Mix-up in Miniature Read online

  The Rockwell residence was in Robert Todd Heights, site of the largest homes of the four neighborhoods. The other compounds were, in descending order of price tag, Edward Baker Heights, William Wallace Heights, and Thomas Heights. All named after Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd’s sons, in accordance with an unwritten town rule that, whenever feasible, we’d name buildings and properties after people and events in Lincoln’s life.

  I was now less than seven miles from my home, but light years away in terms of socio-economics. I’d tutored the son of one of my former Abraham Lincoln High students at their home in Thomas Heights, so I had some idea what was behind the ornate doors I was passing. Some were fronted by stained glass worthy of a church in Venice and fountains reminiscent of the plazas on the postcards of European vacationers.

  Skip had said it more exactly when I told him where Ms. Rockwell lived. “From here to there, it works out to about a half million dollars a mile,” he’d said. “And that’s for the smaller homes. Figure twice that for Robert Todd Heights, where you’re talking twelve, fourteen thousand square feet of living space.”

  The data were enough to intimidate me as I pulled into a circular drive in front of an enormous mansion in light stucco. The Rockwell Estate.

  Before I got out of my car, I checked my hair in the visor mirror. Too late now for a salon poof-up procedure. The famed novelist would see my ’do at its limp best. In my good slacks and a relatively new sweater set, all in shades of brown and beige, I matched the stucco exterior of the house. And the dead leaves on the path.

  I was a bit disappointed that I had to park my own car and open its door myself. I pictured a valet looking out a window at my Saturn and deciding it wasn’t worth special handling.

  On the way to the front door, I was newly overwhelmed by the size of Ms. Rockwell’s home. My own residence, yard and all, would fit into one wing, like a dollhouse. At times like this I missed being able to hear the inevitable lecture from Ken, who was a respected architect. He would have pointed out the wise choices of curves on one element of the structure or the poor slant of roof on another. Sometimes his critique enhanced my enjoyment of a building; other times I wished he’d simply let me enjoy it in my own way, even if I liked something that was wrong about it.

  The only feature of the Rockwell home that I recognized was the grand double set of curving steps that led to the front door, a conceit commonly seen in the Regency period.

  I wondered if there was a protocol for climbing the left or the right steps to the front door. Was someone watching and judging? Deciding whether I was left- or right-leaning? Left- or right-brained? I took the steps on the right since they were closer to where I’d parked my low-end car. So much for heavy-duty analysis.

  I used the high brass knocker, a lion’s head, making my presence known. Descriptive passages from the latest romance novel by Varena Young, The Rake in the Garden, flitted through my mind. I imagined I’d soon be led through rooms filled with detailed marquetry on walls, end tables, and curio cabinets. Perhaps a snuff box here or there. Certainly a dark-paneled library with matching leather-bound classics.

  As I recalled the adventures of Felicity, the heroine who fell in love with the Rake, the door opened. A tall, thin woman in casual business attire that included a sweater set much like mine except in shades of blue, stood there, smiling slightly. So far, so good. My clothes weren’t out of line. Or did this mean I looked like a servant?

  She held out her hand and gave me a practiced, controlled smile. “Laura Overbee, Ms. Young’s personal assistant.”

  Not a servant. Overbee was a great moniker for a romance heroine, I thought. Maybe Ms. Young changed her staff’s names to fit her world.

  I shook Ms. Overbee’s hand. “Geraldine Porter, from the library committee. Ms. Young is expecting me.” I was surprised how easy it was for me to switch back and forth between the great lady’s names, following the lead of her staff.

  I knew I sounded too formal, but the bright, two-level entrance hall in front of me nearly took my breath away. A double set of curved marble treads and risers grew seamlessly from the marble floor and then met at the same point on the upper level. I stared at the white filigree newels and banisters on both sides of the stairs. A repeat of the pattern of the exterior steps.

  Ken would have been impressed, especially at the openness of the hallway and the airy, modern look. Not at all what I had expected. No dark corners for trysts or nefarious deeds, just endless air and sunlight.

