Paris, He Said (37 page)

I was too tired and distracted to paint, and I didn’t feel like sketching either. I pushed my easel against the wall and lay down on the rug in the center of the room, first pulling off the drop cloth I always covered it with when I was working. For a pillow, I wadded up the old sweatshirt that I’d tossed onto the desk chair earlier and lay down with a bitter lump rising in my throat, the door locked against Laurent, but I knew that he wasn’t likely to come to check on me. Eventually, maybe after twenty minutes of brooding, I fell asleep.

It was very late, the middle of the night, when I awoke with a stiff back and my right arm tingling painfully. I got up and pulled my easel away from the wall to look at what I had so far finished of the painting of Jeanne-Lucie and her daughter. There was no movement on rue du Général-Foy, no sense that there ever had been or would be again. Morning felt as distant and unreachable as the life I had left behind in New York. I stared at the faces I had begun to paint on the canvas and hoped that they would become what I wanted them to—I loved the hint of annoyance in Jeanne-Lucie’s profile and the candor of Marcelle’s stare; in it was her absolute desire to shield her mother from influences she could feel but not yet name.

Down the hall, I imagined Laurent in bed, still as a corpse, but when I went into the bedroom, he wasn’t there. I looked in the other rooms, and he wasn’t in them either. I stood in the dark hallway for a long time, looking at the outline of Sofia’s six portraits, each obscured in shadow. I stayed there until my heartbeat slowed and I knew that I would be okay, that I could stand it all, for now. The bed I had slept in for the last eleven months was comfortable and harbored its familiar scents. I could see that Laurent had been lying in it for a little while before he’d disappeared, and I wanted very badly to be able to go back to sleep; it seemed important that I not be awake when Laurent came home from wherever he had gone, from doing whatever he had done.

Nancy Miller at Bloomsbury deserves at least a year off after all the work she has done with me on this novel, as does Lisa Bankoff at ICM, who helped to shape it from the very beginning. Sheryl Johnston remains a most patient, generous friend and role model.

My parents, Susan Sneed and Terry Webb, and Melanie Brown continue to offer their steadfast love and support.

Thank you to Susan Kraut, who is an extraordinary painter and a giving friend. I feel very fortunate to have been able to write about her work (though the events described in this book are fictional).

Thank you to Francis Noel-Thomas, who read early pages and offered helpful suggestions and details.

I must also thank the kind and supportive people at Bloomsbury, among them George Gibson, Lea Beresford, and Sara Mercurio; Daniel Kirschen, Dolores Walker, Leonard Sneed, Floyd Skloot, Stuart Dybek, Anita Gewurz, Denise Simons, Adam McOmber, Chrissy Kolaya, John Buckvold, Randy Albers, Randy Richardson, Mike Levine, Alison and April Umminger, Bob Bledsoe, Carolyn Kuebler, Noelle Neu, Beth Eck, Dorthe Andersen, Melissa Spoharski, Ruth Hutchison, Greg Fraser, Melissa Fraterrigo, Paulette Livers, Patricia Grace King, Taigen and Naomi Leighton, Patricia McNair, Cindy Martin, Cindi Rupp Rand, Don DeGrazia, Julie Deardorff, Barry Benson, Mary Dixon, Debra Gwartney, Bill Hageman, Bill Weber, Ann and Tom Tennery, Karri Offstein, Angela Pneuman, Jason Klein, Kim Brun, Ross Werland, Dave Wieczorek, Lauren Klopack, Melanie Feerst, Debra Stephens, Peggy Shinner, Gina Frangello, Robin Bluestone-Miller, Mare Swallow, Javier Ramirez, Felice Dublon, Don Evans, Suzanne Clores, Joel Drucker, Mona Oommen, Marlene Garrison, Natalia Nebel, and Alexandra Sheckler.

My students and colleagues at Northwestern University, DePaul University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—thank you too, for your friendship and support.

Thank you to the Chicago Public Library Foundation, and to Marilyn Berling, Ann, Amy, Andy, and Richard Tinkham and their families.

And thank you again, dear Adam T.

Christine Sneed’s
story collection,
Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry
, won the Grace Paley Prize and Ploughshares’ John C. Zacharis Award, and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. Her debut novel,
Little Known Facts
, won the Society of Midland Authors award for best adult fiction and was named a top ten debut novel of 2013 by
Booklist
. Her short stories have appeared in
The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, Ploughshares, The Southern Review
, and
New England Review
. Sneed was a French major in college, and for several years worked at the School of the Art Institute. She now teaches at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Little Known Facts

Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry
(stories)

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First published 2015

© Christine Sneed, 2015

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ISBN: HB: 978-1-62040-692-2

           PB: 978-1-62040-693-9

       ePub: 978-1-62040-694-6

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Sneed, Christine, 1971–

Paris, he said : a novel / Christine Sneed. — First U.S. edition.

pages; cm

ISBN 978-1-62040-692-2 (hardcover) – ISBN 978-1-62040-693-9 (paperback) –

ISBN 978-1-62040-694-6 (ebook)

I Title.

PS3619.N523P37 2015

813’.6—dc23

2014039546

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