Die for Me

It can’t be him, I thought. Unless he is the spitting image of his dad, who happened to sire a son before he died at . . . (I glanced back at the obituary) nineteen. Which isn’t impossible . . .

 

As my reasoning foundered, I forwarded to the next page and scanned the Ss for “Simon.” There he was: Thierry Simon. The muscle-bound guy who had turned Georgia and me away from the fight at the river. Thierry had a voluminous Afro in the photo but wore the same confident grin that he had flashed me with that day across the café terrace. It was definitely the same guy. But more than forty years ago.

 

I closed my eyes in disbelief, and then opened them again to read the paragraph under Thierry’s head shot. It read the same as Jacques’s, except it gave his age as twenty-two and place of birth as Paris.

 

“I don’t get it,” I whispered, as I numbly pressed a button on the machine to print both pages. After returning the microfilm spools to the front desk, I left the library in a daze and hesitated before stepping on the escalator going to the next floor. I would sit in the museum until I figured out what to do next.

 

My thoughts were being yanked around in ten different directions as I drifted through the turnstile and into an enormous high-ceilinged gallery with benches positioned in the middle of the room. Sitting down, I put my head in my hands as I tried to clear my mind.

 

Finally I looked up. I was in the room dedicated to the art of Fernand Léger, one of my favorite early-to mid-twentieth-century French painters. I studied the two-dimensional surfaces filled with bright primary colors and geometric shapes and felt a sense of normalcy return. I glanced over to the corner where my favorite Léger painting hung: one with robotic-looking World War I soldiers sitting around a table, smoking pipes and playing cards.

 

A young man stood in front of it, his back to me as he leaned in closer to inspect something in the composition. He was of medium height with short-cropped brown hair and messy clothes. Where have I seen him before? I thought, wondering if it was someone from school.

 

And then he turned, and my mouth dropped open in disbelief. The man standing across the gallery from me was Jules.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Ten

 

 

 

MY BODY NO LONGER FELT CONNECTED TO MY mind. I stood and walked toward the phantom. Either I’m having a mental breakdown that started in the library, I thought, or the guy standing in front of me is a ghost. Both explanations seemed more probable than the alternative: that Jules had actually survived a head-on collision with a subway train, not only in one piece but apparently uninjured.

 

When I was a few feet away, he saw me coming, and for a split second, he hesitated. Then he turned to me with a completely blank look on his face.

 

“Jules!” I said urgently.

 

“Hello,” he said calmly. “Do I know you?”

 

“Jules, it’s me, Kate. I visited your studio with Vincent, remember? And I saw you at the Métro station that day of . . . the crash.”

 

His expression changed from blank to amused. “I am afraid that you have me confused with someone else. My name is Thomas, and I don’t know anyone called Vincent.”

 

Thomas, my foot, I thought, wanting to shake him. “Jules. I know it’s you. You were in that horrible accident when . . . just over a month ago?”

 

He shook his head and shrugged, as if to say, Sorry.

 

“Jules, you have to tell me what’s going on.”

 

“Listen, um, Kate? I have no idea what you’re talking about, but let me help you over to that bench. You must be overexcited.Or overwrought.” He took me by my elbow and began leading me back to the benches.

 

I jerked my arm away and stood facing him with fists clenched. “I know it’s you. I’m not crazy. And I don’t know what’s going on. But I accused Vincent of being heartless for running away from your death. And now it turns out you’re alive.”

 

I realized that my voice had been rising as I saw a security guard head our way. I flashed Jules a furious look as the uniformed man walked up to us and asked, “Is there a problem here?”

 

Jules calmly looked the guard in the eyes and said, “No problem, sir. She seems to have mistaken me for someone else.”

 

“I have not!” I hissed under my breath, then left, walking quickly toward the exit. Turning to see Jules and the guard staring my way, I strode out of the museum and ran down the escalators.

 

There was only one place I could go.

 

The subway ride back to my neighborhood seemed interminable, but finally I found myself sprinting up the Métro steps into the fading sunlight and heading toward the rue de Grenelle. Standing before the massive vine-draped wall, I rang the doorbell. A light went on above my head, and I looked up into a video surveillance camera.

 

“Oui?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

 

“It’s Kate. I’m . . .” I paused, momentarily losing my courage. But remembering the cruelty of my last words to Vincent, I spoke with renewed resolve. “I’m a friend of Vincent’s.”

 

“He’s not in.” The male voice crackled metallically through the tiny speaker on the bottom of the keypad.