The Secret Keeping by Francine Saint Marie

and night. Is this platonic?
    _____

    She did not know what was possible or impossible anymore. She could not conclusively discount that she may be in love with the occupant of the window seat. She had no idea what to do with her apartment. She couldn’t find her CD player now. She must have sent it off with the movers. She could play CD’s on her computer. Oh, that’s right. That’s all right then. She couldn’t swear she wasn’t in love. Thank god nobody noticed or asked her. She hadn’t told Delilah yet about the furniture. That she had no furniture! God! Did she know anymore why she got rid of the furniture? She had no recollection of having possessed that urge. It had been an impulse. She had an impulse now. To scream with joy.
    _____

    What had first attracted Lydia to her penthouse apartment was its large and airy rooms. She had liked, too, its lack of nooks and crannies, its white undecorated walls, the hard slate-gray flooring throughout, how the click of her heels as she walked on that surface pierced the solemn air of the apartment and traveled into every room. The swift report issuing back, telling her of the vast emptiness that surrounded her was, at that time, pleasant and reassuring. It did not speak of isolation then, but rather of wide open spaces, room to live in, as opposed to the cramped and cluttered accommodations she had been used to before.
    It was the vast emptiness she wished to preserve, she had informed her decorator then. He had understood this, furnishing the penthouse with his sharply functional and utilitarian sensibilities, the kitchen completely in stainless steel. Over the large, otherwise sunny living room windows he had hung serious and industrial looking curtains. Devoid of pattern, their color was consistent with that of the floor and with the overall palette, the mostly cold grays of fabrics and metals that were sparsely arranged throughout her rooms.
    That was years ago and Lydia had never disturbed it, except on one occasion, just a few months ago, when she had contacted the decorator again, for the purpose of selecting a rug or “something soft” to put on her hard living room floor. He had selected an industrial weave “inspired” (he said) by the “mood” of the place and the color of the furniture and floor. At least it was soft.
    But her interiors had become architecturally undigestable and now Lydia found her penthouse cold and drab. Its repetitive emptiness and its nuanced reminders of emptiness were depressing and uninspiring and she felt on edge there, unable to relax. She had come to hate the uncomfortable couch, was repelled by the cold metals and rough fabrics of her chairs, despised the oversized paintings of polka dots that had been selected to liven the living room. That was all there was to it. The place, she had finally concluded, was simply a mockery of life. Emptiness was not a real life, not what she was after. At least not anymore. She began wondering about real people and how real people furnished real homes.
    _____

    Lydia’s decision to redo the penthouse from the floor up caught Delilah off guard. She had been encouraged to believe by her friend’s recent demeanor that the crisis had passed and that she was on the road to recovery from…well, from whatever it was that ailed her. Delilah gasped into the receiver. Lydia had emptied the posh apartment of all her furniture except a mattress.
    “But, Liddy. Why?”
    “I hated it, that’s why.”
    “But you spent a fortune on it.”
    “I don’t care about the money, Del.”
    “Just a mattress? Liddy! How will you live?”
    “Plus I’m having parquet floors installed this week!”
    “Floors–Liddy! You can’t stay there then. When will they be done?”
    “A week and a half they say. I’m going to do the rest after that.”
    The line was quiet. It was done. She knew Delilah was accepting it, probably smiling already at the entertaining picture she had created. Lydia Beaumont, interior