The Glass Secret (Chain of Secrets) (31 page)

He would call out to say:
“Hello Brielle, thinking about you. Please, reconsider what you have done.”
I didn’t even snap at him. I gave him no dominion over me, and he eventually got the message.

Then one day I recognized that he was gone, weeks passed by without even a hello. His breath vanished. My head was quiet for the first time in decades. Months and months rolled by, still not a word. Sometimes I ached for his return.

Eventually it seemed that his voice was the equivalency to a lingering pimple, it appeared out of nowhere and then one day you wake up and it’s gone. No scars or terrible photos to remind me that it had ever been here in the first place. It was sad that I didn’t have any evidence of his life with me. Nothing tangible. Most people had something—anything a photo, a card, a small token of something from someone they had spent most of their life with. I didn’t even have an image of him.

I assumed that Storm had gone back to wherever it was he had come from. Perhaps he retreated back into my imagination—just a figment of nothingness. Gone like the wind was my imaginary friend, turned angel then protective father, and finally behaving like a jealous boyfriend. He had vanished.

Sometimes when I was alone at night, I would reminisce about my time, and the years I had spent with Storm. I would go as far as calling out to him in the same way he did me, just to say, “Hello, I am thinking about you,” but he never answered.

I soon regretted my selfish and mean behavior towards Storm. I wanted to apologize for being so awful, but it was too late. Although I couldn’t blame him for disappearing, during our last days together my behavior was simply deplorable.

There was a tally of mistakes that I had committed. To err is human. If that was the case, I was beyond human with Storm during my adolescent years. Surely, he had enough of my shit. In the end Storm never returned. Over the years, my thoughts about Storm faded and became fewer and farther between until it seemed like I rarely thought about him at all.



-34-

Moving On...

It was near the end of my first year in college that I finally decided that my major would be journalism and creative writing. When I came to this conclusion, the first person I wanted to tell was Storm. After all, he had inspired me to write stories, much like the ones he used to tell me.

I had grown up so much by the time college ended. I started hanging out, dating, and even imagined that one day I would marry Spencer Reed. Remember him? Who would have thought I had fallen for the same four-eyed boy that Nuilley and I used to make fun of back in junior high school. Remember Storm thought he was great, too.

Spencer traded his glasses for contacts, and his bright orange hair chilled out to a nice shade of sexy brown curls, worn clean cut, framing his gorgeous face. He grew taller, broader, and his dark-green eyes sent warm waves rushing to my heart. He also traded his love of computers for me. It turned out that he wanted to pursue a career in acting, which was a far cry from the life of a computer techy.

Life was nearly perfect…nearly. I had attended UCLA for almost three and a half years when Spencer moved out to Los Angeles. It was almost love at first sight when we ran into each other at a local club called Zen.

We dated for six months while he attended acting classes and hustled tables and a few aspiring young actresses, too.
Damn him!
We had our ups and downs, but when I came to think of it they were mostly downs, because I refused to give him all of me, at least, the part of me he wanted the most, my virginity. If oral sex doesn’t count that is—going all the way was the one thing I managed
not
to do with Spencer.

As a matter of fact, the best dating advice that Storm gave me was, “to wait” until after I met the guy’s mother. Storm said, in most cases, how a man treats his mother is an indication of how he would treat you. Spencer didn’t speak too fondly of his mother, but despite this, he planned to introduce her to me after we graduated, although that never happened, because one night I caught him red-handed with a not-so-well-known actress in the backseat of a limo outside of the Rose Bowl. They were in the middle of the deed. Apparently, she thought he was a young movie producer.
Dumb ass!

Nonetheless, my heart had been broken. I eventually moved from Los Angeles back to New York City, but unfortunately that was not before Spencer had crushed my spirit. 

I remembered what Storm had said, “
Love is amazing when the one you love, loves you back
.” How true his words were—his words of wisdom. When you fall for someone, love can cut you wide open. But, your paths don’t always weave into parallel journeys. Instead, sometimes you reach a fork in the road, and it’s time to pick up and go, and that’s when I left my family, my few friends, a broken heart, and the city I adored. Paris was my destination...

-35-

Bonjour!

In the poorly lit stairwell of the old brownstone where I had recently moved, I paused for a moment, as I always did, gazing out of the expansive window that was aligned perfectly with the staircase.

Raindrops spun downward like tiny silver stars falling into the window before they melted away. The view from the large window framed the tall glass-and-metal apartment building on the opposite side of the narrow road.

My neighbor and career sponsor, Dr. Sidney Piccart, a retired Hollywood movie director, who mentored at the American Books and Film University of Paris, lived in the apartment two flights below me. He had told me that once upon a time our building’s view used to be the Eiffel Tower. How lovely the view must have been.

Dr. Piccart and I had become pretty close friends. He had trouble climbing stairs, so I usually went down to his apartment in the late mornings to share a café au lait, a delicious French cruller, and energetic discussions of old Hollywood and all of the glamorized scandals of that era!

On one of those mornings, he and I began talking about the real estate in Paris. Dr. Piccart voiced his opinion—he never had a problem speaking his mind.

“Brielle, it just makes me so angry that those damned developers moved in and built their modern monstrosities, destroying the classic view of the city for all of us.”

“Why did the city allow this?” I asked.

