Page 72 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
But I can’t say that.
The enemy was never really Renoir. The real enemy has always been the impossibility of us.
I kiss her once more, a last kiss that has to last for all time.
30
The church bells across the river strike midnight. We’re starting now so we can reach all the museums while it’s still night in their time zones. I leave my messenger bag and phone under a bench, a home base here in the Musée d’Orsay. A few feet away is the Japanese bridge Monet painted. I step inside it with Clio, and we place our clasped hands together on the railing.
“To the Louvre,” she says, and we step forward, our feet landing on another bridge, this one in Remy’s painting.
I jam my palms out but still smack the tiled floor of the ladies’ room hard with my hands. Clio falls out next, banging her forehead on a metal pipe.
Ouch, she mouths.
“You okay?”
She nods and rolls out from under the sink. She stumbles as she stands, getting tangled in her long dress. I reach out for her hand so she won’t trip. She steadies herself, and I crawl out next. I smile at my partner in crime, or rather, my partner in uncrime. “It worked,” I whisper, relieved that the painting’s been safe from people and water since closing time.
“It’s showtime,” I say, and hold open the door for Clio. She heads for the Géricault, and the halls are eerily silent.
I have work to do too. I’d picked this entry point so I’d have a place to hide while I took care of Remy’s painting. Hunching under the sink, I carefully remove the tape from the canvas then find the padded envelope Sophie hid between the trash can and its liner.
I check the time—Clio should have healed The Raft of the Medusa and be onto the Rembrandt now. So when I hear someone coming, I know it can’t be her. I slip into a stall, close the door, and hop up onto the toilet seat, holding the Monet and the envelope. The door opens, and through the crack in the stall door, I see a security guard leaning into the mirror to search for something between her teeth.
“There you are!”
I’m tense enough that I almost jump and fall off the toilet. But she’s talking about whatever she removed from her teeth and rinsed down the sink.
She opens the door to leave when her radio crackles.
“Problem at the Mona Lisa,” the garbled voice says.
I hold my breath. Please be safe, Clio.
The guard brings the radio to her mouth. “What’s the problem?”
“I think she’s drunk.”
The guard scoffs. “Really?”
“She’s telling a dirty joke, I think.”
“You think?”
“My Italian is rusty.”
“I’m on my way,” the guard barks into the radio. The door swings shut, and she’s gone.
I exhale, and then it hits me—the Mona Lisa is doing what? Suddenly, I like the overrated painting a little better. Creeping out of the stall and putting my ear to the door, I listen, but my Italian is more than rusty.
The joke stops, and a minute later, Clio opens the door, breathing hard. “I had to fix the Mona Lisa too,” she says.
“That’s what’s behind the famous smile?” I ask as I position the padded envelope with the Monet on top of it on the tiles near the door. “A tipsy Mona Lisa telling a dirty joke?”
“More like the satisfaction at her dinner guests’ shocked faces.” Clio flashes a smile of her own. “She was ordinarily such a gracious hostess.”
We’re laughing as we step into the Monet and return to the Musée d’Orsay.
We’re also still holding hands, grinning at our success as we arrive back in the familiar blue-walled gallery. Clio’s touch is almost enough to make me think there might be room in her heart for both art and me. But already she’s not quite holding my hand the way she used to, she’s not touching the inside of my palm with a finger or tracing lines on my wrist. I’m more like a guy she likes, not the guy she loves.
I call Remy. He answers his phone before it has time to ring. “Please have good news.”
“The paintings at the Louvre are done. Call the number I gave you for the security guard and tell him you left your Monet in the ladies’ room this evening. He can’t miss it; it’s right by the door. And it won’t be the weirdest thing he’s seen this week.”
Remy sighs in profound relief. “Thank you.”
“Thank you. We could not have done this without it.”
He rings off to call Gustave’s friend at the Louvre.
I turn to Clio. “How was the art? What did it look like?”
“Titian’s mirror repaired itself. Bathsheba reshaped. The flame in the La Tour relit, and it’s flickering in paint now,” Clio says, and she’s so animated and excited to tell me about the reformed art.
