“My mom thinks you’ve been playing possum all these years, might really be after me,” Jane said, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.
“Listen to me, Jane, you think you know everything, but men are only after one thing,” Nellie said, “and maybe you don’t know that Tim as well as you think.”
“And what might that one thing be, Nellie?” asked Don. “Because if that’s the case, I’d like to tell you if I got it or not.”
“Stop right there, you guys,” said Jane. “Way too much information. Just tell me what you want, Mom. Why did you call?”
“Bring home Grandma’s sewing chest.”
“What?”
“That table that folds out. Aunt Veronica wants to see it,” said Nellie.
Jane was relieved. It didn’t actually sound like she had to lose one of her favorite pieces of furniture; she just had to take it home for a visit.
“Veronica remembers a secret drawer and I told her she’s senile, but she won’t take no for an answer.”
“Especially when it’s so beautifully phrased,” murmured Jane.
“What?” Nellie asked.
“I’ll bring it,” said Jane.
“Yeah, and watch out for Tim,” said her mother.
“Have a nice weekend, honey,” said her dad.
Jane ate the last bite of her hamburger and drained her beer. She and Tim had stopped at a roadside restaurant, the first nonchain place they had seen since getting off the highway.
“Almost as good as the EZ Way Inn,” she said.
“What was Nellie saying about me anyway?” Tim asked.
“She thinks you might have had a lifetime plan of pretending to be gay just to somehow trick me into bed,” said Jane.
“How the hell did she figure it out?” Tim asked.
“Do not ever underestimate the paranoia and conspiracy theory that we like to call Nellie,” said Jane.
“For forty years I’ve pretended to like other men, for god’s sake. I’ve even had long-term relationships. I mean, I am nothing if not thorough. I even became a florist,” Tim said, eating french fries off of Jane’s plate.
“You’ve learned the words to show tunes; you’ve dressed meticulously and expensively; you’ve rehabbed architectural landmarks.”
“I pretend to like to take long walks by the river, read poetry, and refinish chairs. I don’t watch football on television. I polish my silver,” said Tim. “I can make drinks in a blender.”
“Let’s face it,” said Jane. “We’re describing the perfect man here. If Nellie were right, I’d leave Charley for you in a minute.”
“No you wouldn’t,” said Tim, his voice soft, taking her hand.
“No, no I wouldn’t,” said Jane, looking into Tim’s eyes. “But I want to grow old with you, too. Is that crazy?”
“Not entirely,” said Tim. “I know the feeling. Tell you what. When we get to Campbell and LaSalle, you can check out the new-age yuppie communal way of life and decide if you dig it. If yes, maybe the Wheel family of three and the Lowry party of one and a few other well-chosen people we can stand to be around for more than ten minutes ought to buy some land together and work out our own little sunshine acres for our soon-to-be senior years.”
Tim handed Jane a booklet. It was made of high-quality paper, a marbled tan, with deep brown lettering. In elegant block printing across the top, it said CAMPBELL AND LASALLE.
“Read it,” said Tim, when Jane looked at him. “I’m going to go out to the car and call the shop.”
Glen LaSalle and Blake Campbell have spent twenty-five years crafting furniture and building a community of artists. On thirty acres of woodlands, they have created an idyllic setting for the woodworkers, blacksmiths, carvers, painters, historians, and artists who have come to work and found a place to live, breathe, and thrive in a world devoted to the fine creation and restoration of beautiful artifacts.
“In a world of fast fixes and hasty repairs we at Campbell and LaSalle take a different path. We believe in the value of time and perfection. We will fully research your piece of furniture, your silver, your jewelry, your painting, and decide, with you, the extent of restoration, reclamation, and rebuilding you, and we, feel is necessary to maintain the dignity of the piece.”
Campbell and LaSalle invite you to call for a consultation. A list of accommodations in the area follows.
