by Ella Frank
I nod and wait, gripping the edge of my seat, and this is only my second question.
“The answer to that is the same to your first question, Gemma. Beauty moves me.”
After scribbling that down, I bring my eyes back to his. “And beauty is one woman?” I clarify just to be sure.
His eyes remain steadfast on mine, and without a shred of doubt, he tells me, “Beauty is Chantel.”
Finally, the woman in the painting, Chantel, has been invited into the room.
Chapter One ~ First Sight
Day Two
First Sight ~
I need to type something, and I need to type it now.
Something happened to me—a moment, I believe.
I’ve always held on to the idea that moments happen to shape who we are and who we will become, and I’m almost one-hundred percent positive that I had a moment of clarity today.
In wine country in Bordeaux, France, I met a man.
Yes, today out in wine country, I met a man, and something about that man moved me.
Something about that man changed me.
***
Closing the journal, I look out the window to the sun that’s now shining brightly, casting a beautiful morning glow over the vineyard.
Phillipe instructed me to read no further than the natural end of each journal entry. Every page is a time capsule of precisely inked words typed meticulously letter by letter, old-school style. All of the words have been methodically tapped out by the hands of a very unique individual. It’s obvious by the way he had the pages bound together that they mean the world to him and now he is entrusting it to me.
Honestly, I know there’s no way Phillipe would ever know one way or another, but I can’t stop remembering the firm tone in his voice and the steely determination in his eyes when he handed me the journal with strict instructions and a request that I meet him this morning.
Looking at the clock, I watch the hand as it slowly moves to nine, and then I turn and head up to the studio to wait for Mr. Tibideau.
***
Today is going to be painful, like opening an old wound.
Phillipe stands in the drafty kitchen with a cup of coffee, listening to Penelope, his housekeeper, hum as she bustles about making pastries.
Today, he’s going to allow himself to look back, remembering a time he’d rather lock away and keep to himself. He knows that if he doesn’t tell the story the way he wants it to be told, he’ll forever be judged. He’ll never be left to live his life in peace—well, at least be left to live it alone. Peace is just a selfish illusion now.
He notices it is 9 a.m. Turning on his heel, he brushes a kiss on Penelope’s cheek, and then he makes his way up to his studio.
When he arrives, he sees the assiduous Gemma Harris sitting at her desk with her notepad open.
She put on a courageous face yesterday. He saw the apprehension in her eyes when they first met. She probably remembered all the things she had read in the tabloids about his artistic temper or the even worse headlines that he couldn’t bring himself to think about.
Well, no matter what she had heard, Gemma is presenting a steady and strong composure, and he has to admit that he is impressed.
She set up her laptop, but the screen is blank. He has a feeling that she takes notes first, and then she goes back to write her story. He respects that. He understands an artist’s mind, and in a way, Gemma is an artist, just like he is.
As he makes his way into the room, she looks up at him. He detects the slight tightening of her fingers around her pen.
Ahh, not so calm.
“Good morning, Gemma. I trust you slept well?”
She monitors him closely as he moves into the room. “Like a baby. This place is so quiet at night.”
Nodding his agreement, Phillipe makes his way over to the chair he favors and sits down. “So I’ve been told.”
Gemma turns in her chair to face him, pen in hand and notepad on her lap. When it’s clear he isn’t going to say anything, she licks her bottom lip before speaking. “I read the journal entry this morning. I have to admit, from a journalistic point of view, it will be extremely difficult for me to stop reading and wait until our next meeting.”
Phillipe smiles briefly. “But did you?”
“Did I what?” she responds, staring at him with wide, guileless eyes.
“Wait?”
She shifts in the chair and nods. “Oh. Yes. Yes, I waited.”
“Good, Gemma. That’s good. Trust me when I tell you that waiting is often the best part of a story,” he explains. “After all, once you know the story, it’s over.”
Leaning back in his chair, he waits as she scribbles something down.
“I’m ready when you are,” she says.
Looking her over, he feels his heart actually start to ache as he closes his eyes.
***
It just wasn’t happening for him today.
No matter what he did or didn’t do, he couldn’t seem to find inspiration in anything. Sighing, he threw the rag down onto the drop cloth beneath his bare feet. Some days, he really felt like giving up on the whole fucking thing.
Maybe he wasn’t supposed to have a masterpiece. Maybe he was just supposed to be a mediocre painter who would sell his pieces in a little gallery for ten dollars each, so people could hang them over their mantles and never even look at them.
Fuck that, he thought in disgust.
He didn’t want to paint something for some suburbanite to hang up and dismiss every time she walked into her living room. He wanted to create something that moved people—a piece so fucking brilliant that people would cry when they looked at it. He wanted to alter their emotions and to touch their soul.
A little over a year ago, when he’d been living back in the States, he’d found out through his father’s will that he had acquired an old family vineyard in France. Having lost his mother at an early age he had seen no reason to remain in America and decided he might as well try his luck in France.
