by Sarah Hina
“My father was stuck with me. Though he was successful in ignoring me for most of my life, I knew he hated me. It was only when I became old enough to be useful to him that he started to bother with me again.”
I touch his knee. “What do you mean, useful?”
His head falls into his palms. “He enlisted me to help him with the paintings. Always minor things, like assisting him with his correspondence, keeping abreast of the market, setting up quiet auctions. I was desperate for the fool to like me, to pay attentionto me. When it began to dawn on me what he was doing, what he had done, he told me that he would take a paternity test and disown me, if ever I told anyone.” He rubs his brow across his arm, and I lay my hand upon his crown.
“He was the only family I knew. And yet he hated me, for reminding him of her.”
“What did you do?”
He sits back and looks at me wearily. “Any family is better than none. So I shut up and did as I was told. Even when I left, at eighteen, and severed all ties with him, I never gave him up to the authorities. He was my only connection to her.”
I bury deeper into his coat, my brow wrinkling. “What do you mean? I thought you saw her every couple of years.”
“The only occasion when I saw my mother after she left was her funeral. She looked” —he grimaces—“quite different.”
My mouth falls open, but I cannot speak. He stares past my shoulder as laughter rains down like shimmering coins from up above.
“She only wanted to see me once she knew she was dying. During the last year, she plied me with letters, including my sisters’ photographs, sent American tourists to support me, and repeatedly phoned. I stopped answering after a while.”
I press my cheek to my palm. “But Mathieu, why?”
“It was too late to take responsibility for what she did.” Mathieu finds my eyes. “Given enough time, love flips to hate. I, too, wanted revenge, you see.”
My eyes do not spare him, even as my heart splits in two. “And you were proud to take responsibility for that?”
He smiles, briefly. “Not proud, no. Yet I wouldn’t change anything, Daisy. It was on my way home from the airport that I met you.”
I shake my head a little, checking my tears. “That is a sorry kind of fate.”
He laughs harshly and covers his face with his hands. “You and fate. Why, Daisy, do you insist on believing in fairy tales?”
Because there must be a reason why I was born, why I snuck through. That hole in my heart was put there to be filled.
After a long silence, I clear my throat. “What are we to do?”
He peels his hands away. “This is not for me to decide.”
“I still love you.”
He smiles sadly. “Yes.”
“We could just push ourselves off, sail away.” I imagine us shaking Paris off like a stiff corset, chasing the flat and free horizon.
“Just say the word,” he replies. Removing a sign from under his legs, he adds, “This boat is ours.”
I cannot read the French but understand this part: €200, and the phone number scrawled underneath. What do you know? It’s cheaper than the bloody shoes.
A wind sweeps under the bridge, stirring the dead leaves, our hair, and the shaggy flag behind me. It flares, reaches out, and brushes my neck with its loose threads. Turning around, I pluck its mast from the stern, rolling it between my palms as I consider his offer. The French tricolor: Liberté, Égalité, et Fraternité. Red, white, and blue.
And yet, I cannot help but miss our stars.
The shoes I will give to Irene. Everything else I will keep.
I place the flag across my lap and clasp my hands over its faded colors. Looking tenderly at him, I shake my head slightly. “I’m no good here, Mathieu.”
He takes my knee with his hand, in reassurance. “It only takes time, my love.”
I touch his hand as gently as I know how. “I’m no good with you, Mathieu.”
He blinks once, and falls silent, before taking possession of his hand again.
We sit like that for several minutes, rocking in our boat. I want to say more, to explain, but I resist. If I talk, he will talk. I am as weak as an infant and too capable of being swayed.
I don’t remember who is the first to fall, but we find each other on our knees. I bury my face in his neck. His mouth finds my hair. We remain like so for minutes, or lifetimes. We don’t want to let go. We understand what letting go means.
