Chapter 18 #2
When he tore the paper back carefully, he felt his heart constrict. The book was his favorite, Le Petit Prince, and when he checked inside, he discovered it was a first edition. He flipped the pages to her inscription, knowing it would be there.
To my own prince—the beautiful Horatio—who loves and sees with the heart.
All my love,
Phoebe
He traced the cursive, smiling because she’d used a rich emerald ink. He’d seen her ink well and fountain pen on her desk and commented on it. She said it was the Brit in her who loved Shakespeare. She adored stuff like that, stationery included.
That was why he’d painted stationery for her, lovingly tracing each page on the special handcrafted paper he’d found from Provence. He’d thought about painting her a cameo for a necklace, but he wasn’t that kind of painter. Enamel. Kiln firing.
There was a knock at the door. Was Kyle back and bringing him takeout?
Checking on how miserable he was with Phoebe gone?
Okay, any of his friends might be doing that.
But when he opened it, he was surprised to see Nanine holding a blue casserole dish with a bread bag hanging from her shoulder.
The scent of fresh baguette and boeuf bourguignon reached him.
She might as well have presented his heart to him. Did she know?
“I hear you are having takeout delivered to your studio,” she began with the elegant quirk of a white brow. “I came to contribute to nourishing our artist.”
When he gave her a soft smile, she responded in kind before kissing both his cheeks. He stepped back to let her inside. “I haven’t started painting yet. I just got home from dropping Phoebe off at the airport.”
“So I heard from Madison. Of course, I have heard many things about ‘your Phoebe,’ as your roommates now call her. I look forward to meeting her when she returns from the holidays. If you felt you needed my permission, please bring her to Sunday dinner, although something less formal can be arranged if either of you prefer it so.”
He was certain his smile was so warm he could have melted wax to seal the seam of an old-fashioned letter. “I was planning to talk to you about that when things settled down after the holidays.”
“Then consider it discussed. The only matter left is to set a date agreeable for everyone after the New Year.” She turned, her brow knit. “Now…where are your plates and utensils?”
He cringed. “Ah…normally I eat out of the container.”
Her quick nod had his sudden tension easing. “Of course. You are working, and I am sure you have paint…everywhere.”
Her familiar laugh had him joining in. “I’m not very tidy.”
“Neither am I, as a cook.” She set down the bread bag as well as a bag he hadn’t seen behind it.
“Bernard used to tease me that I’d opened my own restaurant so I would have underlings to clean up after me.
Oh, how he used to joke. Now Carl does. Which assures me that I am the same Nanine. You understand, yes?”
He nodded. “I was just thinking something similar, missing Phoebe. The feeling’s much stronger than I expected. Which had me not wanting to paint, probably for the first time since I met her.”
Nanine brought over the other bag, casually carrying it as she walked over to the three easels on display, studying each.
In addition to the one he was still painting, two were finished and drying.
Scenes of a woman like Phoebe in various places.
With her back turned as she regarded a turbulent sea.
Her profile as she gazed out across a field of red poppies, a straw hat in her hand.
“She is your muse, yes? I can see all the love you have for her. How the world is brighter with her in it. I hope I may say this, and you will know it is from my heart. You paint your best when you do it for love.”
Love.
He thought back to his conversation with Thea along the Seine.
They had mentioned his perfect recipe including self-confidence but not love.
That insight had taken a while to reveal itself, perhaps because he hadn’t fully understood what it was to paint with love until he’d devoted more of his time to his art, with Phoebe as his muse.
Beverly had noted that he painted with great sensitivity.
Only she hadn’t identified the emotion underlying those works.
Yes, love had been his perfect ingredient, after all.
No wonder he’d failed at twenty. What had that boy known of love?
Suddenly, he could feel all the old hurts and doubts associated with that time leaving him, as if the warmth of the moment had finally ushered it all away.
Nothing had gone wrong. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
It wasn’t even a question of being good enough or his work being good enough.
He only hadn’t yet come across the perfect ingredient for his journey, for his life’s passion.
But it had begun here—in Paris—and now the circle was complete.
