12. Once Upon a Parisian Sunset #3
She didn’t want to stay longer. Although she had way too many questions for him, questions she wasn’t even certain she wanted answers to.
But in the end, her priorities were different now.
Her concern for Chiara was paramount, so she pocketed the key and, after making sure Chiara had indeed locked the door to her floor, ran outside, shouting at Zizou who was standing rooted to the spot.
“I will meet her halfway.”
* * *
Vi didn’t remember how she’d gotten up the stairs from the cafe.
Her hands trembled as she held on tight to the steel rails of the narrow stepladder, the camera still dangling heavy around her neck.
Once there, she refused to be distracted by the magnificence of Paris spreading like wings in front of her.
She kept her head down and tried not to think about her fear of heights as she jumped from one roof to the next.
When she was two buildings away from Lilien Haus, she finally saw her.
Chiara was standing across from Vi, on the very edge of the roofline.
It didn’t have a railing, and Vi’s heart was suddenly in her throat.
She didn’t know if she should shout, since she might startle Chiara.
And with every breath she took, Vi prayed that Chiara’s being so close to the edge was by accident.
That it meant nothing. That none of this was happening.
Spurned on by the need to do something, Vi took several careful steps. Then more and more, until she was only a few feet away. Still, her own fear made the lump in her throat insurmountable, choking the life out of her.
Her tears were blinding her. However, none of them were for herself. They were all for the woman who trembled in the wind and seemed a million miles away.
Chiara couldn’t jump, Chiara couldn’t fall, because Vi would not be able to save her. Vi was too far away, too far away…
“I won’t, Vi. I’m just… uncentered… Unsteady, I guess.”
Had she once again spoken her thoughts out loud?
Had Chiara heard her? The low voice, laden with sorrow, was so quiet, Vi could barely hear in spite of being as close as she was now.
When she raised her eyes—fear swallowing her whole and tears streaming down her cheeks—and looked at Chiara, she was still near the edge, still motionless, still staring into the distance.
“I heard you cry, darling. Or try not to sob too loudly. I’m sorry they sent you after me. You can go back now. I know you’re scared. I knew you were scared the very first time I took you up. But you were so brave, soldiering on.”
Vi jerked her head, then realized that Chiara was still not looking at her, but into the beautiful expanse of Paris.
She needed to speak, to ask, to deny that she was here on someone else’s orders, to find her voice.
Yet she felt like everything around her was steeped in molasses.
She herself was sluggish, weary, unable to act.
Like in one of those dreams where someone is chasing you and you can’t move quite fast enough.
A dream where her closed-up throat precluded her from uttering a word, from salvation.
Except she didn’t need to be saved right now, Chiara did.So Vi gritted her teeth and finally managed to force her mouth to cooperate.
“Nobody sent… Came by myself… Well, not really, Zizou…” She stopped when she heard Chiara’s quiet chuckle.
“Rambling again, Ms. Courtenay?”
The laughter and the words, so familiar, so quintessentially Chiara, so unlike the cavernous, lifeless ‘I won’t,’ that Vi was ready to sprint the rest of the way on the warm, gray zinc of the roof. She chose to temper her zeal and instead take careful steps towards Chiara.
“You know I ramble when I’m nervous. And no, I didn’t believe you would jump. She doesn’t deserve—”
“God, you are so na?ve, still!” Chiara finally turned, skewering Vi with a direct look as she stepped away from the edge, her arm gestures—so rarely employed by her now, yet oh-so-Italian—underscoring her frustration.
The rare glimpse of temper, so uncharacteristic compared to her overall calm and collected disposition, was a surprise. A pleasant one. Anything was better than the prior lifelessness.
Vi knew Chiara’s anger and pain over the situation must have finally taken over, and she didn’t mind if it was directed at her. She didn’t care. The ice that had been encasing her chest ever since she’d seen Chiara teetering on the edge had begun to thaw. That was all that mattered.
Chiara stalked towards her and grabbed her upper arm, not so gently taking her farther away from the edge of the roof.
“Na?ve and so damn brave I can’t even be angry with you.
