I swallow, find my feet, and breathe. I have to chill! It’s to my advantage that I’m not alone. I may not like having Gavin around, but his presence is reassuring. So I’m actually glad he’s here. Weird.
Gavin grabs a box, and I do the same and follow him back to the door, throwing a glance in the old lady’s direction. I can tell she’s staring at us, even though her face is shadowed. I hear another of her wheezy chuckles. My blood starts to simmer.
If that’s how you want it, lady, game on.
Except I don’t understand what the game actually is in the first place, but it’s got to have something to do with the empty apartment. Do they know I just took one of the paintings?
We clomp down the stairs. My box is full of yellowed underwear and stained socks. The smell of old sweat and moth balls makes my stomach curl around my breakfast. Gavin gets so far ahead of me that I can’t catch up with his long-legged gait until we’re nearly outside.
“What you doing here?” I blurt at him when I reach him. My face flames when I realize I’ve left out a word. Gavin doesn’t notice.
“My Dad and Valerie,” he says, putting his usual sarcastic emphasis on his Mom’s name, “told me that I needed to come by and apologize to you.” He shoulders his way through the main doors and dumps his box onto a moving van parked on the street. Then he turns back and stares at me with his arms folded, leaning against the van.
“So, I’m sorry,” he says. His mouth is in a tight line and his body is tense.
I stare at him for two reasons. One is that out here in the morning sunlight, I can clearly see his face. And his eyes aren’t mocking, they aren’t calculating. More than anything, they look sad. Two, he shouldn’t be the one to apologize. Not really. It was his Mom who made everything so humiliating and horrifyingly awkward the other night. It was Valerie’s fault.
“I,” I start to say, then freeze. How do I tell him any of this? How can I get the right words out? I can’t. I grimace and bite my lip, trying to think of what to say.
Gavin drops his gaze and sighs. “Whatever,” he mumbles. Then he lopes back over to the front doors and disappears inside.
People don’t realize how fast you have to talk to have a conversation. Jumbles of sounds fly out of your mouth in rapid succession and it’s all totally automatic. I mean, it just happens and you don’t even think about it. Unless you’re someone like me.
When you have to consciously think about every single thing that’s going to come from your lips, and never know if it will even come out right, talking is torture.
Communication is almost impossible.
I growl and follow Gavin. I don’t want him to get ahead so that we’re not in the apartment at the same time.
When we arrive at Mrs. Thackeray’s home, Gavin opens the door for me. And his words shock me so that I stumble and nearly fall.
“Yeah, ice cream sounds great, Rosemary,” he says in a loud voice as we enter. “But why don’t we pack a lunch and head to the beach, first? It’s a great day for a picnic.”
He grabs a box and sprints out the door before I can answer. I snatch an armful of old coats and follow, fuming. Mrs. Thackeray is still perched on the sofa. Her feet dangle a few inches above the floor, making her look like some evil little troll child. I steal a glance at her as I pass. She’s smiling. I stifle the urge to throw something at her head and stomp out into the hall.
Each time Gavin and I return to the apartment, he makes sure he gets ahead of me and announces something else as he opens the door.
“I’d love to teach you to surf! Love to see you in your new bikini, too!”
“I’m psyched I finally found a girl who wants a large family! Like, ten kids, you said?”
“I’ll have to save for a few more years if you want a ring like that!”
Mrs. T. giggles at every comment. I’m surprised she doesn’t start clapping. I’m dying to scream at the two of them, but I don’t. I know what will happen if I do. Anger turns my words into sludge.
I hate him. And he still never apologized for what he did in the shop.
Finally, we wrangle the last boxes onto the truck and head back once more to Mrs. Thackeray’s dark apartment. This time, I’m determined to beat Gavin at his own game. I manage to trip him on the stairs and sprint for Mrs. Thackeray’s door, but he recovers too quickly and follows on my heels.
“Whoa, slow down,” he pants once we get inside. “You’re moving a little too fast for me. Oh, and you might want to fix your lip gloss,” he adds with wicked grin.
