by Pema Donyo
Chapter Four
Iris closed the door to Pierre’s flat. She knew the location from a cast party he threw before filming began. For a while, she had feared that she was leading Owen astray as they wound through the narrow streets. Pierre looked like a hefty load to support. Nevertheless, she heard no complaints from Owen until they arrived at Pierre’s door. At first, Pierre refused to take out his keys. His sober behavior reminded her of a sweet bore; his drunk one reminded her of a difficult child. After goading from both Iris and Owen, he finally agreed and allowed them to set him down onto his sofa. If her past conversations with him were anything to go by, he would wake up in the morning with a terrible headache and few memories of the night before.
She and Owen stood outside the flat. “It seems this is good night,” she said.
“It seems so.”
She clasped her hands behind her back. His posture was equally rigid, his shoulders squared. The magic of the night had faded. In the cabaret, she could have almost sworn no time had passed between them. While they were dancing, a sense of weightlessness filled her. All the expectations and barriers she saw for herself faded away. Now “good-bye” was an easier word to think than to say.
“Thanks for your help bringing him back.”
“Of course.” He leaned against the trellis propped against the wall. Ivy wound through its crisscross pattern. “Does this happen every night or only when he wants to impress you?”
“No, thank goodness.” Pierre’s behavior had been appalling. When she met him at the cabaret, his breath already stank of liquor.
Owen gave a low whistle. “Nice place he’s got here. You stay in a flat like this?”
“My hotel is a block away. It’s decent.”
“A block away, hmm?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Would have offered to walk you home, but a block isn’t too bad.”
Darn, why hadn’t she let him walk her without telling him the distance? Here was her chance to say something else. Talking with him felt so familiar; surely the night didn’t have to end. She bit her bottom lip as another thought crossed her mind. At the same time, he had no reason to stay with her. He had plans to meet up with another woman, for all she knew.
“Good night then, Iris.”
Say something. Stop him from leaving.
“Good night, Owen.”
At least they parted as friends. She walked away first, her heels clipping against the cobblestone street. Maybe he hadn’t left yet. She looked over her shoulder. Her heart sank. He had walked away, headed in the opposite direction. She faced the road ahead of her. A fortuitous run-in, that was all it would be.
“Iris?”
She stopped. To her left, a shop window showed her profile in its reflection. The window also showed Owen walking toward her, his pace slowing as he approached. She turned around. Maybe she had forgotten something.
“Do you have plans for the rest of the evening?”
Or maybe not.
“Because I was thinking that if you’re not busy, there’s a gathering of some of my friends in Montparnasse.” He studied her expression. “If you’re not busy.”
When Iris had started accepting interviews with reporters, she’d learned an important trick: if it mattered, never say yes right away. Saying yes right away could lead to the interview being canceled at the last second. Saying yes right away could lead to the interview being an hour long but only two lines of a quote in the paper. No, it was better to draw it out. And that meant not actually saying yes right away and jumping up and down in elation, which was what she wanted to do.
She met his gaze and faked a confidence she didn’t feel. “Your ‘set’?”
He smirked. “You could say that.”
“Well, I was planning to rehearse my lines for the next shoot.”
His head hung a little. “You’re right. It’s fine.”
“But I suppose I’m already dressed to go out. And it doesn’t take long for me to rehearse.”
He wiped his palms on the front of his wrinkled trousers. Did his hands feel as sweaty as hers? Being around him made her senses heighten. She strolled beside Owen along the dim avenue as her nerves continued to build. She wanted to spend time with him, and he wanted to spend time with her. That was it. No reason to second-guess her decision. She was tired of planning every move she made ten steps in advance.
A full moon lit up the night sky and exuded a rim of white shadows around it. The ominous clouds covered a portion of the moon. The apartments they walked past obscured the lamplight, casting shadows onto the street. Her face slipped into and out of the shadowy light while he remained on the brighter broad avenue.
“You look like a woman of mystery,” he said.
“Hardly.” Yet she made no move to walk closer to him. Better to stay at a safer distance.
The generous shadows provided her with protection. At least this way, he couldn’t see the idiotic smile stretching across her face. She snuck a look at his hand, hanging loose by his side. It felt odd to walk next to him and not take his hand or feel his fingers intertwine with hers. She missed the simplicity of it. Other lovers took her to bed after a couple drinks or let their hands roam too far south while dancing, their touch always feeling like an invasion. Blame it on youth or nostalgia, but with Owen, it had always felt right.
She tried to remember the last time they’d held hands. If she had known it would be the last time, she would have held on tighter.
• • •
Owen regretted inviting Iris as soon as they entered Gertrude’s apartment. It wasn’t the décor that embarrassed him. Her antique fireplace crackled with a warmth that matched the host. On the mantel stood the completed works of every respected English author and a Russian one as well, sandwiched between two wooden bookends shaped as bulldogs. A Persian rug woven from swirling patterns of gold thread lay before the fireplace, with plush cushions propped up toward the end of it. Someone had swept the heavy amber curtains aside for the night to reveal the streets below. The open window carried in the buzz of pedestrians even at the midnight hour. Twinkling in the distance stood the familiar outline of the Eiffel Tower, appearing more like a miniature toy than a towering guardian of the city.