And I have so much anger now, Vi… So much…
” Chiara trailed off, despite the obvious dark mood, seemingly satisfied now that Vi couldn’t see the street beneath them anymore from where they stood.
She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, then sat down, pulling on Vi to join her.
Before she knew what was happening, Vi found herself shoulder to shoulder with Chiara, engulfed in the remnants of crackling aggravation still radiating from her companion, who continued to take deliberate deep breaths to calm herself down.
“I am not sure that strategy has ever helped me.” Vi’s words took both of them by surprise.
“Are you really criticizing how I cope with my frustration?” Chiara’s eyebrow rose indignantly and Vi had to smile.
“I know you want to bite my head off… You could, you know, it’s fine. Or you could hold on to me. Because I’m here. Because I’m safe.”
And it was Vi’s turn to look into the distance, to pretend that the skyline was all she saw when, in fact, she saw nothing at all, her eyes again filling with tears that she couldn’t explain or understand.
A gentle touch on her chin made her turn back, then amber eyes perused her face at leisure. And suddenly the air was no longer filled with crackling anger.
The temperature rose each time Chiara lowered her eyes to Vi’s mouth.
On the last pass, Chiara spoke, and her voice had that low note to it, the one that Vi recognized, because she had been hearing it for months now.
And she had never heard it directed at others.
She thought she finally knew what it was.
“Whoever is writing my life is perverse.” The words were a soft whisper. Chiara’s eyes twinkled with gentleness, then she bit her lip, and Vi wanted to whimper.
In the distance, a single bird trilled, flying high in the purpling sky, and Vi’s heart wanted to chase it, to fly along.
“You are not safe, darling. Not even close. But you are too na?ve and too kind, Vi. A gentle soul. Too beautiful. Too… everything really, for your own good. You would have tried to save me, wouldn’t you?
” When Vi tried to shake her head ‘no,’ she knew what Chiara would say next, because she understood her own eyes had betrayed her.
“Don’t lie to me, Vi. You can’t pull that off to save your life, anyway.
Your face, your eyes will always show me the truth.
So don’t even try. You never have before.
Obviously hidden some things, judging by your lack of surprise at Frankie’s choice of mid-afternoon snack…
” And now the tone held no warmth, just mocking.
“I—”
“No, Vi, please don’t. On some level, I knew.
You don’t go from a loving, fulfilling sexual partnership to barely touching for years without reason.
I should have done something sooner. Confronted her, or even walked away.
I carry so much guilt where my mother is concerned, despite years of therapy and knowing full well that her disappointment is not my fault. ”
Chiara sighed, and the exhalation seeped into Vi’s bones. “There were lovers I left with broken dreams and broken promises. Projects, people. And I just wanted to make things work. To try. To do my best and for my best to, for once, be enough.”
Chiara’s voice trembled on a sob. In the distance, it seemed that Paris stood still, the usual bustle of the capital suddenly quiet. Perhaps the City of Light was giving its queen her due. Oblivious to Vi’s thoughts, Chiara went on.
“And I was afraid, Vi. Of failure, yes, of disappointing again, yes. But also of being alone. Unloved, untouched, unwanted. And then you appeared, you and your noble bloodline and your lost shoes. Cenerella . You, with your complete understanding of my thoughts and impulses, of my creations, and of my emotions. You, of these gray eyes and that gorgeous auburn hair and adorable freckles, and this face that gives away everything you’re thinking and everything you feel. ”
An unknown and seemingly unknowable emotion of profound happiness washed over Vi.
She was full to the brim with something she had never experienced before.
The sense of being elated. Everything was magnified, the city suddenly alive around her, vivid colors and sounds enveloping her, as much as Chiara’s scent and her warmth.
Vi closed her eyes to hold on to this emotion, only to re-open them swiftly to not miss a thing, a single second of looking into Chiara’s, whose mouth was now hiding a smile, as she spoke on.
“You’ve given me inspiration, you’ve given up your evenings and your nights to help me, you held back Frankie’s secret for me and from me, and even now you’re fighting your terror, just to be here, with me…”
Chiara trailed off, still looking at her, and Vi gulped.