  Ms. Overbee looked to be mid-thirties, the same age range as my only child, Richard, Maddie’s father. She had a much stiffer, nervous air about her, however. She kept perfect posture while looking over her shoulder a couple of times during our brief introduction, as if I’d walked in on her attempt to steal tiny diamonds from the legendary dollhouse, wherever it was in this enormous modern palace.

  Or, perhaps the important job of personal assistant to a famous writer was more stressful than that of an orthopedic surgeon at the Stanford Medical Center. (I’d trained myself to rattle off the details of my son’s profession as if they were one word. Not that I was overly proud of him.)

  “The household staff seems to be occupied at the moment,” Ms. Overbee said, guiding me through one of three high, curved doorways to a beautifully appointed room on the left. The music room, I supposed, unless there was more than one highly polished grand piano in the house. “If you’ll take a seat, someone will find Ms. Young for you.”

  I smiled and thanked her. I wanted to assure her I got her message: Don’t think I’m always relegated to lowly tasks like answering a knock on the door. A real servant will be attending to your needs. I sat up straight and tried not to act as if this were the first magnificent home I’d ever visited.

  A faint scent of rosewater filled the space, either from Ms. Overbee’s toilette or from the many vases of fresh flowers that surrounded me.

  Ms. Overbee walked away, her hands folded in front of her, in the manner of Mrs. Winfred Steeples, the dowager in Varena Young’s novel, The Last of the Steeples. My, I’d absorbed more of this new-to-me genre than I thought. How would I explain this to my book club friends, who shunned genre fiction and read little other than the classics and winners of the National Book Award?

  In front of me, on a large, pale floral carpet, was one of several low tables in the room. I wouldn’t have described it as a coffee table, lest someone be led to compare this fine piece of furniture to the simple straight-legged version that sat in my own living room.

  I thought how my dear Henry, who’d retired after a long tenure teaching shop at ALHS, and was an expert woodworker, would love to see this furniture and the light wood floors. I knew if I asked, he’d gladly make me a miniature replica of the lavish fireplace mantel that took up most of the far wall. Funny how the men in my life had the combined knowledge to build the dollhouses of my dreams—my late husband an expert on exteriors, and my new friend a master at interiors.

  I might have gone on thinking about the virtues of Henry Baker, who’d gently broken through my firm belief that I’d never meet a man as wonderful as Ken Porter, but a swooshing noise interrupted.

  Alexandra Rockwell, aka Varena Young, had entered the room. The faint rosewater air was replaced by a bold scent I couldn’t place at first. An invigorating, spicy aroma with a touch of lemon.

  Ms. Young wore a long, flowing, soft red dress. She might have been entering the stage of a great theater. Her neck, with its telltale rings of age, supported too many jeweled chains and pendants for me to count without staring. The same for the bracelets on her arms. Her brown hair was pulled back into a chignon.

  Even in the middle of the afternoon, in her own home, meeting a plebian from downtown, Ms. Young was dressed like the women on the covers of her novels. I’d had a look at her author photographs, however, and guessed it had been many years since her last photo shoot.

  I stood as she arrived at the sofa, her arms outstretched, offering both her hands. As tall a
s I was, she had a couple of inches on me. Ms. Young was definitely more relaxed and confident than her personal assistant, Laura Overbee. There was a certain security that came with wealth and fame, I assumed, and this lady exuded both.

  “I’m Varena,” she said, in a full, throaty voice that seemed to provide at least four-part harmony. “May I call you Geraldine?”

  “Of course,” I stammered.

  “Would you like to see Lord and Lady Morley’s home?”

  Does a glue gun get hot? I wanted to answer.

  “I’d love to,” I said, not mentioning that I’d kept yellowing copies of every magazine spread and newspaper article written about Lord and Lady Morley’s home, and that seeing it in person had been in my dreams for decades.

  “Let’s go back then, shall we?”

