by Julie Sarff
It’s enough to make a young professional feel dizzy. Whenever I am in the kitchen, I like to pretend lit is my kitchen. I picture myself saying, “Honey, would you like anything from the kitchen?” and then I picture myself fixing up a silver tray of snacks: olives and a bit of bread and some fresh pesto to smear on it, and a nice bottle of chilled rose to have alongside.
“So how are you adjusting to all the work, dear?” Carla asks, and the mental image of my snack tray swirls into the void.
“Oh fine, great.” I pull up a chair at the huge farm table sitting down next to her. On the opposite side of the kitchen, the huge Barista-style machine Elenora uses to make my coffee hisses and spits and spurts as Carla and I chat on. Mostly we talk about Carla’s cat, who is very clever at opening drawers to retrieve certain kinds of treats. We also talk about how this same cat likes to jump on people he doesn’t know and give them a good, firm bite on the shoulder.
You know, we discuss the normal, everyday stuff.
Except right now I am not much interested in the hijinks of Stracci the cat, so I down the last of my Toblerone and ask in a low voice, “Does he ever come here?”
“Who?” Carla looks up, perplexed. I examine her face. She has such droopy eyelids that they make her look perpetually tired.
“You know, the Signore?” I respond still in the same low voice.
“Signor Logan?” Carla blurts out his name. Didn’t she read the confidentiality agreement?
“Why, he is hardly ever home,” she continues. “He’s only spent… oh what would you say, Elenora? Maybe a total of two weeks here since he bought the place last summer.”
“If that,” Elenora says, bringing me over my coffee and an ugly sugar boat that looks like a golf trophy.
“I guess I can’t actually say how much time he’s spent here,” Carla adds. “All I know is, he’s been here twice and each stay was short. He’s such a different owner from Signor Buschi, who was here all the time and barely ever left home. Isn’t that right, Elenora?”
Elenora doesn’t answer because she is busy on the far end of the kitchen making tea.
“So what was he like?” I ask eagerly as I stir the sugar crystals into my white porcelain espresso cup.
“Very strange man,” says Elenora, as she shuffles back over into earshot and gives me a huge toothless grin.
“Total recluse,” adds Carla.
“He was an avid collector,” expounds Elenora
“More like a packrat,” continues Carla.
“Brandon Logan?” I sit on the edge of my chair.
“Oh no. I thought you were asking about Signor Buschi.” Carla’s brows knit together in confusion. “Oh, you mean what was Signor Logan like? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. As I said, I only met him a couple of times. The first time was when he came to survey the property and he asked us to pack up all Signor Buschi’s things and move them to the basement.” Carla wrinkles her nose as she says this last word. Oh dear, what is down there? In the basement?
“And the only other time I saw Signor Logan was when he came back to fire the interior decorator. He was very kind about it, wasn’t he, Elenora?” Carla shouts across the room to her sister who is assembling teacups and a bag of cookies on a tray. “If you ask me, Signora Bilbury, it seemed as if firing the decorator bothered him more than it bothered the decorator. Oh, but she had to go. She was horrible, that decorator he fired.” Carla makes a face as Elenora shuffles over with her tray. “She said her theme was ‘zebras drinking champagne’ or something.”
“No, no, Carla, not zebras drinking champagne. Zebras and champagne,” Elenora scoffs. “The interior decorator called them ‘the colors of nature.’”
“Yes, yes that’s right, ‘the colors of nature.’ She painted the whole house champagne, with this faux finish so it looks as if it is all antiqued. Oh, that part turned out lovely. She did a good job on that. But then she decided all the accessories were to be zebra striped, like this is some high fashion apartment in an industrial section of Milan or something.” Carla screws up her face as Elenora, who is hovering over me, nudges the bag full of cookies in my direction.
“At least that explains the hideous black-and-white striped sheep rugs,” I say with a streak of glee as I take a bite of cookie.
Oh no, what? What is it? Elenora and Carla look at me oddly. Maybe I have offended them by bashing the rugs? A second later, however, they burst out laughing.
“Those rugs are the worst,” Carla snorts.
“Just don’t wear high heels around them!” Elenora cries. “Those shaggy loops are so thick the interior decorator kept getting her fancy shoes stuck. I remember one time when she got her spiky heel trapped in one and ended up toppling over the sofa table,” This strikes me as so funny that I bust out laughing, but I sober back up when quite unexpectedly Carla says, “But personally, I am glad he fired her. She was sleeping with Signore Di Meo, the florist, you know?”
Great Scot! I stare into my cup. I stare hard—as if trying to divine my future from the foamy swirls in my espresso. I hate talking about other people’s affairs, mostly because I hate thinking about other people talking about my husband’s affair.
