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Dreaming Of You // If I'm Still Dreaming

'The great pretender'

Harry’s POV

Interviewer: “Jeanne Mars. You have quite the name there…”

Niall and Jonny squirm, as they stare at the magazine I hold in my hands with eagerness. I can’t help but roll my eyes. I know how this story goes.

What could I’ve done to prevent it? Nothing. Niall is literally living with me since we arrived in London, as Greg has been using his house in usufruct for almost a year. No way to get rid of him. And when I learnt Jeanne’s issue of Harper Bazaar was out I thought I’d need Jonny and his basic knowledge of German to understand the thing. But to my surprise it turned out to bring an English translation attached to it, so now I’m stuck with this Neanderthal. Jeanne knew… That night in New York when Louis crashed our date after Jimmy she knew I’d be able to read it. She didn’t tell me to piss me off… I don’t know whether to be upset or just sink a little deeper. She never settles to my expectations, and I can’t explain what it does to my mind.

I take another quick look at the opening page. So they went to Venice to do the photoshoot at some point during May, after I left LA. I randomly switch from photo to photo, not knowing for sure what to do. Do I read or do I check the photos first? How many pictures did they take? And why did they have to choose such a subjugating city for her feature? Her maternal grandmother is from Venice. Is this the reason why they picked it? My eyes stop wandering at one photo of Jeanne standing in the middle of a solitary, narrow bridge in what appears to be a very early, foggy morning. She’s looking back over her shoulder, and from the distance it feels as if the camera were chasing her around the city. The trench coat she’s wearing and the high heels give the scene a retro air, and the little streets and buildings in the background bring a mysterious, almost mystical feel to everything. My heart rate picks up. How does a single image of Jeanne have this effect on me? From the picture of little Jeanne or the other one over her tall boy in Paris, going through all the photos and the images I’ve mentally collected of her until this one, it is as if they’ve been telling a story I fail to understand.

Interviewer: “You have quite the name there. It’s almost like a brand. Is that one of the things you share with Harry Styles?”

I stiffen in my seat and it must show, because Niall shoots me a concerned glance. What did I just read? I mean, of course my name could come up, as we work together, but what kind of question is that? I abruptly move the magazine to go back to the top and search for the name of the interviewer, and it’s like these two suffer from withdrawal. Julian Strauss, I read. Great. A dude. Never heard of the latest smart-ass in town. This interview is going to be more painful than expected if I have to endure a guy trying to make me look like a fool. Jonny laughs at my side.

Jeanne: “What Harry Styles and I share aren't things people could easily tell.”

My hands tingle. I realise I’m fixed on the sentence.

“You got it well, Harry,’” Niall tells me while elbowing me. His words barely make it to my brain. “Way to put that pretentious asshole in his place,” he chuckles.

“Does that mean what I think it means?” Jonny asks him, rather confused. What is he talking about?

“Do I look like someone who understands women? Especially this one?” Niall points at a picture of Jeanne lying up on a chaise in the interior of one of those magnificent Venetian palazzi. Her dress is pale, and if you try hard enough you can guess her nipples underneath the fair, embroidered fabric. I feel like floating.

Interviewer: “You managed to build a name for yourself before he’s got involved.”

Jeanne: “I wouldn’t want my name to be associated with anyone else’s out of necessity, but just by the pleasure of it.”

“Oh, I get it–––Jonny mutters, pulling me off of my cloud. She’s really something.” I grit my teeth at him. No wonder I didn’t tell him about Jeanne back then.

Jeanne: We tried to keep the backstory of the novel secret because I didn’t want people to think I was using him to get noticed. Secrets, as you know, are meant to be secret.”

Why does the word ‘secret’ pushes me straight to the edge? Maybe because I don’t like secrets, but that’s all I share with Jeanne.

Interviewer: “Are you good at keeping secrets? Because you surely do look like someone who’d be amazing at…”

“Cock sucking…” I knew bloody Jonny was going to be the most inappropriate mood killer. “Look at those lips…” He tells me. Believe me, mate. I know.

