Page 76 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
Get to.
Not have to.
This is what she wants.
This is what she craves.
The work. Only the work. She only loves art.
“It’s been so long,” she continues, beaming, a new thrill in her voice. “I can’t wait to find out what’s next, what new assignments are waiting for me. I’ve missed it so.”
No, you didn’t, I want to tell her. You didn’t miss it. You were tired of it. You wanted more. You wanted us. You wanted me. Dammit. You wanted me as much as I wanted you.
I wish I could clasp her shoulders and impart this truth to her. I wish I could give her one-tenth of my love for her. Let it refill her. Fuel her. Renew her love in us.
And yet that’s another impossibility.
Like all the ones we’ve faced.
On some level, I understand that her measured tone isn’t personal. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling, from wanting, from aching.
I ache for her.
For what we had inside Starry Night.
For everything we could have had outside of that Van Gogh.
But that is gone. Like drawn items disappearing with the snap of fingers.
Thalia steps out of La Belle Vie and beams, like a mother welcoming back a long-lost child. Clio rushes to her. She doesn’t look at me, but I can’t look away. I can’t stop watching her.
I can’t stop wanting her.
And I don’t think I will ever stop seeing her everywhere I go.
32
Paris is quiet, and the sun peeks over the horizon like a small child looking out from under the covers before pitter-pattering out of bed. Pink streaks leak across the blue of night as I find my way home and crash in bed.
When I finally make it out of bed in the afternoon, my phone is brimming with texts. Adaline’s are full of exclamation points and emojis. She shares the news coming in from the curators in all the museums.
Remy texts too, asking if I’ve seen my boot on the news (I haven’t, but I pull up the BBC website on my computer), telling me he’s going to have a party, and teasing me about seeing my Muse there. I answer the first and ignore the others. I haven’t told anyone the personal cost of last night’s triumph, and I don’t know when or if I will.
I scroll through the news from museums across the world. If every memory wasn’t excruciating, I would be tickled at the way the stories have grown and evolved, even overnight. The guards in Saint Petersburg. The live bird in London. The “Cinderella Boot” in Chicago—because it’s like a fairy tale, the way the paintings have all been restored. And why look for another answer when the unknown makes for a better story?
It will be old news tomorrow and forgotten the day after. All the noise of the rest of the world will drown out the music of this minor miracle.
And I can’t decide if that will be a relief or a tragedy.
The next week, I guide a group of tourists through our galleries, including a brief stop at Woman Wandering in the Irises. Hope rises in my chest when I see the painting of Clio, as it does every time, every day, with every look. But the canvas has been quiet at night. No one has come alive, not even a painted version, like Emmanuelle or Dr. Gachet. I keep waiting for the night when she might break free, even if she’s only a shadow of the Clio I once knew. I’d take that. I’d take anything.
A girl with a Brown University T-shirt raises a hand and begins speaking. “Isn’t that the Renoir that was missing for years?”
“Yes. Since 1885,” I answer as clinically as I can.
“What happened to it? How does a painting just vanish for so long, then reappear?”
“It’s not so unusual, except that the artist is so famous. Families hide their valuables during war or disaster, and if nobody survives to remember where they put them . . .” I give an open-handed shrug. There you have it. Please, let’s move on.
But another hand goes up. “Is it true that Monet and Renoir were in love with the woman in the painting?”
Another voice asks, “Does anyone know who she was, or what happened to her?”
“That’s unknown,” I say, going through my answer by rote. “She’s not a model who appears in other works by the same artist. She could indeed be a woman whose family didn’t want rumors affecting their social status. Or maybe she’s someone trapped in a painting, who comes out at night when the museum is closed.”
There are titters at my joke, and it feels so good to let out the truth.
“Or maybe she wasn’t a woman, but a Muse under a curse, and she was set free to save the world’s art,” I say without a smile, without a knowing wink. No one says anything. What does it matter? No one will believe me.
