Free Shades of Fortune by Stephen; Birmingham Page B

porcelain, and an almost-complete edition of Dorothy Doughty birds, risen incomparably in value since the artist’s death. A bronze umbrella stand holds a valuable assortment of antique gold- and silver-handled walking sticks. Another stand, fashioned from an elephant’s foot and lined with rosewood, holds swords, sabers, and fencing foils with variously carved and jeweled hafts, and above the door through which one enters the room hangs a collection of antique pistols. Flanking Edwee’s big partners’ desk, which is made of cherry and burled walnut, are six-foot-high floor lamps whose bases are an identical pair of twisted ivory narwhal tusks. One could go on and on describing the contents of this extraordinary room. Next door, for instance, is a fully-equipped kitchen, Edwee’s personal domain where he tests his recipes, which has nothing to do with the main kitchen of the house.
    Edwee hardly ever sets foot in this other kitchen, which he calls “the service kitchen.” And, conversely, no servant is permitted in Edwee’s personal kitchen except, of course, for cleanup. Every imaginable cooking vessel and utensil is stored here: the zinc-lined copper roasting pans, the silver chafing dishes, the crockery serving dishes, the pots and pans of glass and stainless steel, the wooden spoons. Because, as any fool would know (and as Edwee will explain), certain foods demand certain materials for proper preparation. Who would dream of preparing a bouillabaisse in anything but copper, for example, or of stirring it with anything but a wooden spoon? What sort of idiot would plank a turbot on anything but a board of bleached ash? (Pine or maple “rapes” the flavor, Edwee points out.) Is there another way to serve wild asparagus than on bone china so thin that you could see a finch’s foot through it, and with ivory tongs? (Yes, you could use ivory chopsticks.) Also, with the exception of the twelve-burner range and the four ovens, nothing in this kitchen is electric. Edwee makes his butter in a wooden churn, the only way. Edwee even has a candling device for candling his eggs, which come from upstate, where they are laid by free-range chickens. His servants complain about his refusal to buy a dishwasher, but that is their problem.
    One could go on and on, and then add that all the other rooms in Edwee’s house are furnished in a similar artfully eccentric fashion. From time to time, if the cause is sufficiently worthy, which is to say sufficiently fashionable, Edwee Myerson will allow his house to be toured for charity, but this is a nuisance since a brace of security guards must be positioned in each room to keep an eye on their costly contents.
    At the door to his office now, Edwee says to his wife, “Don’t you need to powder your nose or something, pussyface? My sister and I have important family m-m-m-matters to discuss.”
    Gloria pouts. “Well, don’t be too long,” she says. “Your little baby’s toesies get cold in bed if she doesn’t have her daddy to snuggle up to.”
    â€œI won’t,” he says, and kisses her on the forehead. She leaves, and he closes the door behind her and stands for a moment with a dreamy smile on his face. He sighs softly and says, “Isn’t she simply … wonderful?”
    â€œYou seem so domesticated , Edwee, dear. Given up your old ways?”
    â€œOh, yes. Oh, yes.” He moves to his chair behind the partners’ desk, and his sister arranges herself in the Queen Anne armchair opposite him. “You see, she introduced me to oral sex. She sits on my face, and I sit on hers. All those years of impotence are suddenly over! No more problems with getting an erection, no more p.e.—premature ejaculation—no more miserable masturbation, no more using the vacuum cleaner—”
    â€œThe vacuum cleaner!” Nonie cries. “What are you talking about, Edwee?”
    â€œI used