by Claire Cook
An epiphany arrived with the chill: If I didn’t play my cards right, in a few short decades I could be Mrs. Lanabaster.
My husband and I would still be living in the house we’d meant to dump years ago to downsize, before we got too old and it all became too overwhelming. Halfhearted piles of book-filled boxes would be sitting in limbo. The roof would need to be replaced again. Even our prized granite kitchen counters would have gone hopelessly out of fashion as we dawdled and dawdled and dawdled some more. A balding Luke would still be down in the bat cave, where half-eaten bowls of ramen noodles would be stacked floor to ceiling. And, best staged plans and all, my doddering old husband and I would have missed that glorious second honeymoon of life, when the kids are gone but not forgotten, and the two of you buy a tiny cottage near a warm beach somewhere just like you’d always planned.
When I finally pulled into our driveway, my husband, Greg, was leaning up against our freshly painted house, stretching his hamstrings in the unseasonably warm weather.
“What a workout,” he said.
“What else did you do today?” I said.
He switched legs. “How was your day?”
I walked by him without answering.
Luke was at the kitchen sink, draining a pot of ramen noodles.
“How can you eat those things?” I said.
He poured them into a bowl. “I like them. They remind me of college.”
I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t yell, Oh grow up.
“We used to heat the water on the radiator,” Luke said for what might have been the zillionth time. “We’d all gather around and shoot the crap while we waited for it to boil. Actually, it never totally made it to a boil—”
“We need to talk,” I said just as Greg took a careful step into the kitchen.
Greg froze. He slid one sneaker backward. It squeaked against the newly refinished floor.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
“What?” they both said at once.
I pointed to the dining room, which we only used for holidays and family meetings.
“Somebody please tell me it’s Thanksgiving,” Luke said. He twirled his noodles around a fork as he walked.
Greg pulled out my chair for me. He leaned over to kiss me on top of the head as I sat down. “Don’t try to butter me up,” I said.
I waited while Greg walked around the table and took the seat across from me and next to Luke. Then I slapped both palms down on the distressed farm table.
They both jumped a bit. As well they should have.
“The plan,” I said. “Remember?”
I could feel them wanting to look at each other.
My husband stretched his sweaty T-shirt away from his body. He hated not being able to change as soon as he got home from a run. “Of course we do, hon,” he said.
I looked at Luke. He shrugged. “What he said.”
I bit my tongue and counted slowly to ten.
“What’s the date today?” I asked when I finished.
Luke checked his cell phone. He started to raise his hand, then remembered his school days were over and self-corrected. “March fifteenth. Whoa, beware the ides of March.”
I nodded. “And we were going to have the house on the market when?”
“Sometime in March?” Greg said.
“March first,” I said. “And we’re not even close to being ready. Do we need to go through our lists again?”
They shook their heads in tandem.
I blew out a frigid gust of air. “Listen. We made a deal. You know what you have to do. You’ve got two weeks. Either shape up . . .”
I watched them shift in their chairs while I let the tension build.
When I’d decided they’d had enough, I cleared my throat. “. . . or I ship out. And don’t think I’m kidding.”
CHAPTER 3
SOME PEOPLE were born for early retirement, and my husband, Greg, was one of them. He’d never looked better. He’d never felt better. His days were a blur of running to the beach, driving to the gym, and playing tennis with a group of guys who were in the same boat. They met up at the town tennis courts every day at four and played for an hour. If it snowed, they brought shovels.
Greg was a civil engineer and had spent most of his career with the same company. When they went under, he never looked back. We moved his 401K into a cash reserve fund until we could figure out what to do with it, and purely by luck, when the market crashed we didn’t lose a cent.
He had a small pension waiting down the road for him, and I had an even smaller one from my teaching days. Our two kids were both out of college, at least physically, and our daughter was married. Greg and I would jump on our Social Security the minute we turned sixty-two, since we were both of the get-it-while-you-can philosophy.
But that was the better part of a decade away. Technically, Greg was still consulting, though there was not a lot happening in the building arena these days. I pulled in decent money, so we were holding our own. But while our mortgage was all but paid off, we’d rolled most of two college educations and one wedding into a home equity loan. Every time I looked at the balance, my breath would catch and my heart would add an extra beat.
Our house was our ticket out.
Situated in a resident-only beach town with train service to Boston, the house was a sprawling 1890 Victorian with an attached screened gazebo porch. It was set on a pie slice–shaped acre of lawn that looked like an old New England town common. The lawn was bisected about a third of the way up from the point by a driveway that opened at either end onto charming tree-lined streets. Massive conifers reached for the sky, and perennial gardens curved seductively.
We’d applied for and received official recognition by the historical society. A white oval plaque edged in black arrived by mail and confirmed the date and the home’s original owner, John Otis. The fact that his wife’s name wasn’t on there, too, totally pissed me off. Even though Massachusetts had passed a law in 1854 that stated women could own property separate from their husbands, the reality, confirmed by a careful drive around my plaque-filled town, was that they didn’t even co-own the house they lived in with their husbands. I thought we could at least give it to Mrs. Otis posthumously, but my arguments didn’t fly with the historical society. Principle eventually caved to increased property value, and I nailed the damn plaque over the massive original front door anyway.
