A More Perfect Union

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  “I love it!” Jay said.

  Rowan held the key up. “Why don’t we take a look inside?”

  The first thing that greeted them when they entered the house was… God. Not the actual deity of course, but there were two cabinets full of angel figurines—hundreds of them—on either side of the door, and one round window had a stained-glass angel in it. Jay stepped forward and glanced up the stairs to discover a large cross mounted on the second-floor wall.

  “Wow,” Rowan said quietly, standing beside him and following his gaze.

  “I’m all for freedom of religious expression,” Wallace muttered, “but this is a bit much.”

  Rowan stepped into the next room, where a pellet stove was burning. “It’s okay. There’s a fire extinguisher in here, if anyone starts to catch on fire.”

  Jay laughed. He wouldn’t have thought much about a few angel knickknacks here and there. His sister-in-law collected figurines of pigs. There was no reason someone couldn’t collect angels. It was just that… there were so many of them. As they wandered through the rooms, they discovered more on a shelf in the living room and peering down from shelves in the kitchen. What did it say about the current owners? Jay’s stepfather was a religious man. He was a Baptist minister. And certainly the house he shared with Jay’s mother had Bibles and crosses and paintings of Jesus. But they were casual touches, here and there. The house they were looking at was either owned by people with bad decorating tastes or people who were really intense about their religion, and the latter possibility worried him. Would they be cool with a gay couple buying their home?

  He told himself there was no point in jumping to conclusions. The owners might be very cool people who just happened to love angels. There was nothing wrong with that.

  The house was beautiful, with hardwood floors and soft amber-colored pine paneling on the walls. None of the rooms were as large as the rooms they’d seen in the Victorian, but there was a fireplace and a large kitchen and a hot tub on a small side deck. Jay felt very much at home there, but he kept watching Wallace to gauge his reaction, and it was frankly hard to tell.

  Later, as the three of them grabbed a late lunch at Pizza by George’s downtown, Jay came out and asked him, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Did you like the house?”

  Wallace took a bite of his pizza and chewed it thoughtfully. He swallowed before replying, “I could see us living there. Maybe converting one of the upstairs bedrooms into a library—”

  “Absolutely!” There were three small bedrooms upstairs, in addition to the master bedroom. One would be good for a guest room, but they really didn’t need three.

  Jay had recently rediscovered the love he’d had of writing when he was young. As a teenager he’d locked himself in his bedroom after school and typed until dinner on the electric typewriter he’d demanded for one of his birthdays. He had piles of bad short stories from that time period. But he’d lost that creative impulse. At least, he’d thought he had. Now, under Wallace’s encouragement, he’d begun writing again, and his first novella had already been accepted by an independent press! He pictured a shelf in the library full of his published novels….

  Wallace interrupted his thoughts. “I don’t know, though. I still like the Victorian.”

  “I like the Victorian too,” Jay said. “It’s just… the yard is so… well, not small, exactly. Just… open. What if the neighbors are jerks and we have to keep making sure the curtains are closed in case we walk past one naked?”

  “In case you walk past one naked,” Wallace pointed out. “Some of us like clothing.”

  “In the house? What are you? A communist?”

  “What are you? A nudist?”

  “Freak!”

  “Barbarian!”

  Rowan watched this mock battle for a bit, her expression amused as Jay and Wallace attempted to come up with more and more ridiculous insults. At about the time Jay called Wallace a “reincarnated Victorian with attachment issues,” she stepped in.

  “I don’t know how much longer that Victorian will be on the market. The owner is desperate. He’s agreed to undersell.”

  Jay knew the owner of the house they’d just looked at wanted too much. He’d originally listed it for a hundred thousand more than it was valued at, and even when he’d finally been talked down by his Realtor, he still wanted a bit more than market value. But Jay wasn’t good at money matters, as Wallace well knew. He acted on instinct. And his instinct told him this was the house he’d be happy in.

  The question was, would it be the house they would both be happy in? He didn’t want to force Wallace to live somewhere he’d be unhappy. Jay would compromise if it came to that. He looked into Wallace’s eyes, trying to discern whether his lover really wanted the Victorian or just preferred it.

  Wallace smiled back at him, but all he said was, “I don’t want to be rushed. Let’s set up another look at this place in a week or two, if we can.”

  WALLACE DID like the house in Rockford. But he’d done some research. The town tended to vote conservative. Its state representatives were all Republican, and so were the local elected officials. Granted, conservatives—and liberals, for that matter—in a town the size of Rockford were still friendly to everyone at the supermarket. Politics didn’t dominate people’s lives there. Liberals and conservatives didn’t break out in screaming fights on Main Street. If one person mentioned same-sex marriage to someone else who didn’t support it, the other might say, “I’m not really a supporter.” That was generally it. He wasn’t likely to flip out.

