Page 9 of The Art of Vanishing

Jean

We crashed to the floor. My upper and lower jaws collided and sent reverberations throughout my skull.

Once I had come back to my senses, I whipped my head around, desperate to make sure that Claire was okay.

She was a few feet away from me, pushing herself onto her feet. I rushed over to offer her a hand.

“Claire…” I began, unsure of where to go next.

I was suddenly aware of my bizarre pronunciation, my English sticky with my accent, and of the croak in my voice that betrayed how many hours it had been since I’d last spoken aloud.

My throat had gone groggy since Marguerite and Pierre had left for the night.

No need to continue on, for she interrupted me.

“You know my name?” she questioned as she looked around, trying to comprehend if this could possibly be real. Or, more likely, knowing it couldn’t possibly be so, and trying to figure out what had just happened. She rubbed at the back of her head like she had just hit it on something.

I nodded. “I can hear you, you know, out there.” I gestured to the gallery she had just stood in.

“You can?”

“I can. I listen to everything you tell me.” She smiled at that, but I could tell she was attempting to mentally catalog all her ramblings of the past few months.

“Oh” was all she responded. She shuffled her feet a bit. “Sorry for all my, my blabbering. And my singing, oh god…”

“No, no, please don’t apologize. I love to listen. It’s the best part of my day, every day, when you get here, no matter what you say. Or sing. I don’t mind. I like it.”

Claire looked startled, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of my compliment or because of the startling amount of intimacy I had with her already.

I looked at her again, hardly able to believe my eyes that she was here.

Her awestruck face betrayed the same feelings.

“That’s really nice of you. To say. You don’t have to say that. ”

“But I mean it.”

“I can’t believe this—like, really, I can’t even wrap my mind around this.

So, it’s, like, old-fashioned in here?” She ran her hand along the edge of the piano, just above its surface, as if she was afraid to actually touch it.

“I feel like if I press down on it, I’m going to smudge the paint even though I’m sure it’s been dry after… how many years?”

“More than a hundred,” I said.

“Oh my god, I don’t think you’re supposed to touch a hundred-year-old painting, much less stomp around inside it. What if I hurt something? Did I hurt you?” she asked, suddenly assessing the state of my hand.

I held it up and wiggled my fingers, the paint not at all smudged. “All is well over here.”

“Thank god.” She exhaled a sigh of relief.

“I couldn’t stand to be that girl who ruined a masterpiece.

If I got caught. Oh my god, could I get caught?

” She rushed back to the edge of the painting, but the gallery was deserted.

She stopped when she saw the watery texture of the translucent divide between my world and hers.

“So, this is what it looks like when you look out into the room? A little wavy, like looking through an old window?” I joined her and nodded.

She looked down at her skin, which was as smooth as it always was.

I pulled up my shirtsleeve, revealing my forearm and allowing us to compare.

They both took up the same three dimensions, but my skin looked like someone had covered me lightly with oil paint.

“How freaking cool is that,” Claire said.

She was looking around for something to do and saw my bow on the ground. “I think you dropped this.” She picked it up and returned it to me.

“Look,” I said, gesturing to where she’d gripped the bow.

“The paint is fine. I don’t think you have to be worried about what you touch.

” She nodded but continued with a delicate hand.

I found the violin that had fallen from my hand when I’d reached to pull her in.

I placed it with the bow in their usual spots on the piano.

“This is so insane. Where do we even begin? I guess I don’t know your name, but you know mine? Do you even have a name? Wow, okay, saying that out loud it sounds so rude. I didn’t mean it in any kind of bad way.” Claire was speaking quickly, the words tumbling out.

I laughed, wishing I could put us both somewhat more at ease. “I have a name. It’s Jean.”

“Jean,” she repeated, mimicking my pronunciation. It rolled off her tongue like an inside joke. I wanted to do whatever I needed to so she’d say it again. “So, um, have you done this with many women?”

I snorted before reminding myself of the validity of her question. We’d broken almost every rule of time and space that I’d understood up until this point, but she didn’t know I’d never tried anything like this in the past century. “No, never. I don’t know that anyone has ever done this before.”

If we could have better comprehended the weight of our situation, I’m sure it would have sunk down upon us.

But it was too big to be believed. Instead, all I could focus on was how badly I wanted to hold her hand again.

I kept that to myself. I got the sense that she was uncomfortable in these surroundings and I could understand why.

Everything had a slight crust on it and a bit of an oily sheen; that was just the texture of the paint.

You got used to it. I hoped she would have the chance to learn that herself.

“Would you like to go for a walk with me?”

“Out there?” She looked through our open window, and I nodded. “Can I? I mean, will I even be able to? God, I can’t wrap my mind around what is happening right now. This all feels like some kind of a dream.”

She might have felt out of place, but she was not fearful.

Or maybe she didn’t know if she’d ever be back and was eschewing all fear for the time being.

She eventually answered my question with a nod, and I led her out into the garden.

We walked past the chair my mother inhabited all day, which she had thankfully vacated for the night.

We wandered down the path and made our way toward Aurora, the statue in our garden, who had chosen to stick around tonight, lounging in her usual spot beside the pond.

Aurora was a mix of mediums, a painting of a statue, posed by day with one arm draped in the air, her hand behind her head.

She’d relaxed her stance for the evening, resting on her elbows.

She turned her head toward us as we passed and the silhouette of her jaw dropped.

Of course Claire noticed. “So, you’re all alive in here?”