He had somehow stupidly assumed that he’d move over there and suddenly create the next world-renowned artistic piece. What he hadn’t expected was to feel absolutely nothing.
Walking over to the window in his studio, he watched the workers who were picking the grapes from the vines. He’d decided that if he was going to take over this property, he wanted to revitalize the vineyard that made Chateau Tibideau.
At least I did that part right.
As his eyes moved over his workers, he was surprised to spot a woman with Beau, his foreman. He’d never seen her there before. From where he was standing, all he could make out was long black hair. He could see she was wearing some kind of flowing white peasant skirt and a blue blouse that kept shifting with the slight breeze.
Almost as if she could feel his eyes on her, she turned around, looking up to the window where he was standing. As their eyes met, he felt something in the air change.
Desire, he thought as he gripped the window frame. Strange, intense, and unexplainable desire.
Before another moment passed, he turned and made his way to the stairs, determined to get to her. He was determined to meet her.
Taking the steps two at a time, he became almost desperate to get outside. He needed to meet the woman who had felt his stare and had turned to meet his gaze as if he had called out to her.
Rounding the corner of the kitchen, he pushed open the door and made his way out to where he had seen her. As he hurried around the side of the west turret, he literally ran into the woman he had been searching for.
“Well, hello.” He chuckled, raising his hands to grip her shoulders.
Unable to brace herself, it seemed as though she hadn’t seen him at all.
“Please let me go,” she replied almost instantly.
“Oh, good. You’re American.”
Removing his hands immediately, he took a step back as eyes the color of misty gray looked beyond him. He glanced over his shoulder and then turned ba
ck to her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there,” he explained, hoping to get her attention. “Actually, no, I’m not. You’re even more spectacular up close.”
Her face was spellbinding. Her beauty was stunning, not in a Hollywood kind of way, but more natural. Like nothing he had ever seen before.
A contrast of shadows and sharp angles. Strength and softness. Those eyes of hers…wow.
As she tipped up her chin a little, he smiled, hoping to dazzle her with what he’d been told was an irresistible grin. She didn’t seem impressed; in fact, she seemed to not notice at all.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” she questioned.
He frowned for a moment, as he asked, “Is what supposed to be funny?”
The woman in front of him merely shook her head while she let out a huff of breath.
“Never mind.” She sighed, exasperated. “My uncle told me to come in here and find Mr. Tibideau. I’m supposed to tell him that they’re done for the day.”
He thought the whole exchange was slightly bizarre. Everyone knew that only he and Penelope lived in the house.
Doesn’t this woman know that I am Mr. Tibideau?
“Well, mission accomplished. He now knows, and he’s now intrigued,” he told her, taking a step closer.
Her aggravation only enhances her beauty, he thought as he ran his eyes over every detail of her face.
He had to admit that he found it unusual she hadn’t yet commented on the fact that she knew who he was. “You don’t recognize me?”
An ironic smile finally tipped her rose red lips as her uniquely colored eyes blinked once. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you by sight,” she replied with sarcasm. “I’m starting to think you might be blind, Mr. Tibideau.”
As she turned away from him, she raised her arm and flicked her wrist, extending a retractable cane from her palm.
How did I not notice that before?
All of a sudden, everything about the exchange made perfect sense. Every word and gesture she had made now shined through with amazing clarity. All he could think was perhaps he was the blind one because everything else had disappeared with one look at her face.
***
Out of the corner of my eye, I’m aware of Phillipe as he walks over to where I’m madly scribbling in my notepad. When he’s finally standing near, I glance up at him, frowning.
“You’re leaving?” I ask. “We only just started.”
He points to the journal. “I’ll be back in a little bit. The next part you need to know is in there.”
Turning, he walks to the door and then stops to look back at me. The man is beautiful. That’s the only word to encompass his appeal, and I am still staring at him, holding my pen midair.
“Do you want a coffee, Gemma?”
I shake my head. “No, but I’d love some tea.”
“Tea, it is. See you in a few,” he replies before disappearing out the door.
Finishing off my final note, I put the pen and paper down, reaching for the leather journal. It’s a bulky thing bound by a leather strap. I unwind and open it to the page directly after the one where I left off, and I run my fingers over the typed entry. It’s hard to imagine her sitting at her braille typewriter, punching out each word smoothly and efficiently, but she did it with constant dedication for quite some time. Now, here I am, reading her most private thoughts.
Sitting back in the chair, I look down at the typed words and start reading.
***
His voice was what moved me—the sound of it when he spoke to me.
It was deep and smooth, and it reached inside and calmed me to my very core.
Phillipe didn’t even realize that I’m blind. When was the last time that had happened?
He treated me like he would anyone else. He made me feel…normal.
I didn’t want to come to France. I admit that I was more than a little bit annoyed and offended when my mother had suggested I “go and live a little, and see the world.”
Was that some kind of ironic blind person joke? No. That was my mother’s way of saying, stop living in fear.
