by Lorena
The conservatory was immense, opulent, elegant, and simply mind-boggling. Every velvet swatch, every sconce, every frieze, every mirror—all spoke of the sumptuous days of Peter the Great, of the long, noble, and ultimately tragic line of the Romanovs. [1] It was War and Peace. It was Anna Karenina. It was a grand departure from the functional practicality of modern times—an escape, perhaps, to an idealized world that, in truth, harbored just as many dark, harsh shadows as the present world (if only glossed over with the superficial trappings of antiquated elegance and wealth). Quatre simply stood by the door, his eyes bulging out of their sockets at the sight. And as his gaze fell on the grand piano that sat just off-center near one of the French windows, he felt as though he’d just died and gone to heaven.
He hurried toward it once his mind resumed its normal function. He’d sat himself down and was about to tinker with the instrument when he caught sight of the open album that sat in a conspicuous pile on top of the piano. He blinked as he stood up to look at it, and it wasn’t long before he found himself lying on his stomach on the rug, poring over the contents of the quaint volume, his mind agog with anticipation and curiosity.
The album was a scrapbook—an oddly-designed one, to be precise, the intricate embellishments denoting a kind of heirloom piece from another country. The pages were filled with photographs and newspaper clippings and handwritten letters and notes, telling Treize’s story. Quatre could only guess that this volume was left out purposefully for him to see—to glean from the scraps of information a clear enough picture of the deceased aristocrat’s life and his connection with Une.
Most of the clippings and the correspondences were in Russian. But there was enough English peppered throughout the collection in addition to the photographs and pictures from where Quatre could form a decent enough idea of what had gone on. Brows furrowing on occasion as he mulled over things, his hand absently stroking a clipping or a photograph or a torn letter, his lips moving silently as he read, Quatre sought to understand what he could of the house’s former owner.
Puzzle pieces fell almost haphazardly into place, forming crude pictures in his mind—of Treize’s highly respectable past as the descendant of a long line of aristocrats, it seemed; his success in the military; his popularity; his amours.
Midway through the album, Quatre found less flattering suggestions involving Treize—of his financial ruin; his marrying a woman of respectable birth and, from the looks of things, considerable wealth; his ill-health; his moving out of Europe (which Quatre could only guess to be a calculated move to protect his health); his eventual demise.
“Where does Une fit in all this?” he muttered, frowning even more deeply as he flipped back to earlier pages in hopes of catching sight of a clue or two.
But he found nothing that could give him an idea. He flipped past the last filled page and on to the blank sheets at the end of the scrap book, finally alighting on a page where a handful of old notes were pressed—a few that were written by Une and a small collection tied up with a frayed silk ribbon. On closer inspection, the bundled letters were those written by Treize and sent to Une, and Quatre could only guess that these letters were collected, tied carefully in silk, and sent back in a group. He looked at the notes, grappling with himself over reading the correspondences, his conscience putting up a damned good fight over the sacrilegious intrusion he was contemplating.
His curiosity, however, urged him on, consoling him with the thought that the only way to understand everything would be for him to release those letters from their faded bonds and to expose their contents to his ever-hungry eyes. Treize wouldn’t have left the scrapbook out in the open, his personal history stripped down and bared, had he not intended Quatre to read its contents. The young man was meant to find it and was invited to be a part of the strange events that were now taking place around him.
Quatre drew a quick, ragged breath through his teeth. “No,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on the notes in his hand. “No. Let them be.”
He could venture some guesses—the scrapbook had given him quite a bit of information from which to pull out possible explanations of his own. He didn’t need to delve deeper into their lives, infiltrating the most intimate moments between them in order to understand, violating a sacred privacy they both deserved. Whatever other lingering mysteries about them should remain unanswered, kept in the shadows till his last breath. He owed them at least that much.
It was a safe enough guess to say that Une was Treize’s lover, who’d been unceremoniously dropped for a wealthier catch but who’d also remained in the man’s heart in spite of everything.
His heart felt oddly touched by the whole thing even if their story sounded like a romantic tragedy that had been celebrated time and again by the pens of the most brilliant writers. It was a theme that was quite prevalent in literature and popular culture, one that seemed, because of its popularity, to have grown rather trite and banal. All the same, however, there was something else to it that was nagging at him, tugging quietly yet no less desperately at the quieter corners of his mind.
