Looking Glass Lives by Felice Picano

Author:Felice Picano [Picano, Felice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781602824508
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
Published: 1998-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The plumbers and electricians and carpenters had been coming and going every day for the past four months—so I naturally assumed it was one of them returning for a last-minute consultation or piece of unfinished work when I heard the car pull into the driveway late that hazy spring afternoon.

Although I was in the upstairs turret library, close to a window giving a view of the area, I didn’t bother looking out to make certain. I was too immersed in my work, replacing sets of the old books into the newly polished mahogany shelving on the little balcony. I was following the plan that Karen and I had worked out a few weeks before, when we’d finally gotten all the volumes catalogued. Another morning’s work, and the library would be complete, restored to exactly the condition it had been in a hundred years before, save for such contemporary modifications as electric lighting, a telephone extension cord, and auxiliary speakers wired to the huge system two floors down in the music room. But these were barely noticeable when the room was seen. The library had been one of the most remarkable rooms in the place, a key to our deciding to take the house. There was a sense of real accomplishment in its being almost done, which made up for the enormous expense and the multitude of problems we’d run into during the restoration.

Downstairs the kitchen, the breakfast room, the little connecting parlor, the music room, and the immense foyer were restored. The north side was still awaiting work. On the second floor only the two rooms beneath the library had been completed—a wall taken out to make them into one huge bedroom with a dozen windows, and the two dressing rooms combined into a modern bath and dressing room. The other three rooms on the north side remained empty, awaiting their turn. The house was so large, another family could have been living on the other side of the foyer and we’d only know about it by bumping into them coming or going, especially since the clever architect of the past century saw to it that several alternate staircases had been provided for—little twisting ones that opened up from what you might have thought was only another of many closets and went up to another dressing room or down to another part of the vast basement.

After dinner and whatever final night work we had to do, Karen and I would wander around the house. Down into the basement with flashlights and extension cords to find all the furniture that still hadn’t been restored—destined when done for the north side of the house. It sat dusted and brushed of cobwebs but still rather sad and dilapidated compared to what had already been repaired and polished to a high gleam with oils of clove and lemon and which now elegantly graced the furnished rooms. Or Karen and I would go to the north side of the house, sketchpads in hand, planning out various designs for how we would eventually fix up those rooms—for guests or children.

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