Chapter Eight

They abandoned the idea of staying with Christian's family, much to the chagrin of Nini and Toulouse. ("I want to meet your parents!") Instead, the Bohemians took a cheap hotel room with rusty water, moth-eaten curtains, uncomfortable beds, and the disgusting smell of boiled cabbage that would simply not go away no matter how many cigars were smoked, how many windows opened, or how many splashes of perfume spritzed on Nini's neck. 
"This better be worth it, Christian," was one complaint from the Argentinean, who dealt poker cards before dropping into another dead faint. 
"Couldn't Nini have paid for a better room? Don't you make enough money, Nin?" Christian teased, slapping a poor card down on the table and taking a slow drag on his cigar. 

She curled up her lips in a sneer, revealing pearl-like teeth in a scarlet-painted mouth.  The pea-green paisley of the curtains created a sickening contrast."I'm a lady.  You're gentlemen.  That means you pay.  That also means you get your ass into this game and win some money.  I ain't sleepin' here too long!"

"You're no lady.  And we're no gentlemen," came the chorus of Bohemians. 

"Home, Christian," said Toulouse.  "Home is where the heart is. . .and maybe here you'll find your heart again."

~

It was now the middle of May, and the past few weeks had been a flurry of wedding preparations.  They'd chosen their church, a bleak, Gothic-style Catholic building Satine hated.  She'd chosen her flowers; calla lilies and bleeding hearts.  Everything was prepared, except for her gown.  She was going into London today to find one, and not taking Alfred along.

He sickened her.  She couldn't endear her heart to him anymore.  It was too much; the jewels nearly every day, the constant affection, the regular need he had for sex.  It drove her mad, and with Hollyoak solitary in the countryside there was seemingly nowhere she could escape to.  "Well, if I'm going to go insane somewhere, it may as well be here."

Piles of books were at her bedside, crocheted (Yes, she was crocheting! Satine hated sewing!) bookmarks haphazardly stuck in random pages.  She reorganized her closet multiple times. The gardens were in perfect shape and even a team of trained bloodhounds could find not one speck of dust. She engaged a new staff.  She painted.  "How can I be a society wife for the rest of my life when I'm bored already?" Asked the bored fiancée to her reflection one particularly stir-crazy night.  Cups of tea on an elegant veranda were all well and good. . .if you weren't born to perform and sit atop trapezes.  Satine often wondered how those society wives would react if they knew she'd been a whore in skimpy corsets and her price had been paid in diamonds. . .
"You'll adjust.  Once you have children," answered pretty, sexy Sparkling Diamond Satine.

"Ugh. Don't remind me."

~

Alone on a green England hill, inhaling that sweet foggy scent of home he'd missed so much, Christian fiddled with a bluebell. Bluebells were the color of her eyes, of her aura, the fluid grace in which she moved.  His clothes were permeated with the stench of cabbage and cigars.  Lying back on the grass, savoring the cleanliness he'd missed so much while in Paris, Christian stared into the sky.  Twilight blanketed the English countryside a misty, dusky lavender shade and only a few tiny stars dotted the landscape.  It was a painting all in itself and his poet's heart sang out in glory.

"And now the purple dust of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart." He began another song-poem, this one to the distant star he pretended was his sparkling diamond.
"Now the little stars, the little stars pine always reminding me that we're apart.  You wander down the lane and far away, leaving me a love that cannot die.  Love is now the stardust of yesterday, the music of the years gone by."

Stars were supposed to be a poet's inspiration, a figment of beauty in a world where that shimmering oracle could be impossible to find.  Tonight, though, Christian hated stars.  Stars that jested mercilessly, stars that danced bitterly in his jaded mind.  They reminded him of that leash of diamonds she'd worn around her neck binding her to Alfred, the diamonds sealing their fate.

"Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song."

My gift is my song, and this one's for you. 

"The melody haunts my reverie and I am once again with you when our love was new and each kiss an inspiration."

How wonderful life is now you're in the world!

"But that was long ago.  Now my consolation is in the stardust of a song."

"I love you! I want to shout it out to the world! I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love!"

"Beside a garden wall where stars are bright you are in my arms."

"Christian?"
"What?"
"Look up.  Look up at the stars.  See how they shine like diamonds? How far off they are? Wouldn't you trade anything to be a star?"

"The nightingale tells its fairy tale of paradise where roses grew.  Though I dream in vain, in my heart it will remain my stardust melody."

"I will always love you. . .forever and forever."

~

She did love London.  Though the fog was overpowering and oftentimes choked her with its gray rush, the shops were rosy and quaint like a storybook nanny and filled with a warmth Paris didn't always have.  Storefront windows created picturesque displays of the newest fashions imported from her native country, charming gowns and hats she coveted and knew would be hers with only a glance.  That was the perk of this marriage thing; Alfred was her puppy dog and she strung him along wheedlingly.  

Into the first store she went, and lo and behold, there she found her wedding gown! It was a horrid thing and exactly what she wanted: high-necked, long sleeves peaking at her wrists, covered in awful little seed pearls.  Completely disgusting and ostentatious.  Alfred will love it.  

She stood impatiently on the dressmaker's podium with her arms held straight out and aching, for what seemed like hours, while that ill-tempered lady jabbed pins with a vengeance.  "Ye picked the ugliest dress I ever seen, girlie."
"Well, I'm marrying the ugliest man you've ever seen.  But keep it between you and me."
"Money, honey?" The woman's voice was filled with a jaded understanding as if a dozen women like Satine had come for their fittings.  "Your dress'll be done on Tuesday."

~

He danced on streets of his beloved city, a song in his voice and in his step.  I'm going to save you, Satine! We'll run away, run away together!  Children giggled as he passed them by, elderly women smiled Sphinx-like in their knowing way . . .he's in love.  He's in love. Look at that sweet boy. . .he's in love.

One of those children, a tiny boy in blue knee pants and a corduroy cap perched atop flaming red hair, little freckles like inkblots on milky Cockney skin, handed Christian a note.  "For you, capt'n."
"For me?"
"From a lady."
"A lady? What did she look like?"
"She was all rich lookin', real pretty.  She told me to give this to you." He stuffed the envelope into Christian's palm and ran off with the other children, not hearing Christian's stunned "Thank you."

Christian,

June twelfth. Five o' clock in the evening.