Rococo Read Online Free PDF Page A

thigh muscle. Her affection for the furniture doesn’t make it any more attractive. This clunky repro looks like an operating table you’d find in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. The claw feet are particularly obtrusive and ugly, but not to be outdone, the chairs have hideous bishop-hat finials.
    “If you insist on keeping this furniture, there’s no point in mirroring the wall.”
    “Why?”
    “Because, Ondine”—I feel myself losing patience—“you should never look at shit twice.”
    Ondine follows me to the front door and opens it. “I’ll think about selling it,” she says quietly.
    “You do that.”
    “What do you think I could get for it?”
    “I’m not an antiquarian.”
    “Oh, okay.” Ondine looks confused, then she smiles brightly. “Well, thank you for coming over.” She leans over and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. Then she steps out onto the stoop. “You’re a gentleman with fine taste. I trust you with my domicile.” She does a slow inventory of me, starting at my feet (in black suede Gucci loafers), moving on to my gray Paul Stuart wool trousers and finally my black V-neck cashmere sweater. She gazes through me like she’s wearing X-Ray Specs, those magic eyeglasses they sell in the back of comic books that claim you’ll be able to see people without their clothes on. “I wish Nicky had one thimbleful of the class you got.”
    I don’t know what to say, so I smile politely and turn to go. She grabs me around the neck, pulls my face toward hers, and kisses me again. This time she drags her tongue over my upper lip. I pull away when I feel the wet warmth.
    “Ondine, I am almost technically your uncle!” I look around to see if anyone has witnessed us. I fish my handkerchief out of my trouser pocket and purse my lips to discourage any further activity.
    “I’m in charge of the decorations for your birthday party. I’m thinking balloons.” She gives me that wink again.
    After a strenuous day of meeting clients, plowing through paneling samples at the lumberyard, and mixing paint at the hardware store, I am starving and ready for a martini. I pull into the Mandelbaums’ driveway in Deal with a coconut-cream pie I picked up at Delicious Orchards on Route 34 in Colts Neck. I went out of my way for the pie, not only because it’s Aurelia’s favorite, but because I need her support. There are rumblings that Father Porporino is finally prepared to renovate our church, and I need my good friend Aurelia to put my name at the top of the list for the big job.
    Capri, my friend since I had a memory, meets me at the front door. She is a petite five feet tall, which has always made me feel protective of her. When we were babies, our mothers hatched a scheme that we would someday marry. Mama said, “They’re rich and we have taste. That’s a perfect match.” Here we are, thirty-nine years later, and the scheme is still in full swing, at least in Aurelia’s mind. A doting mother with a firm hand on the control switch, she has always handpicked everything for Capri, from her socks to her college curriculum to me. Aurelia Castone Mandelbaum is a local Italian girl who married so well she never looked back. To her credit, she never forgot where she came from, but she sure liked the other side once she got there.
    “I just got over a bad cold.” Capri is always getting over something. Her hair, skin, and wool cardigan are the color of a peanut shell. Though not officially sickly, she has the look of someone who is battling an infirmity, which gives her the blackest under-eye circles I’ve ever seen on someone who doesn’t live in a tree. She has been this way all her life. In fact, in all of high school she never took phys ed. The handwritten excuse notes from her doctor were legendary. He started with diseases that begin with an
A
(asthma) when Capri was in eighth grade, and by senior year she hit the
Z
’s (zinc deficiency). Capri has never lived outside her parents’ home, so