It was Treize’s guilt that had kept him there, denied peace in the welcome arms of death. It was his need to make amends for abandoning a woman he’d clearly loved for the more urgent demands of his pocketbook. And it was Une’s pride that served as the greatest resistance.
Quatre slowly and reverently closed the scrapbook, his mind filled with so many notions and so many doubts, wondering why he didn’t feel comfortable with what seemed to be an all-too-clear end to his questions.
He tried to shake the melancholy pall that had gathered over him by replacing the scrapbook on top of the piano and taking his place at the instrument to play a few songs that he fondly remembered from his own childhood. The memories helped. They broke through the heavier curtain of the present and of Treize’s past with their welcome light of familiarity, and Quatre once again found himself in the company of his sisters and parents, sharing moments that had seared themselves in his own memory and had done their share in shaping his soul.
Quatre smiled wistfully at the soft rays of the dying light that filtered through the nearby windows and broke up the pensive gloominess of the conservatory.
Quatre would search for his companions an hour later, pushing his way through the evening-darkened hallways and countless parlors and sitting-rooms, to find himself wandering the garden for several more minutes with mounting anxiety.
He found them eventually. In the midst of the rose garden at the far corner of the estate, he came across Une sitting on the grass, cradling a pale, limp, and lifeless Trowa in her arms, murmuring quietly in Russian. The young man lay draped in her arms, his head resting against her shoulder. One of his arms dangled on the grass at his side, his palm facing up and cradling what seemed to be a small bundle of white roses that had separated, with some tumbling out and resting in a little scattered pile just shy of his thin, graceful fingers. She rocked him slightly as a mother would a child, her face hidden in the shadows of the night and safe from all scrutiny. She was Michelangelo’s Pietà in the midst of white, fragrant floribundas.
She didn’t glance up when Quatre stood before her in silence.
“The worst thing that could ever happen to anyone, Quatre, is to lose what he loves the most twice—the first time because of imprudence, the second time because it’s too late.” She paused to turn Trowa’s face gently and to brush his hair off his face, her touch light and reverent and a testament to a heart that would always remain broken.
She bent down to kiss the unconscious young man.
Quatre watched, and he finally understood. That odd, nagging feeling in the back of his mind had nothing to do with more hidden secrets and supernatural goings on. It had nothing to do with the sensationalized, glamorized romance of an aristocrat and his spurned lady that was fodder for countless novels, films, and television shows.
With all the oddities, all the exoticism, the foreignness of the whole thing, what had unraveled before him was nothing more than plain human drama—of love found, sacrificed, and lost again. Of pride, regret, and grief. There was nothing remotely glamorous or romantic about any of those. They were real, they were heartbreaking—and seeing someone he knew go through them had given the whole thing a completely different meaning—one that elevated the experience to a nobler level by virtue, paradoxically enough, of its truth and of the frailty of human nature that would give rise to such things.
All the fantasies he’d long harbored regarding Trowa or whoever happened to be his idealized lover at the moment had just been nullified by Une and Treize’s story—stripped down to an assortment of nothing more than pretty phantasms conjured up by a desperately lonely mind—and Quatre found himself falling rapidly back to earth, his mind shattering its way through every romanticized, escapist layer he’d ever created for himself, forcing himself to face the present and reality as it stared him in the face, spreading its arms wide in welcome as he hurtled toward it.
Meiran frowned even more deeply, and Quatre thought he could see beads of sweat break out on her forehead.
“Come on, Meiran. Out with it,” Dorothy said as she stood over her colleague, her eyes narrowing and one corner of her mouth tugging upward for a little triumphant smirk.
She held the pneumatic staple gun in one hand, forcing the thick, heavy coil (including its extension attachment) to stretch clear across the room to connect her with the worktables and the source of the air-driven tool.
“Come on, Meiran,” Quatre called out as he shifted a little from where he casually lay on one of the nearby design tables, stretched out to a comfortable length, with his hands pillowing his head as he stared idly at the gallery ceiling, waiting for his friend to blurt out her turn at the alphabet. “You can do it.”
“Yeah, don’t let her get you this time,” Hilde piped up almost desperately from where she sat, which was on the floor and propped up against the wall just behind the design table across from Quatre’s. She watched the goings on with a look of clear anticipation and dread.
Dorothy stared at her nails. “What is it? Come on, I haven’t got all day! D is for what?”
