Part 11 (2/2)
”You would know better than I would,” said Angela, and turned from Vera to take a dish towel out of a drawer. It was cheerfully patterned with strawberries; she swabbed it up and down her arms as though cleaning or drying them. ”So you tell me. Did they neglect you too? Was that why you did it?”
”I wouldn't say they did,” said Jim. ”No, I really can't complain. My parents were pretty nice to me.”
”The Zinfandel,” said Angela, and proffered two gla.s.ses.
They sipped expectantly, waiting for the next remark. But instead she ceased to perform, and for the next half hour was gracious and comprehensible. She made tactful and sympathetic remarks about Hal's death; she knew what T. was working on, discussed the mission statement for his new foundation; she understood that Jim was a lawyer for nonprofits and remembered that he had met T. at an alumni party for their college fraternity.
Frat boys, both of them, realized Susan with vague astonishment. In her youth she would never have gone near one.
They walked away slowly, afterward, in a mild daze.
”I like her,” said Jim.
The architect came to the house a week later, a tall, thin man with gla.s.ses and a prominent nose-more or less an architect cliche, as far as Susan could tell. Together they toured the grounds. He studied the building from various angles and then accepted a cup of coffee and went inside with her to examine the interior features. He said he was hopeful the house would be granted state historic status and she felt a surge of confidence: now, even if Steven and Tommy somehow won their suit, she had an ace in the hole. Not that she had the money to pay them off without selling the house anyway, in the event that the decision went against her, but she would cross that bridge . . . she would rather lose all the money she had than sacrifice the house.
When she walked him out to his car he popped the trunk and brought out a long yellowing roll. ”The 1924 drawings,” he said. ”You can keep them. We've made a copy to put back in the archives. Technically we don't need to keep even the copies this long, but since the file's been reactivated . . .”
”Thank you,” she said, rolling the thin rubber bands up and down on the tube.
He got in his car, and she stepped back as he started it up. Then he put it into reverse and rolled the window down. ”Hey, if I come out again you'll have to show me the bas.e.m.e.nt,” he said. ”On the plan it has a surprisingly large footprint.”
”What bas.e.m.e.nt?” she asked, but he had already backed up out of earshot with a light wave.
At the kitchen table, beneath a blackbelly rosefish, she spread out the drawings. There were several pages and she wasn't good at correlating the lines on them to the real house, but soon she had gla.s.ses weighting the corners and could study the one marked BAs.e.m.e.nT & SUBCELLAR. She wondered if it had been filled in since-was that even possible? She'd never noticed a door to the bas.e.m.e.nt, yet there it was on the plans. As far as she could tell it had been as large as the ground floor, had extended over the same area-maybe nine thousand square feet. The subcellar was smaller and seemed to have been designed for wine storage: there were built-in racks on the plan, if she was reading it right.
She called the architect, who had a phone in his car.
”Could it have been, I don't know, filled in or something? I've never seen a bas.e.m.e.nt here. I mean, I've lived in the house since December.”
”Tell you what,” he said. ”My lunch meeting just canceled. Let's look for it.”
He was back in half an hour.
”So you've never seen a door?” he said.
”Never,” she said firmly, and shook her head. ”They're not where the plan says they should be. See? Here?”
”The plans indicate there-there-two doors, two staircases,” and he tapped the flattened paper. ”Let's go look.”
He lifted the gla.s.ses off the drawings and took the plans with him. She followed him out of the kitchen, along the main hall to the raptor room with the sunken floor.
He looked around for a second and then consulted the drawing.
”Huh,” he said, and turned around a few times.
”What?”
”I don't think this room was ever built as the plan stipulated. Either that, or it was gutted and rebuilt from the ground up. See? This should be a supporting wall. Nothing. Instead the support's over there,” and he pointed.
”So what does that mean?”
”First we check where the other staircase was supposed to be,” he said, shaking his head, and this time she followed him to the music room.
”No,” he said, and shook his head again. ”Hmm. Surprising.”
”Will it affect the application?” she asked abruptly, quickly worried that her curiosity had jeopardized the house's future.
”Oh no. Shouldn't be relevant,” he said vaguely, looking around and then back at the drawing.
”Oh good. Good.”
”OK. We'll have to walk it. We can start from the east end,” he said finally.
”Wait. Are you hungry? I know you're missing your lunch hour right now. Would you like me to make us some sandwiches first?”
”Thanks. Appreciate it.”
In a few minutes they were standing with their sandwiches in the parlor off the cavernous front hall-the drawing room, full of racc.o.o.ns and ringtails and coati, weasels and otters and minks. ”Procyonids and mustelids,” she told the architect, as he nodded and masticated his ham and cheese, casting his eyes to the molding and ceiling beams.
She liked knowing the nomenclature, even took pride in it. They were beautiful words, the terms from Greek and Latin: careful words to be kept and valued, along with the collection.
”All this furniture has been here? Since you took possession?”
”This room is unchanged, pretty much, except for the taxidermy. That's all been moved around. But I don't think it blocks anything.”
He walked along the one interior wall, rapping with one hand, sandwich in the other.
”Moving along,” he said, when the last bite of sandwich was gone.
He checked the hallway next, the wall behind the grand staircase; he went back and forth between rooms, measuring closet s.p.a.ces and the depths of walls with his eyes. She was impressed by this, how he could know measurements without using a measuring tape. He knew the volume of hidden s.p.a.ces without seeing both sides of them at the same time. But in room after room he shook his head, and finally-by this time she was impatient and the b.a.l.l.s of her feet were hot and sore from standing-they had made it to the west end of the house without new information.
There had been some shelves and cabinets and wardrobes they'd need to get out of the way, he said, if she wanted him to be sure-some walls he couldn't get to without the furniture being moved, pieces that were too heavy for just the two of them to s.h.i.+ft. He wrote down the list of rooms and the walls he needed to check if she wanted a definitive answer.
”I can send over a couple of burly guys who work for one of our contractors, if you don't mind paying his fees,” he offered at the front door, consulting a sleek wrist.w.a.tch. ”Some cement guys or roofers or something.”
”Yes, please send them,” she said. ”Or give me the number. Whatever's quick.”
”The secretary will call it in to you.”
It hadn't occurred to her to sleep with him, she thought, despite his competence and a pa.s.sing attraction. She wondered at this, and when he was gone she put her feet up on the couch in the library and gazed into the face of a black bear.
”Vera's gone,” said Angela.
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