Jane studied the map of the Campbell and LaSalle community. Tim had told her there were several rustic but beautifully appointed cabins on the property that those in the know used when they brought in big pieces for consultations. Writers and painters whom Glen LaSalle and Blake Campbell deemed worthy were also welcomed to use the place as a kind of artists’ colony. Many contemporary novelists gave effusive thanks to Campbell and LaSalle for “allowing them the opportunity to work in beauty and silence” or for “giving them the space for their work to grow.”
“Here’s the thing,” said Tim, when they were back on the road, “there isn’t even an application process to live at Campbell and LaSalle. Can you imagine? You’re a struggling writer, maybe one novel well-received critically but dying on the vine as far as bookstores and stuff, and you get a call from Blake Campbell inviting you to come and live up there for a month, rent-free, board-free? You get a cabin and peace and quiet and meals…they have an incredible chef. You just have to fit in with the ‘spirit.’”
“What does that mean?” Jane asked.
“Hard to say. Kind of a hippie, yuppie, snobby, work ethic? You know…casual dress, work clothes, as long as you look like you picked them out from Ralph Lauren’s country collection. You know, you’re there for the art and you’re not attached to material objects, but at dinner there’s a lot of one-upping on the wine and the sauce for the duck and all that bullshit.”
Jane sat farther back in her seat. She should still be sorting through her purse. She hadn’t even discarded one item let alone three. She hadn’t finished sorting through the boxes at home either. If Charley and Nick came home right now instead of Monday as planned, they would find the house even more chaotic than when they’d left.
Belinda St. Germain was reassuring in her book. “It sometimes gets worse in order to get better,” she counseled, along with other darkest-before-the-dawn clichés, but Jane forgave her the bad writing. Belinda, after all, had something to teach Jane, and Jane would, by golly, learn it.
Sorting and discarding. She could do it. Right now, she would practice by sorting out her feelings about Claire Oh. One-upping? Is that what Tim had said about the Campbell and LaSalle dinner table? Was that what was bothering her about Claire? Before Jane had met her, she had been certain she would like her, that she would be a kindred spirit. After all, Claire dressed Bruce, and Jane knew how she felt about Bruce Oh—respectful, fond, curious. Right now, she was extremely curious about how he had hooked up with Claire. He was so fair and unpretentious and straightforward. Claire seemed judgmental, like someone who just might send the wine back at Campbell and LaSalle.
When Jane had asked Claire if Horace might have switched the chest himself, had a duplicate made, Claire had laughed.
“Why would he go to all that trouble? If he claimed publicly that it was a fake, he wasn’t going to be able to sell it.”
“Or quickly produce an authentic one for sale,” added Oh. “Would he have wanted the real chest for himself?” Jane had asked.
“Not his style. Didn’t collect American,” Claire had said.
Jane wasn’t convinced. She had heard so many people profess to collect only one kind of object, one artist, one author, but when you saw them at a sale, their eyes were everywhere. Appreciating the value of one piece led to the appreciation of another—and another.
Belinda St. Germain might be hammering away at “the glory of absence” and “the space of spaciousness,” whatever the hell that was, but Jane knew the beauty of bounty. Jane, like every other picker she’d watched work a sale, had the indiscriminate lust for all of it.
/> “If I’m not near the Roseville I love, I love the McCoy I’m near” was one of the songs that played in her rummaging brain at a sale.
If Horace Cutler had seen the beauty and workmanship in the Westman chest and wanted it for himself, why not pass off a copy to someone else? He’d have the chest and make the money from the sale of the fake. Oh and Claire were right—why would he create a public performance at the antiques show?
Jane sighed and went back to sorting through her purse. Trying to do a Belinda St. Germain purge before they arrived at Campbell and LaSalle might give her more closure than trying to figure out who had killed Horace Cutler and why Bruce Oh had married Claire. Holy Toledo, is that what people said about Charley? Why in the world did he marry that Jane?
“Look at this beautiful handkerchief,” Jane said.
Tim looked over quickly. “GET WELL?” he read aloud.
“Yes, it looks like a child embroidered it, doesn’t it?”
“I guess that won’t make it into the trash pile,” said Tim.