  My friend Varena, as I now thought of her, ushered me out of the music room, across the entryway, where I stole a glance up at the sparkling crystal chandelier. This time I looked between the two sets of marble stairs, to a pair of curved arches and ultimately to immense glass doors that led outside. In spite of the brightness of the day, all the ceiling lights were lit, their circular reflections everywhere on the marble floor. The Green movement had not yet reached the lavish homes in Robert Todd Heights, but for the moment I forgave them their lack of environmental awareness.

  Varena led me farther into the house toward a room at the end of a long corridor. On the way we passed more vases of flowers, set into alcoves, and more rooms with no doors, but simple, white arched openings. How many sitting rooms did one family need? I pictured myself turning them all into crafts areas. One room for shadow boxes. One for my miniature shops. One for construction work. One for display. I took a breath.

  “What a beautiful home you have,” I said, immediately regretting the clichéd remark. I squeezed my lips together to prevent further comments, but Varena’s thank-you smile was as gracious as if I’d been the first to notice.

  I wondered at the age of the house. Ken would have been able to tell me whether this was a redone old mansion or a relatively new construction. It didn’t seem appropriate to ask. Neither would I give in to my curiosity about whether Varena was from old money or if she’d benefitted from characters like Felicity and the Rake to support this lifestyle.

  Without further comment, Varena paused at the only solid interior door I’d seen. “Here we are. The Morleys have their own room,” she said.

  I caught a twinkle in her eye, which comforted me. I didn’t want to think the grande dame had passed over into a completely fictional world where the Morleys were her only friends.

  Varena opened the door, and the Georgian mansion—the term “dollhouse” didn’t seem to fit—came into view, set on a low table in the middle of a dark-paneled room. Finally, my fantasy was realized and I was transported two centuries back. I changed my mind on the spot about the value of living in a fictional world with imaginary people.

  I wanted in.

  My breath caught at the light reflected from the tiny crystal chandelier in the Morleys’ foyer, brighter than the life-size one out in the life-size foyer. I’d read that several tiny, real diamonds from Varena’s jewelry collection had been placed strategically in the dollhouse chandelier. Rays bounced around also from the real silver cutlery and napkin rings on the polished dining room table, and from one or more jeweled objects in just about every room.

  I could swear I saw a swarm of beautifully coiffed men and women gliding across the dance floor in the great ballroom. It wasn’t hard to picture Felicity, in her voluminous gown, and the handsome Rake sitting primly on the intricate mahogany and green-cushioned loveseat against the wall. No body parts would be touching, of course, but flirtatious looks would pass between them and their hearts would swell with the music.

  I nearly fainted from the heat of my thoughts. No wonder romance novels were the biggest sellers in the book world.

  Cooling off, I followed Varena’s mesmerizing voice. She pointed out the tiny books bound in leather and gold and a one-half-inch lapis lazuli statuette brought to her by a friend who’d worked on an archeological dig in the Fertile Crescent. Her finger, tipped lightly in a shade of red that matched her dress, stopped over a working, bubbling fountain in the courtyard.

  “They tell me there are special waterworks underneath here, somewhere,” Varena told me, shrugging her shoulders and waving her hand at the base of the dollhouse, as if the notion confused her and all she cared about was the effect of the tiny sprays of water.

  I wanted to sit in front of the house and inspect every miniature working clock and feel all the layers of fabric that made up the window treatments. I wanted to sit on the Regency side chair with gold-patterned upholstery and take a sip of tea from the silver service set on an ornate low table.

  Mostly, I wanted to know which, if any, of the marvelous pieces Varena was excited about were her own creations. I knew Linda would have asked the moment they met. I could hear her in my mind, asking simply, Is there a chance in hell any of this is your work? I was glad Linda wasn’t here now to spoil my moment. Craftsperson or not, Varena Young had impeccable taste.

  Every few minutes Varena stepped back, arms folded across all her chains and pendants, and smiled broadly. I could tell she enjoyed watching my delight in her treasures. Whatever had made me think Varena would be unapproachable just because she was never seen chatting with the locals at Willie’s Bagels on Sunday mornings, and we’d never bumped into her browsing in Rosie’s Bookshop?

