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Billets-Doux
2018, Riene
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No, autumn was not her favorite season, Meg Giry thought crossly, tying the ribbons of her bonnet tightly under her chin lest the wind snatch the new confection from her curls and send it flying. Maman always fussed so, for her to bundle up and cover herself, as if she'd have the foolishness to wear her ballet ensembles on the omnibus home! Meg Giry was no fool; she knew that the sight of skimpy skirts and bared legs often sent the most proper of gentlemen into scandalous behavior, and earned the disdainful looks of women who might have otherwise stuck a hatpin into groping hands, or offered a smart rap across knuckles with a fan or umbrella!
She skipped off the bus and hurried toward the shops. Tonight Maman was working late; a meeting with the managers, and Meg would need to do the marketing and prepare dinner. Her mother would arrive tired from a long day and hungry. For as long as she could remember, they'd been a team, the only sign of her father a faded daguerreotype on the wall of her mother's bed chamber.
Bread, butter and cheese, tea, sugar. Perhaps tonight a bouillabaisse? Fish and mussels were inexpensive this time of year, and they had the other ingredients at home. Clutching her paper-wrapped parcels, Meg made one last stop.
"Any letters for Marguerite Giry?" she inquired breathlessly at the newsstand. The wrinkled crone watching the stand while her husband was away at the pub nodded. Meg passed over a small coin and tucked the letter deep into her cloak.
There was no need to check the sender's name or address. Only one person wrote to her, a quiet young man she'd met some months ago. He had been doing the Grand Tour of Europe, and had attended the Opera in Paris, returning again and again. They'd met in the Rotunde...and again in other, more private locations. He had kissed her hand, told her of his home and of his family, minor Barons with a countryside estate that his elder brother would inherit. He had promised to write...and surprisingly, had done so, soft letters full of shared secrets, vivid descriptions, tiny graceful sketches of his travels, and a promise to return, if she would wait.
Meg hastened her footsteps, clutching her basket against the sudden wind. The clouds were lowering, the incessant rain of Paris in the autumn. The missive would be her bright spot of the night, rolled and hidden later in a pair of old pointe shoes. Maman would be tired, and none of her friends would pay a call in this weather. She sighed. Christine spent her time holed up in that old dressing room, practicing her singing, and Sorelli left the moment any performance ended, claiming she was spent. If that was growing into a lady, it meant no excitement at all.
A letter would make the night so much more bearable. At least she had a secret! The Opera had been so dull as of late!
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