Kiss Kill Vanish (7 page)

I log out and push away from the desk. The dread hasn't faded. There'll be no taking refuge in LaFleur's art.

Seven minutes.

I hate that clock. Some of the bars don't light up properly, so I'm always having to get my phone out to check. And it's just a clock, no radio, so I get to wake up to a long, high-pitched beep followed by three shorter, but just as high-pitched, beeps.
Beeeeep bee-bee-bee beeeeep bee-bee-bee beeeeep.
From a deep sleep, it isn't so much a sound as an assault.

I pull out my phone. The clock is right. It's 6:53, which means my hellish evening is about to officially begin.

I really hate that clock.

I hate a lot of things right now.

I hate Lucien.

I hate this dress. No, I don't. I only resent the dress, because the dress itself is beautiful, and the dress never did anything to me besides being the only thing Nanette had to lend. I
resent
it because it's lovely. I want it for a different place and time and set of eyes.

The fabric is petal soft and just barely pink. It's short but flowing, draped over one shoulder, then cinched below the bust. The asymmetrical hem looks like someone's taken scissors to a Grecian gown, making it fall to angles and points. I feel like a nymph, or a hand slipping into a suede glove.

Six minutes.

Nanette saved me. Not just with the dress, but with patent leather nude heels and a white wool coat and pearl earrings. She almost smiled too. I wouldn't have guessed she had it in her, since I've only ever seen her with a solemn I'll-intubate-you-if-I-need-to look, but maybe I don't know that much about her.

Asking was humiliating. She didn't get giddy and prying like I was worried she might, but her round brown eyes took in my lies with a sympathy I didn't deserve and left me with a guilt-knotted stomach. She thinks I'm going on a date, which technically . . . well . . . who knows. But she thinks I work at a café and that a customer asked me to the symphony. I'm not sure what I was thinking—could I have chosen a more movie-plot lie? Maybe an Italian prince, thrilled with his hypothetical latte, wanting to whisk me away for the weekend.

Luckily, Nanette has a believing heart. She's the type to assume others are truthful, and good, and who they say they are. I'm envious. I used to be that way too, before I learned that words are just aluminum foil—shiny and worthless, easily torn, crumpled, and chucked.

Five minutes.

Nanette was right when she told Jacques I have no friends. I don't, not anymore. And she isn't my friend, even though she lent me this outfit and found me a place to practice Emilio's mandolin. She did those things out of pity and guilt—pity for the girl with not a single dress and guilt for voting against me practicing in the apartment.

The mandolin isn't even loud. Jerks.

It's fine. Friends are an extravagance, just people who agree to lie to each other to make each other feel better.

I wish Emilio could see me in this dress.

Four minutes.

The wind is howling. My hair will be a mess by the time I get to the Metro, but I'm not all that worried about it. I was pretending to care about looking pretty, so I let Nanette put it up for me. Lucien offered to pick me up, but I gave him a firm no. Definitely not. After I said it, the look on his face dripped with pity—
how sad that you're ashamed of your poverty
—and I let the misunderstanding lie. I don't want him to know where he can find me. I go to him.

The wind's howl becomes a screech, conjuring memories of tropical storms. I've always hated storms. I used to hide in Lola's bed while the rasping torrents clawed at our house and eventually fall asleep beside her, exhausted from clenching and embarrassed for being afraid. But isn't it rational to fear something so vindictive? They scrape out whole cities and houses and lives, no regard for the helpless. No mercy.

My fear of storms—that was why Emilio and I were in his room that night and not on the deck where we should have been. The wind was making me nervous, and I couldn't relax with the whooshing of the ocean being blown skyward all around me.

Three minutes.

His room smelled like shaving cream. His skin tasted like water. His hands were warm. The wind's nagging was muted—I could hear the waves slapping against the side of the yacht, feel the boat rolling from side to side, but I didn't feel like we were going to be shaken off anymore. Swallowed, maybe.

But then the knock came, and his grip tightened like jaws sinking into my arms.

How many times do I have to relive this moment before it makes sense?

