Riverside Park by Laura van Wormer Page B

“because you just know it’s important. But you don’t quite know where in the scheme of things it’s important. I keep thinking if I learn enough I’ll know where all these pieces should go to make everything whole.”
    â€œIt’s an affliction all right,” he said. “So what else do you have?”
    She looked down at the Oriental rug. “Even Rachel loves this. I bought it from an estate sale in the building.”
    He was turning one of the corners up. “She should love it. It’s all silk thread.”
    She took him to her bedroom, apologizing in advance for the mess. It was even worse than she remembered, with clothes piled high, books and papers all over the place and then, of course, the stuff all over she always meant to do something with.
    â€œWhere did you get that?” he said, making a beeline for the steamer trunk she used as a table.
    â€œIt’s cool, isn’t it? It’s got like forty travel stickers from the thirties.”
    â€œAnd that’s what people want, with the old stickers.”
    â€œAnd what about this?” she asked him, gesturing to her bed. It was unmade, of course, and since she had a habit of pulling out all her sheets and blankets in the night, at the moment it looked sort of like a large animal nest.
    He examined the headboard, which had boughs of leaves and flowers carved in it. “French,” he said. “Turn of the century. Nice.”
    â€œIt was my grandmother’s. What about the footboard?” she said, pulling the mound of covers up so he could see it.
    He circled the end of the bed and then squatted, running his hand over the dark wood. Then he frowned and got down on his knees to examine the legs. Then he sat up. “This is friggin’ Regency, where did you get it?”
    She burst out laughing. “It’s great, isn’t it? If you can believe, my brother and I found it on the side of the road in Massachusetts.”
    â€œSo what are you using as rails?” he wondered, lifting the comforter to look at the sides. “Not bad. Where did these come from?”
    â€œI can’t even remember,” she said truthfully. “They were just up in my parents’ attic and it was like, duh, I get it, Nana’s headboard, these rails, the foot board.”
    â€œFrench headboard circa 1900,” he said, getting to his feet, “English footboard circa 1820, American rails circa 1930.” He smiled and threw his hands up. “It works. You couldn’t pass this off as anything real—”
    â€œI wouldn’t want to,” she told him. “It’s my bed.” Celia didn’t tell him that no one except herself had ever slept in this bed. That it was the bed she had created after her boyfriend took off. That was the rule. No dirtying her nest. Never again. Not here, not where she was surrounded by the things she loved.
    â€œBoy, I can sell that,” he said, walking across the bedroom, pointing to the lamp on her dresser. It was a large, silver-colored metal sculpture of a nude woman holding up a globe of light in each hand. “The decorators from the Village will go nuts.”
    â€œI bought that off the street. But not with the globes. I had to pay more for those globes than I paid for the lamp.”
    â€œWhich was how much?”
    â€œFifty, I think—which at the time I couldn’t afford but I just had to have it. I didn’t find the globes until last year. I think I had to pay around a hundred and twenty for those.”
    â€œI can get you a thousand. Net.” He turned around. “After commission. A thousand bucks for that lamp.”
    She blinked.
    â€œSo when are we going to your storage unit?” he asked, eyes still roving the room. He walked over to her barrister bookcases.
    â€œAnytime during the day, really,” she said. “My parents gave me those bookcases.”
    Charlie straightened up and turned