  I forgave her. She was too busy writing books, after all. And she was a crafter, or at least a crafts collector, a crafts lover, and therefore, “good people,” as Skip would say.

  Though I was happy Linda was at her nursing job, I wished Maddie were with me. I wished Henry were with me. I wished Ken were with me.

  I’d had enough class to leave my camera at home, but I wondered about taking notes. I didn’t want to forget a single detail of the dollhouse or its owner to share with my crafts group on Wednesday evening.

  As for the bookmobile fund-raiser, if I had any doubts before today, I knew as soon as I set eyes on the Morley dollhouse that this building would not be gracing the auction table. I doubted it would even fit through the doorway to the exhibit hall.

  I’d almost summoned the courage to ask my hostess if she enjoyed crafting herself. A diplomatic way to put it, I thought. But I was spared a potential faux pas by the arrival of a dark-haired woman in a plain blue shirtwaist dress and what my mother and aunts called sensible shoes. Not quite a uniform, but close.

  “Excuse me, Miss Young,” the young woman said. She stood in the doorway, wringing her hands in apparent distress. Were all of Varena Young’s staff strung out? The two women I’d met who were in her employ were a sharp contrast to the smooth, stately Varena herself.

  “Corazón, dear, not now. We can go over the menu later this evening,” Varena said.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Young. It’s not for this weekend’s party. I wanted to tell you, you have a guest waiting in the upstairs den.”

  I’d done enough tutoring of English as a second language to recognize Corazón’s Mexican accent, which, though controlled, came through in the way she pronounced you and words containing r’s.

  Varena’s face took on a sternness I hadn’t seen in the entire fifteen minutes that I’d known her. “I have a guest waiting right here,” she said. I straightened my shoulders and felt my ego puff up a bit, even though apparently I wasn’t on the guest list for that weekend party.

  Corazón patted her thick hair, wrapped in a net at the back. She sighed audibly. “Miss Young, they tell me you must come now.”

  I felt sorry for the short woman who seemed to have too many bosses, and whose English pronunciation got worse as her stress level rose. I wanted to sit her down and work on the initial y sound, one of the most difficult to master for native Spanish speakers. “Think of your double l,” I’d remind her. “The way it is in La Jolla.”

  Varena turn
ed to me and bestowed an apologetic look. “Geraldine?” she asked, eyebrows raised, as if she were seeking my permission to leave me and attend to the upstairs guest.

  “Please don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m very grateful for the time you’ve spent with me.”

  I felt like a subject of the queen. In fact, I remembered, I was in the presence of a duchess. Only a rumored duchess, true, but that was more nobility than anyone else I’d ever stood this close to. The two grand houses, both the life-sized modern one and the modeled Georgian, had apparently sent me into a mode where I might curtsy at any moment.

  “We still have business to do,” Varena said to me. “If it meets with your approval, I plan to donate my midsize Tudor to your auction. I’ve already tagged it for your event. I’ll show it to you when I come back. I hope it will be acceptable.”

  My breath caught. Another great fantasy had come to pass—I’d snagged one of Varena Young’s dollhouses without even trying.

  “Thank you, thank you,” I said. Too late to take one back. Maddie’s influence was showing.

  “And, this might sound too forward, but wouldn’t it be lovely if now and then I could drop in on your famous crafts group?”

  Famous? My heart sang. I was ready to gush again when Corazón, whom I was beginning to dislike, interrupted again, this time with a simple “Miss Young?”

  Varena gave a resigned sigh. “Wait here, will you?” she asked me, as if she truly thought I might leave, perhaps insulted that I was being offered only a midsize Tudor or that she wanted to join our crafting sessions.

  I glanced back at the dollhouse mansion that I’d only begun to explore. “I’ll be happy to wait,” I said.

  Varena walked past Corazón toward the hallway. I wondered who would have been ushered directly to an upstairs room for a meeting with the lady of the house. I pictured long hallways with bedroom after bedroom, bath after bath. And a sitting room for special guests.