Free Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney Page B

simply a shadow of the girl she once was.
    Clio and I resume our walk through the galleries. “Clio, are you the girl Renoir painted? Or are you just, I don’t know, a
version
of her now that lives on in the art?”
    â€œYou mean, am I like the other paintings? Paint coming to life at night?”
    â€œSomething like that. I don’t entirely understand if it’s really them who come out, or just some alternate version that exists solely in the art. But you seem different. Most of the paintings don’t say much. More than a few words, at least, like with Emmanuelle. Are they ghosts?” I ask with a forced laugh.
    She shakes her head. “But I’ve heard that the ghosts of great artists inhabit cafés.”
    â€œReally?” I can’t tell if she’s joking.
    â€œSince that’s where so many writers, artists, and poets hang out,” she says with a teasing grin. “Though you’d think they might visit museums too.”
    â€œPlease don’t tell me we’re going to be visited by a ghost of an artist.”
    She stops walking and faces me, her expression serious now. “When the paintings come out for you, it’s what people have meant all along when they talk about artists being immortal. In a way, their work can live forever. When the art comes alive it’s like the immortal version of the painting, like a little bit of the person painted has gotten to live forever. But the people, they aren’t stuck inside the painting. They don’t spend their days wandering beyond the frame. They aren’t alive on the other side.”
    â€œYou’re not just paint when you go inside the frame?” I knew she was different. I knew she was a girl, and not just a shadow of the painting’s subject. But I had no idea how real she was.
    â€œThat’s why I asked about the real Monet’s garden. Because I live in the painted one. All the time.”
    â€œYou live in Monet’s garden?”
    â€œThat’s where I was when Renoir painted me. So when I go back in the frame, that’s where I am, in a painted version. That’s where I sleep. That’s where I’ve been.”
    â€œThat sounds beautiful and awful at the same time.”
    Her eyes are full of such sadness. “It is. It’s gorgeous there, but it’s lonely. I’ve been completely alone this whole time.”
    â€œDid he trap you? Renoir?”
    She sighs and shakes her head, her beautiful blond curls moving gently, like a breeze. I can’t even imagine what she’s feeling. “There were things we didn’t agree on. But, Julien,” she says and places her hand on mine, “I don’t actually want to talk about Renoir right now.”
    Maybe the story is true. Perhaps Renoir was in love with her, but she didn’t feel the same. So he locked her away in a painted cage.
    â€œFair enough,” I say, and I’m not sure where to go next. I want to ask her about her life before, about who she was and if she wants to go back. But maybe there is no back. Maybe there’s just this, life inside and out of a painting.
    â€œBut you know what I do want to talk about?” she asks.
    â€œWhat do you want to talk about?”
    â€œYou. Tell me about you.” She reaches for my hand and slides her fingers into mine. “Tell me how you spend your days, Julien.”
    Right now, I spend them waiting for the night.

Chapter 11
The Gnarled Hands
    I pass an art gallery where a Jack Russell terrier has camped out in the window, slumbering at the claw feet of a chair from years ago. I stop to say hi to the dog through the window, then I wave to Zola, the owner’s daughter. Zola goes to school with me and helps out in her mother’s gallery. Zola smiles and waves back, then points to the low neckline of her red-and-black dress.
    I laugh and she pops outside. “Today’s take,” she says and removes a tiny