What My Flowers Said Ch. 01-03

1

Yes. A sunny balcony would be nice, I thought, circling another listing in crimson ink. Or maybe a roof garden. I could plant rosemary, and violets. I could paint. I bit the top of my pen and skimmed down the column to another number that didn't threaten to ruin me.

'Sur la rue Villeray. 3 1/2 chauffé. 1 chambre, style ouvert. Plancher bois franc. Disponible immédiatement. 500 $'

It was more than a little humiliating that after two years in a francophone province, my ability to decipher written French remained about as pitiful as it had been in middle school. Luckily, those apartments I could almost afford seemed to have much less to say for themselves than did the posh downtown condominiums, and modern pieds-à-terre.

A little longer, I breathed, and maybe I can spoil myself with some sunlight. I shut my eyes and dreamed of the August sun, lashing my skin with hot, muggy rays of golden goodness, until I glowed all over, warm and red.

"Hm-hm-hm," a pale man cleared his throat, and slid a small box of metal doodads across the counter for my inspection, "Pardon, Mademoiselle. Ça coûte combien?"

Shattering my daydream, his heavy flannel and fleece trapper cruelly reaffirmed that I was not back home in North Carolina; that I was in Montreal, that it was November, and that it was a blasphemous seven degrees below zero outside. Centigrade, that is—I never did quite grasp the conversion to what I still considered the real temperature. I studied his little box of gismos.

"Um, a loonie each?" I offered.

In fact it really didn't much matter. As best I could tell, Madame d'Aulnoir, proprietrix of Auntie de Luvien's Bric-à-Brac, was left quite comfortable in the will of her latest late husband. As she told me a few weeks earlier during my job interview with a grin that was at once nostalgic and pathologically kooky, she'd outlived five of them and counting. And now she ran her shop as though it was her own perpetual rummage sale; a chance to redistribute all the clutter, clothes, and curios she'd spent five lifetimes amassing.

"I'd like two," said the man, plunging a freckled hand into his pocket.

I rang it up on the ancient, brass cash register. The knell of its little bell summoned Madame from beyond a tasseled curtain, and she floated to my side like a silken jellyfish.

"Oh, you found the kakehari!" she sang, plucking up one of the mysterious items. "Do you know what these were for, Penny?"

I stole a glance at the Mora clock along the far wall—still twenty minutes to closing time. Madame d'Aulnoir was sweet and profoundly generous, but there was a part of me that suspected she'd managed to murder her five unfortunate husbands by literally talking them to death. Still, just before expounding upon this particular bit of obsolete objet d'art, she paused—catching my clock-ward gaze—and in an uncommon act of oratorical mercy, said, "We'll save that one for some other time. Let me get a bag for you, Monsieur."

He shuffled out, and Madame followed him to the door, flipping the sign from 'ouvert' to 'fermé' once he was gone.

"Somewhere to be tonight, chérie?" She turned, smiling pertly.

"My friend Marie—the one I'm living with," I closed up the cash register, "She got us into this ritzy gallery opening in Mile End. She knows the curator, I think."

I tried hard not to overemphasize the word knows. I roomed with Marie during our final year of undergrad at McGill, and since dropping out of my Master's program just eight weeks in, I'd been sleeping on her sofa. In the entire time I'd known her, I think she'd spent less than a couple dozen nights alone. Marie was a free spirit—the sort that owned ponchos; believed in palm readings, and horoscopes; the sort that didn't mind someone crashing in her living room for weeks on end.

"Ooh, très chic," Madame pursed her lips and began gliding back my direction, her chin raised to scrutinize me through her bifocals. "But what will you wear?"

I shifted uncomfortably. Though we were closing early, I knew there wouldn't be much time to go back to Marie's and clean up beforehand. Even if there was, I really didn't have anything more lavish than what I'd worn to work that morning. My current wardrobe consisted mostly of old jeans, plaid shirts, collegiate hoodies, and enough fuzzy, flannel pajamas to provision a militia. All the little sundresses and sleeveless blouses I'd left hanging in a closet at my parents' cottage back in Nags Head.

"This, I guess," I shrugged.

Still squinting at me, Madame shook her head in disapproval.

"Wait here, chérie," she said, and without another word, vanished again behind the curtain.

