What I was feeling was unnatural. I wasn’t supposed to be here in this time and this place. Juliet shouldn’t see the plastic toys and power lines. But here she was and here they were.
The smell of the musty stones, the feel of the soft breeze, the sound of his brush scraping canvas… the flood of feelings for Auguste Marchant came rushing back. I was reminded of the way that Juliet loved him so completely, so foolishly.
“Your nose is bleeding.” Mickey pulled off the button-down shirt he’d been wearing over his T-shirt and handed it to me. “Sit down.”
“No,” I said. “We need to go.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. I had an odd sense that I was gaining strength. Getting a glimpse into my past had been exactly what I’d needed.
The driver was waiting for us as I had expected. Mickey was again delighted that I’d “cast a spell” on the man like I was a modern-day Samantha Stephens.
We boarded a train at Challans. As we headed toward Paris, I realized that the last time I’d had this view with rolling hills and green hues of fertile farmland was more than a hundred years ago. It had been the last time I’d seen my father, my sister and brother.
Mickey was quiet the entire ride back, as though he could tell what the trip had taken out of me. We made the most of our night in Paris. I found myself gravitating toward the Latin Quarter, toward the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Mickey was agreeable. We dined at a café two blocks from the old apartment. When I had lived here the café had been something else entirely. Over dinner, I told Mickey the story of Juliet.
“What was it like living in Paris a hundred years ago?”
“Dirty yet colorful.” I smiled. “It stank and yet had some of the greatest opulence I’ve ever seen.”
“And you lived here with him.”
I shook my head. “Not in the way you think.”
“But you loved him.”
I drank my wine and considered my answer. “Not at first, but yes, I grew to love him. I was convinced I was in love with him when I died.”
“And what about now?” He smiled. “I think you like him.”
As we walked the two blocks to the old apartment, I thought about this. Standing under my window, I looked up at my old balcony. It was like returning to your hometown and finding that the streets aren’t as big as you remember. Things looked smaller, dingier than I remembered them. But as I looked up at the building, I remembered the fear and loss of control I’d felt as that girl coming here from a farm in Challans with no knowledge of the agreement my mother had made with Lucian Varnier. I was in awe of Juliet’s ability to so blindly trust her mother’s word given what had happened in the kitchen and after the trauma of being raped by Michel Busson.
“Yes,” I said. “I do like him.” But as I spoke the words, I realized that all of these lifetimes later, I still didn’t fully understand the agreement my mother had made with Varnier.
Mickey had his hands in his pockets and was watching me carefully. “Do you want to go to the Pont Neuf?”
I shook my head. The Pont Neuf was one destination that I feared I could not see again.
“Can I say something to you?” Mickey’s hair was shining in the moonlight.
“Of course.”
“You’re different now. You’re you, but not exactly the same anymore. You aren’t the old Helen anymore.”
I smiled, knowing exactly what he meant—I was now Juliet, Nora, and Helen.
22
Nora Wheeler
Hollywood, 1934
Nora arranged to have Billy buried at the Forest Lawn cemetery, buying a space in a private mausoleum for him. His parents arrived by the end of the week, and Nora made sure that everything was taken care of for them. There had been only one request they’d made of her and it had come by way of a letter to her delivered to her room at the Roosevelt. They’d asked to see his house, wanting to know where their son had lived. Nora met them in the ornate lobby to give them the key and the use of one of Monumental’s drivers. Billy’s mother looked up at the opulent ceiling and clutched her handbag tightly.
“Why did you want to see us?” Billy’s father was a tiny, wiry man. She couldn’t imagine him working a full shift at the Youngstown steel mill.
“Billy spoke of you both very fondly.”
“He never mentioned you to us,” his father said. It wasn’t meant as an insult, more of a fact.
“I loved your son very much,” said Nora, smoothing her skirt, wanting something to do with her hands now that she’d given the key away.
Billy’s parents looked at each other, but neither spoke at first. Nora realized Billy’s dad did most of the talking. He took his hat off. “Miss Wheeler. We know what our son was, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
The color drained from Nora’s face. “I don’t understand…”
“It was a source of pain for Billy’s mother and me, but yes, we knew all about it.”
“I didn’t know,” Nora blurted out. “When I married him. He didn’t tell me.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.” Billy’s mother finally spoke. “You seem like a nice girl.”
“Thank you,” said Nora. “If I can do anything for you, please let me know.”
They nodded but made no further requests and declined the offer of a driver.
While her house near the Hollywood Bowl was still vacant, Nora couldn’t bear to be alone, so she had decided to stay on at the Roosevelt. The hotel noises, voices, doors shutting, and sounds of carts being wheeled down the hallway were a comfort to her. Halstead had jumped into action with the suicide story and the police were quietly looking for other theories, but Clint, to his credit, had done a decent job setting the crime scene. Then a suicide note was found in a copy of Billy’s director script.
“Thinking this has to end. Forgive me.”
She considered that it was perhaps a note to her about their marriage. Billy often kept notes in his scripts, like a list of reminders he needed. It was likely notes for a rehearsed speech he was going to give her.
The day of Billy’s funeral, Halstead had ordered a large black car for her, and she was dismayed to see Clint had inserted himself as her driver. He was now coming and going at all hours at the Roosevelt. So far, he hadn’t touched her or even hinted at it. Nora had asked for assurances from Halstead that she’d be left alone, stopping short of saying that he owed her that much. The man had agreed, but Nora knew that it would only be a matter of time before Clint crossed the line. Clint crossed lines. Did he still somehow believe that Nora was his property? Now that she was a star, he felt like an early “investor” in her and he would certainly demand his share. And without Billy’s presence to protect her, Clint beating her up again was all but guaranteed.
Had Clint killed Billy out of some obsession with her? After all, Billy’s death had made him indispensable to Harold Halstead and had made Nora vulnerable. These two things were far too coincidental.
Clint let Nora in the backseat and jumped into the driver’s seat.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Nora looked out the window and adjusted her black dress.