Chapter 6
The Studio
They arrived at her grandmother’s residence shortly after noon.
The old building was currently standing as an abandoned town house at Quartier Latin, with wooden planks barring the windows, and a rusted iron door framing the main entrance.
Some ancestor of Celine’s had purchased the building before Haussmann’s renovations, so the structure had remained as it had been, only refurbished every once in a decade.
“So, this thing about your mother,” Bastien inquired, looming over Celine’s shoulder while she tried to work an ancient key into the door. “Aren’t we allowed to fraternise in broad daylight?”
“Well…” Celine trailed off, unsure how much Bastien’s vanity would bruise if she spoke the truth. Then again, she didn’t particularly care for chaffing a man’s ego a little bit. “My mother hates you,” she admitted matter-of-factly, softly grunting when the lock wasn’t giving way.
“Sounds about right,” Bastien mused. “It wouldn’t be a first though. Marie, Juliette, another Celine, Charlotte—oh, I miss Charlotte,” he sighed with mock melancholy as he counted the names off on his fingers. “There was also Emilia, ah, and Liana too.”
“Victims of your heartlessness, I presume?”
“No,” he replied earnestly. “Just a few of the girls whose mothers pulled out a vial of holy water when they found out who their daughter was seeing.”
“My second guess,” Celine muttered. She suspected that holy water—or any other sanctified object for that matter—would do very little to wash away his debauchery.
Though she blamed none of the girls. Bastien had the ability to be the perfect gentleman when it suited his interests.
Sometimes he acted a little too good that even Celine would look at him in a different light, close to the chubby cherubs of Renaissance paintings.
Then he would proceed by saying the foulest things a man could produce from his lips and she would be reminded once again of what a devil he was.
“Though I have to admit,” she grunted, “I had imagined the number to have been higher.”
“Oh, it is. These are only the ones who live in Charonne.”
Celine stilled. Then pivoted, cutting him a scathing glance. “You categorise them by neighbourhood?”
Bastien shrugged. “How else am I supposed to keep track?”
“You’re a pig, you know that?”
“Save some sweet flattery for your boyfriend, darling. I am sure my brother would grovel at your feet if he heard you speak like that.”
Losing his patience, Bastien pushed her out of the way and slammed the heel of his palm against the door handle. The gate rattled violently, then creaked open inwards.
“Ladies first.”
Celine tossed a final look over her shoulder, just in case, and scurried inside.
“What is this place anyway?” Bastien asked dubiously, following suit. “It smells like no one has lived here in years.”
No one had. The last time Celine had been inside was when she was eleven; the last time all the lights had fully illuminated the foyer, the ballroom, the kitchen, and the house had smelled of cranberries and cake instead of damp dust motes.
Now the staircase creaked, spiders decorated the chandeliers with web doilies, and the stink of mould was making it impossible to breathe.
“It was my grandmother’s,” she answered. “No one bothered with its upkeep anymore after she passed away.”
But it was empty and far enough from her house that there would be no unexpected visits from anyone she knew. Celine had asked Francine that morning to sneak her supplies in and leave them in the attic, the only room whose windows weren’t barred by planks to keep the light out.
“Follow me,” she said over her shoulder. Warm slivers of light guided her steps up the staircase. Bastien was lingering at each landing, squinting in the semi-dark.
“Seems a little creepy, don’t you think?”
“I suppose. But I’ve seen it when it looked alive with people and festivities. It simply resembles an empty doll house now.”
A hand caught her wrist, tugging at her so abruptly, Celine’s heel almost slipped. “What was that?” Bastien asked, stopping them on the third landing.
Celine strained to hear the imaginary sound, then, once she got her confirmation, made a vague noise that bordered on ridicule. “Oh, that’s just the resident ghost.” She trudged forwards once more.
But Bastien wasn’t having any of it. “Please tell me you’re jesting.”
“Bas, you are almost two meters tall. What could a ghost who can’t even reach your head possibly do to you?”
His expression turned gravely serious. “They levitate.”
Celine pushed open the door to the attic, pressing her lips to keep her laughter from spilling out. Inside they found everything Francine had brought, including a glistening spread of pastries and the source of the mysterious noise: a coffee press that was letting out a little whine of steam.
“There’s your ghost,” she told him.
Bastien gave her a murderous side glance for laughing, and started exploring their makeshift studio.