“Well, in its original state, it was actually a much shorter building—badly disfigured during the war—a lot of people lost their lives in that old building. Shortly, thereafter, Hitler turned it into a work shop for his cause.”

“Oh dear...you mean...no.” I frowned.

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore. My family resided there for quite some time. Thank God, they escaped. Well, some of them anyway.” He took a long pause. The corner of his lips tilted downward, and his tone was laden. “It’s too painful,” he sighed.

“I understand. I am sorry.”

“It’s alright. Just a shame, a crying shame what happened in that building. Nobody will ever be able to restore the damage that was done there because too many lost souls would have been disturbed in the process of a resurrection. So, they laid a new foundation and just started fresh. I wish the council had voted for a park instead. You know—a monument of some kind would have been more appropriate.”  

I could only imagine what Dr. Piccart didn’t want to share. I had never dealt with death in the magnitude that he had, impart of my grandmother passing away.

The closes act of war I’d ever seen was 911. Fortunately, at the time, we lived uptown. Although I was quite young at the time, I could still remember the devastation, the loss, and the grief in the faces of strangers. It really impacted our entire nation.

Whatever it was that Dr. Piccart had experienced, growing up in Europe during World War II, would have been beyond the average person’s comprehension. My parents did a great job sheltering us from harm. Unfortunately war, death, and good ole’ taxes are not prejudice to any of us. Life sure is fragile, more so than glass.

I am not sure if I would’ve wanted to hear
first-hand
details of what happened back in Dr. Piccart’s time, but I had to agree with him, it really was a shame to have lost the view of the Eiffel Tower. Of course, it was one I had never seen from my windows as Dr. Piccart once did; I am sure it was spectacular.

For a single girl, on my own in Paris, I had a pretty nice place—a one bedroom, with a living room big enough for a dining table, a modernized kitchen, and an extra-large bathroom in serious need of an update. In the back of the flat, there was a small den where I spent most of my time writing. Off the den was a quaint terrace where I’d sneak an occasional cigarette when my nerves got the most of me. It was a non-smoking building.

When the stain-glass window in the kitchen was open, it had the best view in the place, nothing spectacular, but it was charming. I could see the tops of trees and old shingles scattered over the rooftops. Some of the buildings had rooftop patios. I could hear laughter in the wind when people were out entertaining. But, the majority of my view from the brownstone included nothing but the modern monstrosity that Dr. Piccart contested—a major eyesore that blocked the nostalgic landmark and, really anything else of interest, unless you’re addicted to
voyeurism
.

The enormous building was constructed of almost all glass, and at night anything and everything was exposed when the lights were on and the shades were not drawn. It was a sight that shocked many who looked up into the windows.

Even if you weren’t a voyeur, it was hard to resist what was on exhibit and even paraded openly in the building. It was as if the lovers knew that they were being observed.

I had never thought that I was into voyeurism, but it was hard to put on blinders in most cases—couples in full dress, undressed, all with their dramatic lives unfolding, which included fighting and passionate make-up sex, for all the world to see.
 

I often used random passer-bys to create the characters in my novels. This technique culminated from one of my all time favorite movies,
The Rear Window
, by Alfred Hitchcock, where Jimmy Stewart is confined to his tiny, sweltering apartment, laid-up with a broken leg, and he passed the time by shamelessly maintaining a secret watch on his neighbors. 



I lingered on the staircase for a moment, staring out the large transom of our brownstone at the glass aquarium of the building facing us and wondered:

Is all of Paris so free with their bedroom habits and does everyone get secret pleasure from watching people and being watched as they interact, touch, kiss, and make love? 

I gazed into the glass building, idly remembering the first time I had gotten “my” free show from two steamy neighbors. I had since dubbed it the “house of ass.”

I recollect the night—it was the night that set everything in motion…

-36-

Up Town Flat!

I quickly emptied the last moving box that had arrived from New York City that day, and lined up my published books in the built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace in my spacious bedroom. I liked how the colorful binders added a nice touch to my décor. I gently placed the precious shawl that my grandmother knitted for me at the foot of my bed. It now felt complete, almost like home.

I was so thrilled that Dr. Piccart sponsored my writers-in-residence program for the
American novelist in Paris.
Because of his sponsorship, I was able to live for free in the brownstone that he inherited from his family.

My only obligation was that I had to write an epic mystery within the next two years, and I also had to occasionally help Dr. Piccart with cataloguing his vast vintage film collection.

He intended on donating the collections to the university when he died. Since I had already written a few dozen books, I considered my task an easy one and felt that my burden was light. The monthly stipend from the program was quite
generous, and the Parisian vibe would be just what my brain needed to inject fresh ideas into my mysteries. 

I figured that if I lived on French crullers, lattes and a fashionable cigarette here and there, I would be able to buy designer shoes instead of groceries. I aspired to don the palest complexion, to wear waft-like simple black clothing, paired with my latest designer shoes and to write literary masterpieces.

Who was I kidding? My main reason for moving to Paris was to find true love. So, when I wasn’t writing mystery novels, I was looking over my shoulder for “the one”—my love.

Instead, I had found a love affair with French pastries. I had never tasted anything like them in my life. I especially loved the French Crullers, a ring-shaped doughnut—akin to an American glazed but so much tastier. They were so light and airy that with my first bite, I thought I might levitate. Imagine that…being swept off my feet by a pastry.