My Life in Dioramas

by Tara Altebrando

  “Awesome,” Miss Emma said, the tenth and last time through.

  “Kate?”

  I turned. Stella was at the door next to my mom.

  “Stella!” I ran and gave her a hug. She felt cold.

  “What are you doing here?” She pulled away.

  “Surprise!” I said.

  “Seriously,” Stella said. “What’s going on?”

  Our moms drifted off to talk and Miss Emma had answered the studio phone.

  “I’m doing a solo!” I said. “I mostly choreographed it myself with Miss Emma’s help and I’ve been practicing in my grandparents’ basement and—”

  “What category?”

  She was focusing on the wrong thing.

  “Contemporary lyrical,” I said.

  “That’s my category.”

  “I know! Hopefully we can hang out backstage.”

  Miss Emma ended her call and appeared beside us.

  “I didn’t know Kate was competing. You know, against me.”

  “I really wish you didn’t see it like that,” Miss Emma said. “You’re all there to do your best. You’re not competing against anyone but yourself. And you should be cheering each other on.”

  Stella just stood there, staring at us for a minute. “I need to go clear my head before my practice.”

  “Good luck!” I called out as she walked off.

  “Stella’s just nervous,” Miss Emma said, watching her go. “Send me one more video? Wednesday?”

  I nodded, gathered my things, and went to leave but stopped. “I’m sorry you had to reblock the whole troupe routine. Because of me.”

  “I know you are, Kate,” Miss Emma said. “But have you told them that?”

  28.

  My father was making pancakes on Wednesday morning. And whistling.

  “You’re in a good mood,” I said.

  “I am!” He pointed at a letter on the table. “I sold my ‘Big Red’ song.”

  “That’s amazing!” I gave him a high five and a hug. “Congratulations, Dad.” At the table, I read the letter and said, “Hey, I think I’ve actually heard of this show!”

  “My network debut.” My dad turned from the stove and slid some pancakes onto a plate on the table. “And . . . we also sold the real Big Red. We have another buyer. We have a new closing date.”

  I grabbed a pancake that was too hot—“Oh”—I had to put it down.

  “Do you remember that woman at the garage sale?” He turned back to pour more batter. “With the two little girls?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It’s them!”

  I pictured those two little girls running around the house, playing in the yard by the weeping willow, tossing flower petals into the stream. I pictured them hiding in the closets in my bedroom and taking a bath together in the claw-foot tub, maybe pretending it was going to walk away and take them to where the wild things are. I imagined they’d start looking for Pants every day like I did; they’d rename her something cute and name the kittens, too.

  “I know it’s crazy to think about a house that way”—he stopped midflip, with a pancake balanced on the spatula—“to think that Big Red deserved better. But that’s how I felt.”

  “Me, too.” I gave him a hug. “But now what?”

  “Now I let you and your mother in on the plan.” He went about his flipping. “Eat up and get dressed, we’ve got appointments. Tell your mom.”

  I laughed. It seemed ridiculous. “What about school?”

  “School schmool,” he said.

  I bolted upstairs and got dressed and woke my mom up and told her Dad had someplace to take us. Then we all had pancakes together.

  We drove for about an hour, all the way back toward Big Red, but in town we took some different turns and soon I lost track of where we were. After a bunch of random turns, we pulled into the driveway of a little yellow house sort of set up on a hill. Bernie was standing beside her car, waving and smiling.

  “What’s she doing here?” I asked. I sort of partly blamed her for all of this, which I knew was unfair but I felt it anyway.

  “She’s the one showing us the houses, Kate.”

  “We’re looking at houses?” my mom said.

  “Come on,” Dad said. “I’ll explain later.”

  We got out and everyone said hi—even me, though I was embarrassed enough to die. Luckily, Bernie didn’t seem to be holding a grudge. She took us inside like nothing had ever happened.

  “Now,” my father said, “you have to really use your imagination on this one. Like imagine the wallpaper gone and the rugs and all.”

  He’d been here before. He’d been disappearing to look at houses.

  We walked in to a small kitchen and I hated everything about it. The color of the cabinets was too dark, all wrong; the floor was a bad yellow; their furniture was like cheap dollhouse furniture that someone had made big. I kept my mouth shut as Dad talked about easy ways to fix various things and followed them into the living room, where brown wall-to-wall carpets covered the floors.

  “We’d go back to the hardwood in here,” my dad said.

  The room was already crowded with the four of us in it.

  Upstairs we went into a bedroom and off of that was another room, where there was a crib. It wasn’t really big enough to be anything other than a baby’s room.

  “What would we use this for?” I asked.

  My mom shrugged. She seemed about as excited about this house as I was. If we were broke, why were we even looking at houses?

  I said, “I’ll be outside,” and went downstairs and out a back door. There was a yard that was pretty big but it had one tree and no character whatsoever. There was a church as the back neighbor and not even a pretty one.

  “So, what did you think?” my dad asked when we got into the car.

  “I hated it,” I said.

  “Not good enough. Explain why.”

