Griffin: By the way, have you been to the Musée Marmottan Monet? If not, it’s quite lovely, and it’s open today.
Joy: This will come as a complete and utter shock, but, like nearly everyone else in the world, I love Monet. Oh, and yes, you can take me out to breakfast and to see some million-dollar art, Griffin.
So, yeah, that means I’m completely transparent to her. Brilliant. As I leave, I remind myself to not make it so patently unmistakable that I like her during breakfast.
But when she arrives at the café wearing tight jeans, a light blue shirt, and a red bandana around her hair like a headband, it’s a lost cause.
“You had that on the first time I met you,” I say, pointing to the cloth in her hair, the ends tied in a little knot, its tails poking out under her ear.
Her lips quirk up. “En français.”
“You caught me,” I say with a laugh.
“You remember?” She runs her fingers over the red fabric.
I nod, keeping my words simple so she understands. “I remember. I thought it was bold. You looked like Rosie the Riveter.”
Her eyebrows rise. “You know Rosie? That’s so American.”
“I happen to like American things,” I say, and when her green eyes lock with mine, I watch as understanding registers in them. As the words turn in her head till she knows what I mean.
The moment she does, her eyes sparkle then hold mine. She doesn’t look away. “I like English things.”
Evidently, we’re both rubbish at friendship. I lean back in the chair and sigh. “Being friends, it’s so easy, yeah?”
Might as well call a spade a spade.
“So simple,” she says drily, her hand rising to fiddle with the bandana as if she’s going to take it out.
“No, seriously. It’s so incredibly you,” I tell her, reaching across the table, brushing my finger against the fabric then down a soft strand of her hair. The red locks slide over my hand.
I raise my gaze. Her lips part the slightest bit as I let go of her hair. She watches as the strands fall against her chest.
She clears her throat and taps the menus. “We better order, or the specter of pickles will haunt you all day.”
“Best to avoid pickle hauntings.”
I tell her what I want, and when the waiter arrives, I let her order. She gets it right, and I’m more pleased than I should be.
Because it’s her.
Soles of shoes echo across the hardwood floors in the quiet mansion that houses more than three hundred Monets. A handful of other museumgoers flit by, but we aren’t packed like sardines.
I gesture to all the space. “The best part is it isn’t crowded like the Musée d’Orsay or the Louvre.”
“It’s a little secret in Paris,” she says as we wander through gallery after gallery of impressionist art. I switch back and forth between languages, teaching her new words and phrases as we go. She’s a fast learner, with a nimble mind. She stops in front of one of the many images of the Japanese bridge the famous artist painted.
“I want to see the bridge,” she says, and a burst of pride flares in me since she said that correctly on her first try.
“We should go to Giverny.”
Then I stop, processing what I just said to her. The weight of it. The intention of it. I invited her to Monet’s gardens. That doesn’t sound like something a teacher would say to a student, but rather a man to a woman. A woman he wants to romance.
Those wide green eyes give me her yes. Then her words do, too. “I want to go.”
My heart springs around in my chest, and it’s the strangest sensation. A nearly foreign feeling—one I haven’t experienced in a long time. The last few years have been dictated by the fallout from one unexpected event, so I haven’t had the time or the inclination to feel anything more than the occasional bout of desire. “I’ve never been.”
She shoots me a curious look. “You haven’t? How is it possible there’s a place near Paris you’ve never traveled to?”
“Miracles do happen.”
“I’m shocked,” she teases, then drops her hand and returns her focus to the painting of the bridge. “I read a novel once where paintings came alive.”
“How so?”
“In the story, the Degas dancers at the d’Orsay twirled out of their frames after hours. They performed ballets in the museum. The cat in Manet’s Olympia jumped from his painting and padded across the tiled floor once the sun fell. It was like Night at the Museum meets Midnight in Paris. And in the story, the hero could travel through Monet’s bridges to other museums around the world that had one of his paintings of the bridge, since he painted so many.”
I chuckle. “Sounds quite fantastical.”
She laughs. “It was. It was magical. But I think that’s the power of great art. It not only transports you but makes you want to crawl inside and live in it.”
“Do I need to hold you back from trying to jump inside a Monet, Joy? Are you warning me of your intention to launch headfirst into a famous work of art?”
She brings her hands together in front of her, as if prepping to dive. Her eyes are quizzical as she poses the next question. “If you were going to jump inside any painting, what would it be?”
I marinate on that for a minute, considering. “I suppose if these bridges really do transport you, I’d go into one of those Monets. Easy way to travel, right? Sort of like apparating in Harry Potter. I could be at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg like that.” I snap my fingers.
“Do you want to go to Russia?”
“I want to go everywhere,” I say as I stare at the red and gold sunset version of the bridge in front of me.
“You’re a globe-trotter, aren’t you?”
“I’m an aspiring globe-trotter,” I say.
