How can you think that I would ever mock you? You, my darling, my beloved? When you grace the stage, the whole world adores you! I will die if you do not forgive me!
I offered to find the greatest elocution coach in the world, but that does not mean that I do not love each word you say as it falls from your lips. Do not leave me alone any longer, my darling! I die by degrees each day I do not hear from you. My wife travels again tomorrow, say you will allow me to come to you. I beg you, my dear, please open your arms to me once more!
Always,
Georges C.
My heart leaps inside me. “Elocution.” Does that mean what I think it does? I find the definition on my phone: formal or public speaking. An elocution coach isn’t exactly a speech therapist, but did they even have those back then?
I read the letter again, the words in their tiny script make my eyes hurt.
This guy wrote a lot of love notes. His wife must have loved to travel. Aside from being a lying cheater, Georges thought Marguerite needed help to speak correctly. Marguerite apparently didn’t like it, but what surprises me the most is what Georges says about the stage. Most of his letters are promises to meet Marguerite backstage after her performances.
Marguerite spoke with “weak words,” but she was an actress.
How did she do that?
We’re in the shop. June morphed into July and it’s sweltering. While I look at the letter, tucked discreetly inside an old cookbook, Sylvie sits by the cash register with her bare feet up on the little wobbly table, reading the kind of book that Mom always reads. On the cover, there’s a muscle-bound guy with no shirt who has a pretty girl clinging to his arm. That kind of book. Every so often, Sylvie glances up at me from behind the pages and winks.
Why?
I heard her talk with émile last night. His voice sounded worried. Hers was soothing, gentle, and strangely filled with mirth. Eventually, émile sounded calmer. They laughed together.
Sylvie must think I’m in love.
In love . . . with Gavin?
I did let him kiss me.
Or did I kiss him?
I can’t believe I did that!
I close the cookbook and tuck it under my arm. Then, I grab the duster and swipe at some shelves, those same little shelves full of dumb glass bottles like the one I dropped my first day here after Gavin made fun of me. My mouth is dry, and I can barely swallow. When I do, I swear I can still taste bubblegum.
I want to hurl.
“Can I go, now, Sylvie?” I ask. All I want right now is to find my toothbrush and scrub away the taste of the kiss that still lingers.
“Of course, chère,” Sylvie says. She winks again. What’s with the winking? She waves me away with a languid hand and a knowing smile.
“Go.”
Half a tube of toothpaste later, I feel better.
In the bedroom, I nearly fall over Fat Cat who was parked in the middle of the floor. When he looks up at me with his glowing eyes, even he seems to be giving me that “I know what you’ve been doing” look that Sylvie was throwing at me in the shop. I suppress a desire to kick him.
“Shut up,” I growl at him. Then I feel stupid. He can’t talk and never said anything in the first place.
All of Georges’s other letters still lie in a pile right on top of my bedside table. I no longer worry about hiding them, since Sylvie and émile never come in without permission. Suddenly, I want to look for more. I want to know more about Marguerite, the actress. And after a heartbeat’s hesitation, I march to the door in my wall.
With my ear pressed to the thin wood, I listen, holding my breath. I can’t hear anything. Did Thomas or his Mummy hear the bookcase come crashing down last night? I know how stupid it is to keep breaking into Marguerite’s home, but I find myself pulled, like there’s this invisible wire wrapped around my heart. I sneak back inside.
Dust motes swim before my eyes in the late afternoon sun that slants through hazy windows. Flies buzz, droning lazily in the otherwise perfect silence. I still love it, this feeling of being so totally alone. Something that weighed me down only moments before vanishes, and I breathe in the strange sensation of being solo. No Mom. No Sylvie or émile, as much as I love them.
No Gavin.
The downed bookcase looks pathetic, almost like a murder victim left to lie where he fell. I pick through a few of the scattered books and I find more letters immediately. They were inside a book whose pages had been cut out to form a kind of hollow apartment. They’re tied with a purple ribbon.
Wow, that was easy. I shove the letters into my pocket.
I should leave, but I don’t want to, not yet. I’m standing close the spot where I had my first kiss. I lift my hand to my mouth, touch my lips.
In this very room, I kissed a boy. Every little movement of his dry, chapped lips plays in my mind. The smell of his hair gel, the sound of his breathing, the toxic taste of bubblegum. Why can’t I stop thinking about it?
“Because you’re an idiot,” I whisper into the silence.