only one right boy or girl out there for each of us, but doesn’t it seem . . .” She trails off, leaving her question unasked.
“You still love Ambrose,” I say, knowing the answer.
Charlotte bites her lip. Her emerald-green eyes match the topiary labyrinths in the Hôtel de Sens’s garden. As we pass, Charlotte looks out over the medieval palace’s manicured hedges, and sighs.
“Have you ever been in love, Jules? I mean, I know you haven’t since I met you. But was there someone before?”
I shake my head. “No,” I say. And as I say it, Kate’s face comes to mind—her beautiful rose-petal pale skin and deep-as-lakes aquamarine eyes. I push the image from my mind and reach over to ruffle Charlotte’s cropped blond hair, then put my arm around her shoulder for a side hug. “No, Char, I’ve never been in love.”
Vincent opens his bedroom door, and Charlotte pauses before carefully wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a supportive hug. “Vincent, you can’t hole up in your room like this. You have to eat. You look awful.”
She’s right. Vincent’s face is drawn. He looks haggard. In the last two weeks he has lost weight, and there are dark circles under his eyes.
“Vincent, we have something to tell you,” Charlotte says, and recounts the conversation she overheard.
The change in Vincent is immediate. It’s like touching a lit match to a pool of kerosene—life flares back up in him and he becomes a man with a mission. “She needs me,” is all he says, and that’s it. He goes to Gaspard and asks for help, urging him to dig up every possible recorded incident of human-bardia relationships from the older revenant’s extensive archives. Vincent’s determined to find a solution. A way to make things work. Since Kate can’t stand to see him die, they decide to explore the most obvious solution: Vincent must find a way to resist dying.
“What can I do to help?” I ask Vincent.
“Help me make sure she’s safe,” he replies. I have a talk with Ambrose and Charlotte, and we agree that whoever is out walking will pass by her grandparents’ building, or make sure
they’re near the rue du Bac Métro stop when she leaves and comes back from school. And every night around ten thirty, Vincent leaves whatever he’s doing and goes to stand across the street, watching her window from ground level until she turns off her light and he knows she is—for one more night—safe and sound in bed.
It’s not like she’s in danger. Vincent just wants any news of her we can give. And the only news we can give him is that she’s changed back into Sad Girl. I hate to see her like this, robotically going to school and back with an empty look. I want to see the spark return to her eyes. Watch the happy glow return to her cheeks.
It’s obvious how much she misses Vincent. And I know she’ll only be happy again if he finds some way to get them back together. I find myself wishing that I could work that magic for her. That I could bring the smile back to her face. But I slap at those thoughts as if they were mosquitoes. What am I doing, caring so much about my best friend’s love? I deny my feelings for her because they shouldn’t exist.
I begin spending more time alone, drawing and painting. Disconnecting my thoughts, and letting my paintbrush express what I’m feeling. One night I’m in my bedroom working on a sketch of a woman who looks remarkably like Kate when Vincent comes bustling through my door in a panic. I flip the paper over and lay my pencil on it.
“She just saw me with Geneviève and . . . Jules, you should have seen her face,” he gasps.
“Who, Kate?” I ask.
“Who else? Yes, Kate!” He takes a breath and starts again. “I was having coffee at La Palette with Geneviève, asking her about what she and Philippe did to make their revenant-human marriage work. Talking about it made Gen upset, so I was comforting her. It was totally innocent—you know how I feel about . . .”
“You feel like her brother. Go on,” I encourage him. He throws himself down on my couch and covers his eyes with his palms. “Kate saw us. And from the look on her face . . . Jules, she must think that Gen and I are together.”
I pause. “Is that a bad thing?”
Vincent drops his hands. “Yes, that’s a bad thing, Jules. A very bad thing. She’s hurt. I hurt Kate.”
“Okay.” I shrug, not knowing what he wants from me.
“Jules, you have to talk to her for me. You have to let her know that I’m trying to find a solution. And that nothing’s going on with Geneviève.”
No, I think. You can’t ask me to do that. The last two weeks have been hard enough, watching her from afar. The last thing I need is to come face-to-face with her. To remind me of how much I care for her. “And you can’t do that yourself because . . .” I prod.
“I’m not sure she’ll even talk to me now,” he says. He presses his fingers to his temples. “You should have seen her face.”
Vincent is a study in pain. I can’t refuse my friend, however conflicted I feel. One look at the desolation on Vincent’s face and I agree.
“I’ll find her tomorrow,” I promise.
NINE
THE PARK IN FRONT OF KATE’S BUILDING IS silent on weekend mornings. Everyone must be sleeping in, I think. For an hour it’s only the pigeons, a pair of ravens, and me enjoying the spectrum of autumn colors, of the changing leaves in the early Saturday-morning chill. After a while the warm, yeasty smells coming from the bakery across the street draw me from my hideaway, and I take a break to buy a pain au chocolat, savoring the flaky pastry as the chocolate baked inside melts in my mouth.
I wait another hour before I see her come out the front door, and then follow her to—surprise, surprise—the Café Sainte-Lucie. The café owner greets her and gives her a table in the front window. To avoid all semblance of stalkerhood, I wander around the neighborhood for a half hour before returning to the café. I walk silently up to her table and slip into the seat facing her. She’s so caught up in The Catcher in the Rye that she doesn’t even notice. I wait until she turns a page and glances around the room, and when her gaze finally lands on me she jumps.
