The Sofa

The Boston Herald

It was an act of faith on his part to let me pick out the couch. A couch, after all, is not a dress. You can't take it home, walk around in it for a while, ask everyone's opinion, come to the startling realization that flowers on your backside are not the most flattering thing, then bring the dress back for a full and cheerful refund. A couch, specifically a sectional, special-ordered 12 weeks ago, cannot be returned or exchanged or banished to the back of the closet where all the things that looked so great in the store but not so great at home end up. (Stretchy white capri pants - what was I thinking? A bathing suit I wouldn't be caught dead in. A brown-and-gold shimmery suit that the family calls "Mom's space suit.") 

Choosing a couch is a commitment. It's like getting a pet, only worse, because you can send Fido to obedience school if you don't like the way he's acting. And you can send him to a groomer if you don't like the way he looks. And you can stick him out in the back yard when company comes.

A couch? It's the first thing company sees.

My husband wanted to go with something plain. Plain had served us well for nine years in our small family room. Why mess with success? Why not stick with what works? But I had this vision of a couch more in touch with the outdoors, something with a hint of flowers, something that would whisper "spring" all winter long. I was thinking New Orleans chic, which gives you an indication of how I wasn't thinking.

The swatches they show you at the store are about the size of a big napkin. It's hard to imagine a napkin as a couch. But I tried. My husband kept going back to one that looked exactly like our old couch. It was a sturdy, dark-green fabric embossed with little flecks of color.

But I preferred the polished cottons, the yellows with the orange flowers, the reds with purple, the off-white mixed with light blue - none of which matched our family room or our dog. 

In the end, after not just a day of shopping but a year of occasionally ducking into furniture stores "just to look," we - read "I" because my husband shook his head and said, "I think it's too busy" - chose a midnight-blue polished cotton with sprigs of green running through it, augmented by little blue things that look like bachelor's button - plus a few rose-color dahlias and mums. 

I knew I was in trouble the second I saw the delivery guys carrying in the cushions. There they were, stacked on top of one another, blue and green and rose-colored things that weren't whispering "spring." They were shouting it. They were screaming it at the top of their fiber-filled lungs. Then in came the couch, all 121 by 96 feet of it. All that was missing was a steel band.

My husband came home and he didn't say, "I told you so," though that's what I would have said. "You hate it, don't you?" I asked him. And he said, "No. It's just different.” 

Different how? Picture Doris Kearns Goodwin in a hoop skirt. Picture Crystal Cathedral in the hills of Vermont. Two cultures colliding. That was my family room. 

Until my husband went about setting things right.

I figured if we got a new dog bed, the room might not look as cluttered. My husband, who didn't go to Catholic school and wear uniforms during his formative years and who is therefore capable of mixing and matching more than black, white and plaid, said the dog's bed was not the problem. He then took everything off the walls: the painting of Cape Ann's rugged coast, the painting of snow, the photograph of a New England cemetery in the fall and three giant collages of family and friends.

In their place he hung bright, colorful prints of a Southern veranda and a tropical beach and a flowered path leading to nowhere, which we bought years ago. 

Then he got rid of the Christmas centerpiece on the coffee table. And the Christmas wreath hanging over the sliding glass door. And the dying poinsettia, which was next to the TV. He put in its place a big, green leafy plant that was sitting alone in the living room. Then he rolled up and put away the Santa Claus rug.

And what do you know? The room actually looked nice. And the couch looked nice, too - not too bright, not too flowery. Simply Southern and spring-like. Standing in the dim light of the Christmas candles, which are still in my windows, I could hear more than a whisper of spring. I could hear the notes of "My Own True Love," as my own true Mr. I-Can-Make-Anything-Better stood close beside me.