Good Faith

by Jane Smiley

  I rocked back on my heels. I said, “When I was a teenager, my mother always used to say, ‘If it wasn’t for mothers, there’d be no fathers and sons at all.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, when she used to say it, I would think, What in the world is she talking about? but as I get older and look around more, I understand what she was getting at. But my father and I get along okay now. We agree to disagree.”

  “The subject of the agreement to disagree?”

  “Oh. Religion.”

  He nodded. I nodded. We fell silent. Religion, in my experience, always brought conversation to a dead halt. On the other hand, I was quite sure, even though Marcus struck me as an observant person, that Felicity and I had escaped detection.

  CHAPTER

  8

  EARLY IN AUGUST I got a call from George Sloan. It was about eleven in the morning, and I was doing some paperwork. Bobby had a client from somewhere between Pittsburgh and Denver—Chicago, maybe—who was looking at every house between $75,000 and $100,000 in Portsmouth and west to Conway, which was almost out of our area, so he had been busy for three days already. I had therefore seen Felicity twice and expected to see her again before the client left that evening. I picked up the phone. Sloan said, “That house still on the market?”

  “Which one?” We had seen three houses in the last week, one of which I thought was a good buy for them, near Deacon and in a good school district.

  “The one on the hill.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “I want to make an offer.”

  “I thought Mrs. Sloan was leaning toward the house south of Deacon.”

  “That’s a very presentable house. She likes that house.”

  “But—”

  “But I want to make an offer on this other house first, just to see.”

  “Just to see what?” I knew I sounded irritated.

  “If they’ll accept it.”

  “Believe me, they’ll accept it. That house is a mess. I wouldn’t risk it, if I were you.”

  “I’d put a couple of contingencies on it.”

  “What?”

  “Leave the appliances. Have to have a buyer for our house first. Bank has to approve the loan.”

  “Those are hardly what I would call contingencies. Your house is going to be an easy sale. It’s well located and well maintained. I’m not sure you’ll be happy if you get into that project over there on the hill.”

  “It’s going to be fantastic when it’s all done.”

  “Maybe, but it’s not a do-it-yourselfer. Those damaged walls and ceilings are plaster. And the roof would have to come off completely.”

  “We could save the tiles. They’re in good shape. They could just be turned around and put back on. That would save on materials.”

  “I’m not sure you can get those tiles off, Mr. Sloan. The way the roofer put them on, he filled the crevices with cement. That’s why the roof looks so odd. I don’t even want to think about how much that sort of rebuilding would cost. You shouldn’t think of it as a remodel. You should think of the house as a site and foundation only.” I spoke rather emphatically.

  “There’s nothing like it anywhere around.”

  “What does Mrs. Sloan think? A project like that—”

  “We disagree a little bit on what direction to go.”

  “Oh.”

  After a pause, he said, “If it worked out, I think she would go along with it.” He sounded wistful. “But I guess—”

  “I agree that it’s an amazing place, but you know, it wasn’t a family house to begin with. It doesn’t have a very happy past.”

  “That’s true.” There was a long pause. Then he said, “Okay. Well, we’ll get back to you about the Cannon Road house.” This was the one south of Deacon.

  As I was replacing the receiver on the hook, I heard him say, “Wait. Wait a second.”

  I put the phone back to my ear. “Is there something else?”

  “Can I go look at it myself? Without you?”

  “I don’t see why not. I’ll check with the Realtor, but I’d be surprised if she objected.”

  “Okay. Let me know and I’ll go by and pick up the key.”

  “You know, I don’t think even that is a good idea.”

  He didn’t reply.

  There was another long silence, after which I said, “Okay. I’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll call you.” So. It was that way. I said, “Okay. Call me after lunch.”

  Next day, Gordon, Marcus, and I met at Portsmouth Savings and Loan with Jim Crosbie, the new president, and Bart MacDonald. I hadn’t seen much of Bart since the day Frank Perkins was fired, so I was surprised to see his normal easygoing manner changed with Jim Crosbie. He was—well, deferential. He acted short. Every gesture and glance showed that he looked up to Jim Crosbie, who was not only taller and handsomer but younger, close to my age. I had been in this conference room before. It was elegant and pompous, as if the Supreme Court had just vacated, but Jim Crosbie seemed to own it completely, rosewood table, crown moldings, and all. He had come from another one of those states between Pittsburgh and Denver, but I noticed that he spoke with almost an English accent and dressed soberly. In his sober way, he was glad to see Marcus and Gordon. After we were seated, he leaned toward me intently and said, “Tell me about Avery.”

  I told him.

  “They did this in Houston. There was a big ranch owned by the Ward family. You know them?”

  I shook my head.

  “They’re the Texas version of the Rockefellers.” I wondered if every rich family was a version of the Rockefellers. “Anyway, for one of these prestige developments, the buyers like to know that they’re living on the Ward property, so they build that aspect up, make a big deal, you know, redo the main house for a clubhouse but keep the flavor of the old place. It’s a good idea. No one is going to have that kind of money again, but people who have new money want to feel at home in that sort of place. Girls making their debuts and all. Lots of parties.”