“She’s your fellow human being, not a piece of meat–––I observe, trying to dispel those memories, which has become particularly difficult after that sensuous moment in Niall's swimming pool. Please, don’t treat her like one.”

“It was a joke!” Jonny retorts, and he taps Niall on the knee. “Jeez. The crush is serious.”

“Told you.” Twats.

Interviewer: “At keeping secrets. There is something about you that makes the choice of a marketing strategy based in mystery logical. You could easily be a spy, a double agent. Can you humour me?”

I wonder how many people she has told about us over the years. Probably none, not even Lara’s father. Why would she tell him anyway? It’s not that her reasons to keep it secret were the same as mine. I’ve kept it from almost everyone in my life because I couldn’t bear the thought of telling them I didn’t get the girl. I glance at another picture of Jeanne aboard of a crowded vaporetto, her face downwards. Keeping secrets… She always looked like someone who’d keep things for herself, and part of her attractiveness does come from that halo of mystery.

Jeanne: “Just for the sake of my marketing strategy I’ll tell you that the DGSE –the French MI6– tried to recruit me when I was still a college student at La Sorbonne…”

My jaw drops. How much do I ignore of her?

"No, no, no, no, no–––Jonny interjects, bouncing at my side. Forget the ‘sexy secretary.’ ‘The spy who loved me’ IS the ultimate fantasy.” Too bad she didn’t love me.

“I’m kicking you out,” I scold him, frustrated. Niall muffles his laughter. I turn towards him. “And you too. I don't care if your bachelor party is in a couple of days.” He’d have to crash at his mother-in-law’s and Erica would kill him. She’s still in LA, but who would have thought she’d be so formal and want them to live apart before the wedding?

Interviewer: “Is this true?”

Jeanne: “Would I lie to you?”

Well, she can lie. That’s for sure. I glimpse at a picture of Jeanne approaching the most exquisite Venetian mask to her face.

Interviewer: “Maybe to protect your secret.”

Jeanne: “I guess you’ll never know.”

Interviewer: “How do I manage not to picture you as Mata Hari from now on?”

Interviewers are such a pain in the neck.

Jeanne: “You can picture me as you want. It would tell more about you than about me.”

Interviewer: “I like your brand. It’s fascinating.”

Jeanne: “Do you know why labyrinths are fascinating? Because even if people intended to domesticate them by putting them in their gardens, memorising the way out, they were never quite solved in the sense that mazes represent a connection to our own mystery and holiness human beings would never fully apprehend. So no matter how many times we pass through them, it’s the transformation that occurs within ourselves in the process that keeps us fascinated.”

Jonny giggles, already smitten.

Interviewer: “You just turned thirty and yet you’ve got a fascinating life.”

Jeanne: “Have I? As I have been living it I don’t have enough perspective to get to that conclusion. What is it that you find fascinating?”

That relaxed stubbornness is giving this smart-ass a hard time.

Interviewer: “I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions here. Even if you published under a pen name you got the potentially-famous treatment, with your social media scrubbed and all that jazz. But you come from an artistic family, of French and Italian descent. Your father was a renowned visual artist, highly valued, and an accomplished musician. Your mother runs a famous art gallery that supplies many A-listers. You’ve grown up in Paris, one of the most desired cities in the world, studied at La Sorbonne, lived abroad, worked as a nude art model and probably became the muse of several artists. How does this tie in with your current situation?”

Jeanne: “I’ve led what someone could call a bohemian kind of life and I regret nothing, but having your social media scrubbed is sort of procedure. And things never happen the way we expect them to, so my life today is very different from what I pictured for myself.”

Interviewer: “Are you excited about it?”

Jeanne: “I’m excited about exploring possibilities I never considered as a child dreaming about the future in my countryside bed, like writing novels or screenplays for Hollywood.”

Her countryside bed… She’s talking about ‘La biguine.’ If she only knew.