There’s no sound in the room. No wheezy chuckle, no appreciative audience. I blink, surprised that the tiny woman isn’t here.
Gavin shrugs and turns to me. This time, he’s no longer smiling and his face is defiant.
“What was that about?” I blurt, glad I manage to keep my temper in check. At least my words are clear. Kind of.
“Just teasing you,” Gavin says, his eyes challenging.
“Not funny,” I mumble.
“Then why didn’t you say something?” Gavin demands, moving a step closer.
Because I can’t, you idiot! Don’t you understand that?
I shake my head and plant my hands on my hips. And glare.
Gavin’s eyes narrow. “Forget it,” he mumbles. “I’m out of here.”
I watch him go, wanting him to stay but not knowing how to get him to do it. I don’t know how to explain something to him that I don’t totally understand myself. But I have to try.
“Wait,” I say.
Gavin turns, hovering over the threshold.
And a sudden weight presses on my shoulder. A hand, with strong, bony fingers grips tight and doesn’t let go.
“Not you, girlie. You’re not done, yet.”
I hadn’t noticed Thomas in the shadows. I wrench myself from his grasp and step back. He glowers in my direction, but doesn’t try to grab me again. Instead, he moves to the door and shoves it closed, pushing Gavin all the way outside. I hear a muffled “Hey!” from the hallway. Then, I hear the lock click. My heart leaps into my throat and tries to choke me. I’ve always had a problem with locked doors.
“They’re waiting for me at home,” I say with a shaking voice, looking up at the gaunt man before me. The words come out totally scrambled.
“What?” the man growls. I can’t answer because my tongue is now frozen.
I step back when Thomas moves, but he doesn’t come any closer to me. He simply stands against the locked door, arms crossed in front of his chest. Gavin pounds on the door from the outside. Thomas ignores him. Fear knifes my stomach. Now I know the reason for Mrs. Thackeray’s little game. They wanted to get me here, alone, but make it look legit.
“How are you getting inside, Rosemary?” the old woman asks from behind me.
I whirl and there she is, once again settled into a corner of the couch like an overlarge, wrinkled pug. Where had she been? Her question doesn’t surprise me, but my tongue is super-glued to the roof of my mouth. I’m afraid no words will ever come out again.
“Come on, then!” Thomas barks. “Answer her question!” The pounding on the door stops. Gavin has abandoned me.
“I—”
“Answer me!” Thomas shouts.
“Get in where?” I say. My voice is so quivery the words seem to shiver apart and fall to the floor.
“You know where!” Thomas roars. “Into that flat next to yours. We know you’ve been in there!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I scream. My words slur together like I’m drunk.
With a wordless growl, Thomas takes a step toward me.
Someone pounds again on the door, hard.
“Rosie?” Sylvie’s voice calls. Her voice is shrill.
“Here!” I shout. Thomas glares at me, but he turns to unlock the door and swings it wide.
Sylvie and Émile rush inside. I bolt over to them, finally able to breathe.
Everyone talks all at once, except for me. Sylvie shouts and gestures. Thomas manages to look insulted.
Mrs. Thackeray says we were chatting. She asks why in the world Sylvie is so upset. “We were about to invite Rosemary to stay for tea. We would have invited that nice young man, too, but he left.”
“I want to go,” I say to Sylvie. She leads me out with a strange look on her face. Émile stays behind in Mrs. Thackeray’s apartment, saying something I don’t catch. I flinch at the sound of Thomas’s rumbling voice, as he answers. What if he tells them what he knows about me? What would I say? More lies. More and more lies. I’m shaking.
We descend the stairs, but at the bottom, Sylvie grabs my shoulders and turns me around to face her. Speaking in rapid French, she asks me if I’m really all right. What did he want? Why are you so frightened? Did he do something? Sylvie’s face is hard. She’s angry, but I also sense fear in her widened eyes. She is truly afraid for me.