  I nodded. He sat back and smiled. I said, “He hasn’t called back.”

  Marcus said smoothly, “He wouldn’t, right away. They would be putting together the financing somewhere else, maybe in North Carolina, maybe not. Maybe with a big insurance company. They’re always looking for high-level investments.”

  “This is a big deal,” said Gordon. He cleared his throat. “Not, you know, local.”

  “It ought to be local,” said Jim Crosbie. “Believe me, North Carolina is as local as you can get, until they decide to roll the dice. You’d be surprised where money can come from. People think, Oh, New York, L.A., but I think, Oh, Asheville, Little Rock.”

  “Little Rock,” repeated Marcus. There was a moment of silence. Finally Crosbie said, “You bet.”

  Bart hadn’t said anything at this point, but now he said, “We’ve gone over this Salt Key Farm opportunity, and I have to say that Portsmouth Savings and Loan is very excited about the possibilities here.” He glanced at Crosbie. I couldn’t help staring at Bart. This was not the tune he had been singing before Crosbie came along. Maybe he had learned the Frank Perkins lesson, which was—what? Better to be sorry than safe?

  Gordon nodded. “I don’t think there’s a similar property in this half of the state. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “And you’ve seen almost everything around here,” said Bart.

  “At one time or another, I suppose I have.”

  Bart turned to Crosbie. “You know, over the years, Gordon has probably visited every farmer in the region. He keeps his eye on the obit column, for one thing.”

  “I like that,” said Jim. “You know, I grew up in farm country, not like this but wheat country, and if I learned one thing it was that every time the farm passes from one generation to the next, there’s a crisis. No way out of it. You can’t have the right number of children, and they can’t be the right sex. It’s a funny thing.”

  �
��Good for us,” said Marcus.

  Everyone laughed.

  “Now,” said Crosbie to Gordon, “what sort of deal do you have with Mr. Thorpe?”

  “I made the offer to buy, and he accepted, but I haven’t put the money up, and he hasn’t been pushy about it. Frankly, it’s a lot of money, and I’ve been a little undecided. I had some things I was worried about in the spring.” He glanced at Marcus, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “But maybe it’s time to close the deal. What is this, August?”

  “August tenth,” said Bart.

  “Well, best cast everything in stone then,” said Crosbie, “so we can proceed. Any problems with the sellers?”

  I said, “The sellers haven’t really had anything to say about the proceedings since we signed the purchase agreement. I have the accepted offer on file. But I think this is something of a delicate situation. Gordon thinks the sellers don’t care if the property is developed, but what I really think is that the sellers haven’t actually thought about development, and if they did, they would—or let’s say they could—back out of the deal. That’s why we haven’t had the place perked yet. We were going to wait to do that until the sellers had actually removed themselves. Fortunately, they were out of town when Mr. Avery inspected the property.”

  Crosbie said, “This doesn’t surprise me nor, I suspect, does it surprise you, Gordon, with your long experience. It isn’t unusual to have to go around the long way when you have a skittish seller. How old are the Thorpes?”

  “He must be at least eighty,” said Gordon.

  A thought rose in my mind just as Crosbie answered it. He said, “I’ll be honest with you. Portsmouth Savings would hate to see a sign in front of that place that says, Financing provided by Texas First National, or whatever. Makes us look small, and for various practical reasons, as well as reasons of pride, we don’t want to look small. So, Gordon, we’re willing to work with you on this. I’m sure there’s plenty of profit in this project for everyone here.”

  We all nodded.

  Crosbie turned to me again. “Obviously, the person to get this deal nailed down right now is Joe.”

  I nodded, but I said, “Mr. Thorpe did call Gordon to begin with, and he seems to want to sell Gordon the property. I’m happy to do the paperwork, but—”

  “What we don’t want is for Mr. Thorpe to get into a conversation with anyone about the future of the property and have second thoughts. I noticed the Portsmouth Herald ran a small article on the fact that the property is on the market. I really do think—”

  “I should have closed the deal right away, or at least made the down payment,” said Gordon, “but there were a lot of things going on at the time, and I didn’t feel I could put the funds together, so I let it be.”

  “The funds are no problem,” said Bart. “We’ve got the funds. This institution is prepared to put up the purchase price of the property, as well as the amount of the interest payments for one year and the fees.”

  I said, “I’ve never heard of a deal like that.”

  Crosbie smiled at me. “We think the farm is actually undervalued at the price, and if it came into our portfolio as a result of foreclosure or in some other way, it would be a nice asset.”

  “I can’t say I’ve had a tremendous amount of interest from prospective buyers.”

  “I think its value is long-term,” said Marcus.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Crosbie. It seemed like he agreed with Marcus about everything, so I guessed Marcus had cultivated him, which was fine with me.

  “But of course, we have to have an ironclad agreement with the seller, and it’s time to nail that down. My idea is that Joe should go out there and speak to the Thorpes, and then we should talk again if anything seems iffy. Tell him we’re getting ready for the closing on the first of October, and you want to go over the paperwork.”

  “I should do that anyway,” I said.

  “All right, then,” said Marcus and Crosbie together. I noticed that Bart was grinning, Gordon was grinning.