The sense is in his hands, I think, or in the way they changed. If I can just figure out which hands were the real Emilio's, I'll be able to hate him and mourn him. Or love him and mourn him. They went from plucking the mandolin strings to caressing my skin, then suddenly squeezing my arms tight enough to leave fingerprint bruises.

And finally, his hand was gripping something sleek and glinting that I understood, even while refusing to understand. A gun. Emilio's arm floated up in front of him, as if he had no control over his own body, as if his hand was being lifted by my father's eyes.

The whirlpool of
why
and
stop
and
no
accelerated, and I know I gasped, but the noise was swallowed by the reeling storm. I clamped my mouth shut. I dug my nails into my palms.

Two minutes.

Why am I reliving this again?

But he turned the weapon like it was the most natural thing to do, like he'd done it before. And with no hesitation or tremor, he exploded the world.

Too loud. Then no sound at all.

There was so much more color than I would have guessed. A brain. A whole lifetime of thoughts and memories and emotions blooming like a flower on the wall beyond him. One bullet, one head, one massive scarlet blossom.

Understanding came flash-like, illuminating everything. This. This juxtaposition of life and death, of vibrancy and shadow, of beauty in tragedy—this was the art my father dealt.

One minute.

And now. More art awaits.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“Y
ou clean up nicely.”

I spin around to see a lanky figure slouched in the shadows. His features are mottled in the half dark, but a cigarette glows in his mouth and his cheeks pull concave as he sucks on it. Panic and hope squeeze my heart at the sight of his long, lean limbs. How did he find me?

“Did I scare you?”

Bitter relief. It's Marcel. The fist around my heart unclenches. “No.” I steady myself against the icy railing, but it's too cold to grip with bare fingers.

“Stay and have a smoke with me.”

“I don't smoke.”

“Then watch me smoke. You've got the whole night to hang on Lucien's arm.”

I'm about to say something rude, when I realize the potential of this situation. This isn't a date if Marcel clings to us all night. If I can get him to stick around and annoy Lucien, I may even survive with both my job and my dignity intact.

I take a few steps toward him. Once I'm in the shadow I can see him better, well enough to be reminded that he looks nothing like Emilio.

“You're not even going to comment on how well I clean up?” Marcel gestures to his tux. Armani, if I haven't lost my eye. His hair is slicked back and the eyeliner is gone, but I can see the glint of his lip ring. The malnourished pallor is the same.

“You look . . . cleaned up.”

“Don't worry, I'm not.”

“Aren't you freezing out here?”

“No,” he says. “And I'd need a smoke break even if I didn't need a smoke break.”

“What does that mean?”

“It's pretty stuffy in there. A lot of hot air. A lot of annoying people.”

“And where's Lucien?” I ask again, losing his name in a shiver. With nothing but cheap stockings between my legs and winter, the six-minute walk from the Metro to Les Fontaines felt like an hour. I'm ready to be inside.

“Forget about Lucien,” he says lazily. I wonder if he's drunk. “He's a liar. And as his brother, I feel like it's my duty to tell you he has the smallest—”

“Stop,” I interrupt him with an outstretched hand.

“But you already knew that, didn't you.” He grins. “See, if it was me, I wouldn't mind if you kissed and told.”

“Shut up.” I start up the stone steps, forcing myself to climb slowly. I'd love to run. But I don't. The stairs stretch on and on, and I can feel his eyes watching me take each one. I stop at the top, glance over my shoulder, and see him take one last, long pull on his cigarette. He's still staring. Head down, I make my way toward the ornate door.

I don't need to turn around again. I can hear the hollow tap of dress shoes on stone, twenty steps below and closing in.

The interior of Les Fontaines is distractingly artful, more castle than gallery. As I deliver Nanette's coat to the coat check, I take it all in: arches, candlelight, and vaulted ceilings. I've been swallowed by a fairy tale. If I wasn't so preoccupied with losing Marcel, I'd to stop to run my fingers along the stone walls and feel the plush velvet curtain separating the lobby from whatever lies beyond.