“No, of course not. Can you imagine how much work that was? Maybe for her mom who had the flu? That isn’t the kind of thing that’s trash, Tim,” Jane said. She shook an old Sucrets tin.
“Jeez, they haven’t put Sucrets in tins in years, have they? Do they still make Sucrets? That can go, right?”
Jane opened and closed the tin. She held it out open to Tim, on its side. “I thought it would make a sweet little picture frame, sort of a craft project for…” Jane stopped.
Tim laughed. “When is the last time you did a craft project with Nick?”
“I might want…”
“Jane, he is more interested in sports at school, science with Charley, and building a bicycle out of old parts with me than making a picture frame out of a cough drop tin,” Tim said, then added more gently. “He’s growing up, dear.”
Tim was right. Jane knew it. But still, that tin might come in handy for something. She dropped it back in her bag along with the lucky buckeye and Belinda St. Germain’s book, which made it even heavier than usual. Tim had slowed the car down and turned onto an almost hidden road. They approached a tall, intricately worked iron gate. An iron stand, hidden by clematis vines and climbing roses, still lush with fall blooms, housed the state-of-the-art intercom system. Tim gave their names, and the gate swung open.
“Welcome to Campbell and LaSalle, honey,” said Tim.
“Remember the commune down at school? When you came to see me at college and we visited my friends who were living in the Bucky Fuller dome they had all built together?” Jane asked, hanging out her window, looking at the lush woods, trying to spy some of the hidden cabins Tim had described.
“Yeah, your friends’ kids wandered around looking like feral cats. Frightening place.”
“Didn’t little Moonbeam or his sister…?” Jane asked, starting to laugh.
“Yes, the little animal child peed on my shoe. The mother said it was because he liked me and wanted to mark me as his own.”
“I still get a Christmas card from his mother. Moonbeam goes by Bob now. He’s in mergers and acquisitions.”
“Still peeing on people.”
“Oh my,” Jane said. Her mouth remained open as she stared at the main building of the Campbell and LaSalle complex.
The first impression given by the lodge, as it was called in the brochure, was somewhere between the most inflated, nostalgic, selective memory of the perfect summer camp and a presidential retreat. Set among majestic pines, the low, rambling log building was both impressive and inviting. Was it a Northwoods Camp David or 4-H Camp Shaw-wa-na-see? The twig furniture on the long front porch gave it the perfect look, but the piles of cushions and padded footstools emphasized that it wasn’t only for a photo shoot. People could actually wrap themselves up in one of the Pendleton blankets stored in an open chest under the eaves and watch the sun rise over the tree line. Or set? Jane looked up and noted that the sun was still high overhead, not giving her much of a clue as to which direction the lodge faced. She always liked to know her directions and usually considered long, twisting driveways her personal enemy; but here, she realized, she felt less lost than enchanted.
As soon as Tim stopped in the large circular drive, she opened the door and listened. At first, nothing. Then a distant sound of water. A rushing creek? A waterfall? Was it just the trees breathing in the wind? Jane got out, closing the car door as softly as she could manage, not wanting to disturb this scene.
There was a corkboard, tastefully framed in hand-carved twigs hanging on the massive front door. A note was pinned there with what Jane would swear was a pine needle. The paper was most certainly handmade, delicately imprinted with ferns and wildflowers.
To our arriving guests—
Please make yourself at home on the grounds. Wander, breathe, enjoy. We at Campbell and LaSalle maintain a creative midafternoon silence between the hours of one and four. If you encounter an open studio, an individual artist might be happy to share his/her current work with you. If a door is closed, please respect the privacy of the resident. At four, return here and we will be happy to serve your needs.
“Do you mean, if customers show up, they have to wait until four P.M. to pick up a piece of furniture? Or to have an appraisal done?” Jane asked. “They can run a business like that?”
“This is not just any business,” said Tim. “It is, my cretin junker friend, Campbell and LaSalle, as every brochure and hand-lettered note is going to remind you. The ‘we at Cambell and LaSalle’ is going to wear pretty thin by tomorrow afternoon, I guarantee you. But they do cast a spell, yes?” Tim asked. “Note that we’re whispering,” he added.