Inside the house were maple floors, ten-foot ceilings, and some of the most beautiful decorative moldings I’d ever seen. A wide central hallway led to an elegant mahogany staircase and opened to large, gracious rooms on either side. A mudroom straddled the space between house and garage, and from the mudroom a back staircase led up to separate quarters for the maid and butler. Since neither had come with the house, the kids used it as a playroom. They called it the secret room.
Our current home was a testament to the benefits of sweat equity and naïveté. When our previous house, a one-bath ranch, began triggering at least one family battle a day, we decided to brave another rung on the property ladder. We hired a Saturday afternoon sitter for the kids while a Realtor friend showed us a series of boring garrison Colonials on cul-de-sacs.
“What about that one?” Greg pointed as we drove by a FOR SALE sign in front of a big white house that was shielded from the road by a half circle of ancient trees.
“Ha,” our Realtor said. “Rent The Money Pit first and then we’ll talk.”
“How bad can it be?” I said.
The smell inside the house wasn’t very encouraging, and we couldn’t turn on the lights because the electricity had been shut off. The wooden pulpit in the center of the front parlor and the REPENT sign over the fireplace didn’t exactly add to the ambiance. Royal blue shag carpeting was everywhere, and a massive burgundy stain halfway up the stairs made it look like someone had died there. A huge stainless steel commercial refrigerator blocked the bay window in the dining room. We actually found empty shotgun shells in the room
up over the garage.
“D’ya think I was kidding?” our Realtor said.
On the way out, I couldn’t resist opening the mammoth refrigerator for a quick peek. Twenty years later I can still taste the smell of the rotting chicken inside.
I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A DREAM when Greg came back to the bedroom and woke me. Movie theater–style buttered popcorn had been popping off Mrs. Lanabaster’s ceiling, and the two of us had been taking turns seeing who could catch more in the Barbie toilet paper cover’s skirt. We were giggling like kids. Mrs. Lanabaster’s hand-eye coordination was amazing for her age, but I was holding my own.
“Bummer,” I said. “I liked that dream. Could you keep the noise down a little next time?” I opened my eyes and tried to decide whether I had enough energy to make my own bathroom run or whether my bladder could hold its own through another sleep cycle.
The sound of Greg glugging half a bottle of bedside water made the decision for me. He climbed back into bed and yanked most of my covers over to his side. I yanked back, even though I’d been just about to kick them off and head for the bathroom.
“Hey,” he whispered. “You awake?”
“Why?”
“You’re not going to believe this.”
“Your prostate’s better?”
“No, there’s a girl in our kitchen.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. They’re popping popcorn together. And get this, she’s wearing Luke’s Dungeons and Dragons T-shirt. And nothing else.”
I rolled over in Greg’s direction. “You went down there? God, Greg, you didn’t.” Luke had had a Goth girlfriend his senior year in high school and a gamer girlfriend throughout most of college. From what we could tell, he’d been in a dry spell ever since graduation, possibly connected to the fact that he never left the house.
Greg made a quarter turn toward me. “No, of course not. Jeez, give me some credit, will you? I sat on the stairs and spied on them through the hallway mirror.”
“Oh, good.” I yawned. “Do you think the kids ever caught on to that? I don’t remember it being on Shannon’s endless list of the things she got away with while letting us pretend we had the upper hand.”
Greg yawned. “I’m pretty sure they used it on us, too. Especially at Christmas. Remember, we caught them? The bicycle year, when the two of us were downstairs swearing at each other. Shannon said Luke thought he heard reindeer and she was just keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn’t get trampled.”
“I couldn’t believe you didn’t pay for them to put the bikes together at the store. I was ready to kill you.”
“I had it under control,” Greg said. “You were just being impatient.”
“It was two A.M. We’d told the kids they could get out of bed at six. They were too old to fall for the changing-the-time-on-all-the-clocks trick.”
Greg laughed. “That was a good one.”
“Shh. What does she look like?”
“Who?”
“The girl. With Luke.”
“I don’t know. Young. I just hope all that time down in the bat cave hasn’t turned him into a vampire.” Greg rolled toward me and tried to bite my neck.
I pushed him away. “Ha. He should be that trendy. Young—you’re so observant. I hope she has her own apartment. And good social skills. And a rich, full-bodied life.”
“What’s a rich, full-bodied life?”
I rolled over. “I can’t remember. Leave me alone. I’m trying to sleep.”
Greg draped an arm across me. “He’ll be fine.”
I didn’t say anything.
Greg massaged the knot between my right shoulder and my neck with a practiced hand. “We’ll get there, Sandy. We’ll get the house sold. We’ll find our next place. Try not to get so stressed-out about it.”
I let him massage the matching knot on the other side, then I rolled away.
“If I don’t get stressed, nothing happens, Greg. Ever.”
