by Jane Smiley
Gordon’s other developments were smaller and less philosophical, and he also built commercial properties. If one of his cronies wanted to open another restaurant or put in a miniature golf course with six waterfalls and a merry-go-round, Gordon would do that. He had sold one farm ten years ago, way out in the country but at the busy intersection of Highway 12 and Hardy Well Road, to Bert Milstein and then built a Colonial-style shopping village that specialized in shops that sold one thing: door handles or table linens or fudge. The security guards wore knee pants and the waitresses wore long skirts and frilly décolletage, and the center had succeeded against all odds, partly by hosting nonretail events, like chamber music groups and pig roasts, and partly by hosting craft fairs and swap meets. It had become a very successful fake village and Gordon loved it—it was not at all the sort of place he would ever shop, or even go, but exactly the sort of place where he could sell high what he had bought low. He couldn’t believe how the small shops and upscale décor put people in the mood to pay through the nose, but he had a little antiques shop there, which Betty ran with a friend, and he stocked it with whatever he had found here and there. One year they made a huge amount of money on gilt-framed mirrors that he got out of a hotel in Buffalo. Another year they had fifteen golden oak washstands and a rack full of silk kimonos from prewar Japan.
At any rate, I got in the car and drove over to Gordon’s in a happy mood. Phase Four would be simple and fun. Gordon would build them, and Bobby and I would sell them. One of the ways that Gordon kidded himself that he wasn’t supporting Bobby was that he only discussed his projects with me, and Bobby did all his sales of Gordon’s properties through me as the broker.
Of Gordon, my mother always said, “Well, I never thought he was a handsome man, though obviously some people do.” Some people did; he looked like a movie star of a certain era, Tyrone Power, say, whose looks not only change but become outmoded. In his early sixties, he was florid and jowly, and his dark pomaded hair had failed, suspiciously, to thin or recede. He had big shoulders and big hands but he was actually not a large man; I was an inch or two taller and outweighed him by maybe fifteen or twenty pounds. What he had was ease of movement. When he opened the door for me, put his arm around me, propelled me across the foyer into his office (shouting the whole time for Betty to come out and say hi and bring me a beer), it was his dance. His touch and his presence felt like they were infusing grace into me. In his office, which was pure 1970—orange shag carpet, a long low window looking out on their back acreage, which featured a man-made pond with a swimming raft and a rope swing hanging from the limb of a big oak—he had the plans for townhouses spread out on his desk. At first, say just for two or three minutes, I forgot that Felicity had put us in a new and strange relationship. He was just Gordon and I was just Joe and we were about to do what we had done so many times—build and sell and drink and eat and talk and shout and curse or celebrate as the deals rolled by. Then Betty came in with the beer.
Betty was about sixty then. I suppose when I first met her she was in her mid-thirties, and of course she had changed. Sally had adored Betty. What she always said was, “My mother was a legendary beauty, you know. None of us girls will ever be as beautiful as my mother. Daddy says that’s evidence right there that the theory of evolution is wrong.” Then she would laugh, so pleased that she was lucky enough to be Betty’s daughter. I liked beautiful women as much as anyone, and I had seen quite a few over the years who possessed a more perfect surface than Betty, but she had a thoughtful and yet entirely untormented quality that I had never seen in another person that made her beauty open, contented, and unsullied. Of Betty, my mother always said, “She’s a very nice woman, Joey. Between you and me, he’s lucky to have her.” That was my mother’s highest compliment.
She came right over and kissed me, put the beer in my hand, closed my fingers around it with her own fingers, and said, “Here’s Joey! Aren’t you looking handsome, Joey! I’ve been missing you,” and even though Felicity did not look like Betty, in Betty’s presence I felt it as a physical jolt that Betty and Gordon would not in the least appreciate the new turn my relationship with their family had taken; Gordon might understand it as a general feature of male behavior, though he wouldn’t like it, but Betty, I thought, wouldn’t understand it at all. Nevertheless, I returned her kiss, and maybe I did so with more enthusiasm than usual. I had always appreciated Sally; now I appreciated Felicity too.