What made him question his decision was not the room itself but its contents. Everyone was long gone into their liquor; he should have known better than to arrive so late in the night. He swore that a living room used to be next to the doorway, but it had been converted with a platform. Canvases mounted to easels formed a half-moon on the stage. Guests approached the platform and painted on the canvases, sometimes painting over the work done before. Macaroons had been placed at equal intervals along the edges of the platform. One painter stepped on a macaroon, shrugged, then picked up the crushed concoction and ate it.
A group of his friends formed a half-circle around Scott, who was doing an impression of what Owen assumed was an elephant. He blared a bestial cry and stormed around the room. When he and Owen made eye contact, he let out another bellow and headed Owen’s direction.
“It’s been forever since you joined the fray, boss. I’m acting out Gertie’s latest poem. Care to join?” Scott’s gaze shifted from Owen to Iris. “And who is your companion tonight?”
“Ignore him.” Gertrude elbowed her way forward to stand in front of Scott. “My poem references an elephant, and he has taken liberties with the material.”
She placed her hands on her hips and looked Iris up and down. Owen had told Gertrude about her before, and he wasn’t sure how to explain himself. But the woman had tact, unlike most of their friends. She exchanged introductions and pulled Iris and him aside, insisting on introducing them to everyone. There was the trumpet player from a jazz club down the street, the groundbreaking surrealist currently working as a telegraph operator, the heiress and art patron who deserved more than her flat tire of a husband (Gertrude was sure of it). Each person she introduced them to sounded louder than the one before. Someone turned on the radio, shifting pas
t static to find bits of music floating in and out of the frequency. Another guest had written the lyrics to one song, so it had to be turned up to full blast. A welcome distraction. He took advantage of it and broke away from Gertrude.
Iris followed him to the back of the room. They walked past several guests in various stages of undress playing poker around the dining room table.
“Your friends are lively.”
They were worse than Pierre. “If you want to go home, I understand.”
They stopped at a small wooden table behind the poker players. She sat down across from him and shrugged. “Trust me, I’ve seen worse back home.”
Relief washed over him. She would stay, at least for the moment. “This is them when they’re boring.”
She laughed. “Do you remember when you picked me up from the studio once and I said my day had been boring? And right then a man walked past us covered in pink beads?”
He did remember. Both the man’s pants and his shirt had been covered in beaded fabric. All the lights on set had reflected off the clown.
Owen might not have recalled what he had said, but he did recall the rest of that day. They had been dating for a little less than a year back then. He’d picked her up early from work so they could drive to her favorite ice cream shop before it closed. It was the middle of January, and she had been insisting on the treat for days. He kept telling her it was a ridiculous idea, but he bought ice cream for them anyway. Her smile when she finally held the cone in her hands made up for the coldness of his. He itched to bring it up. Yet it waded into forbidden territory, part of the boundary he could not cross. Did she remember the rest of the day as well, or could she somehow revisit her memories without including their relationship?
She laughed again.
Hopefully, the years between them hadn’t suddenly given her an ability to read minds.
“What’s so funny?”
“I can still remember you saying, ‘Never a boring day in Hollywood.’ I think of that whenever I see someone dressed in beads.” She traced lazy fingertips along the edge of her collar as she spoke.
He followed its path south, toward her dress’s plunging neckline. It exposed the swell of her breasts, their outlines disappearing into the low-hanging fabric. She had gathered up her skirts as she sat down and propped out one leg to her side. The tanned skin begged his gaze to trail upward to the shapeliness of her thighs, covered halfway by satin cloth. He missed the way their bodies once molded together, the comforting weight of her hips pressed against his. She would curl up next to him, warm and soft and familiar. If he edged forward, he could kiss her.
“I believe one of your boring friends is trying to get your attention,” she said.
A clap on his back jolted Owen’s attention upward, where Ezra stood over him. The entirety of Paris wanted to prevent him from talking to her alone that night.
Ezra gestured to the empty chair beside them. “Mind if I sit down?”
“We were actually talking . . . ”
Before Owen could finish, Scott wheeled in beside her. He adjusted his tie and whispered something into her ear, then addressed Owen himself. “And I wouldn’t mind a dance with this lovely actress of yours, boss. It’s not fair you get all the good ones.”
She gave Owen a sidelong glance. “Is that so? How many others am I competing against?” Her voice sounded amused.
A slow song filled Gertrude’s apartment. He assured Iris over the noise that there were none, but it didn’t stop Scott from extending his hand out to her. She shot him a questioning look yet accepted Scott’s hand. She had the right to do what she wanted, yet why with him? Jealousy flared in Owen’s gut as she laid her head against Scott’s shoulder while they danced. Scott didn’t deserve her. Then again, no one in the room did. He sure as hell didn’t.
