Chapter 5 #2
"Sophie was upset about the handoff," I say. Which is true. Also deflection. "I wasn't expecting her to be so... attached."
"Sophie attaches strategically." Bastien pushes off the wall and heads deeper into the apartment, and I follow because what else was I going to do? His bare feet make no sound on the hardwood.
He moves through his space the way some people move through water; unhurried, completely at ease. And I watch, which is becoming a habit I can't seem to break regardless of which household I am in.
"She's been studying people her whole life," he continues. "Figuring out who's worth the investment. If she was upset when you left, it means you passed."
"Passed what?"
"Her test." He glances back at me over his shoulder. "Everyone gets tested. Most people don't realize it until they've failed."
I think about Sophie's hug. Her fierce, desperate grip. Her immediate pivot into criticism about my cardigan.
"What does passing get me, Monsieur Moreau?"
"Loyalty. Which is worth more than you realize, coming from a child who's learned that people leave." He stops in what appears to be the main living space and turns to face me. "And please, just call me Bastien."
I nod and follow him through to the kitchen.
He leads me through the rest of the apartment.
The kitchen is gorgeous but clearly mostly decorative, with a bowl of lemons on the counter that I'm still not sure are real.
My guest room overlooks a garden I hadn't expected based on the rest of the layout; it's like a secret room of greenery .
And then we climb to the third floor, occupied by a studio that smells like turpentine.
A half-finished canvas is propped in the middle of the room like it owns the place.
"Artist I represent," Bastien explains. "She stays sometimes. When she's close to breaking through."
"Breaking through to what?"
"The moment the image in her head becomes the image on the canvas." He touches the edge of the unfinished painting, careful, almost tender, and I watch his fingers trace the texture of the brushstrokes. Long fingers. Precise but gentle.
The kind of hands that would be very good at things I am not going to think about right now.
"This is the most interesting phase," he says. "Right before it happens. When the work is still mostly potential."
He was looking at the painting when he said it, but I have the uncomfortable feeling he wasn't talking about the painting at all.
We go back down. Second floor. More doors, more art, more conversation between pieces I am only beginning to hear.
Suddenly, movement on the landing above catches my eye.
I look up.
A boy. Dark hair, dark eyes, angles where other children have curves. He is holding a sketchbook against his chest like armor, and he watches me from the landing with the quiet wariness of a child who has learned to observe before he participates.
Luc.
He reminds me of Indira. Iris's twin, the quiet one, the one who noticed everything and said almost nothing. At Prestwick, everyone saw Iris first. Loud, chaotic, wonderful. Indira was the pause after the noise. The one who remembered birthdays and noticed when you'd been crying.
I feel a pang, missing them.
Meanwhile, Luc just continues to stand there with his sketchbook, looking at me.
"Bonjour," I say.
"Bonjour." His voice is barely above a whisper. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, then looks down at his sketchbook like it might help him figure out what to say next.
"I'm Madeline."
He nods. Still not looking at me. Then, very quietly: "There's a garden. If you want to see it later."
And he is gone before I can answer.
"He spoke to you," Bastien says.
"Was that unusual?"
"He doesn't usually speak to strangers." His hand comes up to push his hair back from his face, a habitual gesture that exposes the full line of his jaw, the column of his throat, the tan that disappears into his open collar. "He liked you."
"How can you tell?"
"He offered you the garden. That's his place." Bastien looks at me, and his expression is unguarded in a way that étienne's never is. Open and curious and just a little bit reckless. "He doesn't share it."
We pause in the living room. My eyes snag on a piece near the window: smaller than the others, muted colors, a woman's back turned toward the viewer. She is looking at something outside the frame, something we can't see.
"What do you think?" Bastien asks.
I glance at him. "About what?"
"That one." He nods toward the painting. "You've been staring at it for thirty seconds."
I have?
I look back at the piece. The woman's shoulders are tense. Her hands are clasped behind her back, fingers intertwined.
"She's waiting for someone," I say. "Someone who's late. Or someone who isn't coming at all. She's not sure which is worse."
Silence.
Bastien has gone completely still. That collector's stillness. Like he is seeing something unexpected.
"Most people talk about the brushwork," he says slowly. "Or the composition. The artist's biography. The market value."
"I don't know anything about those things."
"No." He tilts his head, and his gaze is warm and focused and entirely too much. "You looked at her hands."
"They're the loudest part of the painting."
Another silence. Longer this time. The music drifts from somewhere deeper in the apartment, and the afternoon light makes everything hazy and gold and slightly unreal.
"The artist's wife left him while he was painting that," Bastien says finally. "He never finished her face. Couldn't decide if she was looking out the window or looking at the door." He pauses. "You're the first person who's ever noticed she's waiting."
I don't know what to do with that.
"I should unpack," I manage eventually.
"You should." He doesn't move. He is standing close enough now that I can smell him. Not cologne. Something earthier, warmer, like turpentine and coffee and skin that has been in the sun. "Can I ask you something?"
"You've been asking me things since I walked in."
"True. But you've only been half-answering." He almost smiles, and it changes his whole face, softens it, makes him look younger and more dangerous at the same time. "The painting, you answered fully. Sophie's hug, mostly. But your week at Laurent's?" He shakes his head slowly. "That one you kept."
"Some things aren't meant for sharing."
"I know." His gaze holds mine, and there is heat in it now, low and steady, not hidden. He doesn't bother hiding it. That is the difference between him and étienne. étienne builds walls. Bastien just stands there and lets you see. "That's what makes them interesting."
I don't respond. He doesn't seem to expect me to.
"I look forward to seeing what else you don't say, Madeline."
With that, he disappears down the stairs, and I stand on the landing listening to the music float up from below, thinking about Bernard's warning.
He will know things about you before you know them yourself.
The door to my room is wide open. It is a much larger room than I'd expected.
And I am standing in the middle of it, trying to figure out where the walls are.