A modestly sized bateaux mouche slices under the bridge like a scalpel cutting through a womb, so terribly close that, if I squint into its klieg lights, I can make out the couples eating on the other side of the glass. A large man with a crew cut catches sight of our embrace and gives Mathieu a bawdy thumbs-up. I laugh, or sob, and pull away, cupping Mathieu’s cheek in my hand.
“I just remembered something.”
“What did you remember?” he asks, softly.
“My first day here, in my own bateaux mouche. They told us that legend of the kiss.”
“Which legend?”
“The one about kissing under Le Pont Neuf. How you make a wish at the same time as you kiss your lover, without telling each other what the wish is? Then, within that same year, your wish will come true.”
“You’re thinking about Pont-Marie, and I don’t believe—”
“—so anyway, I think it’s a great idea.” Looking into those bright, skeptical eyes, I do my best to smile, and ask, “Don’t you, Mathieu?”
He must believe. There will be hope.
Mathieu sighs. Then nods in something like defeat.
I’ll never forget this: his head, dipping from the shadows into a finger of moonlight, tilts to the side, while his lips (those lips, the very ones which have convinced me, without intent, to chase the god in Art) separate with a slight puh. Then his breath and mine, hot mixing with cold.
The Paris fever.
We kiss.
He is gone from the boat before my lips can taste his absence.
I look up at him, from my knees, alone again.
“You’re in the stern, mon petit chou.”
His eyes flash his meaning, while his hand holds the umbilical of the dock line.
I scramble to the seat, brushing my knees off. “I couldn’t possibly. Where would I go?”
He smiles down at me. “As far as you want. Toward the stars. Make your own fate, Daisy.”
I try to swallow my fear, appealing to him with my eyes. “But I have no supplementary oxygen.”
He laughs silently, reaches in the boat, and removes the battered sign. “Merry Christmas, my love. And happy birthday, too.”
I feel so heavy in this boat. Not buoyant at all. The night, and its shadows, can only hide me for so long. The people above us? The lovers and drunks, riding this old bridge into the sunrise? They cannot see us yet.
It doesn’t mean we are not here.
I grab an oar, shivering again.
I remember Mathieu talking about Nietzsche’s interpretation of eternal return up on our rooftop one night. How he theorized time to be cyclical, conscripting us to repeat our lives over and over again, much like they believe in the Eastern religions. How terrifying that would be for most people to think about experiencing the shame, suffering, and, most excruciatingly, the bleached banality of their lives on and on, ad infinitum. Camus’ Sisyphus sliding down from the mountain to enlist our help. But, alternatively, how it could serve (and here Mathieu leapt to his feet with bracing conviction) as the ultimate affirmation of life for someone who might actually wish for such a crazy thing. His eyes blazed a trailacross the sky, and I smiled. I knew he wished for it. I wasn’t so sure, at the time.
I have lived many lifetimes. And in each one, I will be walking that razor’s edge. My life with Mathieu was a cosmic blink of the eye.
But I will continue to point my feet toward the Eiffel Tower every night. Its steely tip will flicker like a flame through my dreams.
I will always wish for my
watch to stop on Paris.
Tightening my grip, I smile up at Mathieu.
“Cut me free, darling.”
Epilogue:
The Gift
MoMA Nabs a “Missing” Matisse
by Elise Klayko
September 9, 2005
The recent acquisition of The Plum Blossoms by the Museum of Modern Art ends a decades-long search for a lost masterwork by one of the twentieth century’s most preeminent artists, Henri Matisse. Purchased from an unidentified, presumably European seller, the 1948 painting will be displayed on the walls of America’s most visited art museum within a week, according to Alex Stephenson, the Modern’s chief curator of painting and sculpture.
“It is an exceptional find,” Stephenson said in a phone interview yesterday. “Rarely have I come across a painting in such pristine condition. Or one this beautiful.”