I could hear her heels tip-tapping up the old, walnut staircase to her chambers as I went about the labyrinthine aisles, gingerly placing displays of bone china back into their respective cupboards. I knew she was fetching me an outfit. I wrinkled my brow, imagining myself as Mathilde from that de Maupassantstory—doomed to slave away here for ten years after spilling red wine on some vintage haute couture of preposterous expense.

Catching sight of my reflection in a silver tea tray, I tried half-heartedly to tame my flyaways. Though I wasn't exactly anxious to show up to a swank gallery soiree looking like—in my Mother's words—a ragamuffin, it would finally force me to see what the art scene was really like in Montreal. My autumn, up to then, was rife with failures, setbacks, and procrastinations.

Following that fateful night at Marie's, when her relentless goading and too much merlot emboldened me, at last, to renounce my academic enterprises and strike out on my own, I'd not stopped to entertain the possibility that a couple months later I might be just another shopgirl; up to my eyeballs in college debt, essentially homeless, a soon-to-be illegal foreign national, and no closer to making my way as a painter than I was in lecture hall, scribbling down the lines of succession for Picasso's orgy of mistresses.

Truth be told, I never quite fell into step with all the savants and intellectuals at the University, and I was afraid another few years surrounded by them might be enough to exterminate everything I adored about art. I just wasn't cut out for it. When I walked through an old gallery and saw some lovely little Manet or Cassatt, not once did I feel the urge to vivisect it. What I did feel was wonder, admiration, and—more than anything else—desire to make my own little magnificent something; to craft my own kind of beauty.

But artiste, as an identity, was never a real option for me either. Much as I admired the daring of the hippest of the hipsters, and of the bohemian avant-garde, I had never—not once in my life—been mistaken for cool. The dernier cri of fleeting countercultures passed me like car horns on a wet street below my window. I could hear them, and sometimes I might poke my head out to have a look, but I was never, ever on board. If I was going to be remembered as a painter, it would be as an Emily Dickinson of painters—living like a shadow, laboring quietly in some lonely garden.

Marie Rousseaumeanwhile, my only real confidante, was a dancer, and that meant several things: one, that she was never home. With her it was either rehearsal, the studio, or the gym, and all remaining hours were to be divvied up evenly among a bustling queue of impressive men, all anxious for their chance at her gorgeous, leggy frame. And two, that there was no solid food to be found in the apartment. Anywhere. So after two months of trying the 'starving artist' gig, I'd pretty much mastered the starving, and all the artist had amounted to was a half dozen or so sloppy red oils of the chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. I chose the chapel because it sat right across from a little cafe that Marie's brother ran in Old Montreal. I did them in red because it was the only oil I had left that hadn't dried out.

Honestly, I don't quite know what pushed me to keep painting it. Steeples and stained glass were scarcely my specialty, and it was only under duress—and a condition of absolute anonymity—that I consented to let Marie and her brother hang them up around the cafe. Suffice to say, Carr's 'Indian Church,' or Georgia O'Keefe's 'Ranchos No. II'they were not. But still, between its timidity of size in a city bestrewn with huge basilicas, and its lonely Virgin gazing out across the snowy harbor, I sort of sympathized with the sailor's chapel, and found myself doodling its portrait each time I went.

Besides, riding down to Rue Saint Paul on the weekends with Marie, just to wander around the stone streets and gratify my Latin Quarter fantasies remained one of the few things I loved enough about the city to suffer through another awful winter up north. Plus it didn't hurt, I suppose, that Marie's brother made the best caffè mocha in the Western Hemisphere, and had a very chivalrous habit of forgetting to bring us our bill.

Making my way to the end of the aisle, I replaced the box of metal thing-a-ma-jigs with the rest of the sewing supplies, and started dusting down Madame's little corner of antique horse tack. She had hobbles, and saddles, and bits, and bridles, and an entire umbrella stand full of dressage whips and riding crops. I always saved this corner for last, relishing the smell of the soft, worn leather. But how she ever wound up with all this junk, I wiped down the long, smooth shaft of a crop with my rag, bending its tongue across the flat of my palm, I'll never understand.

Finishing up,I wandered back toward the counter where Madame awaited me, cradling a blue garment bag like Michelangelo's Pietà. Shame, I scolded myself. You should go to mass this week.

"This," she grinned, "is just the thing," and whipping away the bag with a magician's finesse, she revealed a 60's-style sack dress, patterned like a painting of Piet Mondrian's.