Betty said she was going to the supermarket, so Gordon came over and danced her to the door of his office. She looked back at me over his shoulder; her smile and her wave were sophisticated but intimate, implying that while nothing much surprised her, she was happy anyway.
Then he propelled me toward the plans. “Now here it is, Joe. Good American-style townhouses, nothing fancy. Three buildings, thirty units in all, eighteen two-bedrooms, twelve three-bedrooms. Look at this elevation, now: simple pitched roof, clapboard siding, white trim, cream siding, black doors, and black shutters. They’re going to go along the street like this, but a little set back. You know, when we went down to South Carolina at Christmas, I went over to this plantation they had outside of Charleston, it was called Forbes Plantation, one of those big old places, but it hadn’t been burned down by Sherman, you know. Even so, one guy couldn’t afford to keep it, not in this day and age, so they turned the whole thing into condos, did a nice job too, didn’t change the exterior at all. I think they got eight units into the main building and then maybe four or five into the outbuildings and the slave quarters. Anyway, here was the great part.” He moved his finger across the bottom of the elevation. “They made sure to keep the old gardens, front and back, and I’m telling you, these folks who live in this place, it’s like living in a park. So that was what made me think it was time to get on with Phase Four up there, because just a bunch of townhouses is nothing; I wasn’t interested; but now I see we can retain control of the property and have beautiful gardens all around. That piece there faces southeast, so they’d have flowering trees and roses. Don’t you love it? Little playgrounds for the grandkids, and some gardening areas for the old Italian guys who want to put in a few tomatoes. I’d live there myself if Betty could stand it. But she can design the garden. Or Hank could. He does that sort of thing.”
I said, “Hmm,” self-consciously.
“So! Here we go! What day is today, March what? Oh, yeah, twenty-ninth. Now, see, we got all the roads and sewers and everything here, from the other three phases. They staked it out last week, so we just got to wait a couple of weeks to break ground.”
I said, “What sort of price range are you thinking, Gordon?”
“Something nice, you know, something friendly. Forty-nine-nine for the two bedrooms, seventy-nine-nine for the threes. But they’ve got an association fee, of course. Fee simple once you’re inside the house, but got to pay an association fee as soon as you step down off your bottom step onto the walkway. And see, back here, a little parklike area—that’s the latest thing, common areas. Pool, maybe, or, better, an indoor lap pool that you can swim in all year round for the exercise. We’ll see. Milstein, he built himself one of those, and now he comes to every game with his hair wet. And he drinks water all the time. Jack, you want a beer; Nathan, you want a beer; Gordon, how about a beer; and then, Bert, you want a glass of water? I swear. But I see it coming, Joe.”
The plans were simple: slab foundations, parking spaces instead of garages, but rather large rooms. If there was one thing Gordon knew about real estate, it was that you could trim a little off the necessities and add a little to the space, and make the place look open and desirable. I said, “How about vinyl siding? That would save you money all around, and they can’t paint it. You don’t want these places all looking different ten years down the road.”
He said, “You know Frank Lloyd Wright, Joe?”
“Not personally.”
“Well, he was a big deal—still is, for that matter—but when I was just getting into this busi
ness I used to read about him whenever I could, and he did a thing I always thought was funny. He designed the chairs for his houses, but he made sure they were uncomfortable, because he didn’t like people sitting down, so he’d put in this furniture that looked nice and fit right in, but you couldn’t stand to sit in it for more than ten minutes, so you’d get up and walk around, which he wanted you to do so you would admire the place, I guess. Anyway, that’s a perfect Frank Lloyd Wright idea: sell ’em the house, but give ’em siding they can’t paint! Ha!”