A lustrous and captivating interior from Matisse’s final series of paintings before his death in 1954, its location had been a mystery to art scholars since 1970, when the painting was loaned for exhibition to the Grand Palais in Paris. The Plum Blossoms was purchased later that year by an anonymous collector. …
“About the Author”
Sarah Hina hails from Athens, Ohio. A former medical student and lab rat, Sarah now writes in between mothering two kids, watching films with her husband, and escaping into the outdoors with her camera and dog. Plum Blossoms in Paris is her debut novel. Visit Sarah online at http://sarahhina.com Book clubs with ten or more members are invited to schedule her attendance, via Skype or speaker phone, at one of their meetings. Write to Sarah. [email protected] for all requests.
IN STEREO
WHERE
AVAILABLE
BECKY ANDERSON
Phoebe Kassner didn’t set out to be a 29-year-old virgin, but that’s how it’s worked out. And, having just been dumped by her boyfriend, she doesn’t see that situation changing anytime soon.
Meanwhile, her twin sister Madison—aspiring actress, smalltime model, and queen of the short attention span—has just been eliminated on the first round of Singing Sensation.
Things aren’t looking so great for either of them. But when Phoebe receives a surprise voice mail from some guy named Jerry, victim of a fake phone number written on a cocktail napkin, she takes pity on him and calls, setting in motion a serendipitous love story neither of them ever saw coming.
And suddenly Madison’s got a romance of her own going, as one of twelve women competing for two men on a ruthless, over-the-top reality show. As Phoebe falls in love with the jilted high school English teacher who never intended to call her in the first place, Madison’s falling in love, too—after a fashion—clawing and fighting her way through a tide of adorable blondes. Could it get any crazier?
Stay tuned …
ISBN# 978-193383620-1
Trade Paperback / Fiction
US $15.95 / CDN $19.95
Available Now
DARK SECRETS
OF THE
OLD OAK TREE
DOLORES J. WILSON
Following the end of her fifteen-year marriage to a high-powered attorney, Evie Carson returns to her small, Georgia hometown to open a fashion boutique. From the protective covering of her father to the tarnished shield of her husband, Evie has always lived behind the armor of a man. But she sees this move as her first step toward the peaceful, happy life she wants.
Trying to recapture a few moments of her youth, Evie climbs to the ruins of her childhood tree house. While hidden by the massive branches of the old oak tree, Evie is stunned into deadly silence as she watches Jake—a mentally challenged community member—enter the clearing below her with a nude, lifeless body over his shoulder. Hovering above the macabre scene, Evie is forced to look on as a grave is dug. When the body is rolled into the hole, Evie realizes the dead woman is her childhood friend whom she hasn’t seen in years.
The authorities are sure once Jake is arrested, the town’s nightmare will be over. But when he turns up dead and Evie’s home becomes the center of bizarre events, Evie and an investigating state trooper fear she may be the next victim. Wondering if she can trust him, or anyone, Evie alone must face the Dark Secrets of the Old Oak Tree.
ISBN# 978-160542106-3
Hardcover / Suspense
US $24.95 / CDN $27.95
Available Now
www.doloresjwilson.com
TRACI E. HALL
Boadicea’s
Legacy
Ela Montahue is a talented sorceress with the ability to heal, but distressed over a complicated ancestral legacy. Long ago, a mystical woman known as Boadicea, the famed queen of the Iceni tribe, issued a difficult decree.
As her descendant, Ela must wed for love, not practicality, or she will forfeit her supernatural power. In medieval England this is not a socially acceptable order to follow. For her family’s sake, she should marry Lord Thomas de Havel, a vile landholder with a cruel streak and a desire to see slavery reinstated—a man with good connections to King John’s court. This arrangement would put the Montehues in a safe position in the new regime. The stakes are high—her dignity, her pride, and possibly her life in childbirth.
When Ela refuses this repulsive marital transaction, Thomas de Havel abducts her and wages battle against her father in retaliation. Only Osbert Edyvean, a knight with the highest creed—honor, faith, and logic—can save her and preserve her gift. A businessman for the Earl of Norfolk, Osbert has been paid to find Boadicea’s spear. Rather than bring back this obscure artifact, he rescues Ela, intending to take her to the earl and obtain his parcel of land.