Interviewer: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I hold my breath, as I realise I don’t know her plans after the film is released. She could leave LA for good and I’d never get to see her again. How unsettling are these thoughts, considering the way I’m struggling after just three weeks away from her.

Jeanne: “To be honest, I have no idea. I’ll probably be feeling the same way as I do right now, loving the same people, discovering new dreams.”

I get that dreaming is what keeps us going, but what about ‘loving the same people’? Is she talking about Lara or…?

Interviewer: “Is love an important force to you as an artist?”

Jeanne: “As with most people love is an important force to me as a person. As for art, they say we sing to our paradise lost, and I think it’s true.”

I wish I didn’t know that, but I do.

Interviewer: “What have you lost?”

Jeanne: “Many things… Amongst them, many versions of myself that are no longer I, like my infant self or the twenty-year-old me, that somehow I try to recapture in my writing. I think people don’t create from the void. Artists are on a quest to fix things in time and space, and the creator itself is a big part of what we hope to keep alive, who we were and what we felt at some moment that compelled us and left an indelible mark in our beings.”

Why is this so difficult to read? I’ve lost so many things with the choices I made in my life. Who would I be if I had never auditioned? Regret is not exactly word to explain it, but melancholy; melancholy for that person that could have been and wasn’t.

Interviewer: “Will you miss that girl who ate croissants and undressed herself to inspire art, or is it just a pose?”

Jeanne: “Don’t you miss your former selves? Because whatever that is coming, it will never be them again, nor those times anymore. Growing up means assuming we have lost our battle against time, and we can only try to seize that longing and use it the best way we know to build something new from the ashes, saving the original feeling from nonsense and oblivion.”

But nothing will ever bring it back. Like that summer Jeanne and I spent together… Just a shadow remains. What I felt and how we were together are lost. As Pablo Neruda said: ‘We, of that time, are no longer the same.’ I glimpse at Jonny and see he’s rubbing his blood-injected eyes.

“I’m not crying…” He murmurs.

And I can’t do this anymore… I abruptly stand up and throw the magazine in Niall’s lap. She’s too everything. She just made Jonny cry… When I reach the window I lean my head in, covering my face with both hands.

“‘Because let’s not fool ourselves’–––Niall begins to read out loud. ‘What have we learnt about Jeanne Mars, beside the fact that we would take her out for dinner or cut directly to the chase and propose to her, even if as she said it’d tell more about us than about her? That is exactly the point…’” This has to be some sort of closing. “‘Like a labyrinth, untamed and transforming, Jeanne Mars possesses the ability of making us learn more about ourselves. To deflect attention from herself she puts a mirror in front of us and passively forces us to face our reflection, and that’s what makes her the great charmer, the great pretender that she is.’”

“The great pretender?” Like in The Platters' song?

“That’s the title/theme of the interview,” Jonny says. It means it’s been at least partially approved by her camp.

“It makes total sense–––Niall interrupts my thoughts. Jeanne strikes as pretty care free, but I realise now that something was off that night in Philly.” What? I turn to face him. “Like in this interview, she made that chat about me right away, asking me questions as if she was trying to avoid mine…” What is he implying? That night was madness and none of us was in our right mind.

“I mean, Harry… I’ve just read this, so I don’t know her, but she’s a lot like you, mate–––Jonny adds. Next to her you are 100% fake deep, but this is the way you’ve dealt with attention all these years.” I reckon I have pretended a lot. “I’m not saying it’s a facade, but more of a quality to keep yourself private, whether aware of it or not. And when you make people look at their reflection they see some of themselves in you. That, my friend, is what being a charmer means.” I turn around and look through the window. My charm has been a defensive mechanism, a sort of disguise. It’s a safe ground for interaction that allows me to slip away from different situations with people, fans and interviewers, to be in control. I always thought Jeanne was a flirt, but what if she does use her charm to protect herself too? Maybe I haven’t been really listening to her. I sense Jonny gets up and leaves the room.

