Girl in the Afternoon (6 page)

Aimée lowered herself down. Through the thin soles of her slippers she could feel the tremor from the trains chugging in and out of the Gare Saint-Lazare. Édouard had told her not to wear gloves so her arms were exposed all the way to her wrists and her hands were bare, which made her feel slightly naked.

Édouard plucked a dark object from the console and walked over to her. He smelled of tobacco and of sweet citrus, as if he'd rubbed orange peels on his clothes. Tiny hairs rose on the back of Aimée's neck as he leaned down and pinned a velvet ribbon around her throat.

Reaching down, he smoothed the silk over her knees, draping her skirt first one way and then the other. He placed her hands together, pulled them apart. Lifted the curls off her forehead and let them drop back down. Then he stood and looked at her, tugging on his beard.

“It's your dress. The color's wrong.” He sounded irritated, as if this were her fault. “Go change.” He dismissed her with a flip of his hand. “I'll have to rent another dress tomorrow.”

Those few minutes sitting still, being fussed over, had made Aimée prickle with impatience. Relieved, she said, “I could have told you that when you handed it to me.”

Édouard frowned, and a deep line appeared between his eyebrows. “I suppose I should have asked.”

“White or black are the only colors I can get away with.”

“What shade of white?”

“Pure white. A snow white.”

“You looked exceptional in green the other night.”

“It was dark green. Very dark.”

He gave an efficient nod. “Pure white and shades of the deep ocean then.”

Through the scruff of his beard Aimée could see the tip of his tongue and his slightly yellow teeth. His look implied some subtle intimacy, and Aimée felt a loosening in her legs as she ducked behind the screen. She slipped the lavender dress off, now keenly aware of the act of undressing.

When she came out, fastened back into her morning dress, Édouard was at his canvas sketching a pink peony that he had pulled from its vase and tossed onto a sleek table. Within minutes the flower appeared in delicate, vulnerable marks, the petals thin and tender.

Without asking, Aimée took a sheet of paper and pencil and sat at a table under a portrait of a woman sitting with her face completely hidden by a black fan, and one smooth, white ankle extending out from under her black dress. Aimée couldn't see the woman's face, but the daring length of that exposed ankle excited her, and she wondered how it would feel to create something so natural and revealing. Looking down, she drew a single precise mark.

Without breaking the rhythm of his pencil, Édouard said, “I work alone.” His voice was not unkind, just decisive and uncompromising.

Aimée had no right to be so bold, but she kept on sketching, and for a moment it seemed he was going to ignore her. Then, a little firmer, he said, “I am not an instructor.”

“You taught Eva Gonzalès,” she said, continuing to move her pencil across the paper, her confidence growing with every stroke. Aimée did not work from the same obsessed, passionate place as Édouard. Hers was a quiet determination.

“That was different,” he said.

From the gossip her maman repeated at the dinner table, Édouard's wife had been unhappy with the arrangement. Maybe he had wanted Eva in his bed, and that was the difference.

Édouard swung around, and Aimée jumped, a line appearing where she had not intended.

“I will paint you as you are now.” A smile of satisfaction sprang across his face.

“I'd rather you not,” she said truthfully, hoping Édouard did not think her insolent and ungrateful.

But he only looked intrigued. “And why, pray, is that?”

She hesitated, wondering if Édouard was the kind of man you could be honest with. “I fear you will make me look like an amateur. The painting you did of Mademoiselle Gonzalès at her canvas made her appear as if she'd never held a brush in her life. She's a fine painter.”

“You forgot to mention that I painted her as the great beauty she is. Which means more to a woman than the way she holds her brush.”

“You underestimate some women then.”

“Is it you I've underestimated?”

“I'm not a great beauty. I'm not even the slightest bit attractive.”

“Then you've underestimated yourself.”

Aimée reddened and looked away. Out the window she could see great puffs of steam rising into the blue sky. Édouard's forthright words were flattering, but also a means to get what he wanted.

“I'll have another dress for you tomorrow.” He turned back to his canvas. “Come again in the morning.”

