Free The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan Page B

actresses by name. “You ladies, tell me something you might hear at the washhouse.”
    I poke up my hand after a while, when none of the others do. Never have I been one for licking boots, but old Busnach is not so bad and Émile is watching and a little idea flew into my mind and already I know the smile it will put on his face. “Mademoiselle?” Busnach says.
    I fish in my tub, look up crossly, and then in a good, strong voice say, “What’s become of my bit of soap? Somebody’s been and filched my soap again.”
    There is giggling from the authentic actresses, all of them knowing the way soap gets lost in sudsy water, the way it melts, the way it is easier to tell your mother it was pinched than that you were careless again.
    “Perfect,” Busnach says. “From the top.”
    He points a finger, and I say my bit, and he is grinning like he never does.
    After that we make it through the rest of the tableau without the barking of Busnach, and it just about slays me, looking morose and bored and tired while wringing linen and wiping my brow and pushing up the soggy sleeves of my blouse. Busnach liked my bit about the soap enough to put it in his play, and now I have myself a speaking part.
    I glance up at Émile from time to time, sitting in the third row, his feet propped on the seat in front of him, a home roll dangling from his lips. He don’t wink or nod, like he usually does. He does nothing to show a bit of pride. Maybe in the storeroom, between those tableaux when he is required on the stage, atop the chaise that is not a bit lonely, not no more.
    The first time he took me there, I could see the trouble he went to, shifting crates, wiping away dust, leaving a scarlet hair ribbon on the chaise, all so I would feel like a queen. There was none of the yanking and mauling, like behind the tavern that time. No. He lifted me up and set me on the chaise. And then, kneeling beside, he put the heels of his hands under my chin and spread his fingers on my cheeks. “Just looking into those chocolate pools of yours,” he said. I kept my eyes locked onto his, feeling no need to glance away. He put his lips on the sunken place between my collarbones. He touched the drawstring of my blouse and said, “Can I?” and I said, “You can,” just like we were countess and count. Blouse fallen from my shoulders, I watched his eyes grow large, taking in the paleness of my breasts, the rosiness of my nipples. His mouth tender upon my gooseflesh skin, his hands gentle upon my midriff, I closed my eyes, feeling like the most adored creature in all the world.
    There was a tiny bit of clumsiness, both of us fumbling with the fancy clasps of a garter filched from the basket of Maman. The rest of the time we were there, in the storeroom, kissing and stroking and cleaving, until my back arched up from the chaise and I was shuddering, with him collapsed upon me and shuddering right back.
    I suppose he knew I was no virgin, but I wanted to say how my first time was nothing, not compared to the lovemaking upon the chaise. I looked into his eyes, knowing he would see the glossiness of my own, and when he did not smirk, I said, “It felt like getting adored.”
    “Well, Mademoiselle Antoinette, I intend to keep up the adoring every single day.”
    A nd now, every day, just like he said, I find myself laying back on that old chaise, and that bit of time in the storeroom, while tableaux four, five and six are taking place, is the sweetest hour of my day, the bit I put my mind on when the morning is cold and I don’t want to get up from the nest of my mattress, the bit I recount as I shut my eyes for the night.
    It is on my mind even now, in the loge of the actresses, as I wiggle out of my washhouse costume. Any delay and it means being stuck waiting for the wardrobe mistress to come back from the room of costumes, her arms freed up for another load of aprons and skirts.
    Marie’s been poking fun, laughing and saying I’ve got a sweetheart,