Page 25 of The Happy Month

I decided I ought to check on Ronnie and John. But as I walked out of the lockup, I took in what else was there. Beyond the desk were a couple of shovels, a stack of four tires with a toolbox sitting on top of them, rakes, gardening tools. This was starting to make some sense. These were the contents of the garage. The boxes and the desk had been in a study. There was a brown leather sofa, tufted and long. That too would have been in the study. And there were two wing-backed chairs in a brown-and-black plaid.

Stepping out, I walked the few steps over to 1019. There was no hint of Ronnie. I stepped in, noticing a large, simple sofa in a ghastly gold velvet fabric. There were more boxes against the wall, which Ronnie hadn’t opened yet. That annoyed me.

“Ronnie?”

“Back here.”

He was at the very back of the lockup, on the far side. He’d pushed some furniture away and was staring at two green chairs. They were trimmed in carefully carved wood—the arms, the legs, and around the back cushion. French provincial? I wasn’t sure. They certainly looked like they belonged at some castle somewhere a few centuries back.

“Look at these,” Ronnie said. “Aren’t they fabulous?”

“If you like green.” Actually, green was fine as long as it didn’t look like pea soup or mint candies. These chairs were definitely peasoup.

“I’d have them reupholstered. I know a place. Do you think they’ll sell them to you?”

“I have no idea. That’s not why they gave me keys. What else did you find?”

“There are a lot of old albums.”

“Photo albums?” I asked, getting excited.

“No, record albums. Doris Day. Frank Sinatra. Ella Fitzgerald. That kind of album. And a record player. The kind that’s on legs. You slide the lid back when you’re not listening to it. It’s totally cool.”

“My mother had one like that in the sixties.”

“And I adore this sofa,” he stepped past me to the simple gold sofa.

“Did you find anything that might be useful, to me?”

“Not really.”

“This is the living room furniture, right?”

“On this side. That’s bedroom furniture over there.”

“Is that a grand piano?”

“It is.”

“Don’t people put photographs on top of those?”

“You want me to find the photographs?”

“I do.”

“Okay. I will.”

“Can you open these boxes?”

“Fine.”

I’d ruined his fun. I was a terrible person. I left him and went next door to ruin whatever fun John was having. 1018 had some furniture at the front: a floral loveseat, some end tables, crazy lamps. But as you went back, boxes, and then some old typewriters and office items.

“Hey,” I said. “What are you finding?”

“Dinnerware, pots and pans, utensils. But look at this…” He led me over to the typewriters, two of them: one looked like it was from the fifties, a Royal, and the other looked even older, a Remington. John moved them so we could look at what was underneath. It was basically a white table with an IBM Selectric sunk into one end and a box holding two cassette decks at the other.

“What is that?” I asked.