My body won’t stop trembling. This situation wasn’t like what she’s thinking, but I know why Sylvie reacts this way. What happened looked totally suspicious. Add to that the fact that I’m shaking in my sneakers. I was terrified when Thomas locked the door. It’s how I feel every night when Mom shuts my door and I hear the lock click into place. More often than not, that sound is what brings on the nightmares of the funky images that haunt me. Weird, vague blurred pictures float in front of my eyes, wisps of old memories, but I try to force them away.
“He didn’t let me leave because he wanted to talk to me,” I tell Sylvie, slowly, shakily, my words strange to my own ears. It’s the most I’ve said to her yet after all my days in her home.
“Why?” Sylvie is still holding my shoulders, staring into my eyes.
I decide part of the truth is necessary, in case Thomas is talking to Émile about what’s going on. “He thinks I broke into the empty apartment.”
Sylvie’s forehead crinkles. “Of course you did not,” she says as she pulls me into one of her warm hugs. It makes me feel worse.
“But why are you so frightened?” Sylvie murmurs into my ear. “What happened?”
I back away and shrug. After staring into my face for what seems like a very long moment, Sylvie steps away. “Okay, chère, let’s go inside,” she whispers.
Gavin is in Sylvie’s apartment, standing in the entryway with his hands jammed into his pockets, shoulders hunched. His eyes meet mine as I walk in and he looks relieved.
Rage rises and spills over. How can he pretend to care after the way he’s been treating me? I pull away from Sylvie and hurtle toward Gavin, slamming my shoulder into him and almost knocking him to the floor.
“Hey, what the—”
“Go away!” I scream. Furious tears flow down my face, and I don’t even care. “Leave me alone, you jerk!”
I don’t care that my words are weak and mangled. I don’t care that Sylvie saw what I did to Gavin. I don’t listen to her voice, calling after me. I don’t even remember making it back to my painted, borrowed bedroom, but I huddle on the bed, hold Fat Cat tight and curse the universe.
Then, after a few seconds, I stop. I just stop. I take a deep breath and let it out in one long shudder. And I think, leaning against the wall, hugging the big cat’s solid body close to me. This can work to my advantage. I’d been trying to figure out how to bring up the subject of Zander. It’s cold. It’s calculating. And it’s what I have to do. The old lady doesn’t know it, but she’s just helped me out. She’ll have to get used to me, because I’m going to be a permanent neighbor.
And if Thomas and his mother wanted to scare me, it didn’t work. Because right now, this very moment, I swear on the graves of all the dead Impressionists that I’m going to find out what they’re up to. Maybe I shouldn’t be going into that empty apartment, but neither should they.
_______
Fat Cat purrs in his sleep. I watch the shadows and try to force my brain to recapture the images I glimpsed this morning; the vague, haunting memories that have teased me since Thomas locked me inside his mother’s apartment, but they slip away before they can really take shape. What were they?
The letter I found comes to mind. The lamp casts a dull glow about the bedroom as I fish the paper out from its hiding place under the mattress. I read it again.
Who was she, this Marguerite? Why did the man say her words were “weak”? Were they like mine? Slippery, strange, never sounding the same? And aren’t there more letters? There have to be.
It’s very simple to sneak back into the apartment. All I have to do is listen to make sure no one else is there. And this time, I’m prepared. I take a flashlight and push through the door in my wall.
The dusty smell surrounds me. I wish I could make it go away. It’s the smell of long years silent and alone, almost like the apartment was a living thing, waiting in sadness for someone who never arrived.
As I shoot beams of light around the room I gasp in shock. Thomas and his ancient Mummy must be looking for something. How else would anyone explain the shelves, emptied of all their books, which were carelessly tossed all over the floor? Or the paintings, ripped from their frames, the canvases piled haphazardly in a corner?
