"I envy him. I have never had a love like that. With a person, anyway. My writing. . ."
"My music," Satie responded.
"It is truly something of beauty. I would use it, his experience, but for the fear of the cliché," Letitia began, allowing a hint of impish delight to meet her eyes, "and I am afraid that Christian may steal my chair from under me and toss it from a window."
Satie lowered his head as a laugh escaped through his nose, his mouth struggling against the smile that wanted to form. He raised his face again, and brought his hand to his nose to push his glasses back in to place. He was sitting across from Letitia on the lumpy sofa in Toulouse's abode. Erik had made tea while they awaited Toulouse's arrival for their nightly brainstorm. His sheets of scribbled notes on crooked ledgers were intermingled with Letitia's sloppily jotted verses, all spotted with clear, brown dots of coffee or tea or liquor. His eyes gazed over the pages, their creative hurricane. He met Letitia's eyes again and suddenly he no longer wished to linger on the subject of his distressed friend. Her brothers had gone, as they did on most occasions, and Toulouse had not yet arrived. There was a discomfort in the energy of the room.
Letitia shifted with effort in her chair. "You would believe I could get used to having a numb derrière," she smiled and relaxed her arms after their workout.
Erik smiled, despite himself. The class just seeped from this woman. . . He snickered to himself and leaned forward, his hand working to turn a page for her to see it better. "I do think we've been staring at this piece for too long a while."
Letitia cocked an eyebrow. She narrowed her eyes in focus, and studied the sheet of music again. "It looks busy." She didn't quite see what he did, evidently.
"Those running sixteenths," he ran his long, pale finger along the line of notes, "they look like the sky line from Christian's view." He used his other hand to point downwards. He found, while watching her expression, he was taking a mental photograph. Erik Satie could not remember the last time he had seen such a puzzled expression on the face of the writer of their company. "It's. . ." he paused, and pointed to individual notes, "The Moulin Rouge," he went on, "Le pub Lisse," he stopped then, hoping she would understand.
She raised her eyes from the page. "I don't recall." Usually, as a writer, she would have remembered such a perspective. Christian's, at that. She had not been to his window, however. She had not been out on his balcony. She had barely been in his room. Letitia did not consider herself a welcomed guest.
"I'll show you." Satie stood and rolled his shoulders, resulting in a crack or two of cartilage against creaky air.
Another raise of her eyebrow. Letitia shifted her eyes, then, almost alarmed. "Satie?"
"What else have we to do?"
"Stare at the walls, I suppose. You can hardly lift me."
Satie moved around the cluttered table and to the writer's seat. He moved his arms into place; one behind her back, across the blades of her shoulders, and the other behind her knees. He lifted. Smoothly, Letitia was raised from her chair, and was using the strength in her arms to hold to Satie's shoulders and neck, as she did with her brother.
Perhaps she had no choice in the matter.
"I do hope Christian is not entertaining," she finally spoke, coyly.
"I never found him entertaining," Satie replied, just as coyly.