I inched the chest of seven drawers through my kitchen. Actually, the seven drawers still sat in my garage. No way could I have moved this sucker without some disassembly. Even after an ibuprofen fix. Pull forward and toward the left. Shimmy right. Don’t mar the Solarium floor. At this rate, I’d never reach the back bedroom before dinner. And the current time was only three hours before noon.
My husband, David, had gone to pick up our dogs at the local kennel. We’d left the pooches at doggie camp in order to drive to Los Angeles and retrieve this piece of mahogany-finish furniture. Our daughter didn’t have room for it right now. Yet the chest had once lived in the home of author Anne Rice in New Orleans. After Mr. Rice’s passing, my daughter—then attending Tulane University—had purchased the piece at his estate sale. For twenty years, I’d written science fiction, fantasy, horror and steampunk. Getting rid of this chest of drawers was not an option.
I reached the threshold between my kitchen and the hallway. One room down. More to go. Then I spied a section of free wallspace in our living room-dining room area. Might the chest-of-drawers fit there? And how weird would that be, having bedroom furniture next to our dining room buffet?
Regroup. I was the proud caretaker of a morsel of Anne Rice’s past. What an honor. How neat it would be, displaying in full view a beautiful piece of furniture once used by Mr. Stan Rice. Plus I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the morning playing inch worm.
I maneuvered the chest into place before my husband returned home, then installed the drawers, soon lined with the lavender-scented paper I’d saved for a special occasion. My daughter’s twenty-five-year-old Madame Alexander doll provided a perfect topping.
Would Mr. Rice would have approved of the perfumed liners or the doll? Would Anne Rice have done a writing cliche: rolled her eyes?
I had no idea, but my ingenuity delighted my husband. Now he didn’t have to help me squeeze the furniture into one of the back bedrooms, and dinner would stay on schedule. No ibuprofen needed.
Warm wishes,
Laurel Anne Hill (Author of “Heroes Arise”)