A visit to the ladies' room confirms what I suspected: Nanette's updo has been ravaged by the wind. It's unsalvageable. Channeling my inner Lola, I pull the clips and bobby pins out, then do my best to finger-comb for a windblown curls effect.

I stare at myself in the mirror. Nanette painted my lips rose pink and dusted me with something shimmery, which makes me twinkle unnaturally in this light. I don't like it. It's like I'm staring at a painting of myself. I turn away.

From the ladies' room, I let the flow of traffic carry me to the main gallery, too entranced by the colors and scents of the lavish flower arrangements perched on pillars to notice what I should be noticing: I stick out.

Once I reach the entrance, though, I feel it. The women are dressed in obsidian and silver. A few sharp-colored accents cry out—a peacock feather sash, a poppy tucked into a smooth bun, a jade necklace, electric blue stilettos—but it's mostly black, and the harsh lines of ebony gowns against bare skin, the diamonds and sapphires choking tall necks, all pulse shrilly around me.

Nobody is wearing pink. Nobody is wearing simple pearl earrings. Nobody has their hair loose. I'd been so relieved Nanette had something to borrow, I didn't realize I'd be all wrong here. But it's winter—
real
winter, dark and cold and foreign. And I look like a little girl.

I spot Lucien by the bar, chatting with a bearded man and a tightly bunned Amazon in a charcoal gown. Lucien looks lost without his artist garb. The tuxedo is perfectly cut, his jaw is clean shaven, and I can see the comb lines in his hair from across the room. I'd have thought this would be his natural habitat, but he seems even less genuine than usual.

I let my eyes take in the paintings while I wait for Lucien to see me.

Naked women. They're everywhere. Twisted, lounged, splayed, and butterflied with oil paints on life-size canvases. I've spent too much time looking at art to be shy about nudes, but I'm inexplicably shocked. I was expecting more jars. Or something equally nonsensical, something I would be forced to spend the evening staring at, wondering what on earth Hugo LaFleur possibly meant by a bicycle covered in noses or kneecaps.

I feel the pressure of Lucien's hand against the small of my back before I see him.

“You're late,” he says. “I was worried you got lost.”

I turn, but he keeps his hand in place, so we stay too close, the arm of his tuxedo sliding over my arm. So this is how it's going to be. I glance around for Marcel, but I don't see him at the bar, which means he's probably off in a corner trying to get too friendly with a server, or on one of the balconies smoking something more calming than a cigarette. It's possible that my hopes for using him to distract Lucien were overly optimistic.

“You look like Aphrodite in that dress.” He takes a sip from the champagne flute in his hand. I'd love one too. “I don't know why a goddess portrait never occurred to me,” he says, touching the fabric draped over my hip. “Maybe after we're finished in the cemetery.”

I take an oyster from a passing tray. It's cold and briny, and I let it slip down my throat before I can gag.

“So what do you think?” he asks with a nod to the nearest wall.

“I think your friend paints beautifully.”

“He's not my friend.” Lucien scowls, irked by the compliment as I'd hoped he'd be. “And nobody calls his paintings
beautiful
. You're not even looking at them.”

So I look at them. Lucien's hand on my back, we push through the crowd to the nearest painting, then the next, and the next, and the next. We move at his pace, which is too fast and not fast enough; it's a blur, but I want it to end.

“See?” he says.

He's right. They aren't beautiful, and the artist didn't want them to be. They're angry, not just the models' faces but the emotion vibrating from each canvas. There's something garish and hateful about these women—not beloved. Certainly not beautiful.

“They make you uncomfortable,” Lucien says.

“No.” But I am uncomfortable. It's not the paintings, or not quite. It's that niggling feeling that I've been ignoring something big. All the incongruities I've been chalking up to Lucien's weirdness are being brought into focus by LaFleur's nudes. Everything seems sharper now.
This
is art—the bare human form in all its strength and vulnerability, musculature, rolls, bulges, and dips, every angle and shade on display. I've grown up knowing this.