When I take a step, something crunches under my feet, and I yelp and look down. A tiny figurine of a bird is now mostly powder under my Converse sneakers. And as I finger the shards, I feel like something hard and sharp is inside of me as well, something that cuts. It isn’t fair. Marguerite wouldn’t like this. This was her place, and her stuff. Why are they doing this? Do they think they have a right because she had “weak” words? Because she wasn’t like everyone else?
I forget all about looking for more letters.
I have to save Marguerite’s things.
The rolls of canvases are easy to stash up high in Ansel’s closet. The paintings still in their frames fit under my bed. I like them. One is a still life, of blood red strawberries in a dish, next to a turquoise blue vase that’s cracked. Another painting shows a little girl with huge, brown eyes, and in another, a group of people are sitting around a round metal table at a café that looks like the one Émile and Sylvie took me to. I like them.
It’s so late. I wash dust from my hands and throw on my pajamas, finally ready to snore. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start rescuing the books. I don’t want Thomas or his mother to take anything else from the apartment.
They don’t deserve to have anything that belonged to the woman with weak words.
Seventeen
Your mom is not happy. I mean, way not happy. She skipped work and cried all day. It’s getting weird.
She’ll get over it. Seriously!
She called me last night. She asked what’s up with you? You’re not writing to her.
Sorry, J. Don’t be mad, bestie! I’m busy!
I lied. I said nothing’s wrong. I’m getting tired of lying. I hate the lies and I know you, R. What’s up?
Her words sink into my stomach like stones.
All morning, my little escapade last night has been heavy on my mind. Morning light helped me see reality. What do I do with all the stuff I took? Why didn’t I think about what I was doing? I want to ask Jada for help, but now I feel too guilty, because she doesn’t know that I’m not coming home. When do I tell her? How?
This isn’t so funny anymore.
“You are ready?” Sylvie asks me as she sweeps into the kitchen. I nod. Her long braids are gathered into a knot, held in place with a couple of clean paintbrushes. I love it. It’s so her. I inhale the scent of paint and bread and wilting roses. My heart begins to calm. I love France. I love Sylvie and Émile. I love Nice, with its crumbling buildings and hills that sweep down to the ocean. There’s so much blue here. Pale, azure sky, deep turquoise ocean, and I’m swimming in this color, drowning in it. It’s not suffocating m
e, though. It’s oxygen for my soul.
I type a quick message to Jada.
I’m sorry. I’ll call you tonight.
Now is not the time to tell her, but I will. Soon. I log off. Then I pick up my paintbrush. My heart speeds up. This is the time I chose to tell Sylvie my “story” about Zander. I spent time last night looking up words, working out the best way to say it.
My art lesson begins. Sylvie says little. She demonstrates, wordlessly assists, and only occasionally murmurs suggestions. She is gentle, speaking softly, treating me as if I might break. She’s done that since yesterday, when I was locked inside Mrs. Thackeray’s apartment. The timing is so perfect. After a few minutes, I’m ready.
Drama time. I’m going to tell her about Zander.
“Sylvie,” I say in a trembling voice, trying to work up some tears, but at the same moment, she pops up from her seat and scrambles for the door.
“Oh, la la, it’s so late! I forgot! I must go, Rosie! You are all right here alone, yes?”
I blink. I don’t remember anyone saying that Sylvie had to go somewhere this afternoon.
“Of course,” I whisper.
“I’ll be back soon,” Sylvie says. And then she grabs her purse and she’s gone.
The apartment is silent, except for the kitchen clock, ticking away the seconds in a leisurely manner. I deflate like a balloon that has a slow leak. For the first time since I’ve arrived here, I don’t want to be alone. Why did Sylvie fly away like that? I get back to work. I may as well. I’ll have to tell my story later.
I force my brain to focus on the canvas in front of me and paint. Hearing only the soft swish of a brush on the canvas, the muted murmurings of traffic outside and the slow tick tick of the clock, I breathe in the scent of paint and linseed oil, and soon I find myself wrapped in a kind of peaceful cocoon. I forget about everything for a while.
The French Impressionist Page 11