“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it wasn’t fair to put you on display so quickly.”
“I’m not on display. If anything, I think they are.”
That struck him as funny.
Both his mother and his father had home offices. His father’s really looked like an office, with machinery, shelves of books, and a desk with papers in neat piles, but his mother’s looked more like the showcase for an office you might see in a furniture window. There was more art on the walls, nicer furniture, but a smaller desk with nothing on it.
“My mother is very concerned about my parents’ social life. Her file cabinet is full of guest lists. There are drawers for the A list, the B list, and the C list,” he said. “And then there is the never-ever-invite list.” I looked at him and he laughed. “Just kidding. Come on.”
He showed me an entertainment center with a nearly wall-size television screen.
“My dad gets screeners from Hollywood producers, so we get to see first-run movies here,” Evan explained.
He opened the door to his sister’s bedroom. It had a beautiful canopy bed and very pretty matching furniture that included a vanity table with a large oval mirror. The frame picked up the theme of doves embossed on her bed’s headboard.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. I know she misses it.”
We just glanced in through the doorway of the master bedroom. It was, I decided, almost as large as our entire downstairs. There were separate his-and-her en suite bathrooms.
“That’s a customized bed,” Evan said. “My mother has the sheets and pillowcases customized, too.”
“A family of four could sleep on it,” I commented.
“Yeah, well, my sister and I were always discouraged from crawling into bed with our parents. My mother claims she needs the space because my father is too restless a sleeper. Voilà,” he said when we continued down the hallway and stopped at his doorway. “My pied-à-terre.”
I laughed.
“Isn’t that a good French expression for it?”
“Not really. A pied-à-terre is usually a second residence, part-time, in a big city away from your primary residence.”
“Sort of a hideaway?”
“In a way, maybe.”
“Well, that fits. I hide out here,” he said, and we walked into his room.
“Is it always this neat?” I asked immediately.
“No,” he said, laughing. “I’m supposed to impress you, right?”
I looked at his posters of old movies. He was obviously a Scarface fan. He had two of those. There was a little nook for his computer and desk, with windows that looked out toward the East River. Right then, the lights were dazzling.
“I don’t know how you work here. I’d be staring out the window.”
“You get used to it, I guess.”
“Evan!” we heard.
“Dinner bell’s ringing,” he said.
“I hope I don’t use the wrong fork or something.”
“Oh, don’t worry. If you do, you’ll be tossed out the window.”
As soon as we sat at the long and beautiful dining-room table, two men in jackets and ties, both wearing white gloves, began to bring out salads and open bottles of wine. The red was poured into a decanter. I could feel Evan’s father’s eyes on me as everything was being done.