Page 3 of One Shade of Gray
Thankfully, the craze passed quickly, but then the movies followed. I counted the days until I was free of the entire plot. I had no time or inclination to make games out of dominance or submission. And while my sexual exploits were eclectically varied, I’d yet to get sexual gratification out of subjugating a woman, at least in thiscentury.
Times had changed since I was a boy. Over a hundred years had passed. Women’s rights, civil rights, fashion, it was all evolution. Which was something my survival depended upon. Any woman who would remain in my life would learn quickly my tastes, or be dismissed. I liked to keep things simple and straightforward—something modern women usuallyappreciated.
I unbuttoned my jacket and sank into the couch across from my desk. I’d only come to work because I followed Izzy in. It became a habit. But how long had she known? There was no reason for me to be in the building today except for the contractor meeting, which wasn’t until later. For now, I needed to strategize a way to get that woman to agree on adate.
I closed my eyes and recalled the first moment I saw her. I frequented a café on the corner across from the theater. She’d come walking through the square clutching a newspaper. Her dress was a practical white summer thing, a tan fedora topped her short mop of blonde hair, and black sunglasses covered almost half her face. She held the American periodical under her arm and trotted through the square without so much as a glancearound.
I’d thrown some money on the table and followed her down a narrow alley. She barreled through that as well, clearly with a destination in mind. As I walked, her image overlaid with another I knew so well. One I’d visualized over and over, more times than I cared to admit: Sibyl. Every inch of this woman looked exactly like her, down to the mole on her left ankle just above the strap of her shoe. I’d touched that mole, kissed that mole; seeing it again on living flesh threatened to rend me in two. Her hair, while the same soft texture, was shorter and blond, where Sibyl’s had been brown. Otherwise, it was as if I were looking at the same woman aged ten years. Ten whole years Sibyl neverclaimed.
I followed her to the solicitor I’d hired to find a producer. She exited with a smile and her sunglasses in her hand ten minutes later. Even those eyes were the same, big and dominating her face in an endearing way. The second she stepped off the curb, I was torn between questioning my lawyer and following her to her next destination. My curiosity won out, and I entered the solicitor’s office a minute after she’ddeparted.
The secretary greeted me. “Mr. Gray, what a surprise. I didn’t think you had an appointment today.” Her French accent overtook some of the English words, but I got the meaning wellenough.
“May I goback?”
She gestured for me to continue, and I walked through the open door at the back of the small office. Mr. Leroux sat eating a pastry and immediately dropped it before he hopped to his feet. “Mr. Gray, I wasn’t expectingyou.”
I smiled at my old friend. “Seems to be going around, Jean-Claude.”
“How may I help you,Sir?”
“The woman who left moments ago, what was her businesshere?”
Jean-Claude shuffled some papers on his desk before handing me three, stapled together at the corner. “She’s the director and producer of Romeo and Juliet, soon to start casting at thetheater.”
Romeo and Juliet. I sighed as I glanced down at the contract. “Isobel Vale,” I readaloud.
“She prefers to be called Izzy. She’s an American, famous in certain Broadway circles according to herreferences.”
I memorized her address and committed any other details I could catch to memory. If Sibyl had been reincarnated, this might be my chance to make amends. To right the wrongs committed so many yearsago.
The idea unfurled inside me. Something like hope. An emotion I’d let die decades past. If I could finally be at peace, finally die, then Izzy might be the ticket to that end. And if death was off the table for me, then at the very least, I might graspatonement.
2
Izzy
Istaredat my closed door off and on throughout the morning, half expecting Gray to barge in at any moment. He had the right, but if he possessed any knowledge about me as a person, he wouldn’t tryit.
I went over scripts and finalized some understudies I wanted to test, and when my stomach grumbled loudly, I glanced up at the clock. Noon. A good time to stop for lunch. I favored the café on the corner across from the theater. They made heavenly croissant sandwiches. Not exactly health food, but I considered the almost mile I walked back and forth to work every day enough exercise to stave off the effects of too many carbs. And. . .when in Parisright?
I grabbed my wallet and phone and stuffed them into my pocket, leaving my bag as I hated lugging it around on quicktrips.
The weather was warm with a nice mid-summer breeze. Any other day, I’d have spent my lunch people watching outside the café. But I had more work to do, and I wanted to leave earlier in the evening than usual. Which, in my world, meant I wanted to leave before it got dark. As I carefully navigated the cobblestones in my low heels, I spotted a familiar face at my usual table. He looked different now, his jacket was thrown over the back of his chair, his dress shirt sleeves bunched up at the elbow. He held a hefty tome in one hand as he gracefully sipped an espresso, pinky out, ofcourse.
I walked straight to the table and waited for him to look up. I cleared my throat, and he finally met my eyes. The resounding zing that went through my body troubled me. It was like touching a nine volt to your tongue. “What are you doinghere?”
He waved at the table with his now empty demitasse, “lunch.”
“I come here forlunch.”
He didn’t seem fazed by my declaration. “It’s the best café in the area. I know, I tried them all. You don’t hold a monopoly on lunch locales.” He set down his glass and gave me one of those long slow challenging looks that made me wonder whether he was arguing with me or flirting with me. Either way, I didn’t likeit.
I scowled at him. “Awfully suspicious though, you here eating lunch just when I come down forlunch.”
“It’s twelve o’clock, my dear. It’s the lunch hour. That’s not suspicious atall.”
His focus and his gaze strayed back to the book as he spoke, and he said “my dear” in a scolding tone which should have reminded me of my grandmother, but actually made me want to hear itagain.