"Far out," I breathed, genuinely awed.

"It's a real Saint Laurent," she cooed, smoothing out an imaginary crease. "Don't ask me how old it is. Just know that in London, I wore this little number to the Scotch when Jackie O was still Jackie K."

The way she said 'Jacque-ee' made me smile, and I whistled as she handed me the hanger. I knew better than to ask any details about Madame's rollicking past. If I did, she'd probably still be prattling on long after I was dead. But from time to time, I couldn't help but wonder what sort of fiery femme fatale she must've been. I held the dress up. Wow. It's short.

She clapped her hands, "Oh, the boys will be throwing themselves at your feet, chérie!"

I blushed.

"It reminds me," she leaned forward onto her elbows, speaking in confidence, "Have I told you how I met my second husband, Penny? It was in Nice, at the Hotel Negresco. I could not afford it, of course, but I had romantic ideas, chérie. I was a young widow. I was going to lose my dead husband's money at the casino, and throw myself into the sea."

Uh-oh. Here we go. I shifted my weight.

"Well, my baggage took the wrong train out of Madrid, so all I could wear for three days was the little Givenchy robe de soirée I had with me. Can you imagine?" she rolled her eyes, dreamily. "There I was, Penny, drinking coffee at sunrise on the Baie des Anges, dolled up like Audrey at one of her premieres."

She struck a pose straight out of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and I snickered.

"Even for the Riviera, it was outrageous, no? And he spotted me from halfway across the Promenade. He sauntered over, sat himself down, lit a cigarette, and offered me ten thousand francs for an hour in his suite." She clapped, "He thought I was une jeune fille de la nuit! Do you know what I said to him, Penny?"

I shook my head.

"Not a word," she set her hands on her hips, "I just poured my coffee in his lap, and stormed off. But he was persistent, chérie. He sought me out in the casino. Sent ninety-two red tulips to my room. He said he wanted to fly me all around the world, chérie. He was a pilot, of course. Did I tell you that? And how was I to say no? Nine weeks later, we were married in Rome. Or was it nine-and-a-half?" She shrugged, grinning brightly, "Qui se souvient? But we had our honeymoon in Santorini. Have you ever seen the Greek Isles, Penny?"

Again, I shook my head. I breathed steadily, preserving my patience.

"Only in photos, Madame."

"Oh, you must go someday. Vraiment, every young lady must make love in Greece. But I remember, we went sailing one day. I was laying out on the bow, bare as I dared. He was leering at me like a demon. And he said to me, chérie..." She squinted, "Wait—what did he say?"

Her voice trailed off, and I seized the opening.

"You really don't mind me borrowing it?" I held the dress up, my eyes pleading.

"Penny, j'insiste," she smiled, placing her hand over mine. Then, her voice sobering, "But stain or rip it, and I will have you flogged in the streets."

I froze, feeling her out. I'm definitely Mathilde, I thought grimly. She matched my stare a moment, spluttered, then doubled over, cackling.

"Oh, the look on your face, chérie. Go. Go put it on," she shooed me away, "At least one of us girls should s'envoyer en l'air tonight, no?"

I flushed scarlet, holding the dress up to shield my face as I made for the changing room; embarrassed, but grateful. I had a gown for the ball.

The truth was, I hadn't been with anyone since before transferring up here in the middle of my junior year—not that I'd been looking to. At that point, the men in whose company I was most interested were either made of metal or stone. And I was a lot less grasping than Pygmalion. I liked them as statues, and I was just fine with them staying that way. Besides, I'm not sure how many guys could measure up to the likes of Danti's 'Honor,' or the 'Perseus' of Cellini. My degree did, if nothing else, qualify me to find the failures of a human form.

Now, slipping out my blouse and skirt, I studied the trembling girl in the mirror. I remembered reading somewhere that 'nude' was wedged into our vocabulary by a bunch of artists in the sixteenth century. They wanted a word for the body that could imply balance, poise, and beauty—whereas 'naked' was just about being vulnerable; all huddled, helpless torso, and entangled limbs. In depictions of the Last Judgment, the nudes ascend to heaven, and the naked go to hell. I thought of the poor girl in the corner of van der Weyden's polyptych, crawling on all fours, a bodiless arm dragging her by the hair into the darkness.

