“And what does your family think of your being here?” She had finished the cup of chocolate, and reluctantly, she set it down on the table, half wanting to ask for more but knowing it was so rich she would never be able to drink it. She loved this about France, about how food was made to be more than sustenance, everything she ate was an experience, from the crème br?lée she had eaten at a restaurant when she had first arrived, to the simplest loaves of fresh bread. She often bought a demi-baguette from the corner boulangerie on her way home, and a bit of Brie from the cheesemonger, and if she hurried up to her room quickly enough, the bread would still be steaming when she broke it open, bits of crust falling onto her desk, so warm it would soften the cheese as she pressed them together, eating in pure, hedonistic pleasure.
Pushing his hand back through his hair, Sebastien squinted into the fire. “They think it is a phase. They believe when I have painted for a while, I will be content when I go back to Bordeaux and join the family business. My mother says I can paint the landscape there—it is beautiful enough that I would never have to see anything else.”
Margie’s eyes widened, thinking of the gift Sebastien had for seeing stories and telling them through his paintings. He could capture in square inches of canvas what it took her pages and pages to put onto paper. And then she tried to imagine how many stories were in a landscape, in a vineyard, in the climbing vines and the earth and the burst of ripe grapes. No matter how many, it would not be the same as the unending flow of humanity and its triumphs and tragedies as presented in a city. She tried to imagine Sebastien, who seemed to know everyone in Paris, and who, even if he didn’t actually know them, had never met a stranger, living in the countryside. It seemed as unnatural as the expectations her parents had for her.
“That’s so unfair,” she said softly, not sure whether she was speaking of Sebastien or herself.
“And yet it is fair,” Sebastien said. He had been staring thoughtfully into the fire. After the rush of the night, being out on the streets and then caught in the rain, Margie’s sleepiness was beginning to catch up with her, and she saw a heaviness falling into his eyes as well. “They have always taken care of me. And when I told them I want to live in Paris, to study and to paint, they agreed. They said I could have five years here, before I go back and join them in business.”
A surprisingly strong wave of relief rushed over Margie. Five years was forever. What she would give for five years in Paris! “Well that’s fine, then! You can stay and paint—why, in five years who knows what will happen? They might change their minds. And in the meantime, if you keep selling your paintings, you won’t have to go back.”
In the firelight, Sebastien’s eyes looked green and gold, the eyes of a cat. “Oh, no, no,” he said sadly. “I am not beginning my five years in Paris. They are ending. And I cannot complain. I have lived more here than many people will in a lifetime. I have met people from all over the world. I have painted more than I could have imagined, and I have shown and sold my paintings. And my family has been so generous. How can I turn down their request to come home, to be a part of them, to work to repay them when they have given me so much for so long?”
Margie wanted to object, wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. There was an honor and loyalty in Sebastien’s words that made her like him even more. So much about Sebastien seemed clear now—his endless hunger for experiences, the way he always seemed determined to suck the marrow out of every night, fighting against sleep and good sense, his boundless energy. He was trying to live an entire life in five years.
Was this what Paris was to her as well? A moment of sunlight before she was thrust into darkness again? She had been having so much fun she hadn’t stopped to think of what would come after. Her position at the Libe was funded for only three months, and it had been . . . well, it had been more than two already, hadn’t it? She was shocked to realize so much time had passed, and then, thinking of Sebastien, she wondered if her own hourglass had been running the entire time as well.
“How much longer do you have?” she asked, a disquiet that was almost fear building inside her.
“Only a few weeks,” Sebastien said, and she could almost touch the regret in his voice.