The question was: which one treated their toys better?
Oh shut the hell up, my imaginary Bridget advised me, smoking an imaginary cigarette that I had to admit smelled absolutely fucking delicious. You’re being very dramatic.
I straightened up and flexed my shoulders, trying to stretch into a dignified posture. Then I left the hypnotizing wheel and continued my tour of the room. Declan was getting impatient, I could tell.
“It’s beautiful,” I said again, knowing I should say something.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Your furniture will be here by end of day. I’m sorry it wasn’t fully decked out when you arrived. It will be easier to visualize with the bed and wardrobes…”
“The bed?”
“Oh, yeah, gorgeous! Hand-carved in Portugal. There’s another for your other room on the second floor. You don’t have to live in a garret all the time of course.”
“Ha!” I bark-laughed. “This is hardly a garret, Declan.”
He grinned broadly.
“So does it have your approval then?”
I shrugged, turning around in the large, beautiful room. It was exactly the kind of studio I had always imagined as authentic. And it didn’t have to be forever, right? I could say yes for a week, then fly back home.
“I guess I… Well how could I say no?”
He raised a clenched fist of triumph. “Yes!”
I chuckled at his eager, confident smile.
“So… there’s more furniture today? Can I open the crates while I wait?”
“Of course, you can do whatever you want,” he said grandly. “The delivery guys will be here for a while but I’ll ask them to assemble the pieces and get out of your way first before hitting the other rooms.”
“Oh there’s more?” I said, rolling my eyes. He really did know how to go on a shopping spree.
“Oh sure… Jack picked out some teak Danish suite, and I went for this Japanese lacquer set that is truly gorgeous. Peter, of course, had to have this carved French thing with, like, cherubs or something on it…”
“Wait, what?” I asked, my lips parted in an unformed question.
He stopped mid-explanation. “Peter? The Baron? I thought you met him at the Rijksmuseum.”
I shook my head. “No that’s not what I meant--”
“You’ll hardly see him… He’s out of town a lot too.”
I put up my hand, Stop. I understood their unusually Bohemian living habits, flopping at a network of extended friends’ houses all over the globe. But what I wanted to know was less precise, and more personal.
“Aren’t we staying… What I mean is…” I worked the sentence around in my mouth, weirdly shy to say it out loud. “I thought we were together.”
The words bounced around the cavernous room then headed for the peaked ceiling, knocking conspicuously against each other as they went.
“Declan?”
His expression flashed briefly apologetic, then stony.
“We already talked about this, Margot.”
“No, no, no… No we didn’t,” I said, my voice rising. I took a few steps toward him, feeling the familiar tremble in my core. I knew this turning away feeling, the tearing apart of velcro strips.
“Everything is the same,” I insisted. “I came here just like you wanted. So… Everything is the same!”
He sighed irritably, his eyes cast to the side, his arms crossed. There was no way I was getting past his defenses, and I wanted to holler like a toddler in protest. Stomp my feet. Throw my head back.
Instead I crossed my arms, self-consciously mimicking his posture. I quirked an eyebrow at him and waited. He wanted me to beg him? Well, I wouldn’t.
The silence grew around us, fueled by our twinned powers of stubbornness. It was like a staring contest, only with no staring.
Finally, he dug in his pocket.
“Ask Anders to take you shopping,” he sighed, producing a fat wad of multi-colored bills from his pocket.
“I don’t want your money,” I spat.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he drawled as he dropped it on the table and strolled past me, his heels echoing on the worn, thick floorboards. “I won’t even miss it.”
***
More than anything, I wanted to call Bridget. It was about 2am her time, and yet I knew she would pick up the phone if I called her.
And then she would tell me how she told me so.
Shuffling toward the crates, I noted that at least two were from my own studio. I snapped open the metal latches and peered inside at the paint and brushes, neatly nestled in parcels of securely taped bubble wrap. When had these been packed?
Taking them by their rope handles, I heaved them to the side and flipped open the other crates. Despite my sour mood, I began to feel excited, like a kid with a backpack full of fresh school supplies on the first day. There were dozens of my favorite brand of linen panels in a selection of sizes, all in a neat stack. I wedged my fingers between them to release the waft of linseed oil from the primer coat, triggering a sensation in my head that I can only call “art hunger.” Must Paint. Want.