Belle Rousseau's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

The curious look Mr. Phillips gave Belle did not last. By Monday he sat with Zip again, laughing at her jokes. Belle needed to understand one thing before she could win him. Why had he picked Zip at all? She still did not know. She could not compete with a mystery. So she decided to ask the only person who might tell her the truth. She went to Rapunzel. Rapunzel ran her art classes from a tall tower near the sea. Belle found her in the rose garden of a butterfly-themed mansion, cutting stems for the window boxes. Rapunzel had watched Belle fall apart at the cottage. She had told her, plainly, to stop aiming her whole self at one man. Belle trusted her because Rapunzel never softened the truth to be kind. "I need to know why he chose her," Belle said. "Zip. He barely knew her. Hours, and he asked to be her boyfriend." Rapunzel set her shears down. "You think there's a secret," she said. "A reason you can beat." "There has to be." Rapunzel led her inside, to a paint-splattered purple couch by a wide window. On a low table sat a bunch of autumn flowers, reds and golds, with painted butterflies pinned above them. Zip had made it in one of Rapunzel's classes. Belle stared at it. "Zip comes here every week," Rapunzel said. "She's not clever. She's not the most qualified anything. She just shows up and makes things and laughs at herself when they're ugly." She touched a crooked petal. "Mr. Phillips came once to watch. He didn't leave." Belle waited for more. "That's it? That's the secret?" "That's it," Rapunzel said. "There's nothing to uncover, Belle. He didn't choose her over you. He chose someone easy to be near. You've spent weeks studying her like a book you could out-read." Belle sat down hard on the splattered couch. She had wanted a flaw, a lie, a weak spot she could pry open. Instead she found something worse. Zip had won by being ordinary and warm. Belle could not out-plan warmth. She could not study her way past a woman who simply enjoyed her own life. "So there's nothing to fight," Belle said quietly. "No," Rapunzel said. "There never was. The question you keep asking is the wrong one." Belle looked at the ugly, happy flowers. The mystery was gone, and it left her holding empty hands. She had built her whole plan on the idea that Zip hid something. Now that idea was dead. She could not compete for Mr. Phillips's attention by beating Zip, because there was no contest. But a new thought pressed in, cold and clear. If she could not win by studying Zip, she would have to build something of her own. Belle stood. She did not know yet what that thing was. She only knew the old plan was finished, and she would need a new one before Friday came again.