Page 34 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
And so, I have fallen headlong in love with Meg Smith. She is a clever twenty-eight-year-old schoolteacher, so beloved by her students that they follow her around as if they were her own brood, even when lessons are done. Because of that, our days are consumed with tiny voices laughing, and I declare it the most wonderful sound in all the world. I hope to soon start a family of our own.
Suffice it to say, I traveled to the United States to discover new plants, but instead, I have discovered a new version of myself. Like the Buddhists of Tibet, I feel as if I have been reincarnated, granted another chance to live, to do it better this time than in the past. Meg is my salvation—please forgive my mingling of religious similes—and I am ever grateful to be in her presence.
But enough about me. How are you, my dear friend? I hope the tincture ofHarpagophytum procumbensroot that I sent along last month has helped with your aching joints. Please send word when you have a chance. I miss our gin-tinged conversations by the fire.
Ever Yours,
Charles
P.S. One of Meg’s students whittled this unicorn for you. Consider it your winnings from our wager.
Not long after, I receive a short letter from Richard, written in a much shakier hand than I’m accustomed to from my old friend.
Dear Charles,
I was quite cheered to hear of your happiness with Meg. I’ve oft worried that you buried yourself too deeply in the world of fauna, and too rarely in the bright company of women.
It is dreadfully wet here—why does the rain favour England so? I hope the sun shines more generously on you in New York than it does on me in Oxford. Thank you for theHarpagophytum procumbens.It has, indeed, provided relief to my rheumy joints.
All the best to you, Meg, and the little angels who surround you.
With Fondness,
Richard
It is a surprisingly short letter from a man well known for his verbosity. But a month later, an explanation arrives via telegram from his sister, informing me that Richard has passed away peacefully in his sleep. He hadn’t been well for some time.
I press the telegram to my chest. I never get to keep those I love for long.
As if on cue, Meg contracts tuberculosis the next day. The disease takes her swiftly, painfully. And my only consolation is that she got to live a fulfilling life before I crossed her path and ruined it.
It’s hardly any consolation at all.
HELENE
Adam told me that Sebastienisn’t as tough as he looks, and this close, I’m beginning to see the cracks in the facade. On the surface, it seems like Sebastien hopes I’ll fall off a very high, very jagged cliff, possibly because I keep turning up at the places he considers his turf—his favorite bar, his local bookstore, his boat. And hishouse.
But he also does these inexplicably gentle things, like leaving my books for me at theAlacrityoffice, and cradling my twisted ankle as if touching my skin is a balm for his broken soul. That’s not how you treat someone you suspect as a stalker. Sebastien is inconsistent, and that makes me wonder whether his hostility is an act. But I don’t know why he’d do that for a complete stranger.
Unless I’m not a stranger. Unless, like me, he’s also nursing an impossibility. Maybe not a decades-long crush on an imaginary friend who suddenly appeared in real life, but something else equally baffling that Sebastien’s afraid to say out loud for fear of sounding crazy.
But when I say, “Perfect. Then you have plenty of time toexplain why you’re such an asshole to me, when apparently you’re a saint to everybody else,” he just armors up. Drawbridge raised, moat full of serpents, archers at the ready on the castle walls. Sebastien becomes more reticent than he already is, and there’s no way to break through that fortress.
He gets up and says, “I’ll show you your room,” then starts down a long hall without offering to help me further. He walks slowly, but I’m even slower, half hopping, half hobbling.
The house isimmense.We pass the entryway again (I think “foyer” is a more fitting name, given its size and all the marble), then a library, then an open, museum-like space full of sculptures on pedestals and glass cases of things I can’t make out from here. There’s a massive floating staircase made of gorgeously polished wood that could be a cover shot forArchitectural Digest,but we walk by it, staying on the first floor.
Finally, we arrive at a guest suite on the other side of the house.
“Fully functional kitchenette.” Sebastien points at a stove, microwave, refrigerator, and round table. “Bedroom and bathroom through that door, clean linens in the closet. I’ll go get food for you.”
“Wow. This is—”
But he’s already gone.
I sigh and sink down onto the mattress; my ankle sends thankful shivers of relief to my brain. The suite has the same rustic but modern lodge feel as the rest of the house—lots of reclaimed wood stained dark, and glass and metal accents, like the reading sconces on either side of the headboard, as well as all the fixtures in the bathroom.
Sebastien returns ten minutes later with coffee beans, milk, bread, eggs, cheese, deli meats, dried pasta, and tomato sauce. He puts two plastic containers into the freezer. “That should be enough food for a few days.”