“Okay! Okay!” Meiran finally retorted, flushing deeply. Her eyes darkening even more, she sputtered, “D is for Deidre, buried under some hay!”
“Ha! Wrong!”
With that, Dorothy stepped forward, stooped down, and, grabbing a part of Meiran’s shirt, proceeded to shoot another staple through it, anchoring Meiran more securely against the wall. Meiran shrieked, horrified.
“You’re ruining my shirt, you deranged cow!”
“Tough beans,” Dorothy replied coolly as she straightened back up, regarding her handiwork with some satisfaction. At this moment in the game, both Meiran and Hilde were firmly anchored to the wall courtesy of staples methodically dispensed by Dorothy with every wrong answer they’d give. Meiran had now a grand total of three staples securing her down via both her shirt sleeves and a part of her collar. Hilde was faring no better, with four staples shot through her clothes and pinning her down mercilessly. [2]
It was an aptly bizarre punishment, Quatre supposed, considering the game they were playing. After a long, enthusiastic discussion about Edward Gorey’s works, they’d decided to test each other’s fanaticism by taking turns with the grisly alphabet of The Gashlycrumb Tinies, with Dorothy declaring herself the headmistress and the other three her hapless “students.”
Une was nowhere to be found—as a matter of fact, she wasn’t expected back for another four days, this being her holiday from the gallery. It was a surprise to the rest of the staff, but Quatre understood well enough her purpose for taking a sudden and momentary leave of everyone and disappearing for two weeks. Dorothy, in the meantime, had been named the shop’s temporary manager, taking over Une’s duties and fulfilling her obligations as well as only Dorothy could fulfill them.
Stock was now promptly delivered from the manufacturers under pain of death, new as well as replacement samples, tools, and framing materials were immediately handed to them on a silver platter for the same reason, and the employees were treated to lots of free time spent mucking about the gallery, playing games and redecorating the entire place by moving the framed displays around and replacing old, tired pictures with newly framed ones of the staff’s choosing.
They’d never enjoyed this much freedom before, and they were taking full advantage of the cat being away.
The first “fun day” was spent using one of the detested Nagel prints for target practice, and the staff spent half the afternoon (in between customers, of course) standing in the middle of the customer area, shooting little balls of clay (Hilde had brought some along from her ceramics class) at the offending piece that hung smack dab in the center of the main display wall. [3] Meiran, being the shop’s head framer and quite good with her hands, won the contest with the most “clay boogers” hitting the confounded model’s nose and was rewarded with a bag of peanut M&Ms, which was her favorite indulgence.
Other days were spent in a variety of other fun ways, and this day found the staff in a different sort of challenge. PBS-inspired, apparently, as dictated by Quatre.
“You’re so wrong,” Dorothy purred as she stepped away from a snarling Meiran to take her place by the design table where Quatre lay, cocky and confident. “Your turn, Winner.” She fondled the staple gun, grinning.
“D is for Desmond, thrown out of a sleigh.”
“Shit!”
“I told you it’s useless trying to get me, Dorothy. I know The Gashlycrumb Tinies backwards and forwards.”
“Don’t get too smug, mister. We’ve got other alphabets to go through still, you know.”
She turned and marched toward Hilde, who eyed the staple gun with some dread. “Right. Now we’re on to E.”
“E is for Ernest who choked on a peach!” Hilde cried. “Keep that thing away from me!”
Dorothy merely shrugged and ambled back to Meiran, who glowered at her and crossed her arms on her chest. “I quit.”
“Spoiled sport.”
“You can’t quit, Meiran. We all agreed to go through the whole thing together,” Quatre protested, sitting up on the design table.
“Well, I don’t like the way Dotty here plays.”
Dorothy stared at her for a second in silence before stooping down and shooting another staple through one side of her shirt, securing her there.
“HEY!” Meiran cried. “What the hell? I haven’t even played yet!”
“You called me Dotty. I hate that name.”
Dorothy turned to Quatre, ignoring the snarling protests and threats that were now issuing from Meiran in an endless stream. “Your turn. What’s F?”
“F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech.”
“You suck. Hilde?”
“G is for George smothered under a rug! Let me out of here! I’ve got to go to the toilet!”
“We made a deal, people. Meiran, it’s your turn.”
“Why bother? Just staple me. Go ahead. I’ll get back at you when I get the hell out of here.”
Dorothy laughed. “How do you think you’re going to get out of there? You guys are toast.”