Determined, Aimée pushed back her chair and stood up. “Monsieur Manet, pardon me for saying it, but I detest sitting for a portrait. I find it impossible to sit still. It makes me itch all over. I only came here because I thought you might have something of value to teach me.”

Édouard leaned back in his chair, regarding her without expression. There wasn't a sound other than the dim tapping of his pencil against the wooden armrest. “Tell me,” he said, finally, “are you an equally miserable painter?”

“I don't know.”

The same look of amused curiosity that Aimée had seen at the soirée came to his face, only now there was something slightly more personal in it.

“Well,” he sighed, as if relinquishing a rule he never broke. “I suppose it might be worth finding out.”

At that moment, Aimée thought of Henri. It felt like a betrayal, painting privately beside someone else.

Édouard stood and offered his chair. “Draw nothing with the same process.” He proffered his pencil. “Forget all your eye has seen before. You must learn to come to the work anew, each and every time.”

And so they began.

 

PARIS 1874

 

Chapter 6

A cool spring arrived. Buds stayed tight and green, the branches of trees sharp, naked lines against the sky. Thin clouds spread like the inner veins of a feather over Aimée's head as she passed through the Place de Clichy to the steep, narrow streets of Montmartre.

Despite the chill breeze, people moved their chairs out to take in the sun. Aimée was forced to walk in the street, avoiding a man with his legs stuck out and his hat pulled over his eyes. A rat darted across her path, and a horse-drawn cart rattled by, splashing mud up Aimée's stockings. She stepped quickly back onto the sidewalk, slowing her pace as the hill grew steeper. By the time she reached the small, blue-roofed house at the top of the hill, she was hot and short of breath.

“Leonie?” she called, pushing open the front door and moving down the narrow hallway into the kitchen.

It was a small apartment, but decent compared to the others on the street. Instead of one room with a mattress in the corner, there was an actual bedroom in the back where Leonie and her
grand-tante
shared a bed lifted off the floor on a high wooden frame.

The kitchen was stiflingly hot, and Aimée's cheeks tingled. Old Madame Fiavre stood hunched over the potbellied stove. She glanced at Aimée, and her lips curled in a toothless smile as she waved at the back door. In the small patch of yard, Leonie was pinning wet clothes on the line, the sleeves of her dress pushed up past her round elbows.

“We've done it,” Aimée announced.

Leonie dropped the chemise she was holding into the basket and squealed like a child as she threw her arms around Aimée.

“Wait.” Leonie pulled away, propping her hands on her hips. “Let me look at you.” She smiled, and her dimples sank into her ample cheeks, the gap between her teeth fully exposed. “You've changed.”

“Stop it.” Aimée laughed.

“Your first salon exhibit? They will award you a medal, and you will be famous.” Leonie tucked a strand of fine, brown hair behind her ear and picked up the wet chemise. “Have you told your beloved Édouard? Maybe he didn't get in this year and you did. Wouldn't that be shocking?”

Leonie pinned up the chemise and reached for a pillowcase, giving it a violent shake.

Everything about Leonie was fresh and vivacious. The slightest emotion lit up her cheeks, and her skin was so delicate that when a hand rested against it, red streaks appeared. When Aimée first saw her standing on the corner of the rue Bonaparte with the other models, she reminded Aimée of ripe fruit. She had a full bust, fleshy arms and hips, and an endearing gap between her front teeth, a quirky imperfection that Aimée found irresistible.

“Édouard did a dreadful thing I haven't told you about,” Aimée said under her breath.

Leonie turned her soft, brown eyes. “You didn't let him?”

“Not
that.
” Aimée slapped Leonie's arm. “Don't be vulgar.” She picked up the end of a sheet, and Leonie picked up the other. “It's just that right before I submitted the painting, he came into my studio and began dabbing away at it.”

Pinning her end of the sheet, Leonie handed Aimée a clothespin, watching, bemused, as Aimée clumsily pinned hers. “Who would refuse that? You should see it as your good fortune.”

“What if it's the only reason it was accepted? What if it wasn't good enough otherwise?”