“Vinyl-clad windows, too, and you ought to put in crank-out casements rather than double-hungs. For some reason, all my buyers lately want them. And they’re cheaper to install.” I was getting excited. Thirty units was a good number. I could think of three possible buyers already. “May I take the plans to show around? You know the Rebarcaks on Robertson Way? They were asking me to find them something smaller.”
“Presolds! That’s what I need. You know, if the foundations of the first building are in by June, you can do a muddy-shoe walk-through of the samples in mid-July. I got my best crew free; they can get these places up in no time. You know Larry, who runs that crew, Larry Svendsen? Back in the sixties, when he was just married, he made a bet with that old guy, Lombardo, that he could build a whole house in a month, from staking out to turning the key. He did it, too, twenty-nine days and five hours. Three bedrooms, two baths, split-level. The electricians would be right behind the framers and the sheetrockers right behind them. One guy was putting up the moldings, and the painter was painting them right next to him. He finally had to yell at the guy to back off long enough to let him nail them down. Lombardo walked through and paid Larry a grand right on the spot. And Milstein made book. I bet five grand changed hands when the buyers moved in.”
“I think it looks great, Gordon. You lay out the gardens and put in annuals and turf, and that’s not much money out of pocket, but it makes the place look great; then over the fall and winter you put in the trees and perennials, and by this time next year it looks like people have been living there for years.”
Gordon grabbed me by the shoulders and planted a big kiss on my cheek. He said, “You know, Joe, how old I am?”
“You’re sixty-three, Gordon.”
“Here’s the deal. A lot is the world’s most boring thing. I love to look at farms and buy farms and all that, but when I’ve got one, and it’s been surveyed into lots, my heart kind of sinks. But then we get to this point, where we got the plans and we know how fast the buildings are going to go up and the people are going to get in there, and I feel great! I feel sixty-two!”
We laughed. I finished my beer. Gordon turned and looked out the window, then turned back to me. I had a feeling he wanted to say something unaccustomed, but to be frank, given the sudden appearance of Felicity in my life, I didn’t want to hear anything unaccustomed, and so when he turned back and offered me another beer, I shook my head. I bent down over the desk and began to roll up the plans. “Are these the ones I can take? I’ll show them to Bobby if you want.”
“Nah. He and Fernie are coming over tonight, Betty says. I’ll show him. But wait a minute, Joe. I got this other deal too. That’s what I really wanted to talk to you about.”
Deal was a safe word. I said, “What’s that?”
“You know the Thorpe property?”
“Salt Key Farm?”
“That’s the one.” Gordon raised his eyebrows. “I got it.”
I whistled. Salt Key Farm was hardly a farm. It was a five-hundred-and-eighty-acre estate, owned by the wealthiest family in the eastern half of the state. They had properties all over, but Salt Key Farm was something of a jewel. The Thorpes were railroad money; train-coach makers and engine builders. But the decline of railroads had meant nothing to the Thorpe fortune; over the years, the money had become self-generating. At any rate, Jacob the Fourth and Dolores Thorpe, who were probably in their eighties, lived much of the year at Salt Key Farm, with servants and horses. The houses, a main house and two other houses, and the barns, for mares, stallions, weanlings, hay, and so on, and the fencing were all simple and elegant, built on a grand scale. I said, “Did you see inside the house, Gordon?”
“Sat right in the paneled study. You haven’t ever seen anything like this paneling, Joe. Split maple, book-matched, the edges just melted together, no moldings to hide any flaws. Pegged floors. You know how, before the French Revolution, the Queen of France had a little toy farm that was a sort of rich people’s version of life in the country? Well, this study was a rich people’s version of simplicity. He showed me the barns. All the horses’ stalls were tongue-in-groove golden oak, chevron style.”
“Why in the world would they sell, Gordon? They can’t need the money.”