Francine had apparently done a bit of sprucing, bringing everything closer to the centre of the room and relieving it of dust. The furniture was sparse; other than her grandmother’s old sewing machine and mannequin torso which Celine intended to use, there was only a divan, a low table, a bookcase and a dusty trunk, and rolls of fabric leaning against the wall.
Celine strode to the mannequin torso that still bore the rusty marks where needles had gone through to hold the dresses in place, and touched its shoulder lightly.
She recalled her grandmother sitting up here, pining one of Celine’s tiny dresses whenever she ripped a hem sliding down the staircase railing.
She would make quick work with a thread and needle, fixing it before Madame LeBeau could notice the rip.
“You will have to come here most evenings to try the designs for me,” she said, checking over her shoulder for Bastien, who was standing by the bookcase. “I can’t work off of this mannequin alone. The measurements will be all wrong.”
Bastien produced a few grumbles under his breath and faced her. “As you wish, but I can be your doll only until seven.”
“Why? Does your motorcar turn into a pumpkin after that?”
He glared at her for a good minute until he couldn’t keep his expression levelled anymore and relented a grin. “No, nothing as fairytale-y as that. Though I doubt you would appreciate knowing what I do at night.”
“Chasing virgins through the streets of Paris, I reckon.”
“Right,” he chuckled. “My God, Celine, where do you even come up with such things?”
She shrugged. “Books.”
A teasing glint entered his eye as he moved away from the bookcase. “What sort of books?”
“None that interest you, Bastien.”
“You don’t know that.” He approached closer, taking a step forward, causing Celine to shift a step back.
Standing too close to Bastien was something she wanted to avoid at all cost, especially when he was squinting at her like he was unwrapping a present to see what was inside.
He smirked. “I’m an avid reader. I could like reading about virgins being ravished in the dead of night.
Say…you don’t imagine I lounge naked, flipping through Kama Sutra all day, do you? ”
Celine’s brain succumbed to doing just that.
“I-I…” She tucked her hair behind her ears in frustration. “No! And you are absolutely shameless.”
“I have never claimed otherwise,” Bastien replied lazily and ran a finger along her jaw. “You, darling, enjoy making a great deal of assumptions.”
“Well then, what should I expect from you if my assumptions are all wrong? Should I just believe you will keep your word on this, when you could hardly bring yourself to promise to—”
Bastien shushed her by pressing his index finger to her lips.
“Let me interrupt that passionate spiel for a second,” he said.
“It is true that I’m no gentleman. But I gave you my word that you can trust me, and I’m not known to go back on it.
So you have nothing to fear, baby vamp. Though you do have to doubt that front gate.
The lock is rusted. It is bound to fall off entirely in a few turns. I suggest you get it fixed.”
Removing his hand, he fell back on the divan and drew out a silver box of cigarettes. All previous anger slowly left Celine like steam from a simmering pot and incredulity took its place.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Me?” He considered the lighter he was twirling between his fingers and promptly gave it a sharp flick. Immediately, smoke curled in the air from the glowing tip of the cigarette. “I am waiting, per your request, so I can try on my first piece. Where’s the issue?”
“The issue,” she snapped and pointed at his cigarette, “is that. You cannot smoke in here.”
“And why not?”
“Because I have rolls of fabric that will take on the smell. Including my clothes.”
Bastien held her stare, and defiantly took a long drag from the cigarette. He blew a heart shaped smoke ring her way. “Open a window then.”
Celine narrowed her eyes. In three, quick strides, she snatched the cigarette out of his fingers and flung it into his cup of coffee. It went out with a weak fizzle.
“Too bad,” she said blandly. “You will have to stop smoking until the competition is over.”
Bastien was ready to object, but she cut in quickly. “As I told you before, I have tons of fabrics here. I cannot have them smelling like cigarettes. Plus, Jacques doesn’t smoke, so I won’t be able to tell my mother I was with him for most of the day. Or explain to him why I smell like a bordello.”
“Veteran liar, aren’t you?”
“It’s not lying, it’s…self-preservation,” she corrected quickly, confiscating the flask Bastien was pulling out of his jacket. “And no drinking either. You will have to walk down a catwalk during every round presenting my designs. I’d rather you didn’t wobble.”
“For someone who sneaks around a lot, you sure are dull.”
“I am not sneaking around for fun. This isn’t a game. Not that you would understand.”
“Make me understand, then.”