Ezra’s face obstructed his view. His words tumbled out fast and energetic. “I apologize for my curt behavior earlier. I was in a rush. I wanted to talk to you about your story.”
He tried to look behind Ezra’s head at the dance floor, but Ezra matched his movements. He gave up. “I’m listening.”
“There was something about it that gripped me from the beginning.”
Owen raised his eyebrows. Part of him had suspected Ezra might be publishing him as a favor to Gertrude. After all, his work paled in comparison to the others publishing in Ezra’s review.
“It’s the sharpness of your language. It sheds all sentiment of the Romantic period. There was a scene after the one outside the bar—what was it again?” He snapped his fingers, as if the move would reignite his memory.
“Inside the hero’s apartment.”
“Right!” Ezra pointed at him. “Your words were direct.”
“I’m trying for a clearer style. Precision works best. Do you think I should have included more description of his internal thoughts, though? That might have needed work.”
“None of that needs to bog down the narrative. Cut, cut, cut, that’s what I believe.” He made slashing movements in the air as he spoke.
A frenetic energy built within Owen, the kind that only occurred when he was talking about his craft. He found fuel among the city’s community. Everyone wanted to immerse themselves in their art. Everyone wanted to learn from one another and feed off the other’s energy. The city had opened his eyes to a world of inspiration. It came at a cost, though. His friends poured most of their energy into dancing and drinking, not creation. The city worked as an oasis for writers to pass through, but it was a difficult place to get actual work done.
“Paris needs your voice.”
“Hardly. It’s crowded with enough writers,” Owen said. “Do you ever think about leaving the city?”
“And go where? London?”
“Back home.”
He frowned. “And do what?”
“Write, still.” Owen pedaled backward. It seemed the bustling pace of life in Paris still matched Ezra’s tastes. No use pushing the subject. Ezra might think he wasn’t serious about staying in Paris and change his mind about publishing Owen’s sketch. “Never mind. I’m glad you like the story; I could use the money. Landlord’s been bothering me about rent again.”
“Rent! I could use a payment if anyone’s offering.” A man Owen recognized as a friend of Ezra’s joined their table, plopping into Iris’s former seat. “Or a patron.”
Another man leaned away from the poker table to join the conversation. “Oh, be quiet! You have an inheritance to fall back on.”
“All these writers with endless flows of inheritance money are the ones who irk me,” Ezra’s friend said. “They type three words a day and spend the rest of it in leisure. Writers like us are the ones who have to work at it.”
“And the price of everything keeps increasing,” the poker player complained. “It’s all these people trying to get into the city.”
“You could always take another job.” Ezra’s tone had cooled. “You cannot write if you cannot eat.”
And that was exactly how the screenwriting job had come about. He hadn’t told Ezra about it, but he wouldn’t be surprised if his friend already knew. Pierre had offered him a life raft to keep him from drowning in his expenses. And he owed Pierre nothing in return except a story.
He didn’t like the way the director had looked at Iris at the café. His throat tightened. Perhaps he did owe Pierre something else as well. If Pierre was interested in Iris, Owen could step out of the way. Besides, the director could provide her a life much better than he could. An exuberant townhouse, starring roles in films, reservations at the finest restaurants. All Owen could offer her was a collection of rejection letters from the finest publishers. Damn, what had he done by inviting her? It had been a foolish decision.
Iris walked over to Owen. “Now it’s your turn to dance,” she said.
“I’m fine.”
She tugged his sleeve toward the floor. But he remained in his chair. He wasn’t in the mood to dance. She knelt in front of him as the others a
round his table left to seek fresh entertainment.
“I’m sure we could show them the Charleston and impress them all.” Her warm breath tickled his cheek. “We could put on a show.”
“I don’t enjoy being made a spectacle.”
She clasped one of his hands in hers and tried to pull him toward the radio. Despite his desire to follow her, he kept his hand limp. No use dancing with someone who belonged with someone else. It would give him hope for something that would never happen. When she finally dropped it, he shoved his hands into his pockets. Her eyes searched his, trying to look through him again.
“Scott told me that he thinks you’re a talented writer.”
He brushed it off. “It’s the alcohol talking.”
“I doubt it.”
“You can’t judge it if you’ve never read it.”
She pursed her lips. “Well then, I would love to read some of your work.”
He had shown her bits and snatches of his writing when they were younger but never a complete story. Would she recognize herself in his stories? More importantly, would she find her recurrence flattering? Unsettling, more likely.
“You should; it’s excellent.” Ezra popped his head between the two of them.
Owen waved him away. “I’ll think about it.”
Ezra let out a huff and turned toward the mantel. When he returned, he unfolded a parcel of papers from a manila folder. Gertrude had once told him that the man never went anywhere without a copy of the latest stories for his review, but he hadn’t imagined it to be literally true. To his chagrin, Ezra pulled out a stack of twenty or so pages of typewritten work and handed the pile to Iris.