Page 126 of All That We Are Together
“Here, sit down.” Claire walked me to a chair and Scarlett ran off for a glass of cold water. “You look pale. Are you sure you’re fine?”
I nodded, but no, I wasn’t fine.
Because life hits you hard sometimes and you don’t see it coming, especially when you’re the one responsible for it and you didn’t see it coming.
“Here, take a sip.”
I grabbed the glass. Scarlett sat down beside me. A moment later, Claire left to go find her husband, and I could see her tapping her high heels on the floor impatiently.
“I can’t say you’ve made a stunning first impression, but I’ll try to fix it. I’m hoping to convince her to put some of your work on display in her gallery. It’s small but prestigious. It’s good publicity for you. The day after tomorrow, she’ll visit our warehouse, and if everything goes as we wish, we’ll get a positive answer next week.”
She seemed to be waiting for a reply. When none came, she asked: “Aren’t you happy about it?”
“Of course I am,” I lied.
“It’s hard to tell.”
I tried not to groan. I knew Scarlett well enough to see that she wasn’t mad, she just regretted not having her moment of glory, with me gushing and smiling and thanking her for all she’d done for me. She was like a little girl performing her favorite trick for an audience.
I turned to her and asked, genuinely curious:
“Don’t you ever get bored of all this?”
“Of what? The parties, living in a hotel…? Of course not.”
I said goodbye to Scarlett at that party, even if she didn’t find out until sometime later, when I sent Hans a message so we could meet up and I could tell him I was leaving. I owed it to him, and a part of me knew he’d understand.
That night, I painted something, something that once more was born inside me. I scattered around colors and let loose the emotions bubbling up inside me, anxious to get out: a dark canvas full of the lights of a city I was already beginning to say goodbye to. I enjoyed it. Every brushstroke, every second of it.
When the sun was close to rising, I sat down in the living room of that apartment that felt so big without him and picked up the bowl of strawberries I’d taken from the refrigerator just before. I held one up and smiled wistfully as I saw how much it resembled a deformed heart. If Axel had been there with me, I’d have said that and laughed and popped it into my mouth before giving him a kiss full of that flavor he loved so much.
119
Leah
I read somewhere that there are times when you need to fall down because the world looks different from below. And once you’re there, if you want to do something, you’ve got no option but to stand back up. You don’t always need a concrete reason to react, but sometimes there is one, a blow that makes you open your eyes. And the veil that was in front of them disappears. You start to see. To see differently. The colors that used to be muted suddenly turn robust and vibrant. You relax. You gather your strength. And you get up.
And in some way, you start to feel like yourself again.
120
Axel
My hands shook as I opened the stepladder. I climbed it, step by step, with a knot in my stomach and a feeling of urgency I never thought I’d feel again. The canvas bag where I’d put all my things was covered in dust. I brought it down and took it to the living room and dropped it in the middle of the floor. With Elvis Presley spinning on the record player, I sat down and opened the zipper, asking myself how I’d possibly taken so many years to do something so simple.
I made myself a tea, even though I wanted something stronger, and went back and took out my tubes of paint. Many of them were dry. I took one that was still unopened and squeezed it hard until the yellow paint dripped out onto the wood floor. I don’t know why, but that color reminded me of her smile, her tangled hair, her eyelashes, the sun. I dipped my finger in it and spread it slowly over the floor, covering the wood, tracing out the grain that disappeared beneath the layer of color.
My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I could hear the blood rushing through my veins. I knew something had changed.
121
Leah
Sometimes, moments pass so quickly you barely even notice. Other times, it’s the exact opposite. My last week in Paris was calm, and throughout it, the minutes seemed transformed to hours.
When I wasn’t painting the first thing that popped into my head, I made a habit of going out for walks. In the mornings, I’d head up to Montmartre, the way I had with Axel. I’d sit on the stairs and think about everything and nothing: our first date there, how pretty the city was under a silvery sky, how my father would have loved to walk those streets, and how sad it was that he never would. Strangely, in those days of solitude and silence, I thought of my parents more than ever, maybe because they’d always be like a nest I could curl up in when outside a storm was raging, or maybe because I couldn’t stop asking myself whether they’d feel disappointed in me if they could see me from somewhere.
It might sound stupid, but even though they were gone, I wanted to make them proud of me; I wanted to show them I was doing the right thing, and that they’d been the best parents in the world.