Meiran rolled her eyes. “Well, DUH! Look who’s winning!” She pointed emphatically at Quatre, who’d just eased himself off the design table to stretch and relax his sore back. He grinned complacently at Dorothy when she turned to watch him, her face taking on a picture of calm thought, her head cocking a little, her hands lightly toying with the staple gun.
“This is abuse of authority!” Quatre cried out from the carpet, where he’d just been stapled by a decidedly bored-looking Dorothy. “I don’t deserve to be nailed to the floor like this! I was winning the game! And we haven’t gone past N yet!”
The young woman threw him a careless glance and then continued to pore through a framing catalogue as she lay on her stomach on the design table that Quatre had just quitted.
“Sure you were,” she replied calmly with a little yawn. “But the game’s too dull. I was getting bored.”
“So you stapled me to the carpet by my collar because you needed something to do?”
“You can say that. I’m still bored, though. We don’t have pending orders, we’re caught up with work by at least five days, and it’s been slow lately. I’m bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. I’m feeling the urge to chop up the molding stock and put together the largest campfire ever made.”
“If the game’s over, you should be letting us off! Ow! Damn it! You’d better be grateful that I happen to be wearing one of my crappier shirts today, Catalonia! I’d be kicking your ass to kingdom come if I weren’t!” Hilde snapped.
“I think we should mutiny,” Meiran called out peevishly from her wall as she struggled against the staples that anchored her down. “We just need to get the fuck off this wall.”
“I’d staple you some more for insubordination, Meiran, but I’m feeling too lazy to get off this table.”
“I’m going to piss my pants and stink up the place and grow mold and fungus all over myself and probably die from some disgusting, slimy infection because the gallery Nazi here doesn’t want to let up!” Hilde howled from her corner. From his vantage point (which was the floor right beside the worktables), Quatre couldn’t see any of his friends save for Dorothy as they were anchored to the walls behind the design tables.
“That’s really disgusting, Hilde,” he retorted, grimacing, as he stared helplessly at the gallery ceiling. “I haven’t had lunch yet, you know!”
The angry exchange was soon interrupted by the sudden ringing of the shop’s bell.
“Oh, SHIT!” Hilde wailed. “Customer! Dorothy, get us off!”
Dorothy simply slithered off the table and greeted the visitor with a broad grin. “Well, hello! Quatre didn’t tell us that you’re going to stop by.”
Quatre felt his heart drop to his shoes at the sound of Trowa’s voice. He raised his head from the floor and watched as the tall figure came into view and approached the design table, his attention being engaged by Dorothy. Quatre reached behind him, squirming, as he tried to pull his collar off the floor. Dorothy had used the long staples on his shirt, unfortunately, which had secured him a lot more strongly than he expected. He fumbled and struggled desperately, grunting his frustration and praying like hell that Trowa wouldn’t see him writhing on the floor.
Of course, it was too bad that the worktables shared space with the main customer area, and Dorothy being Dorothy, she pointed him out, and he was soon staring, mortified, at a stunned Trowa.
“Um—hi,” he called weakly.
It took a full two seconds for Trowa to recover from his amazement, and he immediately crossed the room to kneel beside him, his jaw still slightly hanging.
“Quatre—what’re you doing down there?” he asked.
“It’s a long story. I normally don’t get myself stapled to the carpet like this.” Quatre paused, ignoring the intense burning in his face as he took in the sight of his—former—lover. “I didn’t expect you to stop by,” he added quietly, a shadow crossing his features.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know—I thought—after what had happened—you’d be off doing something else. Or finding someone else. I don’t think you’ve ever had any worse luck with anything than when you were with me.” The words simply tumbled out of him, and he couldn’t have stopped them if he tried.
Trowa softened, a slight, quiet smile lighting up his face now. “Je pense que tu es très beau et j'aimerais beaucoup te revoir.”
“What was that?”
“I just told you that I think you’re beautiful and that I’d like to see you again. I don’t think I’m being too forward this time around.” He laughed lightly. “I’m sorry. I just had this sudden urge to go back to my roots and start flirting with you in French.”
>From somewhere in the vicinity of the design tables, Quatre could hear Hilde wail plaintively. “I can’t see anything!”