Wary of the supernatural aura surrounding this woman, the admirable knight fights his overwhelming passion for a beautiful lady he wants to protect … and love. This is Boadicea’s true legacy.
ISBN# 978-160542078-3
Paranormal Romance
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
Available Now
www.traciehall.com
EMERALD
EMBRACE
HANNON DRAKE
Devastated over the premature death of her dearest friend, Mary, Lady Martise St. James ventures to foreboding Castle Creeghan in the Scottish Highlands to dispel rumors surrounding the young woman’s demise and retrieve a lost emerald. Beneath the stones of this aging mansion lurks a family crypt filled with sinister secrets. Locked within this threatening vault is the answer to the most dangerous question, and the promise of the most horrifying death.
Amid jaded suspicion, underlying threats, and the dreaded approach of All Hallow’s Eve in 1865, Martise encounters a witch’s coven and meets Lord Bruce Creeghan, the love of her friend’s life. Mysterious, yet passionate, Mary’s husband elicits a deep desire and a profound fear in the core of her soul. He knows … something. And it’s up to Martise to reveal what he hides from her prying intrusion.
Lord Creeghan wards off the invasion of his private fortress, yet he cannot resist his magnetic attraction to the beautiful sleuth. As strong as the inevitable pull toward the catacomb beneath their bed, an overwhelming obsession propels them into disheveled sheets of unquenchable hunger and lust. While savoring an affair that cannot be denied, Martise must discover whether her lover is a ruthless murderer or a guardian angel.
ISBN# 978-160542082-0
Mass Market Paperback / Historical Romance
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
AVAILABLE NOW
www.theoriginalheathergraham.com
Ernst’s world is one of endless admirers, including foreign dignitaries and heads of state. Hailed as a marvel of late nineteenth-century automation, he is the crowning achievement of his master, Karl Gruber. A world-famous builder of automated clocks, Gruber has reached the pinnacle of his art in Ernst—a man constructed entirely of clockwork.
Educated and raised in the Gruber household to be a gentle, caring soul, Ernst begins to discover a profound love for his master’s daughter, Giselle. Just as their relationship becomes intimate, however, tragedy s
trikes and the family falls apart. Ernst’s serene and happy existence is shattered and changed forever.
Abandoned, knowing no other life but the one he has led, Ernst allows himself to wind down in a kind of suicide.
Over one hundred years later, he awakens in a strange new land, the world he’s known long gone. Along with his mentor and guide, a well-meaning if slightly unstable homeless man, Ernst attempts to piece together the events that brought him to his new home—and to let go of the century-old tragedy that still haunts him.
ISBN# 978-160542099-8
Mass Market Paperback / Steampunk
US $14.95 / CDN $17.95
SEPTEMBER 2010
The Road Through Wonderland is Dawn Schiller’s chilling account of the childhood that molded her so perfectly to fall for the seduction of “the king of porn,” John Holmes, and the bizarre twist of fate that brought them together. With painstaking honesty, Dawn uncovers the truth of her relationship with John, her father figure-turned-forbidden lover who hid her away from his porn movie world and welcomed her into his family along with his wife.
Within these pages, Dawn reveals the perilous road John led her down—from drugs and addiction to beatings, arrests, forced prostitution, and being sold to the drug underworld. Surviving the horrific Wonderland murders, this young innocent entered protective custody, ran from the FBI, endured a heart-wrenching escape from John, and ultimately turned him in to the police.
This is the true story of one of the most infamous of public figures and a young girl’s struggle to survive unthinkable abuse. Readers will be left shaken but clutching to real hope at the end of this dark journey on The Road Through Wonderland.
Also check out the movie Wonderland (Lions Gate Entertainment, 2003) for a look into the past of Dawn Schiller and the Wonderland Murders.