Page 77 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
“Then again,” I say with a bland smile, “sometimes a painting is just a painting.”
With that, I conclude my tour so that we can all escape from my melancholy.
I walk past Emmanuelle, then Dr. Gachet—imprints of who they once were long ago—and an idea comes to me. It’s a crazy one, but I have to try. Maybe there is a version of Clio out there who still cares about me.
I’m done for the day, and it’s only early afternoon, so I go to Gare Saint-Lazare station and buy a ticket. An hour later, the train rattles to a stop, and I disembark. I walk from the station to Monet’s garden, a little less than an hour away by foot. The gardens are closing when I arrive, and the ticket taker tells me I will only have a few minutes.
“That’s fine.”
I have seen the gardens. For real and in paint. I’m not here today to catch the tail end of a tour or to snap photos of the kaleidoscope of colors. But the place Monet once called home is empirically gorgeous. Summer has stolen into Giverny, bringing with it the glory of reds, yellows, and oranges that blaze under the sun.
Some might say it’s better than a painting.
They have never gone into her painting.
I walk through lush fields and past blankets of petals and stems. I make my way to the pond where a raft of water lilies floats lazily in the blue-green waters. The other visitors begin to file out as the bell signals closing time. I let them leave, and the sun dips farther. Long shadows fall across the pond, and the weeping willow brushes its branches against the earth.
I close my eyes, and I’m back in time.
I can hear her voice.
Recall her longing.
Her greatest wish.
I used to pretend there was a door at the end of this bridge. A plain, simple wooden door with an old-fashioned ring handle. Dark metal. You’d pull it open, and there. The other side. Now I’ve finally been on the other side.
I open my eyes and remove my notebook, sketching the door she described in painstaking detail. I take the last pinch of silver dust that I stashed away in London, and voilà. The door materializes. Clio always longed for escape when she was trapped. Maybe that Clio is here. Maybe that Clio misses me. I reach for the handle and pull it open.
But there’s nothing but a weeping willow on the other side.
I press a palm over my eyes. Stupid me. Stupid mind playing stupid tricks. She’s gone, and all that’s left is this emptiness, this loneliness, so terribly alive, in her place. No drawing will ever change that.
I flop down in the grass and lie there until the door disappears and an old man who tends the gardens tells me it’s time to go.
I leave, still missing, still wanting.
Wanting this terrible ache to end.
33
Simon once again does his best-friend post-heartbreak duty: gets me out of the flat and distracts me with ridiculousness.
It’s misery, but it’s necessary.
I have to do something.
I have to find a way to get over her.
There is no other option.
We wander through the street vendors across from Notre Dame. Simon gestures grandly to the secondhand booksellers who peddle old books along with postcards of landmarks and matted prints of famous destinations.
“I say we apply for a bouquiniste license and set up shop.”
“What will we be selling exactly? Did someone will you the contents of their attic?”
“The book vendor thing is just going to be a front for a ghost-removal shop.”
I manage a small “Huh.”
“Picture it,” he continues. “Can you name anyone else who has successfully exorcised a spirit, let alone the spirit of a great artist?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“All we have to do is convince the tourists that Marilyn Monroe or Jim Morrison is inhabiting them, and we’ll work our mojo again.”
“We’ll be rolling in euros,” I say without much enthusiasm.
He pats me on the back. “Someday you’ll be happy again, Garnier.”
That feels as unlikely as a ghost inhabiting an artist.
As a painting coming alive.
Or really, as a woman in a painting staying in love with the guy who set her free.
Love like that only exists in stories.
I honor a commitment to another woman. The one at the Paris Opera Ballet.
The lights are low. The music swells. I feel more human than I have in days here in the opera house where the ballet company performs. Maybe because I’m away from the museum and its phantom people, like shadows on the wall. In here, art is alive for real, and it is flying.
Emilie is beautiful as she performs her solo in The Sleeping Beauty. No music tonight except what’s coming from the orchestra pit. Emilie feels confident onstage, I can tell, no inspiration required.
When the ballet ends, I join the rest of the audience in a standing ovation. As the dancers take their bows and curtsies, I lock eyes with Emilie, and my happiness for her is the first true happiness I’ve felt in days. It’s vicarious and fleeting, but I’ll take it.
