He shook his head. “I’d wager it was a new development. Why not tell us, otherwise?”
Why not indeed?
They both turned to watch him.
By the launch line, Lazare was greeting the spectators, one after another. In return he was clapped on the shoulder. Commended. Saluted. Each time someone congratulated him, he seemed almost to flinch. Anyone who didn’t know him would have said he was smiling. But Lazare’s smiles were nothing like those narrow grins. Anyone who did know him could see Lazare longed to be away from the crowd and whatever burden Lafayette had placed on him, and instead, up in the air.
Overhead, the gray balloons had almost disappeared. Only the bunting on their baskets blazed against the sky. Soon that too would be invisible.
Next time, she wished. Next time, he would be in the air. For surely Lafayette couldn’t keep him grounded forever?
THE LOST GIRLS SPEAK
THE PICK POCKET
I HAVE BEEN PICKING POCKETS AT THE PALAIS - ROYAL SINCE
I WAS FIFTEEN
AND NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN ME
My eldest sister was beautiful. My mother married her off first, to a butcher in St Germain. Once our favorite sister was gone, Maman got busy with the rest of us. One fine gown for the bigger girls, one fine gown for the smaller ones. False diamonds and wigs, satin slippers and tight corsets were what we wore when men came to call. All of us upstairs, a nest of waiting mice, listening for what the man would say.
Sometimes he would ask for a song on the piano, or something to be sung. Or a dance. And if the dance was not to his liking, another sister would go down to try, but only after the first one had come up and, full of joy from having freed herself, thrown off the gown for the another sister to put on.
For the moment
SAFE
We could all dance and play the fortepiano and smile as if we meant it. We could talk and flatter and blush.
I believed marriage would free me from this never-ending show and so I went with the first man who brought me flowers and a ring. Yet there was no grand carriage waiting outside as I had supposed. Instead we walked to his house. It was far, and the buildings were no nicer than ours. It was not what had been promised.
I might have endured it, though, and continued to pretend at Happiness for at least I was rid of Maman, but for one thing he did, which I took as a Sign.
He did not offer me his arm, as I had been taught a rich gentleman should. Instead he held me by the wrist, his hand hard as a manacle. I was not free, but chained. As luck would have it, a carriage nearly ran into us, and when he fled the horses’ hooves, I fled him.
I could do my pretending elsewhere and make my own living by it.
I never steal from the poor.
Because the
POCKETS OF THE RICH
are
FULL
21
Tonight, she decided, was only for marvels.
Though she hadn’t been there in months, the Palais-Royal remained the dizzying carnival it had always been. Under lanterns in the gardens, people were dancing; beneath the arcades, shoppers peered through gleaming windows at fine books and lace and jewels. From political cafés erupted shouts and loud conversation, and sometimes, fistfights. There were flower sellers and fruit sellers, and Camille wondered if Margot in her bright clothes were there tonight, her oranges kept cool with ice. Or Héloïse, dancing in one of the rooms in the palace, her dangerous smile on her partner while her hands relieved him of his purse. Though she searched the crowd, none of the girls she spotted at the Palais-Royal were ones she knew. She refused the leaflets handed out all over, even when they were pressed into her hands. She smiled and continued on, her hand tucked instead around Lazare’s arm.
If he didn’t wish to speak about Lafayette and what had happened at the launch, she would not pry. Perhaps she’d misread him, for there was nothing about the way he was behaving now that suggested he’d been angry or disappointed. Perhaps he had accepted his position and what it entailed.
She decided to believe it. Tonight nothing would get in their way.
“Can you see where Les Merveilleux will perform?” she asked.
“Not yet.” Lazare wore a new suit, beautifully cut to flatter, over an elegant waistcoat embroidered with tiny hot-air balloons, a gift from his stepmother. The unsettled, evasive mood of the balloon