Sebastian inhaled again.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” I’d insulted him. Said out loud exactly why this subject maddened him. Sebastian didn’t appreciate it when I, or anyone else, reminded him that he hadn’t inherited the La Lune gift. That he hadn’t been enough of an artist on his own to succeed. That the talents he’d been heir to were only adequate. His vision wasn’t unique; his ability wasn’t special. His canvases didn’t sing or move people to feel emotions the way our mother’s did. The way many said mine did.
Sebastian was like thousands of others whose desire to create art outweighed their ability. He knew how to use colors and brushes and stretch canvases, but his results were mediocre. And when confronted with what made us, at our core, the most different from each other, he bristled and turned grumpy. And I didn’t want to set him off. Sebastian in a bad mood was disagreeable. Especially to me. Because of our odd bond, I felt it doubly.
“Don’t apologize. After seeing what you’ve been going through, I’m almost relieved I didn’t inherit what you did.”
His voice was light. I wanted to believe him. And I was glad to be talking about him for a change instead of me.
“That’s good news. You did look happy at the gallery. It was quite a show. I was impressed, Sebastian,” I said, changing the subject.
He smiled. “I didn’t expect the gallery to take off the way it has. You saw, we don’t just attract the crowd from Cannes and Nice. Duplessi’s is becoming a destination for art collectors who take the train down from Paris to see what I’m showing. I’m considering opening one in New York.”
“So you didn’t just come to America to rescue me?” I teased. “You had business to combine with displeasure?”
“I did take advantage of being there to set up some meetings, but I would have gone anywhere in the world to rescue you. And it would have been reason enough.”
His voice, so like my father’s, warmed me. My mother had once said she’d fallen in love with my father as soon as she’d heard his voice, that it was like fingers rubbing moss. Or smoke curling. That it sounded like wood worn and smoothed over time. I heard all those things when Sebastian spoke, too. I might have inherited my mother’s witching, but my twin had inherited all of my father’s handsomeness, polish, taste, and business acumen.
After fifteen minutes of driving, we turned onto the road into Mougins, a small medieval village. Like Cannes and most of the Riviera, Mougins had been untouched by the war. Favored by artists, its tiny streets were lined with ateliers, and seeing them again made me smile. As we were growing up, our mother had often brought us here to visit with some of her friends or to dine in one of the fine restaurants. The town, also a mecca for gourmet chefs, even boasted a hotel with a Michelin-recommended restaurant.
“Who are we visiting today?” I asked. “Why are you being so secretive?”
Sebastian laughed. “The things I always missed the most between visits with you in New York were your impatient questions. You really did stay away for too long, you know?”
“It was for the best.”
“You ran away. And still, after all this time, have never really told me why.”
“I told you, after getting that letter from the woman whose portrait I’d done, I needed a change.”
Sebastian pulled into the parking lot near the hotel. One couldn’t drive through the town. The streets were too narrow.
My twin got out of the car, came around to my side, and opened my door.
“The letter might have upset you but not sent you packing. Why did you really run away, Delphine?” In the sunlight, his dark green eyes shone like holly leaves.
“If I had stayed, I would have become embittered and destroyed what I cared about the most.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I saw it, Sebastian. I saw it with my blindfold on.”
“You said you never were going to draw yourself or me. You promised me and Maman. She told you there would always be the risk of you misunderstanding what you saw in those shadows and how dangerous it could be if you acted on a false premise.”
“I didn’t draw myself. I drew someone else, and I saw myself in the sketch.”
I didn’t want him to ask me any more questions that I’d have to lie in order to answer. I stepped away from him onto the panorama deck and looked out over the vista. From up there in the mountains, the entire valley was visible, all the way past my parents’ villa in La Californie, down to town and out to sea. As I watched, an eerily murky rain cloud moved swiftly across the sky, casting much of the land below in sudden shadow. I imagined trying to paint the view, but the scenery was too complex, and the idea exhausted me. I wasn’t as good as my mother at landscapes, which was a shame, since there would have been no need for my second sight in order to paint them. My best works were the complex, detailed, surrealistic shadow portraits of people in their homes. The books on a shelf behind a man turning into trees. A woman in her dining room, plates and cutlery and napkin turning into small animals and insects.
“Come, let’s go. What I have to show you is this way,” Sebastian said.
We walked toward the empty street. No one was out and about. Probably, the impending storm kept them inside. As we passed the hotel, I stopped at the fountain. I reached into my pocketbook, pulled out a centime, and threw it into the stone basin, listening for the plink as it hit the surface and then watching it sink and join the other coins.
My mother had always laughed at my insistence that I throw money into any fountain I passed. And now Sebastian repeated her words.
“You don’t wish for luck, you create it.”
I nodded. “But one shouldn’t tempt fate, either.”
We continued on, up a little incline and into the heart of the old village. Avenue du Commandant Lamy was lined with picturesque stone houses dating back to the 1400s, each only two rooms across and no more than two stories high. The front doors were either one step down or one step up from street level.
Everywhere you looked were explosions of colors against the muted stones. Window boxes overflowed with deep reds and shocking pinks, lime greens and lavenders. Doors and window frames were painted salmon pink, robin’s-egg blue, buttercup yellow, or pale green. Small lantana trees or rosebushes growing in cobalt or emerald glazed pots were gathered on the stoops. Fuchsia bougainvillea vines climbed the facades, some covering windows.
“Will you tell me who you were drawing when you saw yourself, Delphine?”
“You’re still thinking about that? I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m glad you did. We needn’t have secrets.”
“Then tell me about your latest conquest.” I prodded my twin, trying to change the subject once again.
He laughed. “That’s no secret. An American named Carlotta Simpson. She’s a painter studying with Juan Gris. Now will you tell me?”