Page 77 of Dying to Meet You
Who pulled the trigger, Tim?I silently ask.
The only answer is the distant screech of a seagull.
The mansion rises above me in all its hulking glory, and it takes all my strength to go inside.
28
As I hang my trench coat in the reception room, I hear Beatrice talking with a couple of people in the parlor. I’m late for my first meeting of the day.
Conversation stops when I step into the doorway, and three faces turn in my direction.
Along with Beatrice, there’s Lillian, the sixtyish designer, wearing a Chanel suit and red lipstick. She openly gapes at me. Then there’s Matt, the young furniture restorer.
Given their matching stares of curiosity, they must be current on the local news.
“Sorry I’m late,” I say, my cheeks flaming. “What did I miss?”
Lillian frowns at the easel she’s set up by the windows. Like she can’t remember what it’s for. “Upholstery,” she says eventually. “We were discussing the original upholstery.”
Matt says something about armchairs, and Beatrice sends me a searching look.Are you okay?she mouths.
I give her a quick nod and look away. Nothing to see here. Just your average morning when you get the news of your ex’s arrest for murdering your other ex.
“I want to come back to the conversation couches,” Lillian says. “The original parlor had two of them centered in the space. And they were spectacular.”
“Oh yes!” gushes the restorer. “We couldn’t live without the conversation couches.”
I’ll bet you can, says my uncharitable mood.
“They’re very unique,” Beatrice says carefully. “But the parlor requires a flexible floor plan. None of the furniture can be wider than the door frames, since we’ll need to remove pieces for larger events.”
I sneak a look at the easel and discover that Lillian’s plan calls for two couches, both large and donut-shaped.
Lillian purses her lips. “What are the dimensions of the doors?”
Everyone turns to me, and it takes me a beat to reach for my laptop. “One moment. I think they’re thirty-three inches.”
With my computer balanced on a folding chair, I find the precise measurements, and Beatrice and the decorator begin to argue about whether or not a conversation sofa could be constructed as a sectional on wheels.
This morning, I’m finding it hard to care. We’re almost literally rearranging the deck chairs on theTitanicright now.
“What if we widened the doorway?” Lillian offers. “Problem solved.”
“That would be structurally inadvisable,” I say, finally tuning in.
Matt says, “Then is it time to take a look at the dining chairs?”
“They’re in storage in the servants’ quarters,” Beatrice says. “Follow me. And Rowan? We’ll need the diningroom dimensions.”
“Of course.”
With my computer under my arm, I follow them out of the parlor and toward the back of the house. Beatrice opens a door that leads to a double stairway—the choice is five steps down to the left or seven steps up to the right.
We climb, and the half flight brings us to a new corridor of servants’ rooms.
Beatrice unlocks a door, and I’m the last in line as we file inside. The room is filled with stacks of old furniture, much of which dates to the mid-nineteenth century, and with four of us vying for space, it feels claustrophobic.
The first time I saw these rooms, they still held metal bunkbeds—four beds to a room for the girls of the Portland Magdalene Home.
