Page 53 of Duty and Desire

I successfully made the pivot and moved him through the short foyer of my Denver Tudor into the living room and immediately regretted decorating in mostly white.

White with gray veins in the marble of the fireplace. Boxy white contemporary sofa (though it had big, colored throwpillows and warm but light-colored wood feet). White walls. White curtains (though they hung at the sides and the Roman shades were bamboo). Even the rug was mostly white with a gray geometric pattern. But the floors were oak (however, it waswhiteoak,gah!).

Did Mo like fresh, clean and bright?

Did he have a problem with the salmon accents?

I mean, my armchair was salmon. Was that too feminine?

And if he sat on the sofa, would he bang his head on my standing lamp that arched over the side? (Thank God it was black.)

“Uh,” I swept out a hand, making a mental note to adjust the arch of the lamp, and turned to him, “this is the living room.”

He said nothing.

But he walked to the window closest to him and my blinds—which were only partially lowered because they looked good that way, giving the room a warmer feeling from the wood—came down because he made that so.

He then lumbered over to the other window and did the same.

“Okay, so no one looking in, right?” I guessed, feeling the room turn suddenly chilly, and not because the sun was no longer shining into it.

He turned and dipped his chin to me.

He then looked toward the open plan dining room and kitchen that fed from the living room and moved there.

I followed him.

The (white) dining room table had a turquoise block rug under it.

That was good.

But the kitchen had oversized, gleaming white subway tile all over the walls. Stark white counters. Though one side was white cupboards, the other side was black, and I had one below-counter, hunter green cupboard to throw in some contrast. The railing to the stairs that led down to the back door was white, but the door was black.

More bamboo shades, no curtains.

And the floor was tiled in a kickass black and white artisanal design and the light fixtures were gold.

The hunter green wassemimanly.

Did men do white?

At all?

I realized when Mo made the rounds of the blinds in the dining room and kitchen that he didn’t care about artisanal floors or my stemmed, wide but shallow wooden fruit bowl and whether or not that fruit bowl was feminine or mostly unisex.

Through his ministrations, the entire space was shrouded in darkness, so I flipped a light switch.

And he didn’t care about the gold fixtures.

He was again looking at me.

“While this is going on, you should feel free to eat and drink what you want,” I offered and opened the door to my fridge (white SMEG, dammit, SMEG was definitely girlie, wasn’t it?). “You cover my ass,mi casais definitelysu casa.”

His gaze flicked to the inside of the fridge and his face registered open approval I could not miss before it came back to me.

So, he ate healthy too.

And maybe he approved of my obsessive lining up of stuff and tidy placement and (perhaps OCD) usage of matching food storage containers.