Chapter 3 #2
His art now graced Nanine’s walls. People were clamoring to see what he’d put on canvas. And wasn’t that where the scary, anxiety-filled emotions came from? People were going to see his truth.
His thoughts.
His feelings.
His very soul.
And with his mother’s nagging question in his mind—is it good enough?—he knew he was struggling with the worst human dilemma. Was he good enough?
He slashed through the air so violently he almost fell into the Seine.
“Sawyer! Are you okay?”
He turned toward the voice. Thea. “I…ah…was batting at a mosquito.”
She wobbled on the cobblestones in the two-inch brown boots peeking out from under her long rose-colored wool coat. “It’s these cobblestones that make me worry about stumbling into the water. Which would be awful, don’t you think?”
He nodded before inclining his chin to Jean Luc, who cut an equally fine appearance in a camel-colored wool coat with a black pinstripe suit under it. He was a man who could quote the old philosophers, one of the qualities that made him a rare lawyer: one with a soul.
Perhaps it was the whole being in love thing, but they both looked like they’d spent a weekend in St. Tropez.
Sure, they’d left the party early last night, Thea being an early riser with all her baking.
But perhaps it was the notoriety of her breads and the anticipation of her new bakery that had her looking so radiant.
He wished he could be that easy with himself.
“Checking up on me?” He closed his art pad and put his pastel back in his handcrafted wooden art box.
“Me and our roommates have officially decided it’s time for Operation Sawyer after that Le Monde article. A visit from one of us while you’re working is part of our plan to encourage you in all this new awesomeness that’s happening.”
“Maybe I need a recipe card like the ones you made for yours.” He gestured to Jean Luc. “You got everything you wanted. The new bakery. The new you. The guy.”
“But what I needed most was inside.” She touched her heart as the wind ruffled her chestnut-colored hair. “Confidence. That’s what you need too.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Her slender brow knit. “We don’t want you having panic attacks again.”
He didn’t either. The rapid heart rate, dizziness, tingling, sweating, and trembling from the panic attacks of his youth had been bad enough to mess him up for days. He wouldn’t wish them on his worst enemy if he had one.
“I’ve had those on and off since I was a kid, Thea, so I’m being careful.”
“I don’t imagine that makes them any easier to bear,” Jean Luc finally said, his gaze a little too piercing. “The kind of attention you are receiving can only add to the pressure.”
Fine. They were already worried about him. “Part of the creative process for me. Hey, I appreciate you guys doing the whole friends thing. I’m going to need it.”
“Speaking of.” Thea laughed and dug into the cloth bag she was carrying with her bakery’s new logo on it.
The name, Les Meillieurs des Amis, really was perfect.
She and their other roommates were his best friends, and since he’d never really had that many people around him who liked him unconditionally, they were his sun, moon, and stars, if he were being poetic.
“With the article yesterday, you might have people stopping you on the street,” he joked.
She ducked her chin, blushing. “We did, and it was incredible! People wanted to take selfies with me. A few even asked if I had any bread for sale.”
“Dean is talking about adding an online store to Thea’s website today for what he’s calling bread tickets.” Jean Luc made a very French sound—pfft. “Buy bread now. Pick it up when the bakery opens in February.”
“Nice! Tech bro is a wiz. I would never have thought of something like that.”
Thea lifted her face to the sun as if inhaling its glory. “Me either. It would also give me money now, which is wonderful. I have so many things I want to invest it in. The bakery, of course, and our wedding. Jean Luc, don’t give me that look.”
“I will not, chérie, but only because you and I have exhausted this topic. But you might give Sawyer the bread.”
“Right! I got distracted.”
Sawyer shot her a smile when she handed him one of her braided mini baguettes. “Now, that’s what I call friendship.”
Smiling back at him, Thea pulled out another baguette for herself and broke off a piece for Jean Luc. “Bread is love.”
“One of the greatest loves,” Jean Luc added, feeding her a bite, which had her giggling.
God, they were so in love, and he was happy for them.
Thea definitely deserved that kind of goodness in her life.
She’d quit her job at the bakery she’d been working at in the States because her boss had refused to give her time off to come and help Nanine—and it was the best decision she’d ever made.
She’d found herself, her purpose, and a love.
Operation Thea had been a raving success.
He wasn’t so sure about Operation Sawyer.
To use Thea’s words, he’d say he was missing an ingredient: faith in himself.