Alive. I didn’t know how to answer that. I said, “When the museum is open, we must remain where we’re supposed to. But at night, we’re free to move about as we please.”

“It’s like Night at the Museum . Does that make me Ben Stiller?

Or like that scene in Mary Poppins where they jump in through the chalk drawing.

” She was laughing now; she had completely lost me, but I just stood there, soaking her in.

“Where are the others? You’re not always alone in your painting. ”

“Yes, that’s my family. My mother and brother are probably at a friend’s home or resting or reading. I’m not quite sure what they do to pass the nights. It’s been a while since I asked. My sister, she’s the social one. She’s probably at a party in one of the nearby galleries.”

“You can move from room to room?”

“We can move between paintings.”

“Wow. That’s so freaking cool.”

“Others seem to think so. I tend to stay in our room, in our frame. I don’t really see a reason to move around. To spend every night making small talk with the same people. Our museum never changes, no new paintings ever come in. Every night is just the same.”

She nodded. I wondered if Claire was more like Marguerite or like me. Would she dance her way from scene to scene? Would she have cultivated a network of friends, never to be left alone with an empty evening?

“But you, you can see us. You’ve been watching,” I said.

“Yeah. I mean, yes,” she answered. “At first, I thought I must be imagining things. I’m newly afraid all the time that I’m losing my mind. To be totally honest, I’m not so sure I’m not losing it at this very minute.”

“If you’re losing yours, surely I’m losing mine too.” Whatever this was, we were in it together. I wanted her to know that.

“I started to notice that there were small changes from night to night—sometimes you’d be alone, sometimes your—you said she’s your sister?”

“She is.”

“Sometimes your sister would be there with you. Some of the other paintings had the same thing happening. And then there was this woman in the gallery just before yours who Ithink maybe was playing, like, Simon Says with me.”

“?‘Simon says’? Who is Simon?”

“There is no Simon. It’s this game we play out there as children.

Where you, like, imitate what someone else is doing.

Like this woman with these flowers draped across her body.

” She gestured to where the flowers hung.

I nodded to indicate that I knew whom she was talking about.

“She would move her body into a certain position and then I’d copy her and then she’d move it another way. ”

“Flowers draped across her body, that must be Andromeda,” I reasoned.

“Andromeda, what a name.”

“Did you ever tell anyone about any of this?” I was incredibly nervous to hear her answer. As excited as I was that she could see us, I knew where the danger in all of this could be hiding.

She shook her head. “No—partly because I worried people would seriously think something was wrong with me. But also because I figured no one in my life outside here would care or believe me. And I didn’t want to tell anyone here because I really, really don’t want to lose this job.

” She looked around, suddenly remembering she had work to do.

She hurried through the rest of her thoughts.

“I don’t know if I’m the only one who can see or if no one else is looking. ”

“I’m happy you looked. And kept looking.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.” We walked in silence for a handful of minutes before Claire began the conversation again. “I’m not normally like this, you know.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like, whimsical in any way. I’m so logical it’s scary. Life keeps you in line, you know. I don’t try things like this. I don’t even really daydream anymore.”

“Well,” I said slyly. “Good thing it’s nighttime.”

We had made a natural loop around the path that ran alongside the pond and through the gardens. It had taken us back up to the house. From where we stood, you could see through the open living room window and into the gallery, blurry from this vantage point.

“I think I probably have to get back out there and do my job. I have no idea how long it’s been since I came in here, but I probably need to speed-clean if I don’t want to make anyone suspicious about…this.”

“Right, yes, needless to say,” I said, even though I was obviously hesitant to let her go.

“Would it be okay if…” She hesitated but pushed forward. “Would you be down if I came back tomorrow? Would you help me back in?”

“Yes, dear god, yes. Please come back. I’ll be here. Of course.” We slowly progressed into the living room and arrived back at the frame.

She smiled. “And you can hear me? When I’m out there?”

“Yes, I can. But please, don’t stop singing on my account.”

“Maybe…no promises.” I held her hand as she lowered herself to sit on the frame’s edge. “Bye, Jean,” she said before she swung her legs around and out into the gallery. She hopped to her feet and turned to face me. I raised a hand to wave goodbye, and she raised one in return.

I didn’t want to leave my living room; I didn’t know where I would go or whom I might bump into and I wasn’t ready to talk about this, so I sat down in my chair and I picked up my book.

I had no intention of reading it, but I needed something to hold to keep me tethered to the moment.

I didn’t trust mybody not to combust into a million pieces, as it felt like it mightdo.

Claire hustled over to her mop and bucket and began whirling her way across the room. When she was done, she hurried to the exit, but she didn’t leave before she’d turned around and given me a little nod of goodbye.

“How was your evening?” a familiar voice asked me as the sun rose through the gallery windows. I turned to find my sister peeling her way into the room, pinning her hair up as she took her usual seat at the piano bench.

I mumbled a sound that implied it had been fine and didn’t ask how hers was in return. I couldn’t tell if she somehow already knew. And I didn’t know how I would tell Marguerite. I had no desire to share this night with anyone. I wanted to keep Claire’s magic all to myself, for now.

I was saved by Pierre rushing into the room; he hopped up next to Marguerite and her attention was instantly distracted.

She didn’t press me for more. I was sure in that moment that she must not know, for she couldn’t possibly have left it there if she did.

Aurora had let this secret stay mine for a bit longer.

I needed to thank her the next time I got the chance.