From a Paris Balcony(104)

 

Cat nodded. “He did.”

 

Sarah stood still. Ran a hand over her bob. And then she let it swell, that feeling, that sense that everything just might be coming right. Was she at last at the point of realizing that no matter how bad things got, no matter how dark it all seemed, there was also, in the end, light?

 

“I don’t think I need that coffee,” Sarah said. Suddenly, she wanted to rush to the Louvre.

 

Cat grinned back at her. “Just go and see him.”

 

Sarah turned and went to the door, and then she stopped, because Cat was saying something else.

 

“Sarah,” Cat said, “welcome to Paris.”

 

 

 

Sarah managed to avoid the long queues outside the Louvre. She used her pass to the Museum of Fine Arts, which allowed her to go straight to the front of the queues. Soon she was wending her way to the room where Laurent was painting, having asked directions from someone at the information desks. If there was one thing she could do, she could find her way through a crowded museum. She could do that like a pro.

 

Sarah stopped behind the large group of students that was hiding Laurent from view in one of the rooms off a wide corridor full of Italian art. Slowly, politely, she tried to make her way through the crowd so that she could see him.

 

Suddenly, a student stood up, taking his folding chair into his arms and holding it aside. He indicated that she go right on past. Sarah thanked him, with a smile, and then another student moved her seat out of the way. And another. Until there was a direct, smooth path that led to the front. This was so very polite that Sarah was enchanted.

 

French, perhaps?

 

Were students in Paris always this well-mannered?

 

Something stirred in the crowd. A murmur turned into something else. People were muttering, staring at her as she made her way through.

 

When Laurent looked up from his easel, his face broke into the smile that she knew she would always love.

 

“Hello,” he said simply.

 

Sarah couldn’t move.

 

The room was silent.

 

Laurent’s eyes met hers. Right across the room. As if there were no one else there.

 

And slowly, Sarah moved farther up the aisle that the students had made for her. Until she stopped, awkward, at the front. And stared at the easel. And frowned. And bit her lip.

 

“This one’s not for sale,” he said, his head tilted to one side. “It’s going in my apartment. After all, Marthe had a portrait of herself in her bedroom. I wanted one of you.”

 

Sarah stared at the canvas in front of her. He had made her dark hair shine and her eyes and face were clear and her complexion was creamy and she smiled. Straight at the viewer. Confident in herself. She didn’t look boring or reliable or in any way dull. Because he had captured her as she was now. Here. Not that shell of a girl who had been crippled by grief before she came to Paris.

 

Laurent had painted her in an evening dress. It was black, and she wore long black gloves. She wasn’t adorned with diamonds or rubies at her throat, not like Marthe, perhaps, would have been. But on her dress, he had painted a brooch, on the left side, right in front of her heart, and she peered at it. On it was a tiny and exquisite little portrait in itself.

 

It was a miniature. Venus, coming out of her shell. A tiny rendition of the Botticelli. Sarah turned to him, shaking her head. Right now, she didn’t care about the students or the crowds in the gallery. Laurent reached forward, tilting her chin up toward his face.

 

“Thank you,” she said.

 

He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers, for one exquisite moment.

 

“No. It’s I who have to thank you, Sarah.”

 

And the audience started to applaud.