Page 49 of The Art of Vanishing

Five Years Later

“So,” Marguerite said. “I read your little project.”

I was surprised. It had been about half a decade since I’d first started trying to put my story down on paper.

Odette had been, as promised, a gracious first reader.

She never mocked me, even when I’m sure I deserved it.

About halfway through my first draft, she gently asked if I was interested in her feedback.

I practically begged her for her thoughts and, as anyone could have guessed, they made it better.

It took me about a year to get it all down. By then, our peers had started whispering about us; we spent every night together, after all. In an effort to dispel false rumors, I accidentally told them all the truth. We weren’t in a relationship; Odette was just helping me with my book.

A mistake on my part, I’ll admit. I had no idea how starved everyone around us also was for any new kind of entertainment.

I was presented, a few weeks later, with a sheet of names with the order in which they’d signed up to reserve time to read my pages.

I thanked them for their enthusiasm, but politely declined sharing what I’d written. No one understood, of course.

But when the writing was done, I felt my mind changing.

This story wasn’t just mine. It was ours.

This place belonged to us, no matter what any documents of ownership may say, and so did the events that had occurred here.

I wanted to share it, I was surprised to find after a bit of self-examination.

And I thought I’d done a pretty good job of getting it all down.

A part of me wanted to see if they agreed.

On it had gone, to have a life of its own in the hands of others. I offered to copy it over, make a second version that could circulate in tandem, but I could never find someone in the chain who was willing to wait to read it once their turn had arrived.

I’d lost track of where it was in the building, allowing it to go on its own way.

Which is why I was shocked to know it had made its way to Marguerite.

She had exhibited visible disinterest at first, embarrassed by the attention I was drawing to myself and by relation, to her.

After giving me the silent treatment for quite some time, she began to thaw as the praise dissipated. Apparently, she’d fully melted.

“I was bored; it was time for a change,” she answered my unasked question.

“What did you think?” I asked.

“It was good. I liked it. I came off quite wise, didn’t I? A little aloof, but…”

“But that’s how you like to be.”

“Yes, well, I’m glad you wrote it down.” We were settling into our usual seats, the sun rising in the sky for yet another day. I opened a fresh notebook in my lap, a pen surreptitiously tucked up my sleeve. I was working on something else as covertly as I could.

“Thank you,” I said. Pierre had slipped back into the room and sprang up onto the piano bench next to Marguerite.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” we chorused as we heard the front doors open on the floor below.

Hours passed and I drifted away into the day, my mind chewing on ideas for my current work in progress. I had lost track of the time until a young girl stopped directly in front of me. Her dark hair was plaited, and she looked incredibly familiar. I could hardly believe my own eyes.

“Is this the one, Mom?” she called over her shoulder. As if everything was moving in slow motion, Claire appeared like a dream in the doorway. She looked at me first, her eyes meeting mine in greeting, before taking in the rest of the room.

Little had changed in the gallery since she was last here.

Yes, people no longer wore coverings over their faces and walked comfortably within six feet of one another again.

But I was in exactly the same place where she’d left me, as were the benches she had once dusted.

Even the empty plinth hadn’t moved an inch.

Claire had changed. She looked stronger, sturdier on her feet.

Her dark hair fell down her back, bangs covering her forehead.

They flattered her, as did the little crinkles next to her eyes as she smiled at me.

She walked up next to her daughter, who was already the same height as her, though she couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

Together they stood exactly at my eye level.

“That’s him, right?” her daughter asked again. “The guy you told me about?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s him.”

At the sound of her voice, everything inside me crackled. In putting her down on paper, I’d inadvertently disentangled us, just a bit. Now she was back, wrapping herself up in my story again.

“He’s cute,” Luna said, drawing out the u sound into multiple syllables. Claire bumped her with her hip, laughing as she did so.

“I know,” she said shyly. “He really is. He’s too young for me, though.” Claire caught the look on her daughter’s face and quickly warned, “And way too old for you.”

“He looks so real. Like I could just reach right through and touch him.” Luna let out a big sigh. “I wish you still worked here,” she said. “This place rocks.”

“That was a different chapter of my life. You wouldn’t like it if I was working nights again; we wouldn’t get to watch TV together anymore.”

“Yeah, good point. But can we at least come back sometime soon?”

Claire replied, “We definitely can,” while looking straight into my eyes. Her daughter had her by the hand now and was pulling her into the next room. Claire repositioned their hands so their fingers wound together and walked out in step with her.

In and out, people continued in pairs, groups, by themselves, as if nothing notable had happened here today, their world so close to ours, running parallel but never touching.