Page 93 of Exquisite Things

He seems to exhale gratefully when I say this. “Then what’s going on?”

“I suppose I wanted a redo of Paris. I wanted the city of love to be something new for me. Not a place that houses lonely memories. I hated Paris when I lived there. I was all alone. It’s a terrible city to be alone in. Lovers everywhere. I let myself believe life had cursed me. Thatyouhad cursed me.”

We rarely talk about the lives we led apart from each other. What is there to say, really, other than that they were lost and lonely years for us both? Sometimes debauched. Often merely dull. A well of experience that amounts to nothing but more longing.

He raises a curious eyebrow, wondering what I’ll say next.

“But then I came here,” I continue. “And we started this new life. And I felt... happy.”

“Past tense?” he asks.

I try to find the right words. What I come up with is, “I guess—I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel... haunted.”

“Haunted?” he repeats.

“By a premonition,” I say. “Don’t tell me I’m being silly. I feel something shifting.”

“In us? In you? In the world?”

I nod. “Yes. All of it. And it’s not... I know I can be melancholy... Lily sees it, I know it, I’m sure you’ve seen it too. But this is different. This feels... like a warning inside me.”

He puts his head on my belly. I haven’t even gone downstairs to eat. I can only imagine what the rumbling of my stomach must sound like to him. Perhaps like the avalanche of change I know is coming.

“All you’re saying is that things are changing,” he says. “I feel it too. It’s a new day. A new time. That’s just reality. Things must change, but maybe for the better.”

“You’re not listening,” I say. “What I’m saying is that I’m scared.What I’m saying is I’m not ready for things to change. I liked us the way we were.”

“Then let’s be the way we were.” Bram raises a fist up like Rosie the Riveter. “We can do it!”

I almost laugh.

“Be sad, be angry, be scared,” he says. “But we’re still us. Lily is still Lily. Maud is still Maud. Don’t mourn the life you love before it’s been taken from you.”

Those words wake something up in me. “I’m starving,” I say.

“Then let’s go warm up some food for you.”

Bram pulls me out of bed with a smile. We both throw clothes on.

Changeling follows us as we descend the stairs toward the sound of Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand singing together. Bram takes my hand in his. “You know, perhaps it’s for the best we didn’t go. You know what Oscar Wilde said about Paris.”

“What?” I ask.

“When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” He holds my hand. “And you, Oliver, are definitely a good American. And I for one am very happy that you’re here, now, young enough to enjoy this moment with me.”

“We’ll alwaysnothave Paris,” I say with a smile as I mangle the famous quote.

He laughs. “There he is. The Oliver I know and love is back. It was just a passing cloud.”

He’s right. I feel like myself again. But what happens if someday the cloud returns and never passes by me? Is that what happened to Cyril all those years ago? Was he swallowed up by a storm cloud of sadness?

We join Lily and Maud in belting the song as I heat some foodon the stove.Enough is enough is enough.Yes, the clouds will come back. Of course they will. They can’t all be sunny days. But that’s another day. Not this one. Hopefully not tomorrow either. I smile, laugh, dance. I feel myself be the Oliver everyone loves. Sweet. The one who laughs at their jokes and follows their leads.

And yet...

Thoughts swirl inside me, little dark premonitions that I know will grow in size with time. Premonitions and unanswerable questions. If good Americans go to Paris when they die, then where do we go... not when we die, but when we’ve had enough of this turning world? When we’re ready to rest in peace?

I can’t go on, I can’t go on no more, no.