I kicked my way out of the covers and headed for the bathroom.
CHAPTER 4
MY NEW CLIENT was in total denial. she was also desperate for her house to sell. My mission, should I choose to accept it, would be to connect the dots between the two.
“Mrs. Bentley,” I began after we finished a silent walk-through.
I waited for her to tell me to call her Jane. She didn’t.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, the good news is I can tell you why your house is still on the market after six months.”
“Five and a half.”
I shrugged. She had icy blue eyes and three distinct vertical lines between them that would have made her look like a bitch even if she wasn’t, which she was.
She ran a dry hand through her flat tan hair. Neither of us said anything. I had half an urge to wait her out and make her speak first. But it was a relatively straightforward job and I’d already decided I wanted it, so I cut to the chase.
“Mrs. Bentley, your home is lovely, but it’s a bit stuck in the eighties. I’d recommend a combination of updating and staging.”
I followed her eyes as they scanned the black tubular dining room furniture, the mint green and pale pink sectional, the matching glass-and-brass coffee and end tables. I wondered if her kids still had their banana hair clips and slap bracelets.
“Slipcovers over the sectional and the dining room chairs,” I continued. “We’ll change out the tables. I’m thinking dark wood, some eclectic pieces to give the decor depth. I’ll poke around and let you know what’s out there. We can rent, or you can buy and take it with you.”
“Do you have any idea how much I paid for those tables?”
I opened my eyes wide. “Do you have any idea how much I paid for my shoulder pads? And all the hairspray for that big eighties hair?”
She glared at me. It could have been my imagination, but it looked like a fourth frown line was sprouting between her very eyes.
I gave her a moment to fume before I continued. “I mean, look at you. Your hair and makeup are totally up to date. And see how beautifully you’re dressed.” This was actually a slight exaggeration, but it was for a good cause. “So many of us forget that our homes need to change with the times, too. We’ve looked at everything in them for so long we can’t even see it anymore.”
Mrs. Bentley crossed her arms over her chest. “What else?”
“We’ll switch out the heavy drapes for bamboo blinds, replace the brass hardware in the kitchen and baths with brushed chrome. Neutral paint on the walls, maybe Benjamin Moore Pismo Dunes. China White trim throughout.”
I walked over to one of the three silk ficus trees that had invaded the formal living room. I shook a branch and released a cloud of dust. “We’ll get rid of these.”
“But—”
I cut her off with a sneeze. I didn’t even have to fake it. “Do you have a tissue?”
Mrs. Bentley pointed to the box.
I blew my nose dramatically.
When I finished, I smiled my most dazzling smile. “For all the rest, we’ll use items you’ve already got to make your house pop.” I looked around but couldn’t find any examples, so I just let it go. “And then we’ll have you out the door and into that cute little condo in no time.”
Mrs. Bentley just stood there, as if chewing on her lower lip long enough might make me go away.
“How much?” she finally asked, and I knew I had her.
WHEN WE BOUGHT the big white house, the rotting chicken came with it. Greg gave two guys he knew from around town fifty bucks for Saturday night drinking money to take the refrigerator to the town dump.
One of them came back the next day while Greg and I were dragging a filthy hunk of blue shag carpeting down the front steps. He parked his rusty pickup, kicked the truck door open, and slid out until his feet hit the driveway. His hair was sticking up all over the place, and his T-shirt was on inside out. But who was I to criticize, since my family and I didn’t look so hot ourselves. Greg and I had each tied a bandann
a around our heads and another one over our mouths. The kids were running around their new yard in mismatched, outgrown Garanimals.
We threw the carpet into a rented Dumpster. Our little boom box was sitting on the edge of the driveway, and Cyndi Lauper was belting out “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” It was Shannon’s favorite, so we had to listen to it at least eighteen times a day. I squatted down to lower the volume.
“Hey, man, how did it go at the landfill?” Greg yelled.
The guy pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “Whoa, keep it down, will ya? We really tied one on last night.”
“Glad we could contribute to the cause,” Greg said.
The guy nodded. “Yeah, so, nobody told us about the law that ya have to take the doors off the fridge before they let ya dump it.”
Greg and I looked at each other. “We didn’t know,” Greg said.
The guy uncovered his eyes. “It was friggin’ hell, but we finally got the friggin’ doors off.” He turned his bloodshot eyes to me. “Pardon my French.”
“Not a problem,” I said.
He scratched his belly with one hand. “Then I puked all over the chicken.”
“Eww,” I said.
He coughed, then reached for a cigarette. “Friggin’ chicken smelled so bad everybody started jumpin’ back into their cars and drivin’ away before they even finished unloadin’ their trash.”
Greg apologized, gave him another twenty we couldn’t afford, and thanked him again.
He blew a cloud of smoke in our direction and grinned. “Anytime.”
Even with the refrigerator and the chicken gone, the house was in rough shape. It had been on the market for two years when we made our ridiculously low offer. We should have been scared away when the owners just said yes, but we couldn’t believe our good luck. This was the kind of house rich people lived in.