Quatre dreaded this moment. This was his cue for him to use the spiel he’d been rehearsing for over a week now—since that fateful evening at the Chessman House. He hadn’t seen Trowa since then, what with Une contacting Trowa’s family and prompting the young man’s sister to appear and whisk him away for some much-needed peace and rest from the trauma he’d just endured. Quatre wasn’t even given a chance to speak to him or say goodbye. Une had simply taken over, sending for her physician and calling a cab to take Quatre home, arguing that Trowa needed to be kept from all emotionally-charged situations once he regained consciousness.
Quatre had resigned himself to the inevitability of their separation, yes, but all the same, that rather harsh severing DID hurt, no matter how much he’d justified everything, no matter how much he’d felt that Une was in the right when she imposed herself between the two of them. And seeing Trowa once more, back and wanting him to stay, was a shock, to say the least. All the careful preparations he’d made—all the planning and the rehearsing and the reminders of who he was and what he felt was his due (which, considering how he viewed himself, really wasn’t much)—were suddenly slipping through his fingers rapidly until he was left fumbling for scraps of what he’d really wanted to say in farewell to the other.
“Can we talk?” he stammered, feeling his courage fail him. “But not here. It’s a little disconcerting trying to communicate to someone while stapled to the carpet.”
“I CAN’T GODDAMN SEE!”
“Ssshh! Shut up, Hilde!” Dorothy spat out.
Quatre swallowed as he glanced in Dorothy’s direction. “Can I take a break? I need to talk to Trowa.”
Dorothy’s expectant smirk immediately faded. Then she sighed. “I suppose.” She sauntered up to them, reluctantly pulling out a flat head screwdriver from her apron pocket to use on her colleague.
“My sister’s staying with me for a while. She’s on holiday, too. I should be hearing from Une about the estate once she returns from her break.”
“So—will you be staying at the Chessman House still?”
“I will. Indefinitely. Then I’ll probably look around for another house to lease around here.” Trowa paused to smile. “I’ve grown rather fond of this area.”
“Une will be your landlady then.”
He nodded. “I’m still the tenant, no matter what happens—whether she decides to take over or just let the Historical Society keep the house. I’ve gotten used to that place. And I still need the atmosphere and the location to keep me going on my novel—which means that I’ll be hanging around there for a while.”
Quatre breathed a sigh of relief as he swallowed his sandwich. “Have you had any blackouts lately?” he asked with a bit of hesitation.
“No. None. I still feel some kind of a presence there, but it’s not the same. I think it’s really more residuals of what used to be there.” Trowa fell silent, a vague, pensive smile turning the corners of his mouth. “I don’t even know if I can say that I hate Treize for doing what he did. I think I would’ve done the same thing had I been in his shoes.”
Quatre laughed. “Then I feel sorry for whoever it is you’ll be possessing.”
“But you wouldn’t give me any reason for possessing someone, would you?”
He paused, blinking. He stared at his companion, who was now watching him closely. Quatre could feel the heat and the cold assail him all at once, the growing disbelief in what he thought was a hint rendering him speechless for a moment.
“I don’t—I don’t get it,” he stammered. “Trowa, I don’t think you understand—I’m not right for you.”
“I think I should be the judge of that.”
“No—I don’t think…” Quatre paused, fumbling around for words, his brows furrowing deeply as he struggled with himself. He felt his face heat up for the tenth time that day, and it was all he could do to fix his eyes on a distant point in the room while he sputtered for something halfway coherent to say. It was a good thing that the coffee shop situated directly across the way from the gallery was also experiencing fairly light traffic that day, or Quatre would have felt the added tension of crowds render his less-than-perfect communication skills even more impotent.
He finally sighed heavily, turning his attention back to his half-finished sandwich. “Trowa—I don’t think I’m right for you. You deserve better.”
“Better than what?” came the quiet, insistent question, spoken in a voice that gently prodded and soothed at the same time.
Quatre stared at him, aghast. “Trowa, LOOK at me! I’m short, I’m pale, I wear glasses, I’m scrawny, I pinch pennies, I go to used bookstores, I buy half my clothes from second hand shops, the most boring things on earth turn me on, I spill spaghetti sauce on myself every time I have a plate of that stuff, people save for my friends laugh at me when I open my mouth, and the only time they listen to what I have to say is when I’m giving them directions to the freeway exit!” He paused to catch a breath before adding in a broken, defeated voice, “What on earth do you hope to gain by asking me to stay with you?”