My teeth chattered as a draft passed through the stall. Personally, with my clothes off, I'd never felt like I was anything but naked. The mirror was old. It had the smoky complexion of a cataract, making my reflection ghostly, and a little out of focus. It didn't matter. I knew my faults like the words of the Hail Mary.

The naked girl's green eyes gazed back at me—not the dazzling green of jade, or emeralds, but pale and glossy, like a blade of wet grass. She worried that her mouth wasn't wide enough, and that her elbows were too pointy. She blushed easily and all over. A blue comment could turn her, in a flash, from titanium white to alizarin red. And you could tell by the way she walked on her toes that she was accustomed to being the smallest person in the room. With the tip of my finger, I traced the curving surgical scar that stretched from her left shoulder all the way down to the edge of her elbow. I sighed.

It's going to show.

2

Stepping off the Metro at Laurier, for the first time in ages I really did feel—as Madame d'Aulnoir declared—très chic. The patent leather go-go boots she tried convincing me to wear having proven too comical, I still stood five inches higher than usual in a pair of strappy black stilettos. Which is what, some dozen centimeters? I smiled nervously. The dress looked übersexy, and I'd been the subject of several forbidding stares on the short ride down from Saint-Michel.

On the platform, I about-faced to give my hair and makeup a last inspection in the train window. Some part of me knew it was shallow, but ever since I was little, pilfering my Mother's eye shadow and mascara from her purse, I'd secretly adored doing my makeup. I think I discovered lipstick before colored pencils. Tonight, I'd painted on a dramatic violet eye, like something I saw once in a Fellini movie, and watched my reflection mimic a celluloid film reel, jumping from window to window as the train sped away.

My clutch buzzed. Inside, I found the pale glow of a text message.

*U there yet??? I have a surprise for you!*

Marie's libidinous alto read aloud in my head. Surprise? I wondered sullenly if she had designs to set me up again with one of her peripheral admirers. It seemed inconceivable to her that I actually enjoyed my solitude; that I saw a silver lining in being alone. Rooting deeper, I pulled out the slip of paper on which she'd scribbled the address, and started walking—well, tiptoeing really—gladdened that the gallery was only a couple short blocks away.

A miasma of snowflakes scattered across the escalators as I approached, escaping from the snowy streets above. I sniffed, my nose already running, and pulled the lapels of my pea coat closer. I swear, from October through the Ides of March, I could never, ever get warm enough, and always contracted what seemed like an overlapping cavalcade of colds. I guess that's why after only two winters, my coat was already threadbare and beginning to fray. I sniffled again, ascending. Up at the top, I couldn't help but wonder if rather than the designer pillowcase I had on, I ought to have commandeered from Madame's collection an ice fisherman's jacket instead. They call it unfroid sec, 'a dry cold' up in Quebec. They say it's not as bad as could be. I say they're plein de merde.

I was half-frozen before I took two steps by outside, and still that didn't stop me from passing by the entrance twice before getting up the nerve to go inside. The gallery was more intimidating than I'm expected. From the sidewalk, I could hear talk women laughing, and the muffled oomp of what sounded like a sacrilegious mash-up of a Nina Simone song. This is going to be painful, I realized, and wondered how long my outfit would disguise that fact that I was both broke, and congenitally uncool. I took a deep breath and pulled open the door.

"Bonsoir. Je peux vous aider, Mademoiselle?"

A severe looking woman in a black, vaguely Japanese cocktail dress appeared in front of me as I stepped across the threshold. Her eyes were fastened to a list in her palm.

"Umm... Penny Foster?" I murmured, apologetic.

She scanned up and down until her long, lacquered nail selected a line.

"Penelope Foster, no?" She contemned, still not quite deigning to look at me.

I nodded, "oui, Madame."

I hated the sound of my given name. But having procured the proverbial 'open sesame,' she stepped aside and let me through. I lowered my eyes and crept past her, reluctantly trading my coat for a red ticket at the counter.

Inside, it was a typical upscale gallery—historic building, exposed rafters, white walls, dark floors. The paintings hung from the ceiling, suspended by thin wires of braided steel. Marie, meanwhile, was nowhere in sight. I took a few steps back into the corner, where I was guarded on one side by a tall, spiky obelisk of rusted iron, and texted her.

*i'm here*

My phone buzzed a moment later.