His throat grew tight in the midst of such a profound epiphany. “Funny, how it now seems even more obvious that I attracted attention for my work because I painted people I loved—you, of course, and Thea, Brooke, and Madison, although I’ve never admitted that outright until now.”
“I believe they know. I did. I could see your heart in every brushstroke. Now the world will see what I have always seen inside you, Fourth Course.”
His gaze went to his holiday present. “You know, Phoebe’s Christmas present to me was The Little Prince.”
“Ah…how I adore that book.”
“Yes, but it strikes me now how much its most famous quote suits you. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Nanine, you know how much you matter to me. At least I hope you know. You changed my life.”
Framing his face with her hands, she studied him with deep brown eyes filled with warmth. “And you mine.” She kissed his cheeks, the gesture tender and almost honorific. “Speaking of gifts, I have one for you. Although it is not a holiday one.”
He was still too moved to raise a brow, but he accepted the cloth bag she handed him. There was an old bottle of wine inside. He drew it out, his mouth parting at the age. “Holy— Nanine, this is from 1973. It’s older than I am.”
“The age of this Chateau Mouton Rothschild is unimportant, although I believe it will be an excellent wine—one for you to open the night of your first gallery showing.”
His eyes burned behind his spectacles. “Oh, man, Nanine, you’re killing me here.”
She only patted his back. “I don’t believe you know the story of how the Mouton motto changed in 1973.
The chateau had been making wine for centuries, and it was not what is called first growth in France.
At that time, they went by the words, First I cannot be; second I do not deign to be; I am Mouton. ”
So his Nanine was giving him a philosophy lesson, speaking to his heart.
“Jacqueline would know the details better,” she continued, “but something changed for them in 1973. They finally had their first breakout wine, as you might say. The baron even said he was changing their motto to First I am; second I was, but Mouton does not change.”
His mind related it to Descartes’ famous quote I think, therefore, I am, but his heart understood.
“I believe you have been on the same journey—an artist’s journey—which is why I selected this wine for you above all others. Because to me you will always be Sawyer. Fourth Course. Despite what was and what you are now or will become.”
He embraced her, shifting the wine to his side. “You could not have found me a better gift, Nanine. Thank you. I… You must drink it with me for my first show.”
“We will all be there with you that night and many more,” she said, holding him warmly.
He had to squeeze his eyes shut as the emotion of the day flooded him. First, Phoebe leaving, and now this moment with Nanine. “I’m so lucky to have all of you.”
“We are also lucky.” She drew away and righted his glasses.
“Now, you will change into your painter’s smock, pick up your paintbrush, and do what you love.
Remembering of course that you will always be Sawyer.
But that only happens after I leave. First, I will find you a plate and some utensils.
Because my food deserves real cutlery and such. ”
They shared a smile before he chuckled. “You deserve everything and more, Nanine.
If eating like a civilized man is all you require of me, then I am a lucky man indeed.”
“Civilized.” She made a very French sound. “As if plates and utensils have not been around since the early days of man. But I will go and find some while you change.”
When she left, he caressed the old bottle and took it over to rest beside Phoebe’s beautiful gift.
The enormity of the gifts struck him. Phoebe had given him a book that held world records for being the most translated and one of the best-selling books of all time.
How long had Antoine de Saint-Exupéry worked on that slim volume of mastery?
Nanine had told him the same had been true of the vines and wine production for Chateau Mouton Rothschild.
A lot of work had gone into this bottle.
Years of groundwork leading to this moment…
He knew his journey to this point had been the same.
A vast sea of peace opened up inside him.
Studying his finished paintings lined up along the wall as well as the ones in process, he realized he was closer to his first show than ever.
He had commissions to begin after that. His life had become that of a serious artist with one of the most renowned agents in the world.
This year had been a defining change for him, like 1973 had been for Rothschild.
He would look back in his golden years and think of the man he’d been and the one he’d become.
He tipped his head up to the skylights, awash in the wonder of the cerulean blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds, a marvel he would spend the rest of his life trying to capture.
Suddenly he knew what the next step of the journey was.
He sat down to compose his resignation letter to the university.