Willa: Hey, YOU texted ME! Spill.
Sabine: I have no idea what to do with my life.
Willa: No Sorbonne?
Sabine: Wouldn’t take me this late.
Willa: Then universities here! Come out East w me! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEASE
Sabine couldn’t explain her hopelessness—not by text. She looked at passing cars. The vast sky. She was like an astronaut sent outside the spaceship to fix a broken panel, tethered to the ship but floating in her sealed space suit, unable to be agile or react. Out her visor, she could see shining stars, far off. Space was beautiful but dangerous. One leak in her suit and she’d suffocate, alone, adrift in nothingness. She started to panic. Eyed a spot on her sleeve. Was that a tear?
Sabine awoke with a jolt. She’d drifted off but the panic remained.
“Are we almost there, wherever ‘there’ is?” she asked. They were off the highway and driving through beautiful countryside.
“Yes,” said Yves, as they came around a bend to see a castle—a huge manor house, really, giving onto a courtyard and formal French garden, flanked by two wings, each with a tower. Out front was a manicured garden, with land stretching out behind the château and becoming forest.
“Et voilà!”Yves instructed Aubin to turn into the drive. “Château Beaupré, run by my friend Delphine.” Sabine sat up, curious.
“She is a large-scale artist,” he said. “Paints incredible tableaux. I want her to design the sets for my next movie. She inherited this château, and it sat in ruins as she studied art in New York, then travelled, made a name for herself, won art prizes. Eventually she decided to return to France. She made a few huge sales, invested the money in restoring this place, and now she paints and runs artist residencies. It is, how do they say, worth going to the death?”
Sabine laughed. “To die for?” And it was. To die for.
Delphine met them out front. She was in her thirties, wore high-heeled platform shoes, a beaded tank top, hoop earrings, sparkly blue eyeliner, and tight jeans that looked painted onto her thighs.
“Bienvenue,”she said. “Yves, your daughter is gorgeous.” Yves smiled. Sabine beamed. Delphine took in Aubin, too. “I hear you are both artists. Aubin, what do you do?”
“I guess … I make dance music,” said Aubin.
“We have many musicians here. They hold evening concerts in the garden orLe Grand Salon. And you, Sabine, what do you make?”
“I don’t really make anything special … I just play around.”
“C’est merveilleux. This is all artists are asked to do. Art teachers, the good ones, spend years trying to get their students to just play. Instead, their fears get in the way, they overthink, they make it more complicated than it should be. If what you do is play, Sabine, then you are already there. Will you show me what you make?”
How had Sabine gotten herself into this?
Delphine picked up on her reluctance. “It’s too soon. Art is shy. It sometimes needs coaxing. That is why I made this place. Maybe you will show me later. Let’s start with a tour.”
She invited them into a grand entrance hall. Brocade wallpaper above wainscotting, giant oil paintings framed in gold, chandeliers thirty feet up. Huge arched windows gave onto more gardens out back and a fountain. She took them through the dining room, shoes clacking against the varnished floors. Staff were setting tables. “We have a resident chef, Chef Louis. He runs the kitchen, the herb and vegetable gardens out back, and all the parties we host.”
They wandered through the Grand Salon, and a music room where instruments hung off all the walls, which she could see Aubin absolutely loved.
“Recording equipment is in that armoire,” Delphine said, “and you can play with any of it. One musician carries it all into the forest and samples nature sounds and mixes it out there.”
“Can I stay forever?” asked Aubin.
“It might be expensive, but I would not say no,” she said as they continued through the halls. “Above us are rooms for artists in residence. The East Wing is where the staff lives. The West Wing is studios. Let’s go there.”
Delphine put her arm in Yves’s and walked with him.
Aubin and Sabine followed. “What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s like a dream,” she said. “I’m just not sure what we’re doing here.” Aubin took her arm. It was good to feel him close.
They walked through the studios. One artist was a knitter. His studio was full of yarn of all colors, all over the floor. He was knitting three giant tapestries that had taken him fifteen years so far. A potter’s studio was filled with clay sculptures—nothing practical, no bowls or mugs, just wild things. There was a jeweler, several painters, a writer, a projection designer. Delphine’s studio was filled with giant canvases, some only half-finished, piles of mostly squeezed oil paint tubes, brushes, and half-empty Fritos bags.
“I have a problem with Fritos,” she confided. “I order them online and they come in a big box. But who is to dictate artistic necessities?”
