Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis [30]
Trudging toward the kitchen, I passed the housekeeper, Rosa, vacuuming the living room and I followed large footprints that seemed to have been stamped in ash onto the beige carpeting, which this morning seemed shaggier and darker than normal. As the ghost padded through the living room it stopped when it noticed the odd formation of the furniture. The sectional couch, the Le Corbusier chairs and the Eames tables had been rearranged for the party, yet this new setup now seemed weirdly familiar to me. I wanted to figure out why, but the sound of the vacuum merging with Victor’s barking forced the ghost to move quickly toward the kitchen.
The house had been referred to as a McMansion in the Talk article: nine thousand square feet and situated in a fast-growing and wealthy suburb, and 307 Elsinore Lane wasn’t even the grandest in the community—it merely reflected the routine affluence of the neighborhood. It was, according to a spread in Elle Decor, “minimalist global eclectic with an emphasis on Spanish revival” but with “elements of midcentury French chateau and a touch of sixties Palm Springs modernism” (imagine that if you can; it was not a design concept everyone grasped). The interior was done in soothing shades of sandcastle and white corn, lily and bleached flour. Stately and lavish, slick and sparsely furnished, the house had four high-ceilinged bedrooms and a master suite that occupied half of the second story and included a fireplace, a wet bar, a refrigerator, two 165-square-foot walk-in closets and window shades that disappeared into pockets in the ceiling, and each of the two adjoining bathrooms had a giant sunken tub. There was a fully equipped gym where I sometimes exercised halfheartedly and where Jayne’s personal trainer, Klaus, helped sculpt her flawless body—and there was a sprawling media room with a plasma TV that had a screen the size of a small wall and surround sound and hundreds of DVDs shelved alphabetically on either side of it, as well as a red felt antique pool table. And the house flowed: large, carefully designed empty spaces merged seamlessly into one another to give the illusion that the house was far grander than it actually was.
The ghost floated toward the kitchen, or “family headquarters,” that really was a marvel—all stainless steel and countertops made from Brazilian concrete, a Thermador range, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, two dishwashers, two stoves with noiseless fans, two sinks, a wine cooler, a drawer freezer and an entire wall of sliding glass that overlooked an Olympic-sized swimming pool (without guard rails since Sarah and Robby were already expert swimmers) and a Jacuzzi and a vast, intensely green and lush lawn, which was bordered by a huge and carefully maintained garden blooming with flowers I didn’t know the names of, and beyond all that was the clearing and then the woods. The ghost saw no party detritus cluttering the house. It was immaculate. Confused but impressed, the ghost stared at a vase of fresh tulips sitting in the center of the kitchen table.
Marta was already up, fiddling with a Gaggia espresso maker as the chic, hungover ghost wrapped in the Frette sheet hovered around the kitchen, placing his burning forehead against the wine-cooling cabinet for one brief moment (the ghost noticed bitterly that it was empty)