in New York: The nouveau riche loved classical shit. To their eyes, nothing made new money look older than naked white statuary and a few plaster columns propping up the roof.
Mont and his clients were completely uninterested in the round-spectacled efficiency of midcentury modernism that was springing up around them. In a Mont house, you blew smoke, fucked against the mantel, and drank gimlets until you passed out in the flared arms of a velvet chair. Modernism wasn’t Grace’s catnip either. Modernism had spawned the American suburb, its blank cul-de-sacs and houses with garages like snouts, square green lawns, and little clumps of impatiens. Grace had come to loathe the American lawnand all its flat propriety. She preferred Mont’s excess: a chair’s legs flaring insolently beneath a deep, plush seat; strong arms surrounding a narrow back that arched up and away. Every corner, every joint, and every inch of material seemed to announce his intentions.
During Prohibition, Mont designed case goods with hidden compartments: bars that folded down into baby grand pianos, desks that held hidden gun drawers. He was a gambler who made big bets and had trouble covering his losses, and he had a fearsome temper that was only stoked by working for gangsters. In 1937, when Mont had graduated to Hollywood clientele, he married Helen Kim, an actress eight years his junior. Bob Hope attended the ceremony. Mont had achieved the kind of life he’d designed for others. Twenty-nine days later, Helen Kim was found dead in their apartment, an alleged suicide.
Two years after that, Mont asked a pretty young lampshade designer, Dorothy Burns, to his apartment to discuss a contract. When she resisted his advances, he beat her to within an inch of her life; she was hospitalized for two weeks. Burns was so humiliated by the attack, the trial, and the publicity that she hanged herself. Mont did five years in Sing Sing for the assault. He sat out the entire war there, and upon his release, he returned to eager clients, either forgiving or forgetful.
The boys had been sentenced to eight, and they hadn’t attacked anyone.
Grace’s Mont box must have come over to France long ago, perhaps with some starlet in the 1930s who used it for her jewels or pills. Some of the velvet along the bottom of the inside had come loose from its backing; the glue had deteriorated. One of the hinges had a dent Grace would have to bang out, and all of the hardware needed to be thoroughly cleaned, down to the screws. She would have to teach herself his gilding process in order to convincingly fill the chips and scratches. She relished every injury, running her fingers very lightly over them as if they were sensitive bruises. Each one was a chance. She would repair them all.
7
G race was first to work on Monday morning. She spread the last batch of beads on linen towels to dry. What had been a pile of murky clods a few days ago was now a speckled rainbow made of thousands of bright, worthless jewels. She pulled a pair of cotton gloves from the clean laundry. Latex gloves protected their skin from turpentine, benzene, and toxins; at other times, the cotton gloves protected the work from their skin. Grace rolled two clothed fingers over the glass beads and then examined her fingertips up close, looking for any remaining residue. She felt sudden warmth at the nape of her neck.
“You won’t find any dirt.”
Grace wheeled around, colliding with Hanna. “You scared me.” She touched the back of her neck, calming the nerves there.
“Now that we can see the beads clearly,” Hanna said, “I can source replacements from Kuznetsov for the cracked and broken ones. We’ll have to go over each color to distress it reasonably so it matches. But today I will continue with the figures.”
She picked up the sheep she had begun on Friday.
“Six sheep, two maidens, three swans, and an ox! It will take me days simply to gather the right materials! I need white wax, shell
Mont and his clients were completely uninterested in the round-spectacled efficiency of midcentury modernism that was springing up around them. In a Mont house, you blew smoke, fucked against the mantel, and drank gimlets until you passed out in the flared arms of a velvet chair. Modernism wasn’t Grace’s catnip either. Modernism had spawned the American suburb, its blank cul-de-sacs and houses with garages like snouts, square green lawns, and little clumps of impatiens. Grace had come to loathe the American lawnand all its flat propriety. She preferred Mont’s excess: a chair’s legs flaring insolently beneath a deep, plush seat; strong arms surrounding a narrow back that arched up and away. Every corner, every joint, and every inch of material seemed to announce his intentions.
During Prohibition, Mont designed case goods with hidden compartments: bars that folded down into baby grand pianos, desks that held hidden gun drawers. He was a gambler who made big bets and had trouble covering his losses, and he had a fearsome temper that was only stoked by working for gangsters. In 1937, when Mont had graduated to Hollywood clientele, he married Helen Kim, an actress eight years his junior. Bob Hope attended the ceremony. Mont had achieved the kind of life he’d designed for others. Twenty-nine days later, Helen Kim was found dead in their apartment, an alleged suicide.
Two years after that, Mont asked a pretty young lampshade designer, Dorothy Burns, to his apartment to discuss a contract. When she resisted his advances, he beat her to within an inch of her life; she was hospitalized for two weeks. Burns was so humiliated by the attack, the trial, and the publicity that she hanged herself. Mont did five years in Sing Sing for the assault. He sat out the entire war there, and upon his release, he returned to eager clients, either forgiving or forgetful.
The boys had been sentenced to eight, and they hadn’t attacked anyone.
Grace’s Mont box must have come over to France long ago, perhaps with some starlet in the 1930s who used it for her jewels or pills. Some of the velvet along the bottom of the inside had come loose from its backing; the glue had deteriorated. One of the hinges had a dent Grace would have to bang out, and all of the hardware needed to be thoroughly cleaned, down to the screws. She would have to teach herself his gilding process in order to convincingly fill the chips and scratches. She relished every injury, running her fingers very lightly over them as if they were sensitive bruises. Each one was a chance. She would repair them all.
7
G race was first to work on Monday morning. She spread the last batch of beads on linen towels to dry. What had been a pile of murky clods a few days ago was now a speckled rainbow made of thousands of bright, worthless jewels. She pulled a pair of cotton gloves from the clean laundry. Latex gloves protected their skin from turpentine, benzene, and toxins; at other times, the cotton gloves protected the work from their skin. Grace rolled two clothed fingers over the glass beads and then examined her fingertips up close, looking for any remaining residue. She felt sudden warmth at the nape of her neck.
“You won’t find any dirt.”
Grace wheeled around, colliding with Hanna. “You scared me.” She touched the back of her neck, calming the nerves there.
“Now that we can see the beads clearly,” Hanna said, “I can source replacements from Kuznetsov for the cracked and broken ones. We’ll have to go over each color to distress it reasonably so it matches. But today I will continue with the figures.”
She picked up the sheep she had begun on Friday.
“Six sheep, two maidens, three swans, and an ox! It will take me days simply to gather the right materials! I need white wax, shell
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