Because the light of that magical understanding between them, like a silken thread, like one of the many Chiara used in her studio to create masterpieces, had tied itself between their two rib cages, just as Chiara’s voice wound itself around Vi, rendering her completely still, incapable of moving, of saying anything.
“I’ve never once felt like this in my life. Never. Seen, touched, wanted. And I have been somebody’s wife for twenty years. You gave me all of this in mere months. Can you blame me then?”
The soft chuckle at the end of the question made Vi shiver. She wasn’t yet ready to process that Chiara had known about her feelings, about her desires all along. And she sure as hell wasn’t ready to delve into the fact that Chiara perhaps welcomed all of them.
But that one word, wanted , washed over her like a consecration. A dream that she scarcely dared to even acknowledge was within reach, as unbelievable and unattainable as it had been to Vi throughout their summer.
The air around her appeared warmer, saturated with her emotion, an emotion that she’d held locked away, a covenant of her own making, to herself, to never ever reveal, yet here it was, out in the open. All she had to do was reach.
She took a few steadying breaths, bracing herself for the answer to the question she felt compelled to ask. That reach, she was suddenly brave enough to attempt.
“Blame you for what?”
Chiara’s face was sober, all traces of amusement gone. She lifted her hands, cool and soft, and cupped Vi’s face so gently, her eyes watered at the gesture. She wanted to close them and let herself lean into the cool, beloved hands.
“For being tempted? For wanting this light? This steadiness? This joy that you are? For wanting you all these months?”
And just like that, all the oxygen she’d so diligently inhaled just a moment ago left Vi’s lungs in a whoosh.
Her heart in her throat and her mind suddenly blank, all she saw were the kind, warm eyes with the fire in them.
That same fire she’d never quite been able to explain. Now she knew what it meant.
In the twilight falling like a blanket over them, covering both their bodies and the city that was hurrying along its early evening, busy and beautiful and elegant, Vi felt like the dusk was lulling her into a dream.
Her hand rose of its own accord and she covered Chiara’s, turning her face and leaning into their now entwined fingers.
Bravery or foolhardiness overcame her disbelief, her reticence, and she took a chance, kissing the now warm skin of the palm, feeling a shudder pass through Chiara.
And suddenly the city came to life, the birds sang and the cars honked, and the moon’s shadow peeked at them, so out of place in this still light sky. Maybe as out of place as Vi herself, on this roof, her lips on the skin of this woman who trembled under her touch.
When she raised her eyes, Chiara’s were dark, much darker than the dusk warranted, much hungrier than a single kiss to the palm, and so Vi did the only thing she could.
The only thing she, in fact, had been doing for months now.
She gave Chiara what she wanted. Vi leaned, closing the distance between their lips halfway, and paused waiting for Chiara to make the final decision.
Chiara’s eyes fluttered shut, perhaps at the raw display of her own hunger reflected back at her, or maybe at being allowed to take the final step, at being given a choice. A choice she did not hesitate to make.
She leaned in too, still holding Vi’s face in her hands, and their lips touched. Tentatively, gently, brushing once, twice, before Vi found her courage and carefully grasped Chiara’s lower lip between hers. A gasp and tiny whimper were her reward, and Vi’s heart soared.
She knew there was no way it was still beating in her chest, with the air around them pulsating with something like a rhythm, a rhythm she followed with her mouth.
Then, emboldened, she raised her own hand, the one that was not still holding Chiara’s, and gently slid it up that sharp edge of the jaw she’d admired so many times, up to the delicate ear, which made Chiara whimper again.
The sound made Vi tremble but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t get enough of the glorious hair, her fingers delving into the still sun-warmed silk and fisting there, causing Chiara to gasp and open her mouth slightly.
But Vi didn’t hurry, didn’t use this opportunity to press forward.
She simply licked tenderly at Chiara’s lower lip and waited, waited patiently until Chiara uttered a sigh of total frustration, let go of Vi’s face and slid her arms around her shoulders, finally bringing them chest to chest, pushing the forgotten camera still dangling around her neck to the side, as she herself deepened the kiss.
Overhead, Vi’s soaring heart pulsed and trembled, full of love and full of Chiara. And it would stay that way, since the rest of Vi’s life had already begun.