“You’re from my mother city, too,” he said. “How long in Paris?”
“Fifty years, next month,” she said. “I’m Chey Stefan.”
“I’m Stone Barrington.” They shook hands. “All those years in this shop?”
“I was an actress. I grew older while the roles grew younger, so I morphed into the stylist business.”
“Stylist business?”
“There are two kinds of stylists,” she said, “one for clothes and the other for rooms. I style rooms.”
“How does that work?”
“Suppose a director shoots some scenes in a house. It’s a nice house, but not nice enough. I make it nicer, then I rent them the furnishings by the day.”
“Do you also sell the furnishings?”
“That’s what this shop is for,” she said. “What do you need?”
“I need to turn a nice room into a great one,” Stone said, “and I need to have it done by five o’clock today. Can you manage that?”
“I’m probably the only person in the arrondissement who can,” she said. “See anything you like?”
Stone walked around a well-used but very handsome leather sofa and sat down. “I like this,” he said. “And that chair.” He pointed, then walked over and sat in it. It was covered in what looked like a Shetland tweed.
“It’s one of a pair.”
“I’ll have them both,” he said. “And those two end tables and those lamps over there. I need a brass reading lamp, too.”
She walked to the back of the room and stood next to one. “Like this?”
“Exactly like that.”
“You’re easy. What else do you need?”
“A good rug, about twelve by eighteen.”
“Feet or meters?”
“Feet.”
“Follow me.” She led him into a back room and to a large rack that held rugs, hung up like towels in a bathroom.
Stone walked over to a rug. “Size?”
She consulted a tag. “Fourteen by twenty-two.”
“That will do.” He turned and saw that the wall behind him was covered by a huge bookcase, filled with leather-bound and good cloth volumes. “And books,” he said.
“I sell them by the yard, in French or English. There are more a couple of rooms back.”
“I’ll take twenty yards of English, a mix of leather and cloth, whatever is beautiful.”
She made notes on a pad.
Another wall was covered in pictures: landscapes, still lifes, nudes, and portraits. Stone began pointing while she took more notes.
“I like the table there, too.”
More notes.
“And I need a grand piano. I don’t suppose you can do that.”
“Right this way,” she said, and led him to yet another room. Three grand pianos stood, covered by sheets. She whisked them away. “Do you play?”
“Some, but not for a long time.”