her work.
Alexandre motions for me to join him at a small table next to the only window in the room, overlooking a perfect little garden in full bloom. He gingerly takes the lid off the box. I know he’s been digging through these archives, but judging from some of the dust that remains undisturbed, he’s likely the only person who’s touched this box in ages. Alexandre sucks in his breath as he carefully draws out a thin, manila file folder, which I’m assuming is lignin- and acid-free. Wow. I’m standing close to a cute guy and my mind immediately goes to safe storage for archival documents. Hot. He opens the folder that contains a single sheet of paper—aged, yellowed at its edges, written in grayish-black ink. A fountain pen, judging from the blots.
I squint at the date scrawled at the top: August 18, 1844. “A letter to Dumas? That’s pretty cool.”
Alexandre nods but doesn’t lift his eyes from the page. He’s obviously seen it before, but he’s staring so intently, it’s like he’s hoping for a new clue to magically appear. I understand the feeling.
“I discovered this and a couple other letters when I began to focus on my specialization,” he says, nodding at the letter. “My uncle nearly lost his mind when I showed him. This is where I learned about the Hash Eaters Club. Here and the archives we still have at home and my uncle’s research. It’s amazing to hold this in my hands.”
He’s nerding out over history. It’s kind of adorable.
“You have letters like this between Dumas and Delacroix and—”
“Other Hash Eaters, too. Baudelaire. Hugo. Balzac.”
My heart stops for a moment at this revelation. At these names. They’re a who’s who of nineteenth-century artists. Our world is so small, interconnected. Tangled, even. On a road trip once, my mom tried to get us to play this game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. She fake-cried when I admitted I had no idea who that was. But then she explained it was a Hollywood riff on this old idea that any two people can be connected by six links or fewer. I was terrible at the game because apparently the pre-phone ancient rules say you can’t google anyone. But the theory stuck with me. It’s comforting in a way. We don’t have to rely on something as arbitrary as destiny in life. We’re connected. It’s like Alexandre and I would cross paths eventually. And now I’m one degree away from Dumas’s family. It’s math, but it doesn’t make it any less wild.
Alexandre whistles to get my attention. “Khayyam? Where’d you go?”
“Oh, sorry. Just mind blown that these dudes had a hashish coffee klatch. Total reality show.” I look up at Alexandre and smile. I don’t feel like a dilettante right now at all; I feel like a bona fide art history sleuthing badass.
He laughs. “I think this is one of three documents that you’ll find interesting. At least, I hope you do.”
My ears perk up. My stomach somersaults. I’m trying not to appear too eager. Breathe. “Let me see.”
He points to the slightly slanted, curled French cursive of Delacroix. “Right here he says, ‘Tonight you shall meet the lady with the raven tresses. And see the dream of the poet come to life.’”
“The lady with raven braids? Or does he mean hair? Is it the French or English? And a dream of a poet? What poet?”
“That’s what’s strange about it—it’s Franglais. And he’s using it with the English construction, the adjective before the noun. Then it’s the English, I guess? Hair? And as for the poet, I have no idea. I was thinking it was like a metaphor—a woman so beautiful she was like the dream of a poet, maybe?”
Alexandre pauses and locks eyes with me. I think this is for dramatic effect. It totally works. “But the lady, I think she’s real. Important. Dumas was notorious for affairs, but this lady intrigues me. My uncle says that this is one of the only references to a woman that we’ve found in Dumas’s letters—”
“But if he had all those affairs, there must be love letters somewhere.”
“Probably New Zealand or Texas. If letters like