He was right. Jane couldn’t make herself disturb the silence. Yes, it seemed a bit pretentious, but then again, Campbell and LaSalle seemed to have earned the right to set this stage. The property was magnificent. Jane gestured to a path and Tim nodded. They knew each other well enough to know that both would want to explore. Both would hope for the open door.
No luck at the first cabin. WRENS’ NEST had blue shutters with cutouts of birds in flight and an inviting windowbox filled to overflowing with blooming fall pansies. A copper kettle filled with what appeared to be kindling sat next to the front door. Unfortunately, it was a closed front door.
Jane and Tim saw similar still lifes on the front porches of BLUEBERRY HILL, LADYSLIPPER, TWO WINDOWS, and FRIENDS’ RETREAT. All had closed doors.
At the end of the path was a large barn. A small sign at the entrance read THE WOODSHOP. The huge, garage-sized doors at one end were closed, but another smaller set of Dutch doors stood open.
Jane headed for the open door and Tim followed.
“It’s more than a woodshop,” said Tim, “it’s practically Blake Campbell’s laboratory and emergency room. He sees each piece of furniture that comes in here like a patient. He does triage, research, and treatment here.”
Jane saw immediately what Tim meant. One-half of the barn was a workshop: row upon row of woodworking tools all hanging or standing in place, including two large workbenches and power tools. A large, tented area looked like the private operating room of a mad scientist. Another wall of shelves held solvents and finishes and brushes. The upper gallery of the barn housed a library as large as that of a small liberal arts college.
No one seemed to be around, but the door had been open. Jane walked up the open stairs to the gallery of books and noted that, for as many research volumes and histories, there were an equal number of art books and hundred-year-old magazines encased in protective plastic. The research library was not limited to academic art history but encompassed all the popular looks of the day, the year in question. On top of an oak library file was a framed card that said, “We at Campbell and LaSalle research the history of each precious object with our minds, our eyes, our touch, and our hearts.” Jane felt Tim behind her, breathing over her shoulder as he read the card.
“‘We at Campbell and LaSalle’ have a giant hand-carve
d hickory stick up our ass,” Tim whispered.
“‘We at Campbell and LaSalle’ could use a Grey Goose vodka on the rocks,” Jane whispered back.
Jane noticed that one of the larger furniture volumes was open on top of a large partner’s desk. There was a small business card stuck in the page, and she could see pictures of chests with arrows and annotations. Maybe someone had been looking up Claire Oh’s Westman chest? As she moved around to the other side of the desk to get a better look, Tim called to her to come down with him.
“I hear someone in the back office,” he said. “Let’s go introduce you to Blake.”
Jane decided she could revisit the gallery later. It seemed much more interesting to meet half of the “we at” boys.
When they entered the office, beautifully appointed as Jane knew it would be, they found it empty. What Tim had heard was music from the CD player. Mozart, of course. Jane felt certain that the Best of Motown or Willie Nelson’s Greatest Hits were rarely played at Campbell and LaSalle.
A smaller door at the back of the office was open to the outside, and Jane walked out following a trail that led to a sparkling creek. Jane could see it shining like a ribbon at the end of the walk. The sun, the trees, the beauty of this place began to overwhelm her. Jane thought about the most recent nugget of Belinda St. Germain’s treatise that she had read.
Does a tree need one more leaf to make it more perfect, more complete? Look to nature to find what you need as opposed to what you might want. A brook is a small treasure when it has the right amount of water, a danger when it overflows its banks. We think of a flood as an aberration, a crisis. What about the flood of useless items overflowing your kitchen cupboards and closet shelves?
Belinda had a point. The trees were perfect, the brook babbled, even the stones in the path seemed the perfect mix of pattern and randomness. The sun, sinking lower in the sky, sent the light slicing through this clean and crisp air, providing picture-perfect illumination.
The Wrong Stuff Page 5