Leonie had little tolerance for self-pity. “You're either good enough, or you aren't. A few dashes of someone else's brush won't make the difference.” She hoisted the empty basket on her hip. “Besides, it was my lovely complexion that got us in. And, of course, these.” She squeezed her shoulders forward so her breasts pushed up over the handkerchief that was tucked into her bodice.

Aimée laughed. She envied Leonie. There was freedom that women in the lower classes of Montmartre had, freedoms she was denied. Working-class women could do what they wanted. Go where they wanted. Lounge in cafés with men, drink absinthe, smoke, dance, with no reputation to uphold, or stop them.

Only once had she said this to Leonie, who was horrified. “I most certainly do have a reputation to uphold,” she said. “You've never seen the women with their red lipstick and cheap crinolines.” She told Aimée of being apprenticed to a workshop at nine years old. About the stuffy workroom where women swathed in second-rate perfume gossiped over mounds of tawdry dress material. Leonie narrowed her eyes at Aimée. “You're not as smart as I thought if you can't see how free you are. From your bourgeois perch you have no idea what it's like,” she said.

Normally, Leonie didn't bother about their class differences. Modeling for Aimée was a job, and a good one, with regular pay, which was hard to come by. Their friendship seemed natural to her. After all, they were both women, with women's problems. No use envying one life over another. It was what it was.

“Come,” Leonie said, sidling sideways through the door with the basket propped on her hip. “Have a cup of chocolate with me.”

 

Chapter 7

On the opening day of the Salon de Paris, the Savaray household was full of commotion. Jacques ran from room to room, getting swept out at every turn.

Earlier that week a cart had taken Aimée's painting, and the whole family had stood on the front step and watched the small canvas, crammed in with other paintings, bump down the street like a child being sent out into the world.

Colette ordered new dresses. She even had one made for Madame Savaray, who opened the box, took one look at the drapes and ruffles, and refused to wear it.

But, on the morning of the Salon, Madame Savaray found it carefully laid out on her bed where she couldn't help noticing that, at least, Colette had ordered it in gray. She let her fingers trail over the fine fabric, and decided she'd put it on, for Aimée's sake.

Aimée was so nervous she could hardly button her dress. Never had her work hung in any gallery and now, at this very moment, her painting was on display at the Palais de l'Industrie, the most prestigious art exhibit in Paris. Already people were looking at it.

Struggling with the last button at the base of her neck, she heard the clock chime in the hall and knew they were late. Instead of hurrying as she should have, she went to her dressing table and slid open the top drawer. Inside a bronze ormolu box lay her stone necklace. She hadn't worn it since Henri left.

She held it up to the window. It pivoted on its string, and the clear stone caught the light and sent an oblong rainbow of color to the opposite wall. Unbuttoning the top buttons of her dress, Aimée slipped the necklace over her head and tucked it into her bodice.

As she took her best gloves from their box and wiggled her fingers into the soft leather, she felt the weight of the stone pulling at her, along with the familiar longing for Henri, barely perceptible, yet still very much alive.

*   *   *

Auguste
waited in the parlor for the ladies to come down.

He stood over the chess table, twirling a white pawn between his fingers and remembering the first time Henri beat him at a game of chess. The checkmate had come out of nowhere, and Auguste shot his head up and looked at his son with genuine admiration. Henri had looked mortified, and Auguste, understanding the confusion it causes when a boy discovers he can beat his papa, had given Henri a smile and said, “Well done, my boy. Well done.” Still, Henri had hung his head and apologized.

The apology had angered Auguste. He wanted Henri to be more competitive, have more sportsmanship, so he forced the boy to play another game, making sure he beat him that time. Auguste remembered how he'd gloated, showing Henri how it was done.

Flipping the pawn upright, Auguste tucked it back on its square. He reached for a black pawn, moved it forward two spaces, and drew his bishop out at a diagonal. He would teach Jacques chess in a few years, and he'd let his son win every game if that's what it took to build up the boy's confidence.

The clock struck the hour. They were late. Auguste looked into the empty hall, and considered calling for Colette to hurry up. But that would anger her, and the thought of her anger—even now, after a decent night's sleep—felt exhausting.