“Merci,” I whisper. My throat is dry and my voice cracks. I’m not relieved, like I thought I would be. My lie hurts, because Sylvie might actually believe it. Why do I feel this way? I swallow the painful lump in my throat. Isn’t this what I wanted?
We walk back to Sylvie and émile’s apartment. My mind whirls with a parade of colors and brief images that flash in front of my eyes. A girl with sad, dark eyes. A watermelon-shaped woman. A fountain that looks like a toilet. I don’t really watch where I’m going and nearly fall twice. I’m so nervous my heart is drumming fast. Understanding finally hits me and I know why I’m afraid. I faked it today during my art lesson. Somehow, Sylvie still thinks I’m an artist. But that’s only today. What about tomorrow?
Nine
So far, I’ve snuck into the empty apartment three times this week. I can’t tell whether the paintings are worth anything. How the heck would I know? Nobody hears me. Nothing happens. It’s been anti-climactic. Anyway, I find that I’m worried about other things. Right now I’m obsessed with pretending to possess a creative soul.
When I enter the kitchen for breakfast this morning, I’m feeling pretty good about the latest masterpiece I hold in my hands. I’ve painted non-stop for the last four days. Last night I did a lake, a cabin, and tons of trees. Happy trees. I do it by watching that guy with big hair on YouTube. He’s the one who used to have this painting show on TV back in the dark ages, like the eighties, maybe. He paints step by step, I watch and copy.
Late-rising émile is still snoring, but Sylvie is sipping from a tiny cup and bouncing her foot on the floor. Her high-heeled slipper makes sharp little tap tap tap sounds. Her face lights up when I enter. Practically flying across the kitchen, she swipes the canvas from my hands and plunks it down on the counter without even looking at it.
“Nature morte!” she announces with what sounds like triumph in her voice.
What? Dead nature? While I’m trying to mentally translate, Sylvie takes my shoulders and marches me downstairs to the back of her shop, where there’s a humongous easel and a gigantic canvas. In front of this horrifying setup is a bowl of fruit, with peaches and pears and grapes spilling all over the place, next to a cracked ceramic pitcher, bobbling on a wobbly table.
Dead nature. Still life. I get it.
“Today I would like to watch you paint, chère,” Sylvie says, her eyes twinkling. Crud. I try to smile like I’m excited, but my lips won’t cooperate.
“Petit-dejeuner?” I mumble. I’m not hungry for breakfast, I’m stalling. But Sylvie laughs and grabs something from the table by her cash register. She hands it to me. Another chocolate banana sandwich, wrapped in wax paper. It’s still warm. For some reason, this makes my insides go all mushy. She got up early to get everything ready. She ran to that banana-restaurant to get me the sandwich I like and bring it back, nice and hot.
So I perch myself on the stool in front of the easel and eat, while Sylvie chatters. I feel a flash of surprise tinged with more than a little relief when she picks up the brush and actually starts to paint. While she does, she talks about how light and dark shades create form and space on the canvas. She tells me to think of what I’m going to paint as a group of shapes, like I did when I painted the watermelon woman. It kind of makes sense. I watch as Sylvie does a little color-mixing demonstration.
As I swallow the last of my sandwich, Sylvie hands me my brush. This time, she stays with me. She coaches me along, and shapes begin to appear on the canvas. A few smears of green and yellow merge and morph into something real before my eyes. All of a sudden, it looks like an actual pear! On impulse, I put an arm around Sylvie. She hugs me back, and we both laugh, looking at my painted fruit. A knot in my gut unties. My secret is safe! I faked it until I learned to paint.
Sylvie backs away and leaves me to work on my own. She putters around the shop, and I find myself excited to finish my painting. I’m really getting into it, mixing more colors, adding this and that, so time passes. I can’t wait to tell Jada! Then, Sylvie makes a soft noise like a sigh, and I glance at her, startled. She’s standing by her cash register holding a few bills in her hand, but she’s looking at the screen of her phone with a little frown on her face. She glances up at me, and her lightning flash smile appears, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. What is she looking at?
Pretending to need more paint, I head over to the box Sylvie keeps on a shelf close to the register. As I rummage through the half-squeezed tubes of every color imaginable, I manage to shoot a glance over Sylvie’s shoulder before she puts her phone away. The tiny image of my stolen cityscape is on her screen. My heart drops to my torn canvas shoes. I didn’t fool her like I thought I did.