Chapter 4 #2
Montmartre sloped and twisted around us, the afternoon stretching thin and golden, like it was holding something back. René didn’t speak for a few minutes, which I was learning meant he was thinking—or deciding how hard to push next.
Finally, he stopped.
Not abruptly. Just enough that I had to stop too.
“Tell me,” he said, not looking at me. “What have you learned this week?”
My brain stuttered.
Everything felt too big to condense. Too layered. But I didn’t have the luxury of spiraling.
“That context matters,” I said slowly. “Where something lives changes how it should be seen.”
He nodded once.
“Continue.”
“That clothes don’t exist alone,” I added. “They exist on bodies. In motion. In places. And if you ignore that, you miss the point.”
“Mm.”
“And that people lie,” I said, glancing at him, “but not always with their words.”
His mouth twitched. “You are fond of that idea.”
“It’s still true.”
He considered that.
I took a breath. “I’ve learned that good work isn’t loud. It doesn’t explain itself. And that taste—real taste—isn’t about trends. It’s about consistency.”
René finally turned to face me. “And?”
“And that I hesitate less than I think,” I said. “But more than I should.”
Silence settled between us. Not awkward. Weighted.
He studied me like he did photographs—looking past the obvious, hunting for the thing underneath.
“Good,” he said eventually. “You are paying attention.”
Encouragement, from him, felt dangerous. Like a drug you weren’t supposed to like.
I hesitated, then decided to risk it.
“What do you want me to learn?” I asked.
The question hung there. Naked. Unprotected.
René didn’t answer right away.
He looked at me for a long moment. Longer than comfortable. Longer than necessary. Like he was deciding how much truth I could carry without dropping it.
Finally, he spoke.
“That,” he said quietly, “is the question.”
He turned and started walking again, leaving me to chase after the answer.
And for the first time all week, I wasn’t frustrated by that.
I was hungry.
We made one more stop before René decided Montmartre had given us all it was going to. This one wasn’t a stall so much as a moving workshop.
The jewelry maker worked with chain metal right there on the street, hands flying, tools clinking softly in rhythm with whatever song drifted from a nearby café.
She asked questions as she worked—where you were from, how you moved, whether you preferred weight or whisper—then shaped the answers into something you could wear.
René watched from a distance, arms folded, saying nothing.
When she finished, she slipped a bracelet over my wrist without ceremony. Braided silver and gold links, warm from her hands, flexible but strong.
“For remembering,” she said.
I didn’t ask what.
Before I could protest—or even fully process it—René stepped closer, his body blocking mine just enough that the exchange felt private. He slipped folded bills into the woman’s hand with practiced ease. No discussion. No acknowledgment. Just fairness, clean and simple.
She caught his wrist lightly. “Toujours,” she said.
He nodded once.
Then, somehow, we stumbled into a hatmaker.
An honest-to-god hatmaker.
Steam curled in the small space. Felt and wool and wooden forms lined the walls. The smell of heat and patience hung heavy in the air. I stood there longer than I meant to, watching him coax shape out of nothing, watching René speak to him with something that bordered on reverence.
“Craft survives,” René said quietly as we stepped back outside, “when people refuse to let it die.”
We started downhill then, leaving Montmartre’s noise behind, the streets softening as they bled toward the 19th arrondissement. Less performance. More life. The bracelet had cooled against my wrist, but it still felt significant. Earned, somehow.
“There,” René said suddenly.
He lifted his chin and pointed across a small square to a café on the corner. Nothing flashy. Just tables, open windows, and the hum of conversation.
“On Sundays,” he said, “you can sit on the rooftop garden, they do jazz in the afternoon. Live. Not precious. Just music.”
I followed his gaze.
“You sit,” he continued. “You drink. You listen.”
A pause.
“You go alone,” he added. “You watch. You learn.”
From what, he didn’t say.
He stopped walking and finally turned to me. “I will see you Monday.”
That was it. No encouragement. No warning. No goodbye. Just expectation.
I watched him disappear into the crowd, then looked back at the café, already filing it away. Sunday was no longer just a day off. It was another assignment.
This week had stripped something down inside me. Sanded off a layer of doubt. I wasn’t confident—not really—but I was steady. He didn’t say don’t bring the camera and excitement threaded through me. I stroked my fingers along the bracelet.
Then I turned toward the métro.
The entrance swallowed sound and light in equal measure, the familiar descent into heat and motion and the low, constant hum of Paris underground. I was halfway down the stairs when my phone vibrated in my pocket.
I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
But I did anyway.
Dominic:
Miss me yet?
I exhaled something that might’ve been a laugh or might’ve been a warning to myself.
Of course he’d know when to appear. Right when my head was full. Right when my hands still felt occupied. Right when I didn’t have room for him and somehow made it anyway.
I didn’t answer.
The train roared into the station, wind tugging at my hair, and I slipped the phone back into my pocket like it hadn’t changed the air around me at all.
But it had and we both knew it.
Because yes, dammit, I missed him.