  Marcus Burns showed up at my office the next morning. When he opened the door and stepped in, I said, “Oh, say, Bobby just left. He ought to be back before lunch.”

  “Great,” said Marcus Burns. But he came on in with a smile and looked around. He stopped in front of the bulletin board and looked at the photos of my more recent listings. After a moment he said, “Here’s Gottfried Nuelle’s new place.”

  “Yeah. It’s about finished. I think he was painting the porch railings when I was over there the other day. I put up the sign.”

  “Two hundred seventy-five thousand.”

  “I told him I thought he could get it. He started screaming.”

  “What was he screaming?”

  “He was screaming that of course he could get it, why not two eighty-five; the place was perfect, top to bottom and inside out; what kind of idiot was I going to sell it to this time?”

  Marcus laughed. “Well, he does beautiful work.”

  “As he would be the first to point out. He used to teach carpentry at Portsmouth State. He was good. But I think they breathed a sigh of relief when he became self-supporting.”

  “What’s his wife like?”

  “Well, interesting that you would ask. She’s hilarious; literally, she laughs every time Gottfried opens his mouth. Over the years, I’ve had several theories. One of them is that she survives by convincing herself that he’s always joking. Another is that he is always joking. And the third is that they are both crazy.”

  We fell silent, eyeing each other.

  He said, “I want to pay you for that fence.”

  “The fence?”

  “The fence along the road at my house. How much was it?”

  “Eight hundred and eighty-six dollars.”

  “I’ll write you a check.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s been bothering me.”

  “It has?”

  “Yes. It has. I have a little confession to make.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to clear the air.”

  “I never like the sound of that.”

  “Even so, I do. Here’s the thing. I thought you were very kind to pay for the fence. I knew what was in the purchase agreement, and so did my wife. And we knew Gottfried Nuelle wasn’t going to pay for the fence. So we thought we’d see if you would. It was kind of a game.”

  I looked at him. “What kind of a game?”

  Here he smiled and said, “Say, do you mind if I sit down?”

  I nudged Bobby’s chair with my foot, and it rolled toward him. He sat down and stretched his legs, looking for a moment at the tassels on his loafers. Then he sighed.

  Finally, he said, “I’m not sure, really. It’s more that you seemed so cool and self-assured and unattached. I was kind of envious, and I’m sure Linda sensed it. So that was something we could get together around. I figured you would do pretty much anything to save the deal, and you did. But afterward we felt bad. I’ve been meaning to come in here for weeks but I haven’t had the guts. After the meeting yesterday, though, with Crosbie, I figured if we’re going to work together I’d better be up front about things and start fresh.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and brought out a checkbook and a pen. He made out a check for the exact amount, ripped it out of the checkbook, and pushed it across the desk. It was a check from Portsmouth Savings and Loan. I looked at it and set a paperweight on it.

  I said, “Well, now, I don’t know what to say, except for I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

  “It really started to get to me the other night when we were talking to Felicity. She so obviously thinks highly of you, and Linda is crazy about her.” He leaned back in the chair and put his hands behind his head. “I’ll be frank with you. This is not the sort of place I come from, this nice countryside where things just seem to work out right and everyone is more or less happy. My dad and mom stole from each other. Dad was always rummaging in Mom’s
stuff for the price of a drink and Mom was always going through Dad’s pants for money for the milkman, and both of them were always saying to us kids, ‘Now don’t be tellin’ yer ma’ or ‘Don’t be tellin’ yer da.’” He shrugged. “That’s no excuse, of course.” He looked me full in the face. “I’ll go one embarrassing step further and observe, ‘You don’t seem like the sort of person who comes from that kind of background.’”

  “‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Saint Paul to the Galatians, chapter six, verse seven, to quote my father.”

  “And you would reply?”

  “I would mumble, ‘Sure, Dad, anything you say.’”

  “They live around here, don’t they?”

  “Over in Farmington, in the house I grew up in.”

  He stood up and strolled around my office, looking at plaques and pictures and windows and doors. Finally, he said, “This place has some charm. Do you own it?”

  “I rent it from Gordon. He owns the whole mall. But I’ve been here for years. I put up the paneling myself and urethaned the floors and generally made it look falsely Colonial. I even put up the picket fence, picket by picket.”

  He leaned forward in his chair and split the blind with his fingers to look out the front window.

  “Bobby told me you were working for the IRS.”

  Marcus looked sharply at me. “What do you think about that?”

  “Well, Bobby said just the other day that you’re a rare bird. He can’t see any disadvantages in it.”

  “He’s an idiot. What about you?”

  “I don’t see any reason to hold it against you right on the face of it.” I glanced involuntarily at the paperweight and the check. Marcus saw me do it but said blandly, “I started with them right out of college. So, counting my service in the army, I’ve been a captive of the U.S. government for fourteen years. I’m just now breathing free for the first time maybe in my life.”

  I chuckled. “So how did you end up working there? I mean, with that sort of attitude.”

  He turned and crossed his arms over his chest. His jacket was so well cut it seemed to follow the contours of his shoulders. “Sure, and that’s where all the fellas in the neighborhood signed up. It was a regular Irish Mafia there.”