My heart turns a flip in my chest. Now that I’m looking into those incredible blue-green eyes, I find it difficult to resist touching her hand. I sort through my various masks, select a wry smile, and affix it to my face. “So, Miss America,” I say, “you thought you could pull a disappearing act and just abandon all of us? No such luck.”
I can tell from her expression that she is happy—relieved, even—to see me, and my pulse speeds up about ten notches. I run my hand through my hair and try to calm myself. I feel almost nervous. What the hell is wrong with me?
“What’s the deal with you dead guys?” she teases. “Are you following me or what? Last night it was Charles, and now you!”
Wait, what? “You saw Charles?” I ask, astonished.
“Yeah, he was at a club I went to near Oberkampf,” she says, her eyes narrowing as she sees my surprise.
“Which club?” I ask.
“Honestly, I don’t even know what it was called. There wasn’t a sign or anything. Georgia dragged me along with her and her friends.”
I have a bad feeling at the pit of my stomach knowing that Charles is still in Paris but avoiding his kindred. “Did he say anything to you?” I ask.
“No, I was just leaving when I saw him standing outside. Why?”
She looks puzzled. I decide to turn the conversation back to the reason I’m there. “So . . . when are you coming back?” I ask.
Her face falls. “I can’t, Jules.”
“You can’t what?” I prod. I’m not letting her off the hook.
“I can’t come back. I can’t let myself be with Vincent.”
“How about being with me, then?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Where’d that thought come from? I chastise myself, and cover up by winking suggestively, and she laughs. I decide to push it as far as I can. Take advantage of the hole I’ve dug myself into.
Taking her hand, I lace my fingers through hers. “Can’t blame me for trying,” I say, and watch her cheeks flare scarlet as my heartbeat accelerates. Her skin is soft. Warm. And I am touching her for the first time—our first connection—and it feels like the nerve endings in my fingertips are shooting off sparks.
“You’re incorrigible,” she chides, but she doesn’t pull away.
“And you’re blushing,” I respond. I continue flirting for a few moments, enjoying her reactions before forcing myself to come around to the point I’m there to make. I tell her that Vincent is pining away for her.
She looks down briefly, breaking eye contact. And then looking back up at me with eyes glistening with repressed tears, she says, “I’m sorry. I wanted to give it a chance, but after seeing Charles carried home in a body bag . . .”
I remove my hand quickly, and stare back at her, emotionless. I am no longer flirty Jules; I am Vincent’s ambassador. I must persuade her to give him another chance. A voice inside my head whispers, Are you doing this for him? Or for you?
“I can’t let myself fall for Vincent if it means having a constant reminder of death,” she continues. “I’ve had enough of that to deal with in the last year.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.” I turn my place mat over, fish a pencil out of my pocket, and begin to sketch her. That way I don’t have to look at her. To be undone by those warm, trusting eyes.
But with a few lines, I’ve transferred her beauty into a two-dimensional version of my dream girl. Kate has all of the grace and dignity of Botticelli’s Venus, and that is how I depict her. My fingers loosen on the pencil, letting the image flow from my mind to the paper, and I look up to check her real face against the one I’ve given her, and for the second that my eyes linger on her own, I feel a stab to my heart and know I am lost.
I’m falling for Kate. How could I? My best friend is in love with her. And she with him. You must never let them know—the words sizzle through my mind, and I feel like I am bleeding internally.
Kate drags me back to the here and now. “I saw Vincent yesterday sharing a very tender moment with a gorgeous blonde.”
I ignore her words and continue drawing. I can’t look her in the eyes right away. She will see it. She’ll know how I feel. “Vince wanted me to check on you,” I say finally. “He doesn’t dare approach you himself. He says he doesn’t want to cause you any more agony. After seeing you sprint out of La Palette yesterday, he was afraid that you might have drawn the wrong conclusion. Which you obviously did.”
I dare to glance up and see a flash of anger in her eyes. “Jules, I saw what I saw. How much more obvious could it have been?”
Part of me wants to shrug it off. To let her believe that Vincent and Geneviève are a couple. She is at a weak point—wounded and confused. From decades of experience, I know that this is the perfect time to make a move—right after a girl’s been hurt by someone else. I spend the next few months building their confidence back up, showing them a good time.
And then, before they can completely fall for me, I come up with something that will make them want to break up. I plant a seed of doubt, make them think that it’s their idea that we stop seeing each other. I act sad, but let them go their own way, and we both end up with a smile on our face, and our hearts a little warmer than before.
Kate is right there, ready to be scooped up and loved. And I’m so tempted. She is beautiful: not just her face—her entire being is lovely. I see why Vincent is drawn to her. I find myself imagining that I’m holding her, and it makes me feel dirty. If I follow my desire, I will betray the person I am closest to in the world. My best friend. My brother. And although I melt a little more each time I glance up at her, I fix her gaze in mine and tell her what Vincent wants me to. “Geneviève is kindred. She’s an old friend who’s like a sister to us. Vincent’s in love, but not with her.”
