AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“All the things I want to do before I die.”
That curious cryptic thing Wren said when we first met in Paris comes back to me: I know hospitals. I’ve only known Wren a day and a half, but that’s enough for the thought of losing her to be inconceivable. She must see something on my face, because she gently touches my arm. “Don’t worry, I plan on living a long time.”
“Why are you making a bucket list, then?”
“Because if you wait until you’re really dying, it’s too late.”
I look at her. I know hospitals. The saints. “Who?” I ask softly.
“My sister, Francesca.” She pulls out a piece of paper. It has a bunch of titles and locations, La Belle Angèle (Paris), The Music Lesson (London), The Resurrection (Madrid). It goes on like that.
“I don’t get it.” I hand back the paper.
“Francesca didn’t have much of a chance to be good at a lot of things, but she was a totally dedicated artist. She’d be in the hospital, a chemo drip in one arm, a sketchpad in the other. She made hundreds of paintings and drawings, her legacy, she liked to say, because at least when she died, they’d live on—if only in the attic.”
“You never know,” I say, thinking of those paintings and sculptures in the art squat that might one day be in the Louvre.
“Well, that’s exactly it. She found a lot of comfort in the fact that artists like Van Gogh and Vermeer were obscure in life but famous in death. And she wanted to see their paintings in person, so the last time she was in remission, we made a pilgrimage to Toronto and New York to see a bunch of them. After that, she made a bigger list.”
I glance at the list again. “So which painting is here? A Van Gogh?”
“There was a Van Gogh on her list. The Starry Night, which we saw together in New York, and she has some Vermeers on here, though the one she loved best is in London. But that’s her list, which has been back-burnered since Paris.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I love Francesca, and I will see those paintings for her, one day. But I’ve spent a lot of my life in her shadow. It had to be that way. But now she’s gone—and it’s like I’m still in her shadow, you know?”
Strangely, I sort of do. I nod.
“There was something about seeing you in Paris. You’re just this normal girl who’s doing something kind of crazy. It inspired me. I changed my plans. And now I’ve started to wonder if meeting you isn’t the whole reason I’m on this trip. That maybe Francesca, the saints, they wanted us to meet.”
I get a chill from that. “You really think so?”
“I think I do. Don’t worry, I won’t tell my parents you’re the reason I’m coming home a month later. They’re a tad upset.”
I laugh. I understand that too. “So what’s on your list?”
“It’s far less noble than Francesca’s.” She reaches into her travel journal and pulls out a creased piece of paper. Kiss a boy on top of the Eiffel Tower. Roll in a field of tulips. Swim with dolphins. See the northern lights. Climb a volcano. Sing in a rock band. Cobble my own boots. Cook a feast for 25 friends. Make 25 friends. “It’s a work in progress. I keep adding to it, and already I’ve had some hiccups. I came here for tulip fields, but they only bloom in the springtime. So now I’ll have to figure something else out. Oh, well. I think I can catch the northern lights in this place called Bodø in Norway.”
“Did you manage to kiss a boy on top of the Eiffel Tower?”
Her lips prick up into a slightly wicked pixie elf grin. “I did. I went up the morning you left. There was a group of Italians. They can be very obliging, those Italians.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “I didn’t even get a name.”
I whisper back, “Sometimes you don’t need to.”
Thirty-seven
We go to a late lunch at an Indonesian restaurant that serves one of those massive rijsttafel meals, and we stuff ourselves silly, and as we’re wobbling along on the bike, I get an idea. It’s not quite the flower fields at Keukenhof, but maybe it’ll do. I get us lost for about twenty minutes until I find the flower market I passed this morning. The vendors are closing up their stalls and leaving behind a good number of throwaways. Wren and I steal a bunch of them and lay them out on the crooked sidewalk above the canal bank. She rolls around in them, happy as can be. I laugh as I snap some pictures with her camera and with my phone and text them to my mom.
The vendors look at her with mild amusement, as if this type of thing happens at least twice a week. Then a big bearded guy wearing suspenders over his butte of a belly comes over with some wilting lavender. “She can have these too.”
“Here, Wren.” I throw the fragrant purple blooms her way.
“Thanks,” I say to the guy. Then I explain to him about Wren and her bucket list and the big fields of tulips being out of season so we had to settle for this.
He looks at Wren, who’s attempting to extract the petals and leaves from her sweater. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card. “Tulips in August is not so easy. But if you and your friend don’t mind to wake up early, I can maybe get you a small field of them.”