Trowa listened to all this in characteristic silence, his eyes fixed on Quatre, his chin resting on the heel of his hand as he leaned on the table. He neither frowned nor rolled his eyes at the show of agitation; instead, he listened with a degree of expectation in his overall air, as though he knew what Quatre was going to say. He even waited a second or two after his companion fell silent, miserably fumbling for his soda to take a large gulp of the stuff in an attempt to find comfort in the painful burning that marked the passage of the drink down his throat.
“There’s a voice that’s been nagging me lately—call it intuition if you will,” Trowa finally said, his voice quiet and melodious. “It’s been telling me not to let go of a good thing when I see it.”
Quatre stared at him, confounded. “And you think it’s referring to me?”
“Why not?” Here Trowa paused, sighing, as he leaned forward even more, his eyes boring more deeply into Quatre’s as he spoke emphatically though not impatiently.
Quatre shook his head incredulously. “Trowa, you’re everything I’m not—you’ve got everything going for you—why on earth would you want to waste all that on someone like me?”
“What’re you so frightened of, Quatre? Really?”
He looked down at his sandwich again. “And don’t treat me like a charity case. I might walk around with ‘loser’ written clear across my forehead, but I don’t think I need to be patronized.”
“Is the thought of someone harboring a strong interest in you freaking you out? Is that the problem here?”
“I don’t know—I suppose—I…” Quatre broke off and sighed heavily. “Yes. I’m freaked out. I’m sorry. It’s just—Trowa, I’m not—perfect.”
He felt his hands, which lay in a thin, pale, limp pair on the table, suddenly enveloped in warmth, and he raised his eyes to peer through his glasses and find them securely clasped in Trowa’s. A little thrill of hope coursed through him, but he dared not fan the flames and misguide himself, snuffing out that tiny ray of light and plunging himself back into the more familiar, dark vacuum of dour resignation to his lot in life.
“No, you’re not perfect,” Trowa replied, a smile in his voice. “You’re real—perhaps the most real person I’ve met in a long time.”
“Trowa…”
“Winner, give it up. I’m attracted to you, so deal with it. However…” Here Trowa gave his hands a gentle squeeze before letting them go and sitting back in his chair to regard him with a weary half-smile. “I’m not about to force you into something you don’t feel comfortable with. If you don’t want me around, just say so—don’t apologize or make excuses. If you don’t think we stand a chance or I offend you in any way, tell me now, and I won’t bother you again.”
He paused and laughed lightly, sheepishly, raising a hand to rub his temple as he averted his eyes. “My God, I’ve never been this communicative with anyone before.”
Quatre watched him, dumbfounded, his mind and his senses drowning in a deluge of thoughts and feelings that threatened to send him running out of the coffeehouse, screaming. Torn in two different directions, he tried to claw and dig his way through the mess in his mind, only to find himself confronted by quietly spoken words from a moment not too long ago—words that had taken hold of him, securing him in their provocative suggestion. He tried to struggle against their force but quickly found all his efforts to be ineffectual, and it didn’t take long for him to succumb to their power and the comfort and hope they offered.
The worst thing that could ever happen to anyone, Quatre, is to lose what he loves the most twice—the first time because of imprudence, the second time because it’s too late.
He looked at Trowa, his eyes fixed on the other’s and delving deeply inside, seeking reassurance in the softer hues of lush foliage in those irises that returned his stare. And as he lost himself in their depths, he felt the subtle warmth of hope slowly claim him, and he gradually broke out into a smile.
“What?” Trowa piped up, softening visibly. “What’re you staring at now?”
“Your eyes.”
“My eyes. What’s wrong with them? Do they look odd? Fake? Do I look like I’m wearing contacts or something?”
Quatre’s smile broadened, and it was his turn to cover Trowa’s hands in his. He shook his head. “No, no. I think they’re perfect.” And he gave those hands a gentle squeeze.
Notes:
[1] The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917. The long, noble line included Peter I (Peter the Great), Catherine II (Catherine the Great), and Nicholas II (better known for being the last czar of Russia who, along with his entire family, was executed by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution and from whose fall came the mystery of Anastasia).
[2] Just my way of poking fun of a very real issue that constantly happened to me when I worked at the gallery—that of accidentally stapling or nailing my clothes to the worktables when I wasn’t being very careful.
[3] Patrick Nagel was an illustrator whose minimalist, bold, and (to me, at least) redundant artistic style catapulted him to fame in the 1980’s when he designed the album cover for Duran Duran’s “Rio.”