September 1908
Paris
It was not quite a year since they’d left New York with nothing more than their small hoard of savings and an offer from a madcap American heiress.
“Suling, you’re wasted at Saks,” the fabled and flamboyant Natalie Barney had declared as Suling knelt with a mouthful of pins, tacking the hem on the heiress’s latest tea gown. “It’s all very well sewing for an American department store, but you should come to Paris and look me up. I’m going back next week. I’ll introduce you to any designer you like. Wouldn’t you rather work for a Parisian fashion house where you can embroider your own creations?”
Paris was her dream. Paris and Callot Soeurs. And Paris was not just for herself, it was for Reggie. Suling wanted to put some distance—and a totally different life—between them and San Francisco. Oakland hadn’t been far enough and as it turned out, neither had New York. Nightmares still plagued Reggie, who didn’t cry out or flail around, but in the morning the sheets would be damp from cooling sweat and Suling would wake up to see Reggie staring out the window, dark circles under her eyes.
By the time Suling finished stitching up the hem of Natalie’s new tea gown, she’d made up her mind that she and Reggie would get on a ship to France. And with the address of Natalie Barney’s Parisian home in her hand, she’d make sure the American heiress followed through on that offer.
A few months later, Natalie Barney leading the way, Suling walked through the front door of Callot Soeurs, where Natalie sashayed into Marie Callot’s office. One look at Suling’s portfolio of embroidery, and after gasping over the dragon robe, the eldest Callot sister had hired Suling on the spot.
Natalie’s friends, mostly writers and artists, helped make Paris feel—if not yet home—a place where they were welcome. The French in general regarded Suling with some curiosity and a near-total lack of hostility. Here she was just another foreigner, noteworthy mostly for her Asian features and her American accent as she worked to learn French.
Even after a year in Paris, every time Suling opened the door to their apartment, the sight of the room still sent a small shiver of delight through her. Because it was their home. Hers and Reggie’s. The tall windows, skylight, and secondhand furniture. A large single room on the top floor of the house that was kitchen, living quarters, and studio; the bedroom simply a bed and armoire hidden behind a tall folding screen. Reggie had painted scenes of San Francisco’s Chinatown on the screen’s panels. And on a table, away from bright sunlight, their Queen of the Night cutting grew in a stoneware pot.
Their Montmartre neighborhood and its residents were now comfortable and familiar, the lodgings were cheap, the cafés affordable, and the residents accustomed to living with eccentric artists in their midst. Some of their acquaintances thought she and Reggie lived together for reasons of economy. Those who knew better didn’t even raise an eyebrow. There were many such relationships within their bohemian community. Some days Suling felt as though her life were a dream, one where she worked surrounded by beautiful fabrics and designs, the finest threads and sequins, every idea she proposed, from silk flowers to beaded scarves, given serious consideration.
Reggie was another matter. She seemed to have lost interest in serious work; she dashed off little watercolor sketches of Parisian street scenes and monuments, which a friend sold at a stall beside the Seine. Reggie considered these mere trifles for the tourist trade and never bothered signing them.
“Nothing to show, nothing to sell,” Reggie often said, gesturing at half-finished canvases stacked in the corners of their apartment. She always claimed she was too busy or had not yet settled on a new direction for her art. Her most lucrative commission had been one for the Moulin Rouge, a series of posters for a new show called Rêve Amoureuse. But it was teaching that brought in the steadiest income.
“In my wildest dreams,” Reggie said, “I never imagined teaching Americans in Paris how to paint. Most of them aren’t that serious about art. They’re more interested in the bohemian life. They sign up for my classes because afterward I take them to cafés where they drink wine and look soulful.”
It was a rainy day in autumn when Suling came home to Reggie waving an envelope. She held it aloft tantalizingly while they kissed. “Is it from Alice?” Suling asked, recognizing the stationery.
“Yes, I’ve been waiting for you to come home before opening it,” Reggie said. “Do you want to read it now? Or maybe a little later?” She murmured these last words in Suling’s ear before her lips moved down Suling’s neck, making it clear what “a little later” might mean.
