Page 55 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
“Fair enough. Then tell me about a bunch that you’ve loved.”
He begins with The Mistborn Saga, a series about gentlemen thieves who use magic to pull off an epic heist. It’s a series that I also adore, and I’m surprisingly pleased that Sebastien likes fantasy. After hearing him mention José Saramago at Shipyard Books, I’d pegged Sebastien as the smug kind of reader who only read Nobel Prize winners and looked down their nose at everyone else. Instead, it turns out that he just readseverything.Even in this short time of getting to know him, he seems to have two feet on the ground.Romeo and Julietcurse theory notwithstanding.
I continue talking to Sebastien about his favorite books, peppering him with questions while I stay upstairs, winding my waythrough the labyrinth of bookcases. I pause for a moment as my fingers brush against the spines of the British literature section, freezing over a worn copy ofRomeo and Juliet.But then I shake out my hand and turn the corner to browse another section of shelves.
It’s a dead end with a couple of library carts in it, the kind with wheels, used for reshelving books. The carts are half full with what look like relatively new purchases that Sebastien hasn’t put away yet.
Because I’m a nosy journalist, I walk over to thumb through what he’s bought recently.
That’s when I see that this dead end isn’t just for carts. Behind them is a small black bookcase, made of metal instead of wood like the floor-to-ceiling shelves that populate the library. The bookcase has a glass door with a handle on it—almost like a wine fridge—and it’s full of slim leather journals.
Being a lover of notebooks myself, I slide the glass door open, curious. Cool air gusts out.
Temperature controlled. Interesting. Maybe rare first editions?
“Helene?” Sebastien calls from downstairs. “I’m going to the kitchen to brew more coffee. Do you want anything?”
“No, I’m good, thanks.”
While he’s gone, I reach into the strange bookcase and pull out one of the volumes at random. It’s old leather, beat up on the edges. I turn to the first page.
It’s written in neat, slanting Italian, and I’m grateful that Dad made that offhand suggestion years ago that I learn Juliet’s native language.
The private journal of Reynier Montague
I gasp.
My vignette about Kitri and Reynier in Shanghai.
I almost shove the journal back onto the shelf, because I didn’t want to deal with the intersections of my stories and Sebastien’s tonight.
But then I think maybe Reynier is just a popular name. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.
I flip open the journal. The first entry is dated July 10, 1920, and it’s about meeting Kitri Wagner on The Bund. My hands tremble. The story is almost identical to the vignette I wrote. Kitri on a bench on the quay, sketching the pretty ladies coming and going from the society clubs. Reynier strolling behind her, sneaking a peek at her work, then inviting her for afternoon tea of dumplings and crayfish.
Did it really happen?
And if so, how did it end? My vignette wrapped up after Kitri said yes to tea. But if this journal is what it seems—the diary of a Romeo past—then that means Kitri was Juliet. And Sebastien said things always end badly for them.
I should put the journal back. I should give myself this night off, protect my fatigued mind. And I shouldn’t pry like this if it’s really a diary.
But now that I’ve read the first part, I can’t stop. I can hardly breathe as I skim the rest of Reynier’s journal, flying through pages of their courtship, of happier times. There are months of entries, painstakingly recorded as if the writer couldn’t bear to part with a single detail—the charcoal pencil smudged beneath Kitri’s fingernails on a particular Monday morning; a seagull with one leg that she stopped to feed on their way to a speakeasy-style nightclub; and how she always insisted on eating dessert before her meal, because she preferred to fill her stomach with sweets first, and vegetables only if there was any space remaining afterward.
There is dancing and flapper dresses, Big Band jazz and elegant cocktails. But what I desperately want to know is what ultimately happened to Kitri and Reynier. I keep turning pages, thinking there will never be an end to their Roaring Twenties romance, when suddenly it comes to an abrupt halt, a little over half a year after it started.
December 25, 1920
I knocked on the Wagners’ front door. It was quite early to visit—the sun had not yet risen—but it was Christmas morning, and after her father gave me his blessing last nightafter supper, I was too eager to surprise Kitri with the best Christmas gift of all—a ring.
But no one answered the door.
Dread crept up my throat, bitter with the taste of the past. A portent I was all too familiar with.
You’re jumping to conclusions,I tried to convince myself. They’re simply still asleep.
Even if the Wagners hadn’t risen, though, where was Gerald, the butler? Or Helga, Kitri’s stern German nursemaid who’d become their housekeeper?
I knocked louder. Again, no answer.