Luckily for me, Elenora shrugs her shoulders at her sister, and her face goes blank. Clearly, she refuses to participate in this line of gossip. I am glad she won’t talk about it. If you ask me, this kind of gossip is the whole problem with a place like Arona. In Arona, everybody knows everybody. In Arona, everybody grew up together and so you had better be careful what you do and with whom you do it, because the stories will never die. It’s always that man ran off with somebody’s aunt, and that woman wrecked my cousin’s marriage, and that guy slept with his wife’s sister and so on. I find it all really horrid. Thirty years from now people in Arona will still look at me and shake their heads and say, “Look at the poor American woman, she couldn’t keep her husband.” The very thought of it makes me cringe.
“Beh, Elenora, I don’t care if you don’t want to talk about it. It’s still true. Signora Tazzini—that was the decorator’s name. She was sleeping with our florist, Signor Di Meo, who comes in to do all the flower arrangements when there are guests in residence. That’s how the two of them met, the decorator and Signor Di Meo. But anyway, that’s not why Signor Logan fired her; I don’t think he knew about that. He fired her because of her awful zebra theme. And, well, I think Signor Logan has been far too busy to hire anybody to redo the villa. My understanding is he has two other houses. Alice says that when he’s not working, he spends most of his time in Los Angeles.”
“Hmm,” I muse, “then maybe that’s why he doesn’t care about the gardens.”
All of a sudden Elenora and Carla become so quiet that you could hear crickets. I glance up from the cookie bag just in time to see the sisters exchange a furtive look.
What is that about? They will gossip about some love affair that isn’t relevant to any of us, but why doesn’t anybody want to talk about the gardens? Or the phantom gardener that I have never seen in my four weeks of employment?
Now I know for sure—something is up!
“Well, if you ask my opinion, there is something wrong with the current gardener. The grounds are a disaster,” I say trying to prod them into talking. Once again I am met by silence. Undeterred, I decide to forge on. I open my mouth to speak, but Elenora cuts me off, saying, “Oh, Carla, look at the time. So much to do today. I need to make sure the pantry is properly stocked and you have all those cleaning rags to wash.”
Carla, however, doesn’t move. She takes another sip from her yellow-chintz teacup and says stoically, “Nonsense, Elenora, come back and finish your Darjeeling.” Then she rotates in her seat and whispers, “It is true, the gardens have gotten a bit out of hand.”
A bit out of hand? The gardens are a bit out of hand? That’s like saying the Taliban is a wee bit against women’s rights. The gardens are more than a bit out of hand; they are in total chaos.
“Yes, well
…” Carla reads the incredulous look on my face. “As I was saying, Signore Buschi was an avid collector of many things including plants. And a few of the non-native species have gotten out of control and overrun the place. That’s all. But Signore Tacchini, our gardener, is doing the best he can. I’m sure,” she says this last part with a note of finality, and puts her cup down so firmly on the table that it makes a loud clinking noise.
Obviously I am not going to get any further on this topic today. So I try to think of something else to talk about…
“Well, at least it’s nice that there is an occasional guest here at the villa,” I say as I reach into the cookie bag and fiddle about.
“We haven’t had any guests yet.” Carla takes a sip of her tea. “But we are looking forward to having a guest or two someday soon, aren’t we, Elenora?” Before Elenora can even respond I cut in, “What do you mean you haven’t had a guest? There was a yellow Ferrari here on my first day of work.”
“A yellow Ferrari?” Carla looks puzzled.
“She means Signor Fritz. He works here, too,” Elenora interjects.
Signor Fritz? Another Signore to keep track of? Who is also probably sleeping with the interior decorator or something.
“Yes, he takes care of the egg,” Carla states as if that were the most normal thing in the world to say.
“The egg?”
“Yes, he takes care of the egg. He is not a guest. He is retained part time. He comes and goes.”
“You mean the Fabergé egg?” I ask. Mercy, the guy who takes care of the egg drives a Ferrari? I am in the wrong business.
“What does he do with it?” I ask intrigued.
Carla gives a laugh. “Why he cleans it of course, and keeps it in tip top shape. And evaluates its price. I believe Signore Fritz is the world’s leading expert on Fabergé eggs.”
“They bring somebody in just to clean and evaluate the egg?”
“Why, yes.” Carla replies. “That egg is the second most expensive thing in the house—second only to the Pollock over the fireplace in the main salon.”
This makes me bite down so hard that I completely miss my cookie and stab my tongue. “Olie smokes, tha paining is authenic?” I manage with my injured tongue.
Carla totters excitedly in her seat, and Elenora responds “of course.” And I just sit and try to take it all in: multi-million dollar house, Fabergé egg, Jackson Pollock painting, and a garden that looks like the world’s largest pig sty. That all makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Of course not. It makes no sense. But the clock strikes twelve and I realize there are a million things I need to get done before I leave work today. I stand up, brush off the crumbs, thank the ladies for their hospitality and head back to work, right after I stop off to check the signature on the painting over the fireplace—you know, just to be sure.
