I frown as I take one.
“There was another building before, Opéra Le Peletier,” she explains with a smile. “That’s where he was all the time, painting ballet scenes. Degas didn’t like Opéra Garnier as much. It was too grand and too glitzy for his taste.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling deflated. “And what happened to Opéra Le Pel…” I struggle to pronounce the name. Dr. Pastels helps me out.
“Pe-le-ti-er,” she enunciates clearly. “It burned down.”
“That’s terrible.” I shudder as I picture Paris engulfed in flames.
“That means all the records are gone. Which is why there are many gaps in our knowledge.”
She seems way more bummed about that part than the fire itself.
“I have something that might help,” I say, opening my bag. Dr. Pastels perks up as I retrieve the envelope.
“Are these the photographs?” she asks, not so patiently waiting for me to hand them over.
I frown. I didn’t get a chance to mention them on the phone.
“Louis told me about these, but then he said he wouldn’t be able to bring them over,” she explains as she opens the envelope carefully, pulling out the photographs with the tips of her fingers.
“Louis came to see you?” I ask, my forehead scrunching up in surprise.
She nods. “He was here just yesterday. I said I couldn’t help much if I didn’t see the pictures, and here you are. Parfait!”
“Yesterday?” This doesn’t make sense.
Dr. Pastels smiles but doesn’t take her eyes off the pictures. “Well, first he came about a week ago, to ask me some questions. He said he’d bring his friend and the photographs the next time. But then he just came back alone. He sounded very sad about it. I thought maybe he’d lost them.”
Louis was here. He came to see this woman about my mystery, my family legend, even after we broke up. After I said all those horrible things to him.
“Hold on a moment,” she says. She walks out of the kitchen and comes back a minute later carrying her laptop. “After Louis explained the story, I made a list of all the paintings your ancestor might be in.”
“Really?” I ask, my eyes growing wide.
“Actually, I removed all the paintings that she definitely wasn’t in, based on the time period and what we already know about Degas’s models. You see, he kept some records himself, but they are far from complete. Sometimes he’d write down the actual name of the dancer, but others he’d scribble something in a code that only he could understand. Artists aren’t the most organized people.”
I nod. “But with these photos…，” I start.
“I may be able to narrow it down,” she continues, turning her laptop toward me. On the screen is a detailed spreadsheet including painting titles, locations, dates, and names of the models featured. That column is filled with many question marks.
“These photographs are perfect,” she adds, turning the screen back to her. “They’re dated, and there are several identifying elements. That chandelier looks very much like the ones in Opéra Le Peletier, for one. And I’m pretty sure I recognize at least one of the girls.”
I lean in to look at the screen.
“That’s amazing,” I say, as her software program continues filtering results.
“That’s art,” she responds with a small smile. “And lucky for you, my only plans for tonight involved watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie with a glass of red wine while my husband is out of town. This is way more interesting.”
“So should I come back?” I ask, but she’s turned her attention to the photos again, looking from them to her computer screen.
“If you’d like,” she says. “But if you have time, I could do this now. I know these are precious, and I don’t want to ask you to leave them with me.”
* * *
That’s how I find myself flicking through a pile of style magazines in the sparse, all-white living room of a total stranger. Dr. Pastels has retreated to her office, but not before pouring me another glass of iced tea and instructing me to make myself at home.
I scroll through my phone and scan the list of my recent calls until I find Louis’s name. My index finger hovers over it as I try to deal with my feelings. I can’t talk to him. No matter how Monsieur Dabrowski found out, he was right. I’m not throwing my chances away for a bit of fun. Nothing is more important than giving Odile everything I have. And even if I weren’t Odile, this story would never have a happy ending. I leave Paris in two weeks. Yet, everything inside me is telling me to press that button and deal with the consequences later. The only thing that stops me is remembering the disgusted look on Louis’s face just before he stormed off on his Vespa. That look will haunt me forever.