That makes me wonder. Is that what I’ve been doing? I don’t know. I don’t think so.
But here I am, staying with my Uncle Beau and running into a man in a French vineyard.
Not exactly where I saw my life going.
Life, I have discovered, has always had a different idea in mind for me.
Oh, but his voice. “You don’t recognize me?”
He asked that like it was an everyday God-given right to be able to see someone and know who he was.
If only it were that simple.
He called me spectacular as though he had never seen anything like me.
I find myself wanting to go back to the chateau tomorrow.
Wanting to talk to him.
Wanting to be moved.
***
I stop for a moment and look around the studio where I’m sitting.
The space isn’t overwhelming in size. On the other hand, it isn’t exactly small either. It seems to have a personality all on its own.
When I first arrived, it was cloaked in darkness until he illuminated a small slice of his personal space to my eyes. Now, as I sit here on my own, I really have the chance to see his studio, and I realize that it’s a room that captivates me.
Splattered on the rough hardwood floors are obvious reminders of his profession. There are speckles of brown, white, and black mottled across the original wood floorboards. The floor marked up in such a way must not bother him because he has left it as is. Maybe it’s even his way of making it his own.
The desk he has set up for me is old and wooden. It creaks every time I apply any kind of pressure to it, but like the room itself, it seems to fit. Pushed up against the right wall, it’s situated so that I can either face his chair, which is nestled into the corner, or I can turn to the window and the easel that is set up on the opposite side of the space on the far left.
The walls of the west turret have been built from brick that’s the color of burnt cooper. It’s been left exposed on the interior of the studio, which I’m sure in the sunlight gives the room a spectacular glow. Right now, with the shutters closed and the room in shadows, it just makes the studio seem dark and volatile. Like a dormant volcano in nature, the room is silently smoldering but almost certain to one day explode in a blazing fiery rain of heat.
I don’t sense that this is a place of joy for him. Even with the lights on, the room doesn’t feel bright or happy. No, it actually feels intense and somewhat intimidating.
In the soft glow of the light, this room seems to shimmer with an underlying passion I have yet to understand. A passion for art or a passion for her? I cannot tell which one it is yet.
At the moment, I am seated facing his chair, which looks soft and cozy. It’s covered with an ivory-colored fabric that seems so neutral for this space. Maybe that’s what he needs to help calm him.
Beside the chair is a set of shelves. Atop one of the lower shelves, are several paintbrushes of all different sizes stuffed into a jar. The brushes appear to have clean bristles, but the wooden handles have dried-up paint spotted around them. On the shelf above them is a stereo. Maybe he likes listening to his music when he paints. It’s inspirational, I’m sure.
It’s obvious this is where he spends most of his time. His subtle fingerprints appear on nearly every surface throughout the room.
Turning around from where we have set up, I look again at the easel that’s been covered with a sheet since I arrived. Perhaps it’s something he is working on?
I’d love to go and look, but I know that would be a major invasion of privacy. Instead, I turn back to the journal in front of me.
What must it be like not being able to see? As I reflect, I’m struck with another completely inappropriate and selfish thought. It has to do with the man I’m working with. Imagine not ever knowing how attractive he is?
It doesn’t seem fa
ir that this woman, Chantel, missed out on that. It doesn’t seem fair that she didn’t know what the man—a man she inspired—looked like.
Glancing back at the journal, I decide to continue reading, starting at the second entry on the same page. Pushing aside my worries that Phillipe will suddenly appear to stop me from going further, I sit back, determined to finish this small typed entry before he returns.
***
Second Opinions ~
I went back today, just like I had said I would. I needed to talk to him again.
It took me a while to track him down.
He wasn’t where we had last run in to one another. This time, he was down behind the chateau. He was by the old arbor—well, that was what my uncle told me when he led me down the pebbled path to what felt like a shaded area. My uncle greeted his employer, the man I now knew as Phillipe, and then he told me he would be over in the vineyard if I needed him.
I stood there silently, waiting for Phillipe to speak, but he didn’t. Instead, I heard him moving around. It sounded like he was shifting his stance from foot to foot. Each time he changed the weight of his footing, I heard the pebbles crunch. When I heard a swivel sound in the gravel, I knew instantly that he was facing me.
I have to admit that I felt a little apprehensive. I’m not good with strangers, and I don’t handle change well. That was why I put on my sunglasses today. Yes, I know how ridiculous that seems, but I enjoy the privacy they afford me and the courage they seem to instill in me.
“You came back,” he said to me.
I swear that I felt his voice travel up my body, taking my breath away. I took a step closer.
“Do you need some help?” he asked.
Immediately, I sensed him beside me.
I turned in the direction where I felt him move, and I took a deep breath. Suddenly, I was surrounded by the smell of him, and it was so intoxicating. I remember consciously licking my lips because it made me hungry—hungry for him.
“No, I don’t need any help,” I responded.
Then, I berated myself because he moved away from me.
“Tell me your name,” he demanded softly. “I didn’t get it yesterday.”