Page 59 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
“You know what?” Helene says. “I think maybe we should turn in for the night. It’s been…a big day.”
It’s not even late, but I know what she means.
“Do you need help getting back to your room?” I rise from the sofa and offer my arm, in case her ankle’s bothering her.
“I’ll be okay,” Helene says, but it’s unclear whether she’s talking about her ankle or our truncated conversation. “Do you need help with—?” she gestures at the coffee, cannoli, and chocolate.
“No, thank you. You go ahead to bed.”
“Okay. Um, good night, then.” She gives me a diffident smile.
We walk out of the library together, and she turns toward the guest suite, in the opposite direction of the kitchen.
I watch her for several more beats and sigh.
Good night, my love.
HELENE
I wait for half anhour after I hear Sebastien go upstairs before I sneak back into the library. It’s too early to go to bed, and even if it weren’t, there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep, knowing his journals are there.
Am I snooping? Am I invading his privacy? Yes and yes. But my brain is already two steps ahead of me, rationalizing that (a) those shelves aren’t locked, (b) Sebastien let me go upstairs and didn’t put any limits on what I could explore, and (c)ifthose journals really do contain true stories about us, then it’s a shared history that belongs to both of us. Which means I have as much right to read them as he does.
Yes, I am the worst, and I know it.
But here I am anyway, at the foot of the library staircase. I’m using my phone as a flashlight, because I don’t want to turn on any of the lamps and broadcast what I’m up to.
My original plan was to go up, grab the journals, then bring them back to the sofas downstairs. But my ankle throbs—it turns out that tiptoeing isnotgood for a twisted ankle—and I can also picture myself trying to carry the tall stack of notebooks and tumbling down the stairs, not only making a ruckus but ruining all those carefully preserved diaries. Some of them are supposedly hundreds of years old and really ought to be in a museum, not manhandled by the likes of me.
So instead I grab a couple of the throw blankets on the couches, as well as an armful of pillows. I’ll make myself a cozy reading nest among the shelves, and that way I won’t have to transport the journals anywhere. I’m also less likely to get caught, since the sitting area downstairs is visible from the main corridor, but upstairs, I’ll be safely tucked away.
When I reach the second-floor landing, though, I freeze. Were those footsteps I just heard down the hall? I breathe as quietly as I can and try not to move. My elbow itches. Dammit.Don’t scratch it, don’t scratch it, don’t scratch it.If I try to scratch it, I’ll drop all the blankets and pillows.
I keep listening, and there’s nothing. Probably just my nerves conjuring up footsteps where there are none. I continue deeper into the library.
Sebastien’s journals are exactly where I left them, the temperature-control fan inside humming softly. I arrange my blankets and pillows, then open the glass door and take out all of the notebooks, stacking them neatly and carefully on the carpet. The leather is buttery soft, the edges of the oldest journals worn and well loved.
Once I’m settled in my reading nest, though, I just stare at the notebooks. IthinkI want to know what’s inside them…but do I really? This is the precipice either where I retreat and keep my perfect Story Sebastien safe in my head, or where I take a leap after Real Sebastien, without regard to whether I fall or fly.
But my world has already been turned upside down and shaken in all directions, hasn’t it? I’m no longer a minor reporter at a newspaper, the job I’ve held for so many years. I don’t have a marriage anymore. And I’ve already seen my invented character walk and talk in real life, and my private stories rendered in antique oil paintings. There’s no stepping back from that; I’m already over the precipice, even if I’m clinging to a lone, scraggly branch hanging over the cliff’s edge.
I take a deep breath and open the closest notebook: The private journal of Felix Montague.
Bern, Switzerland—July 10, 1559
I am a clockmaker now. Not a master, nor an apprentice. Rather, I keep myself staunchly in between; I like it that way. I come into the shop every morning at quarter past seven and greet Johann Miller, the old, revered artisan who oversees the four clockmakers here. After that, I gather my tools and walk over to my project for the day. It’s usually a complicated, gold-plated monstrance clock or sometimes an heirloom display piece; I enjoy being entrusted with my clients’ most valuable treasures.
At nine o’clock, I pause forznüni,a midmorning break for a small bite to eat. I always have a pastry of my own invention, one I bake at home and bring to work wrapped neatly in paper. The pastry is filled with chocolate hazelnut cream and scents the workshop with a near-magical aroma of butter, heady yeast, and featherlight sugar like snowfall. It is my Juliet’s favorite—consistent through every lifetime—and I have a cornetto every morning to keep her with me, especially in the long years that I’m alone. It’s these small indulgences that get me through an eternity mostly spent waiting.
When the clock strikes noon, the shop closes for an hour for lunch. Most others in town flock to the cafés with views of the Alps or Bern’s landmark clock tower. But today I felt the urge to try something different. A customer yesterday had mentioned Café Hier, a quaint, homey restauranttucked into the Nuessle Inn. I took a left at the fork in the cobblestone streets while the other clockmakers took a right.
There were a handful of other diners at Café Hier, but the space was small enough that it required only one waitress. There were no windows, and the beams of the ceiling were so low I felt a touch claustrophobic and began to second-guess my decision to eat there, rather than in the wide-open outdoor cafés of the main square.
But then the waitress came to greet me, and everything around me fell away because I tasted honeyed wine on my lips.
Juliet.
I forgot all about the low ceiling. I could’ve been in an underground cavern for all I cared, because this waitress—Juliet—was the only view I needed. She was, as ever, brighter than the sun, and more dazzling than any clock tower or Swiss mountain range could ever be.
