Saturday. The house, with no furniture in it. The closet I'm designing myself.
Jake is at the salvage yard with his architect — a friend from Delbarton — looking at fireplace surrounds because Jake has opinions about fireplace surrounds. I'm not invited. I was invited. I declined. I declined because I do not have opinions about fireplace surrounds, and I have learned that it is better to not be in the room when other people have detailed opinions about things I cannot match them on.
So I have the house. For three hours. Just me.
The bedroom is being painted. Agreeable Gray. That is the actual name of the color. Jake's designer chose it. She walked me through fourteen grays and explained the undertones of each, and I nodded because I had a 4 PM meeting and the fourteen grays were all the same gray, and I said whichever you think, and she went with the one her firm uses most because it's the safest in a north-facing room.
Agreeable. That is the gray of our bedroom.
I let her have it. I had to let someone have it. That is how this house got built.
The closet is mine.
Twelve feet by eight feet. North wall of the master suite. East wall against the bathroom. Two doors — the one to the bedroom and the one to the bath — and inside it is mine. Cedar lining. Soft inset lighting. Drawers on the right wall for sweaters and the things that fold. Rods on the left, suits at one height, blouses at another. A bench in the middle. A small bench. Twelve inches deep, twenty-four wide. The bench is where I will sit to put on heels.
I picked the bench myself. I drove to a woodworker in Bloomfield and I told him what I wanted, and he sketched it in pencil on the back of an envelope and said this is going to be the nicest thing in your closet, and I said I know.
I told the architect. He said for what. He thought heels-on was a counter activity, not a bench activity. He thought women who needed a bench to put on heels were women who were doing it wrong.
I said I want the bench. He looked at Jake. Jake said give her the bench. The architect gave me the bench.
I held a thing. That is the thing I want to remember about this Saturday. I held a thing and got a thing.
The rest of the house is being beautifully renovated by people who are not me. The kitchen has a marble Jake's mother recommended. The dining room has crown molding Jake researched the provenance of. The bathroom has fixtures from a specific period that the architect has been very firm about. I have walked through all of it three times this week and have said that looks nice and that's lovely about everything because I have nothing to add. They've already considered every option. I do not know what I would even want, if I were making the decisions.
I am a Director at Sterling and I do not know what color I would paint my own dining room.
That is not a sentence I have said out loud. It is a sentence I am thinking on a Saturday afternoon in an empty house with the smell of fresh primer in the air.
I made Director in March. The promotion came with the corner office I was told to want, and I took it, and I asked the designer to choose the credenza because I did not know what credenza to want. She chose a credenza. I have not noticed it once since it arrived. It exists in my office as a piece of furniture that does what credenzas do. I am told it is a beautiful credenza. I will take their word for it.
The closet is the only place in my life right now where I have made a decision about a thing because I wanted the thing.
That has to be okay. That has to be enough. That has to count as me having opinions.
I stand in the empty bedroom. I look at where the bed will go. I look at the gray that I let happen.
I walk into the closet and stand in the empty space and I picture the bench I will sit on to put on heels at 7 AM on Tuesdays, and I picture the cedar drawers, and I picture the soft light coming on as I open the door, and I think — quietly, like it's a private thing — this is mine.
This room. Twelve by eight.
It will have to be enough.
It is going to have to be enough.