The Muse

by Lauren Blakely

  My feet are barely on the floor when there’s a cry from another room.

  Clio.

  I bolt down the hall and then turn into a room full of modern art, spinning around when I realize it’s not the direction where the noise came from.

  There’s a shadow by the entry, a not-Clio shadow, and my heart stops.

  I quickly survey the room and dive into the nearest painting. My jaw drops when I reach the other side of the drip marks, and I think I may laugh harder than I’ve ever laughed in my life. Jackson Pollock always said his abstract art was about the art and the paint itself, nothing more.

  Pollock lied.

  I’m inside a gigantic refrigerator. There’s a jar of pickles, a container of mustard, and some yogurt that is probably way past its expiration date.

  This is what art historians and modernists have been ruminating on for years?

  I’m here to say Jackson Pollock painted appliances.

  I leave, and thankfully the shadow from before is gone, as I double back to our exit. Clio is waiting for me by the bench. I can tell she’s been crying, but she looks worried now, and when she sees me, she motions for me to run. I do, as quietly as I can, and she surprises me by grabbing my hand and pulling me under the bench, shifting so I’m on top of her. The front of the bench shields us from view, but this is the cruelest torture. I’m pressed against her, and I can feel her heart beating against mine. I want to smother her in kisses, but she’s simply my accomplice now, nothing more.

  She presses a finger against her lips. Footsteps pass dangerously close to us. I don’t breathe until they leave the room. Then she rolls out from under me, and we head for our final destination.

  “Why were you crying back there?” I ask once we’re safely on the bridge.

  “It was the Vermeers.”

  “Well, are they okay? Did you fix them?”

  “Yes, they look so beautiful now.” Her voice breaks. “I was overcome.”

  Chicago is our final stop.

  The sick Morisot is only a few rooms away, and I’m so pummeled by witnessing Clio losing her love for me that I barely care if I get caught. Worst-case scenario, she can slink out of the museum in the morning and find the Chicago entrance back to her home. She doesn’t need me anymore to get around.

  As for me, I’ve always wanted to see Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, his image of three lonely people in a diner. Tonight, I can commiserate.

  It’s a few rooms over, and I go inside and order a chocolate milkshake. The guy at the counter nods as he hands over the tall, frosty glass.

  It’s fantastic, and I feel as if I could stay here all night. No one talks to each other. The other three people just stare off with empty eyes at their lonely worlds.

  I thought I would fit in here, but I don’t. My heart is being ripped apart, but my world is not lonely. I have friends back home, enough to keep me from becoming an empty-eyed nighthawk. I have places to be that aren’t this diner.

  So I leave, and I walk to Monet’s Japanese bridge, where Clio’s already waiting. A guard sees me and calls after me in American English.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Getting a milkshake,” I tell him, and keep going.

  I don’t bother hiding my British accent. It will make a better story when he reports it to the Chicago police.

  “You want to be arrested, smart-aleck?”

  No, I don’t. I’d rather not be arrested and stuck on this side of the pond without a passport.

  Surprise on my side, I spring into motion and run to the bridge painting, diving into it with Clio.

  I don’t make it all the way in. He grabs one booted foot. Clio pulls me farther into the Monet, and the guard yanks harder on my foot. With the toe of my other shoe, I push the boot off and slide into the painting, picturing a guard in Chicago bewildered by the worn black boot in his hand.

  31

  Clio and I stand at the front doors of the Musée d’ Orsay. It’s time for us to leave.

  I pause as I grab the handle, remembering when she told me how easy it would be to free her. You don’t need a crazy car chase or knife fight to free me. Nothing violent, nothing dangerous. It’s simple because art is grace. Art is class. You can free me by holding open the door and letting me out.

  I do the thing Clio didn’t want me to do a few days ago. Because there is nothing for her on this side of the door. There is nothing to tie her to the museum. Not her frame and not me.

  She crosses the threshold, and her feet touch outside ground for the first time in centuries. There is a woman beside me who wasn’t there before.

  Anyone can see her. She’s no longer bound to the painting Renoir trapped her in. She’s bound to being a Muse, and she can’t wait to start up again.

  I call Remy and ask him to let Thalia know the missing Muse is coming home. “Meet her at La Belle Vie,” he says, and I hang up, wishing I wanted to let her go, wishing maybe I felt like she does right now.

  I would like to feel nothing; I want to be numb. But I feel everything. And worse, I feel it for someone who feels nothing for me.

  We walk down the steps like two acquaintances, like two coworkers who did a job together. A job well done, but now we’ll move on. To the next city, the next assignment. I walk her across the river and to the block with La Belle Vie.

  I stop on the Rue de Rivoli, my heart aching, ripped to shreds as I get ready to free her in the best and worst possible way. I brace myself for this moment. For the serrated knife’s edge of her farewell. “Goodbye, Clio.”

  “Goodbye,” she says, her voice clipped and cheery. She doesn’t even use my name.

  “Do you remember what happened with us?” I ask tentatively because she seems like a robot, like she had her chip erased of all past memories.

  Her grin is so friendly it could be an advertisement. “Of course I remember. We had a nice time together,” she says, and smiles even bigger now, more brightly, but her eyes are empty. There’s nothing there for me. “And now I get to go back to work.”

  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.

  “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.

  Weaving through the balletgoers in their finery, I follow the directions Emilie gave me to the stage door. She emerges in jeans and a tank top, but her hair is still in
a bun and she has full makeup on.

  “You were magnificent,” I say as I kiss each of her cheeks. “Do I know what I’m talking about or do I know what I’m talking about?”

  “I think you’re an oracle is what you are,” she says with a laugh. “I can’t wait to hear from you what I’ll dance next.”

  “Hmm . . .” I pretend to listen. “You’ll just have to audition for everything and get all the roles.”

  “Quelle tragédie.” She lays her hand on her forehead and pretends to swoon. “Doomed to dance in everything. Coffee?”

  “Always coffee. Even when it’s awful.”

  We walk to the café, order espressos, and talk about the ballet. She tells me how nervous she was before her solo, but how she left her fear backstage when she stepped under the lights.

  “I could tell,” I say, and Emilie smiles.

  “I love talking to you like this. You really understand what it’s like.”

  “I try.”

  “But it’s more than trying. You just get it in a way that so few do, and so—” She stops when the waiter brings our drinks. After he leaves, she tells me, “I’m really glad you came. I know that Simon and Lucy had a lot of ideas about us . . .”

  I’m forming as kind a letdown as possible when she assures me, “No, don’t worry. It means the world to me that you came tonight as my friend and not because you want to date me.”

  Now I’m not sure what to say. Should I reassure her there’s nothing undatable about her? Say “It’s not you, it’s me”? Or “I don’t have a heart to offer because mine is lying shriveled up in Monet’s garden”?

  “Stop thinking so hard, Julien.” She nudges me with her foot. “I could tell when we met there was someone else on your mind. And, of course, ballet is always on my mind, so I thought we’d be good as friends. And we are.”

  “We are.” I toast her with my espresso cup and then make an impromptu suggestion. “My friend Remy is throwing an apron party. I hate the thought of going, but he won’t take no for an answer. Simon and Lucy are going, and you should come too.”