It ran deeper than a crisis of confidence.
No matter how much he accomplished, he couldn’t feel a deep sense of satisfaction in himself and his talents.
Okay, he had a few minutes here and there.
But what were minutes in a lifetime? Drops of water in the ocean.
He needed to be the ocean now, and he knew it.
“Can I see what you were working on?” Thea asked, edging closer.
Anxiety kicked in, like he’d suddenly fallen into white water rapids. “Not today, little sister. My composition is off, and don’t even get me started on my tonals.”
She added more sunshine to her smile. “That’s all right, Sawyer. You keep remembering what Axel said. You will take the art world by storm. We all know it.”
He suddenly thought how funny it was that he was affected so differently when his friends called him a genius versus when his parents said it. They didn’t have any agenda. Perhaps that was why it elevated his spirit as opposed to cellophaned it.
“My two cents, as you Americans say.” Jean Luc gave an enigmatic shrug. “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
“Descartes.” Sawyer sighed. Now that philosopher was going to ramble around in his head too. “And so true.”
“But that’s so depressing!” Thea cried.
“Perhaps,” Jean Luc continued, “but Sawyer knows what I mean. Search yourself but do your best to balance the doubt with the truth. You know what the truth is.”
“Bro, you are on a roll today.” Sawyer stood up, taking a bite of his baguette, knowing he’d gotten under Jean Luc’s half-Italian, half-French skin with that nickname.
“The bro comment tells me everything about your state of mind, Sawyer. Come, chérie, let us leave him to his artistic agonies. The greats do seem to like them.”
“But—” She firmed her lips as she shot Jean Luc a look. “Sawyer, I’m going to talk like Brooke now, and I don’t care if it’s not what you want to hear. Don’t make me put you in a Philosophy Time-out. Both of you, actually. No more Descartes or any of those other dead guys.”
He almost choked on his bread. “A what?”
Jean Luc rasped, “Dead guys!”
“You heard me.” She pointed her baguette at him before thrusting it out at her fiancé like a sword. “You too, Jean Luc. I know you think I’m sweet, Sawyer, but I’m not going to let you get stuck in negativity. Like Dean says, it’s counterproductive to following your dreams.”
Positivity was a missing piece in his double helix, no doubt about that. “It’s no wonder you and Dean are First and Second Course on Nanine’s Personality Type by French Course quiz. You two are eternal optimists. Maybe I was born on a day with no sun—an eclipse.”
God, where was his trusty pastel when he needed it? The invisible cords of doubt were all around him now.
“Oh, Sawyer.” She came over and rested a comforting hand on his chest as tourists from a crossing boat threw up a cheer.
“I believe in you and your art. I know you can do this! Look at how much Operation Thea changed my life! I’m telling you.
Operation Sawyer is a guaranteed success with your roommates on your side. ”
“Your bro as well,” Jean Luc supplied.
A major consolation if Sawyer ever heard one. “Thank you.”
She kissed his cheek. “Wait until you see what else we have in store for you.”
Ominous. “Did you guys have a secret meeting without me today? Do I hear a bell tolling?”
“Where?” Thea looked around, making Jean Luc’s mouth quirk.
“He is teasing, ma Thea. As for secret meetings, they would not be secret if we told you, Dr. Jackson. Thea, let us continue our walk. Now that you have set us both straight.”
Fussing with Jean Luc’s collar was her way of assuring her fiancé, Sawyer imagined. He sent her a smile as she waved and walked off with Jean Luc. Facing the Seine, his doubts resurfaced, murky thoughts ready to drown him.
He needed a distraction. Slicing his pastel through the air like a madman the rest of the afternoon would have him picked up by the police.
But where to go? He couldn’t go to his favorite art store only a few blocks away since it was closed on Sundays, but there was another art form that lit up his soul.
Books.
He headed up the uneven stairs from the quay to the street and walked down the pavement until he reached the green boxes of the famed bouquinistes.
Sure, there was art to be bought, but mostly prints for tourists.
The real magic was the old books. Nothing first edition-like.
There were plenty of bookstores in Paris that specialized in those babies.
But he’d found treasures here, including a history of Paris with old maps in it from the 1800s, before the Eiffel Tower had changed the city’s landscape.
He started toward the stacks of books on the end.
Then he saw Venus come to life and felt the world tilt on its axle yet again.