Die Once More by Amy Plum Read Free Book Online

on your face, and I quote, ‘American style.’ What’s up with that?”
    â€œOkay, New Yorkers excepted, most Americans smile a lot more than the typical European. And in Paris, people will think you’re either mental or stupid if you’re just wandering around smiling when there’s nothing specific to smile about,” I say, flipping through a travel magazine.
    â€œBut what if I’m happy?”
    I glance up to see if he’s joking. He’s not. “Then grin, but don’t show teeth.”
    â€œSeriously, dude?”
    â€œSeriously.”
    The closer we get to Paris, the jumpier I become, and unableto listen to Faust anymore, I signal the end of the conversation by closing my eyes. And with the lights out, up on my mind’s screen pops Kate. I see her face in a film reel of scenes from our shared past: her expression of fear when I grabbed her arm outside Vincent’s room the day she found him dormant. Her innocent wonder when I drew her portrait in the café and told her she was beautiful. And the look on her face at the airport when I told her I wasn’t coming back to France because I was in love with her. Astonishment. Disappointment. Sadness. All the emotions in a few seconds of reruns.
    I skip over the scene where we kissed; I can’t even think of that one without the bottom dropping out of me. I focus on when I saw her last: in Paris during the battle against the numa. She hugged me and asked me to stay. Her touch filled me with everything I had been longing for. I had to force myself to break away and run straight back to America so I wouldn’t have to see her again. And here I am, halfway across the ocean on my way back to her.
    My stomach twists, and I feel sick. I walk over to the minibar and get myself a tonic water. I grab two Perriers, throw one to Faust, and bring the other to Ava. I set it in the slot in her armrest and plop down in the chair closest hers. I don’t care if she despises me. I need a distraction.
    Ava ignores me as much as you can with someone sitting three feet away from you.
    â€œWhat are you writing?” I ask.
    â€œArticle,” she replies.
    â€œOn what?” I insist. Since her distaste for me has been established, and I no longer care about making a good impression, there’s something deeply gratifying in forcing her to speak to me when she so clearly doesn’t want to.
    â€œArt,” she says, struggling to keep her eyes on the screen.
    â€œArt. Hmm. Wow, that covers a rather broad range of topics. Are we talking contemporary, old master, medieval? Performance, sculpture, painting, video? Movements, schools, individuals? Art’s place in society, politics and art, gender and art . . .”
    â€œCelebrity as commodity in Warhol’s portrait series,” she says, expecting that to shut me up.
    It doesn’t. “And you’re writing this for . . .”
    â€œ ARTNews magazine,” she says, tapping her finger and glaring at me, as if to ask when the inquisition will be over.
    â€œI assume you’re not writing it under your own name?” I prod, genuinely curious now. A lock of wavy hair has fallen down from her pencil perch, and I have the strangest urge to push it back behind her ear. Strange, because I’m sure that if I tried, she would bite my finger off.
    She sighs and pushes her laptop an inch away, leaning back in her chair. “I publish under various pseudonyms, each of which is an established, but reclusive, authority in their respective artists. Jemima Hoskins, aka me, just happens to be the leading expert on Warhol in the sixties.”
    â€œDoesn’t hurt that you were there,” I say.
    She lets a small smile slip and nods. And as her mask dissolves, I can see her the way her kindred do. She is beautiful. Unique.Magnetic. I can see why Warhol latched onto her, like he did with other offbeat beauties of the day. She pushes the lock