  “I don’t know. It just didn’t make sense. None of the rooms were the right size. Everything seemed misshapen or shrunken out of proportion. Just bad flow. Bad design.”

  “I agree completely,” my mother said.

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “But that’s the cheapest one by far, just so you know.”

  Mom said, “For good reason.”

  “Okay then.” My dad reached over and squeezed my mother’s knee.

  “When did you even do all this?” she asked. “See these houses?”

  “When you were, you know, at your . . . appointments.”

  I hoped that meant what I thought it did.

  “On to the next!” he called out his open window to Bernie.

  We drove and drove and I kept looking for landmarks I recognized but I wasn’t having any luck. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “Rosendale,” my dad said.

  “That’s like twenty minutes from home,” I said. We’d been to the movie theater there. And to street fairs and farmers’ markets.

  “Indeed it is.”

  A few days ago this would have been really exciting. But now I wasn’t sure I even cared about being near Stella anymore. Naveen, yes. Miss Emma, of course. But it was all messed up in my mind now. I rested my head back and closed my eyes.

  “Here we are,” my father said as the car came to a stop a few minutes later.

  I opened my eyes.

  It was a small red brick house with a white front door and two peaked windows on the second floor. For some reason, it looked like it should be a pediatrician’s office, or maybe a bank. I couldn’t imagine wanting to live there.

  Bernie had arrived first and was standing at the open front door, waving.

  I stepped into a living room and dining room area that was more modern than I’d expected from the outside. The paint was all light and bright—barely detectable hues of lavender, maybe, and peach? And the kitchen looked shiny, all new.

  Bernie said, “They really did such a nice job with this reno.”

  It was nice, for sure. Almost t
oo nice, if that makes any sense. Too nice for my parents. Looking at them standing next to that refrigerator, so shiny, and these supersleek cabinets was like looking at two teenagers who’d stumbled into some rich old guy’s house.

  “Kate?” my dad said. “Thoughts?”

  “It’s nice,” I said. “Almost too nice. I don’t understand why we can afford this but not our house.”

  “It’s called a short sale,” Dad said. “The owners defaulted on their payments and the bank seized the house so we’d be buying from the bank. The price is way below market value.”

  “That’s depressing,” I said. “What happened to them? Where are they going to live?”

  “I don’t know, Kate,” he said. “Right now, these short sales are our only option.”

  “All of the houses we’re looking at are houses other people lost to the bank?”

  My dad nodded.

  So we were all just part of some weird real estate food chain, looking for our happy ending in someone else’s sad tale. It seemed impossible that would ever work out . . . except that it happened that way all the time. People got jobs that other people wanted. People won competitions that other people lost. Some people’s bands got famous and other people’s didn’t. For winners, for losers, for everyone in between, the world just kept on spinning with no rhyme or reason.

  We finished the tour, going upstairs to look at three perfectly nice, perfectly lifeless bedrooms, then went out to the backyard and looked at a perfectly landscaped little yard.

  “What’s the verdict?” my dad asked.

  “It’s perfect,” I said. “Perfectly boring.”

  “Kate.”

  “Sorry. But you asked.”

  “Olivia?” He turned to my mom, who only shrugged.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just not feeling it,” she said. “And we’d still need a down payment that we don’t have.”

  My dad said, “I’ve worked out a small loan from Joe.”

  “Joe?” My mother did not look pleased.

  “Yes, Joe. Zero interest. We have a payment plan figured out.” Dad sounded more confident than he had in a long time. “And I’m going to be there on weekends for a while, painting and doing yard work and stuff. He’s thinking about selling, too, but the place needs work.”

  Mom just nodded.

  “We good?” my father said.

  “We’re good,” she answered.

  We all headed toward the car after my parents exchanged a few words with Bernie.

  I sighed loudly in the backseat.

  “You know what they say,” Dad said. “Third time’s the charm.”

  We backed out of the driveway and waited for Bernie to pull out, to lead the way.

  29.

  As we turned onto a narrow street that curved up and around a stone wall way high, I looked down at the muddy river churning. Dad said, “We’re almost there,” and my stomach felt like it was churning, too. What if this was going to be my new neighborhood? Was that the same river that ran through town? What if this was the one? What if it was awful? Then what?

  “It’s on this street,” my dad said.

  “It’s cute,” my mom said.

  It really was.

  Back at Big Red, everything felt closed off, like it was our own private hideaway in the woods. Here there were houses sort of on top of each other, with playsets you could see in yards without fences. One house still had some Christmas decorations out front. Another had a sign that said DOG GROOMING and a phone number. The street itself—up and around that bend on the hill, covered in a canopy of trees—felt sort of like a secret place, but it seemed like everyone was just letting it all hang out once you got there. A woman walking a dog gave our car a friendly wave as my dad slowed down, then we pulled into a driveway where Bernie’s car sat.

  “There she is,” my father said with some fanfare.

  I almost smiled. It looked a little bit like a gingerbread house, only gray instead of cookie-colored. It had a red front door and a chimney and a big arched window with white trim on the top floor. The front yard was a long stretch of bright green grass with a garden and a white wishing well.