“‘My head canon, between you and me?’–––Niall resumes his reading. ‘Jeanne Mars has a secret. Out there somewhere there’s a lucky guy whom she loves deeply. Because what else could she be hiding? We know she’s not a spy.’” My lower lip trembles, as I stare hopelessly into space. “Look at you… You love her,” he tells me, popping up at my side and putting a hand on my shoulder. There is amazement in his voice.

“Of course I love her–––I mutter, shaking my head. I’ll always love her… She was my first love, and she’s my friend.”

“Harry, you are in love with her… All over again.”

–.–.–

Notes

Interviews are more complex but I didn't want to make this too confusing to read with Harry's commentary. I hope you enjoyed and got some clues ;) I think the way Harry is discovering a new dimension of Jeanne is very sweet. It was about time! This is a story of slow build-ups.

But now it's time for Niall's wedding! Who's ready for a bit of OT5? Next chapter is going to be crazy! SOON. Love you all <3

The Great Pretender

Comments

miss you a lot friend,
message me sometime if you have the chance ❤️

cococranberry cococranberry
3/13/19

You promised you would never make us wait for an update that long again... *cries*

JasperRenee JasperRenee
7/3/18

Hello,

I hope your life is everything that you want it to be. It seems like the past couple of months have really changed my perspective of the world, and how much you need to appreciate the little things in life. You never know when life will snatch them away from you.

I have really appreciated all that you have done for me. I miss your constantly developing plot, and your infinitesimal points of detail. In other words, I miss this story so much.

I feel like so much has happened since the last time you updated. I hope you know that I am always eagerly awaiting your next chapter. Even if it's 5 years from now, and I am a fully licensed Speech Language Pathologist, I will try my best to keep up my support. Maybe next year while I am studying abroad in Italy you will find the motivation to continue. Who knows what's going to happen. Maybe I should take the quote from the t-shirt I am currently wearing. "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know you're gonna get."

Thanks,
Morgan

Oh no, and then the moment came there's no next chapter anymore! What do I have to do with my spare time now?!
On a serious note: I loved loved looooooved your story so far. I loved the way the sequel wasn't the same as 'Dreaming of you'. Another timeset, other places, other people getting involved, and the tension being build up from the beginning till now. Their 'relationship' didn't went back to the way things were in France 4 years ago, it needed time to get together again and in a different way (happy about their love right now, but after 111 chapters I know things can change...). I really loved the way you wrote about Mark Owen as being Jeanne's 'Boyband crush'. I've been such a big fan of Take That and Mark was my first true love when I was 11 or so. His picture was hanging above my bed, wich I kissed goodnight every night. (I guess I've just spilled my age, haven't I? ;-) )
When I read the last comments, I think your last update was from 2 months ago. I really hope you can find the time, the energy and the inspiration to finish this story, because I'm hooked! Give me a warning when you'll write a book, I will be in front of the bookstore, waiting!

Love, Leah



Dear You,

I've started reading this story two days ago. From the very first chapter I'm hooked and I can't stop reading. I don't want to go out, I don't want to sleep, I just want to read. Not to know how it will end actually, because I don't want it to end! So I try to find a balance between reading fast en making it last a little bit longer. I'm a fan of Harry from the day Sign of the times has released, so I have a lot of catching up to do. When you mention a song or a situation with One Direction, I look for it on Google or YouTube. So you're helping me to get to know the world of Harry and 1D, thank you for that! I've been to Paris a couple of times, It's such a beautiful city. I have good, romantic, memories of the times I've been there. You're writing about the city is so accurate and lively, it feels I'm there again by reading. My heart nearly broke for Harry and Jeanne when I read the last chapter of Dreaming of you. Happy to know there's a sequel, I going to start reading that now. I just wanted to write you this, because in the notes below the chapters you seem like a very nice, caring person. Thank you for writing such a beautiful story! (I hope my writing makes sence, English isn't my native language so I know I make a lot of mistakes. I'm sorry!)
Love, Leah