“I don’t think they need the money. My guess is, they had some big argument with the kids. Those Thorpes are like that. Always a big argument. John Thorpe, I guess he was Jacob’s uncle, he made a will in 1910 that put all his money in trust for generations yet unborn. Everyone then alive, even the babies, had to be dead before they could distribute the money. There was a piece in the paper about it when the last one died a year or so ago. Anyway, the old man called me up the other day and asked me to come over. He said he wanted to sell me Salt Key Farm, and what I did with it was up to me, except he wanted it advertised and put on the market for six months, so the relatives could see it. If any of them want to buy it, I’m supposed to put some sort of deal-breaking contingency on it. But I guess that’s your department.”
“Did you talk about developing it?” I said.
“Well, he must know I’m a developer. But let’s pretend I don’t know what I might do with it. It’s not like anything else. He said he’d looked around and decided I was the only guy who could afford to buy it. I said, ‘Well, appearances are deceiving, but it is quite an opportunity.’”
“I can’t believe they want it developed.”
“Well, let’s put it this way: He offered to sell me the property. I didn’t say, ‘Mr. Thorpe, I’m going to put thirty houses on this farm,’ and I don’t know that I am. I could live there with all my kids and their families, and we’d never see one another if we didn’t want to.”
There was a time before my divorce when I used to drive around and fantasize about owning this property or that one, living with this view or owning a particular house. I was pretty rich, and I thought I was going to be richer, and the county was my own buffet. Wheeling and dealing would, I thought, get me any dish on the table, if I wanted it enough. Any dish on the table but Salt Key Farm.
Gordon went on. “What he said to me was, he wanted to list it for five million and then after the relatives had seen it and maybe tried to buy it, he would sell it to me for our agreed-upon price, which is high enough as it is. They want to move to Florida. I’m telling you, Jake Thorpe didn’t look good and Dolores Thorpe looked worse. She came to size me up too, in that toney polite way that covers everything up.”
“How much?”
“Two and a half million.”
Back in ’82, nobody I knew, including Gordon, had ever even heard of pricing a house at two and a half million. Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. This did not seem like Gordon’s sort of money.
“So,” he continued, “I guess you’re the listing agent. You go out there and do the paperwork for the sale and put together the pictures, and we’ll put in on the market like the guy said and see what happens.”
“I feel like I’m a little out of my depth, Gordon.”
“Well, son, that means it’s time to swim!” He laughed, but I could see he was a little intimidated too, probably by the seller’s idiosyncratic motives as much as by the size of the deal. Phase Four of Glamorgan Close had a better feel to it—simple, straightforward housing for local citizens so that they could enjoy, or at least get on with, their lives. Nothing eccentric that could somehow backfire. Gordon put his hands in his pants pockets and cocked his head. “Here’s the question I ask myself. Wh
y did he really call me? Why would he think I’m the only guy around who can afford it? My specialty is buy it cheap. I’ve never spent any time with the guy. Our social circles not only don’t intersect, they don’t even recognize each other.” He shook his head. “Now, there’s two sayings. Both of them are true. One is, ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’ That’s what Betty says. The other is, ‘If it seems too good to be true, then it is.’ That’s what Felicity says. I mean, you can tell this shook me up a little, because I never ask their advice, do I? So, what the hell. He’s an old man and maybe he’s a little addled.”
He handed me Jacob Thorpe’s card. I looked at it and put it in my pocket. Why not? I thought. I said, “When do they want to relinquish possession?”
“October first.”
“Six months?”
“Well, they got a lot of stuff to move out of there.” He looked at me and grinned. “And he wants to be around for the scandal with the relatives.”
“What if some unrelated buyer shows up and actually wants to pay five million for it?”
“I looked up the tax assessment. It was assessed in ’sixty-five at seven hundred and fifteen thousand. It’s never been on the market. The market is going up now that interest rates are down a little. You put together a purchase agreement that’s good for six months. If anyone shows an interest, we’ll put up the money and close the deal. Here’s my opinion. The value of the place is completely in the eyes of the beholder. If some guy beholds it and wants to pay me five million dollars for a property that I can get for two and a half, I say take it!” He threw back his head and laughed at the absurdity of the idea.