Two blocks north and three blocks east of the store, the Marchbanks House was built in 1890 by a doctor as a gift to his pretty new wife, and had been in the family ever since. It was huge, over eight thousand square feet sprawled over four levels, with a soaring tower on the south side and a turret on the north, and a sweeping veranda wrapped around the ground floor. It had a roof deck, a variety of gables, fish-scale shingles, and bay windows, many of which were adorned with stained glass. It covered a small corner lot that was lined with white picket fences and shaded by three ancient oaks and Spanish moss.
Bruce found the interior depressing, with its dark wood floors, even darker painted walls, well-worn rugs, sagging, dusty drapes, and abundance of brown-brick hearths. Much of the furniture came with the deal, and he immediately began selling it. The ancient rugs that were not too threadbare were moved to the bookstore and added decades to its ambience. The old drapes and curtains were worthless and thrown away. When the house was empty, he hired a paint crew that spent two months brightening up the interior walls. When they were gone he hired a local artisan who spent another two months refinishing every square inch of the oak and heart pine flooring.
He bought the house because its systems worked—plumbing, electrical, water, heating, and air. He had neither the patience nor the stomach for a renovation, one that would virtually bankrupt a new buyer. He had little talent with a hammer and better ways to spend his time. For the next year, he continued to live in his apartment above the store as he pondered the furnishing and decorating of the house. It sat empty, bright, and beautiful, while the task of molding it into his livable space became intimidating. It was a majestic example of Victorian architecture and thoroughly unsuited for the modern and minimalist decor he preferred. He considered the period pieces fussy and frilly and just not his style.
What was wrong with having a grand old home that stayed true to its origins, at least on the outside, while jazzing up the interior with modern furniture and art? Something was not right with that, though, and he became handcuffed with ideas of a decorating scheme.
He walked to the house every day and stood in every room, perplexed and uncertain. Was it becoming his folly, an empty house much too large and complicated for his uncertain tastes?
6.
To the rescue came one Noelle Bonnet, a New Orleans antiques dealer who was touring with her latest book, a fifty-dollar coffee-table tome. He had seen Noelle’s publisher’s catalog months earlier and was captivated by her photograph. Doing his homework, as always, he learned that she was thirty-seven years old, divorced with no kids, a native of New Orleans, though her mother was French, and well regarded as an expert on Proven?al antiques. Her shop was on Royal Street in the Quarter, and according to her bio she spent half the year in southern and southwest France scouring for old furniture. She had published two previous books on the subject and Bruce studied both of them.
This was a habit if not a calling. His store did two and sometimes three signing events each week, and by the time an author arrived Bruce had read everything he or she had published. He read voraciously, and while he preferred novels by living authors, people he could meet, promote, befriend, and follow, he also devoured biographies, self-help, cookbooks, histories, anything and everything. It was the least he could do. He admired all writers, and if one took the time to visit his store, and have dinner and drinks and so on, then he was determined to be able to discuss his or her works.
He read deep into the night and often fell asleep with an open book in the bed. He read early in the morning, alone in the store with strong coffee, long before it opened if he wasn’t packing and unpacking. He read constantly throughout the day, and over time developed the curious routine of standing in the same spot by a front window, near the biographies, leaning casually on a full-sized wood sculpture of a Timucuan Indian chief, sipping espresso nonstop, with one eye on the page and the other on the front door. He greeted customers, found books for them, chatted with anyone who wanted to chat, occasionally helped at the coffee bar or front register when things were busy, but always eased back to his spot by the chief, where he picked up his book and resumed his reading. He claimed to average four books per week and no one doubted this. If a prospective clerk did not read at least two per week, there was no job offer.
At any rate, Noelle Bonnet’s visit was a great success, if not for the revenue it generated, then certainly for its lasting impact on Bruce and Bay Books. The attraction was mutual, immediate, and intense. After a quick, even abbreviated dinner, they retired to his apartment upstairs and enjoyed one hell of a romp. Claiming to be ill, she canceled the rest of her tour and stayed in town for a week. On the third day, Bruce walked her over to the Marchbanks House and proudly displayed his trophy. Noelle was overwhelmed. For a world-class designer/decorator/dealer, the presentation of eight thousand square feet of empty floors and walls behind the facade of such a grand Victorian was breathtaking. As they drifted from room to room, she began having visions of how each should be painted, wallpapered, and furnished.
Bruce offered a couple of modest suggestions, such as a big-screen TV here and pool table over there, but these were not well received. The artist was at work, suddenly painting on a canvas with no borders. Noelle spent the following day alone in the house, measuring and photographing and simply sitting in its vast emptiness. Bruce tended the store, thoroughly smitten with her but also having the first tremors of a pending financial nightmare.
She cajoled him into leaving the store over the weekend and they flew to New Orleans. She walked him through her stylish, though cluttered, store, where every table, lamp, four-poster bed, chest, chaise, trunk, rug, commode, and armoire not only had rich origins in some Proven?al village but was destined for the perfect spot in the Marchbanks House. They roamed the French Quarter, dined in her favorite local bistros, hung out with her friends, spent plenty of time in bed, and after three days Bruce flew home alone, exhausted, but also, for the first time, admittedly in love. Damn the expense. Noelle Bonnet was a woman he could not live without.
7.