away. The whole thing seemed to me a cross between a public aviary in Rio de Janeiro and an upscale florist shop in a Florida mall.
Mr Bellarosa, always the subtle and self-effacing gentleman, said, 'Hell of a front hall, right?'
'It's beautiful,' Susan said breathlessly.
Bellarosa looked at me expectantly.
I inquired, 'How do you get the bird shit out of the cages up there?' Susan threw me a mean look, but Frank explained. It had to do with a thirty-foot ladder on wheels that he'd had specially built. Very interesting. Bellarosa looked me over. 'You're all dressed up.'
I realized he had never seen me in my Brooks Brothers' armour, and lest he think I had dressed for him, I said, 'I came directly from work.' 'Ah.'
Bellarosa, I should mention, was dressed casually in grey slacks and a white polo shirt, which accented a new tan. I snuck a look at his shoes and saw he was wearing sandals with socks. As if this wasn't bad enough, the socks were yellow. I wanted to draw Susan's attention to Bellarosa's feet but didn't have the opportunity. Around here, incidentally, when we have people to our home, the men usually wear tie and jacket to make sure they're not comfortable. The women wear whatever women wear. In this case, I found that I was slightly annoyed about the clingy red dress. But, she looked good in red, and I was both proud and jealous. Bellarosa had turned his attention to Susan and asked, 'How's the barn coming?' 'The… it's coming apart quite well,' Susan replied. 'But can they put it back together?'
Bellarosa laughed politely. Haw, haw. He said, 'Dominic knows his stuff. But he might sneak in a few Roman arches on you.'
They shared a laugh. Haw, haw. Ha, ha.
'Come on,' said Mr Bellarosa, motioning for us to follow. 'Why are we standing here?'
Because you made us stand here, Frank.
We followed our host to the left through one of the archways of the palm court and entered a long, empty room that smelled of fresh paint. Bellarosa stopped and asked me, 'What is this room?'
'Is this a test?'
'No, I mean, I can't figure it out. We got a living room, we got a dining room, we got rooms, rooms, rooms. What's this?'
I looked around. 'Not a bathroom.'
Susan interjected. 'It's… actually this is the dining room.'
Bellarosa looked at her. 'You sure?'
'Yes. I was in this house when the last family lived here.' 'That stupid decorator… then what's the room over there?' He pointed through an archway.
'That is the morning room,' Susan informed him.
'Morning room?'
I could have had fun with that one, but I left it alone.
'It doesn't matter,' Susan assured him. 'These old houses are used in different ways now. Whatever works best for you.'
'Except,' I said helpfully, 'you can't cook in the bathroom, or go to the bathroom in – ' 'John,' Susan interrupted, 'we get the idea, darling.'
We followed Mr Bellarosa through the newly discovered dining room, then through the archway that led to the morning room. It was rather a large room, right off the butler's pantry, which in turn led to the kitchen. Bellarosa seemed not in the least embarrassed to be entertaining us in the morning room – sometimes called the breakfast room – since, until very recently, he thought it was the dining room. But to be fair, I could see how a peasant might get confused. He pulled out two chairs at one end of a long dining table. 'Sit,' he commanded. We sat. Mr Bellarosa went to a sideboard from which he took a tray of cordials and crystal glasses that he set on the table in front of us. 'Here. Help yourselves. Don't be shy. I'll be back in five minutes.' He went through a swinging door into the butler's pantry, and I watched his retreating back as he headed for the kitchen. The door swung closed. Five, four, three, two, one -
'John, you were a bore.'
'Thank you.' I examined one of the bottles. 'Sambuca, my dear?'
'Behave. I'm serious.'
'All right. I don't want to get us killed.' I poured us both a glass of sambuca. There was a plate of coffee beans on the tray, and I dropped a bean into each glass. I raised my glass to Susan. 'Cheers.'
'Centanni.'
We drank. I asked, 'What was that about the Cosa Nostra?'
'Nostra casa, John. Our house. Welcome to our house.' 'Oh. Why didn't he say so?' I looked around the room as I sipped my cordial. The room was oriented to the south and east like most morning rooms to catch the rising sun at breakfast. Nowadays, this room in a mansion is used for almost all family meals as it is usually located close to the kitchen, but I suspected the Bellarosas ate in the kitchen and did their formal entertaining in the breakfast room, or perhaps the basement.
The south and east walls of the room were all windows, and as I was looking out, coloured floodlights suddenly came on, illuminating the newly reclaimed gardens in hues of red, blue, and green. I said to Susan, 'The motion detectors must have picked up an approaching hit squad. If you hear gunshots, hit the floor.' 'John.'
'Sorry.'
'And keep your voice low, please.'
I grunted and poured two more. I like sambuca. It reminds me of penny liquorice sticks. I surveyed the rest of the room. The furnishings were a sort of dark, formal Mediterranean, I guess, and seemed to go with the rest of the house. Susan, too, was evaluating the place and commented softly, 'Not bad. He said they had a decorator, but they're not using anyone around here, or I'd know about it.'
'That's why they're not using anyone around here, Susan, or you'd even know Mrs Bellarosa's bra size.'
She smiled. 'Well, whoever they're using doesn't know a dining room from a breakfast room.'
'But you straightened that out in your tactful way,' I said.
She laughed. 'What was I supposed to say?'
I shrugged and poured my second or third. I was mellowing out a bit and decided to stop baiting Susan, who was nearly blameless for our being there. I asked her, 'Did anyone buy this place after the Barretts left?' 'No. It just sat vacant.' She stayed silent a moment, then added, 'In my junior year when I was home for spring break, Katie Barrett called me from the city. I hadn't heard from her in years. I met her at Locust Valley station and drove her here. We walked around for a long while, talking about when we were kids. It was sort of sad.'
I didn't say anything.
Susan continued, 'Then a few years later, this place was infested with squatters. Some sort of hippie commune. They lived here without water or electricity, and in the winter they burned whatever wood they could find in the fireplaces. Everyone on Grace Lane complained, but the police took their time about getting them out.'
I nodded. The sixties were sort of a test to see how much anarchy the system could take, and as it turned out, the system backed off. Susan added, 'I remember my father was angry with the police. He told them that the bank didn't take so long to get the Barretts out and they owned the place.' Again I nodded. There was certainly a moral there, and it had something to do with authority versus power, with voluntary compliance versus come and get me, pigs. Frank understood that. I said, 'Well, maybe the police will run Mr Bellarosa off.'
'Not if he pays his taxes, John.'
'True.' I guess I came into the picture here after the hippies, and I recall that Alhambra was used a few times for designer showcases. Although I never availed myself of the opportunity to see what these strange people do to the great houses, I've been told by other men that interior decorators with cans of mauve paint and rolls of iridescent wallpaper could do more damage to a vacant mansion than a hundred vandals.
I recalled, also, that in the middle and late seventies there were a few charity functions held at Alhambra, either in the house or on the half-acre patio in the summer. If the plumbing still works in these old mansions, and if the Long Island Lighting Company is paid up front for turning on the juice, then these houses can be rented from the bank or the county on a short-term basis for charity events, tours, designer showcases, movie sets, and such. So homes that once held Vanderbilts, Astors, and the like are now available to anyone with a few bucks and a
