“Oh, back in the day,” said Ellery airily. But then I could tell that Val’s expression had changed, because she’s not so interested, after all, in anything that happened “back in the day,” and I bet that any of the names he might have mentioned wouldn’t have meant anything to her.
Clover was in the middle of pouring Ellery a glass of champagne when the buzzer rang, and I ran downstairs wondering if it was going to be Alexander. But no—it was Warren. He was carrying a bottle of champagne. “Hey, Franny!” he said, and gave me an affectionate hug. He was so tall, he had to lean way down to reach me.
“The party’s upstairs,” I said, gesturing to the staircase. “On the roof-deck.”
“The secret roof-deck?” He smiled, looking mischievous.
“Wait, do you know it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh.”
I was disappointed.
I led him up the staircase and into Aunt Theo’s bedroom, which was kind of like crawling under the fold of a magic tent. We were sucked into the red walls, the Oriental rug made up of olive greens and golds, not to mention, on the bed, the famous leopard-skin blanket.
“That painting,” said Warren, and pointed at the portrait of Aunt Theo over the bed.
“Do you know that too?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” he said again.
“L’heure de la lavande,” I said now, feeling like I was a tour guide in a museum.
“Your accent is very good, Franny,” said Ellery, who had come over to join us in the bedroom.
“Thank you, Ellery.”
He must have known Warren from—what was the phrase he had used?—“back in the day.” They were saying hello to each other, and Clover was rushing in to pour more champagne.
“I never knew who painted that,” said Warren.
“Yeah, I don’t know either,” I said. But then, trying to sound all knowledgeable, I added: “I think it was painted in Paris, though.”
“Ellery, do you know who painted this portrait of Theo?” Warren asked.
“No, she would never tell even me. And she used to tell me everything, everything!”
The buzzer rang. Alexander! I thought. I hoped. And I raced down the staircase again.
21
Getting to Know You
Only it wasn’t Alexander. It was—another bottle of champagne? Because here was another older gentleman, bearing a bottle. This one was a beautiful dark green with a fancy pink-and-blue label. Crème de Cassis, the bottle said.
“Is that from Paris?” I asked him.
“Dijon,” he said.
“Oh.”
He laughed.
“Don’t worry. I’m from Paris, even if the bottle isn’t.”
“Oh!”
“You are Miss Valentine Lord, perhaps?” He was now staring at me intently.
“Oh, no, she’s my sister! I’m Franny—” I caught myself just in time. “I’m Frances Lord. How do you do?” And I put out my hand.
The strange gentleman was laughing at me, but it was a nice laugh. There is such a difference in people’s laughs, don’t you think? And now I stepped back and stared at him intently. He was rather a small man, but still handsome. He had on white jeans and purple velvet loafers. Also, he had red hair. Dark red, kind of like what you call auburn. I liked him.
“Ah, Frances!” he exclaimed, and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “You are the daughter of Milly and Edward, correct?”
“Yes, that’s them. Do you know them?”
“From another life…” he said, and sighed.
It turned out that the strange gentleman’s name was Laurent Victoire, which I thought was just lovely; French names are the prettiest, and I got jealous, all over again, that Valentine had one and I didn’t.
“Is Theo here?” Laurent asked me, as I led him upstairs.
“Not yet. She’s flying in tonight. Do you know—I’ve never actually met her!”
“Ah, and your sister—Valentine, is it?—has she ever met her before?”
“No, neither of us have. That’s why we’re so excited to finally get to see her in person tonight!”
“She is quite something,” he said now. We were standing in Aunt Theo’s bedroom, at the foot of the bed. Everybody else had moved outside to the roof-deck. “A great beauty. A vision, you might even say! See, Frances,” he pointed to the painting over the bed, and whispered, “That portrait. Don’t tell any of the others, but I was the one who painted that.”
“You did?”
He nodded.
“When? Where?”
“One morning in Paris, it was. Wintertime. You see the light in the painting. It’s blue. Blue, bordering on lavender. A winter light. You can tell. The year must have been, oh, 1965 or ’66…”
Forever and ever ago, I was thinking! A whole other country and a whole other world, and all of a sudden the painting seemed more romantic to me than ever before.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him. “Really it is. But what did you mean don’t tell the others? If I had painted a painting like that, I would be so proud of it, I would definitely want everybody else to know!”