Jérôme let out a bark of laughter. “That she is.”
Rosalyn remembered the time and effort she used to spend making herself look good for Dash: getting hair extensions, going to Pilates class, having her nails done every few weeks. Constantly burnishing the external shell. Her mother’s words rang in her ears: Men liked pretty girls, and since she was not a natural beauty, she would have to work at it. Stay on the diet, endure the plucking and waxing, never “let yourself go,” never dare to relax and just be herself because her real self was not good enough.
After Dash got sick, Rosalyn had dropped the unyielding beauty regime and hadn’t looked back. What was the point? No matter how hard the external shell, life pierced through to the soft core.
“Your hair looks different, by the way,” said Jérôme. “I noticed it at the party.”
“Blondine trimmed it for me.” She brushed her fingers across her forehead, feeling self-conscious. “She decided I needed bangs.”
“It’s very... becoming. That’s how you say it in English?”
She smiled. “Works for me.”
His eyes locked with hers for a moment.
“Well. It’s getting late,” Rosalyn said. “But may I ask one more favor before I go?”
“Why stop now?”
“May I see your family library?”
“It’s my favorite room in the house.”
The library was something out of her childhood fantasies. Two stories tall, complete with a spiral staircase in one corner that led to a catwalk that encircled the room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with books, some with old leather bindings, others with glossy new covers. The air held the same slight mustiness as Émile’s letters.
“This is amazing,” Rosalyn said, her voice breathless.
“My great-grandfather was self-educated, and had a passion for books. He built this library, and then his daughter, my grandmother, added to it. According to family lore, the villagers were invited to borrow books, which was a boon before the mobile library started coming to town.”
“And do you do the same?” she asked as she pulled a tome from a shelf. Victor Hugo’sNotre-Dame de Paris. She opened it and recited:“‘Il y a aujourd’hui trois cent quarante-huit ans six mois et dix-neuf jours que les Parisiens s’éveillèrent au bruit de toutes les cloches sonnant à grande volée dans la triple enceinte de la Cité, de l’Université et de la Ville.’”
He smiled.“Très bien fait.”
“This is the first book I ever read entirely in French,” she said. “I was terribly proud of myself.”
“You are welcome to borrow it, if you would like,” he said, leaning one arm on a shelf, gazing at her as if perplexed by her actions.
“Would I have to sign in blood, or anything like that?”
He frowned. “I do not understand.”
“I’m joking,” she said. “Sorry. Thank you for the kind offer. Iwould love to borrow a book, if you truly wouldn’t mind. But maybe one in English? I finished the books I brought with me my first week here. I had an e-reader, but it broke right before I left home.”
He let out abof, to let her know what he thought of her e-reader. She loved the device, which would have been especially useful on a trip like this one, allowing her to take dozens of books with her, one to suit every mood. But there was nothing quite like the sensation of a real book in her hands, the thrill of discovery when perusing the shelves, as she had after her father left, when she found refuge—and fantasy—in her local library.
“Do you speak all these languages?”
“Oh no. My Latin is rusty, and my Arabic is close to nonexistent—I know a few words, but never mastered the alphabet. I speak only English, Spanish, and German. I get by in Italian and Portuguese, but I wouldn’t win any awards.”
“Only six languages? My estimation of you is plummeting,monsieur.”
He looked surprised, then chuckled when he realized she was teasing. “You like to joke.”
She smiled in response, perusing the spines of books written in Arabic. “All these books, all these stories, but we don’t have the key to open them.”
“Rilke.”
“Pardon me?”
