Meeting Lola Finkelstein is something I did not manage. But I know what I would have talked about with her, a suave activist and deluxe-beauty-salon widow, who died earlier this year at the age of ninety-eight. I would not have talked about tennis, which the oft-quoted Finkelstein adored. I would not have mentioned the Manhattan community board she served on with distinction for decades, nor would I have asked about Kenneth Battelle, the famous stylist, a.k.a. Mr. Kenneth, who worked for her husband. Nor would I have been much interested in “The Talk of the Town,” the column she produced for The New Yorker with Lillian Ross, an editor who described Finkelstein as “an attractive, trim woman with reddish-blond curly hair.” She and I did have a hankering for black lacquer objects, though, in ebony-and-gold finishes that used to be called japanned.
A Chinese export secretary found at Butterscotch Auction, in the hamlet of Pound Ridge, New York, stands in my office. On a nearby windowsill is a Finkelstein find, purchased from Litchfield Auctions in Litchfield, Connecticut: a match striker, shaped like a Victorian lady’s shoe, era unknown. Our flat-screen television is also hidden within a 1940s lacquer cabinet that was a bar. My husband and I own wall pockets, letter organizers, wall brackets, crumb catchers, pipe holders, and boxes, all coated in black and decorated with golden flowers and chinoiserie figures wearing elaborate costumes.
We have nothing very good, unfortunately, but the objects are decorative. The secretary, at which I am writing this column, is the perfect size for a laptop. Behind its doors are all manner of funny drawers in myriad sizes. It is in estate condition — it did come from an area estate, after all — but a few dings are a small price to pay for a desk that delights me every day and adds immeasurable gleam to the decor.