Later, much later, lying in a haze of happiness and a tangle of sheets, Suling curled beside Reggie. She never tired of tracing a finger over Reggie’s body, her thighs, her hips and ribs. On that first night in Oakland when they’d finally found a room of their own, after the fire, after they’d found Madam Ning’s girls, Suling had held back her tears over Reggie’s emaciated body, her breasts flat, rib cage jutting out, skin so pale Suling could see the trace of blue veins. And now, two years later, Reggie was gloriously voluptuous, her body lightly tanned from an afternoon in August, a picnic at a country estate. Some of their friends had run into the lake, laughing and naked. Reggie had dived right in, of course, legs lean and muscled from walking up and down the hilly streets of Montmartre.
Now one tanned hand held up Alice’s letter so they could both read it while lying against the pillows. “Alice seems a bit downcast about the Academy being so slow to build a new facility,” Reggie said, “but it sounds like she’s enjoying her time in the field.”
“Alice loves climbing rocks and wading into lakes,” Suling said. “She prefers it to sitting at a desk, so I’m not sure she’s that sorry the Academy doesn’t have a plan yet for the new location. And she wants to know how our Queen of the Night plant is doing. I swear it matters more to her than we do.” But her voice was fond, amused.
“Good news,” Reggie exclaimed, reading ahead. “Gemma was offered a role in Buenos Aires, at the new opera house there. The Teatro Colón. I’m sure we’ll hear more when we get her next letter.” They knew Gemma was hoping for better roles than the small parts she’d been singing in New York. “And Clarkson, goodness!” Reggie said, reading ahead. “Clarkson has quit the San Francisco police and joined the Pinkertons.”
“He’s doing it because he’s never been convinced that Thornton is dead,” Suling said. “The police have closed the book on Thornton, but the Pinkertons might let Clarkson keep looking.” She immediately regretted her words. Any mention of Thornton and Reggie tensed. Suling knew there was a good chance that Reggie would suffer bad dreams that night.
“Reggie, I think I’d like to have dinner at the café tonight,” Suling said. With any luck, they’d run into friends and there would be conversation and laughter, something to make Reggie forget the asylum and the man who’d put her there.
Her lover forced a smile, lips tight. “Maybe tomorrow night? I’ve already started preparing dinner.”
But was she also avoiding the past? Suling thought, watching Reggie move around in their tiny kitchen. Was the only difference between them the fact that Reggie still struggled to find direction while she, Suling, had a wonderful, interesting job? No, not a job. A career. A career that helped keep her own nightmares at bay. If not for Callot Soeurs, would she be as haunted as Reggie? Once, just once, Reggie had confided that images from that horrible time invaded her mind at unexpected and uncontrollable moments. Of a drug-soaked cloth being held against her nose and mouth until she blacked out. Of pounding against a heavy door, screaming that she wasn’t supposed to be locked in here and realizing no one was coming for her.
Suling had firmly pushed away her own nightmares. Initially, while they were in Oakland, while she was helping Madam Ning’s girls move into new lodgings, Suling had experienced dreams so vivid she thought she was back again at St. Christina’s, desperate to find Reggie. Dreams of a gunshot and Auntie sinking to the marble floor, Auntie lying on the grass, blood soaking through her beautiful jacket.
And Gemma. Did she have dreams where she ran down an endless circular staircase, all the while knowing she would meet Thornton at the bottom? Did she wake at night gasping for air as when she’d dragged them out of the burning building?
It was hard to imagine Alice, sensible and fearless Alice, allowing the past to overwhelm her. Suling would never be rude enough to ask, but she did wonder. Did Alice wake up suddenly, her arms around an imaginary porcelain pot, carrying her precious Queen of the Night through corridors filled with smoke?
What about the victims of the New York Hotel fire and their families? The dead Pinkerton, they learned, had married only the year before Thornton killed him. What had become of Langford’s young widow, their baby girl?
How many broken lives had Thornton left behind?