  “It’s cute,” my mother said. “Is there a backyard?”

  There didn’t appear to be. Behind it there seemed to be nothing but a big hill made of rock.

  “There’s a deck area, but no, not really.” My dad got out of the car. “There’s this front yard, though.”

  “But everyone can see the front yard,” my mother said as she got out.

  “Can we please keep an open mind, here?” my dad said.

  “Sorry,” Mom said.

  Bernie came out of the garage with a set of keys in her hands. “I think you’re going to like this one, Kate.”

  “I really hope so.”

  She led the way for me, and my parents followed.

  Inside the front door was a tiny living room and dining room area—already emptied of furniture—with sliding glass doors leading to a patio off to the side. There was a small coal-burning stove with a fire lit in it and a chimney that ran up the wall and out the front of the house. I couldn’t think of where all our furniture would go since the place was so small, but it was cozy seeming, not cramped.

  The kitchen was right there, separated from the living room by an island with a wall cutout. The cabinets were country-ish, painted a pale blue. There was a closet and laundry room down a hall and a small bathroom and that was all for that floor.

  Up we went, to a second floor with a big open room at the top of the stairs, and then two small bedrooms.

  “One of these would be an office,” my dad said. “But you’d basically have this floor as a suite. You’d have this bedroom and then this room at the top of the stairs for whatever you wanted. Like your craft stuff or whatever.”

  The windows were huge and looked out in two directions, making the room feel light and bright. The yellow of the walls was perfect, like warm butter, and the trim was all newly painted white.

  “Where’s all their stuff?” I asked. “Why are they already gone?”

  “I don’t know, Kate,” Bernie said. “It’s not really the kind of information we share.”

  Out the front window I saw a boy around my age riding his bike down the street, being chased by a shiny, happy black dog.

  “Come on,” my dad said. “There’s one more floor.”

  Upstairs, there was a master bedroom at the front and then a huge bathroom at the back. In between there were two closets, his and hers. There was also a door by the stairs that went out onto a deck on the side of the house. Stepping out onto the wooden slats, I could easily see my parents sitting there together late into the evening, or with morning coffee and a book.

  “Cute,” I said.

  Then we went back down a level again and out another door to a deck out back, this one larger. From there you could see the rocks that made the wall behind the house and how big they were. I imagined in the winter there’d be icicles hanging off them.

  At least I hoped there would be.

  That was the kind of stuff they should put in real estate listings. Not how many bedrooms there were or what the floors were made of; that was all stuff you could see for yourself once you got there. They should tell you whether there were icicles or cats who came by to say hi or cows that mooed you awake. They should say things like “Beware: Mean Girl Next Door,” or “Stinkbugs Love This Place” or how there was a great pond just beyond the neighbor’s house that was perfect for skimming rocks. People selling houses should have to write all that stuff down for you so you’d know whether any of the wishes that had been wished into the well out front of the house had come true.

  My parents and Bernie were gathered in the living room when I went back inside.

  “So?” Bernie asked. “What do you think?”

  The whole house was a little bit buttoned up for my parents, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe this house would help them focus. Also, there was no napping room. That
seemed like a good thing. Though I guess my mother hadn’t actually taken a nap or gone upstairs at my grandparents’ to lie down in weeks.

  “It feels like a dollhouse,” I said, finally, and they all just looked at me. “I sort of love it.”

  Everyone seemed to breathe out this huge sigh of relief. It was like the room actually got more full with air.

  “But there’s no backyard,” my mother said.

  “But there’s a front yard,” my dad said. “And all the neighbors seem very nice.”

  We went out the sliding doors and onto a side deck.

  “Kate?” my mom said. “You’re okay? No backyard?”

  I thought about all the stuff we’d done in the yard at Big Red. Boccie and croquet and badminton. I remembered the parties with people splayed out in the yard here and there and everywhere. I felt sad about my stream. And Pants. And the kittens. And Angus. But all of that was already gone.

  I gestured to a long path of grass. “That’s a pretty good spot for boccie right there.”

  We all were quiet for a while and then my dad said, “Liv? It’s pretty much the best we’re going to do. I’ve been all over the whole Hudson Valley and I really think this is the one.”

  Bernie drifted back into the house.

  “It really is cute.” My mother looked up and down the block. “I sort of wish it was all a bit more spread out but . . .”

  We just waited.

  “I think I might love it,” she said.

  My dad said and I both said, “Yes!” and he hugged her and they looked happier than they had in a long time.

  Bernie poked her head out. “Does that mean we’re making an offer?”

  Dad said, “Yes.”

  And Bernie said, “Now I have to remind you, these short sales can be quick or drawn out and there’s no guarantee.”

  My dad said he understood, though I didn’t.

  He and Bernie went to talk about some paperwork and my mom and I sat on the edge of the deck.

  “Hey, Mom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What are your appointments for?”

  “Apparently I am having a textbook midlife crisis,” she said. “But I’m seeing a therapist and it’s getting better by the day. Talking helps.”