  But Wallace hadn’t forgotten how ugly the fight had been to get his relationship with Jay acknowledged as legitimate by his state. Even now a small group in the legislature was proposing amendments to get the law changed before it took effect.

  Jay and Rowan also hadn’t seemed aware of the sounds of gunfire coming from the forest behind the house. Why should they have been? It was hunting season. And probably the majority of people in New Hampshire owned guns. Even Wallace had been given a rifle by his father when he was a teenager. He’d learned to shoot, and he still had it—though it was in storage now. But what if one of the neighbors had an issue with a gay couple moving into the neighborhood? Just how safe would he and Jay be?

  They were able to get into the house again a week later.

  Rowan let them in with the key, and Wallace was immediately struck by two things. The first was an overpowering scent of pine and… maybe cinnamon apple? The second was Nat King Cole singing “Away in a Manger.” Apparently Christmas had exploded all over the house since their last visit.

  “Oh my God!” Jay exclaimed, laughing. “It isn’t even Thanksgiving yet.”

  There were no less than three fake Christmas trees in the living room, two in the corners and one tiny one on the coffee table, and the widescreen TV over the fireplace mantel was playing videos of snowy landscapes on a loop. Apparently that was where the Christmas carols were coming from. Rowan found the remote for the television and turned down the volume.

  Thank the gods.

  Wallace hated Christmas. It wasn’t because he was pagan, and it wasn’t due to some past trauma caused by writing a hundred letters to Santa Claus when he was a boy and still not getting the toy he wanted. He simply found the holiday excessive, and he didn’t enjoy having it shoved down his throat wherever he went from October to January.

  However, he also knew Jay loved Christmas. He was darting about the rooms, taking in all the gaudy excessiveness—the strings of colored lights, the cartoon pictures of Santa’s sleigh and eight reindeer on one wall, the silver and gold garlands hung around the edge of the ceiling.

  “Aren’t these going to catch on fire?” he asked when they went into the room with the pellet stove.

  Wallace and Rowan followed and saw he was talking about stuffed covers on the chairs around the dining table. They resembled elves, and the two nearest the pellet stove were a bit closer to the glass than they should have
been.

  Rowan opened her mouth to say something, but what Wallace heard instead was a tiny Yip! Rowan closed her mouth, startled. They all turned to see a poodle watching them through the glass panes of the kitchen door. She was frantically wagging her tail and panting—perhaps because she was friendly, but it might also have been because the poor girl was wearing a sweater with a tiny Christmas tree and flashing red and green LEDs on the back.

  Rowan found the note taped to the door. “The dog is friendly, but please keep her in the kitchen.”

  “Oh,” Jay cooed, opening the door so he could slip inside and pet the little dog. “Did Mommy make you wear embarrassing clothes for the guests?”

  The dog didn’t appear to be too traumatized by her outfit. She danced excitedly when Wallace and Rowan joined Jay in the kitchen. Each took turns petting her, but they obeyed the note and didn’t let her out of the room.

  “Don’t get too attached to her,” Rowan warned. “She doesn’t come with the house.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Oh, that’s right! I forgot. You’re more of a cat person.”

  Jay laughed. “Not really. The cats were my ex’s, but he refused to take them when he moved out.”

  “So… you don’t like cats?”

  “I like my cats,” Jay replied, scratching the poodle under her chin. She seemed to have taken to him. “I love the cats I have, and I’ll keep caring for them for the rest of their lives. But I’d really like a big Labrador or German shepherd.” Then he added to the poodle, “No offense, sweetie.”

  They’d discussed this a few times. Wallace had grown up with big dogs, and Jay’s family had owned a German shepherd when he was a boy. They both liked dogs with presence.

  Despite the excessive Christmas kitsch, which Wallace knew was simply the owner trying to make the place seem “homey,” even if it was somewhat miscalculated, he was developing a fondness for the house. Maybe the overblown décor had influenced him after all, because the place felt… cozy to him. The Victorian was more spacious, but it was completely empty of furnishings, since the owner now lived in another state. It was hard to imagine feeling at home there. But here he could picture Jay in front of the living room fireplace.

  Naked.

  THEY MUST have stayed a bit longer than the owner had expected, because she pulled in just as they were about to lock up. She had platinum hair, which Jay assumed was treated. He’d seen that color in old movies from the fifties but never in real life.

  She smiled broadly at them. “I’m sorry! I can leave for a bit longer, if you’d like more time.”

  “That’s fine,” Rowan told her. “We were just on our way out.”

  The woman extended her hand to Jay. “I’m Theresa Grant. Nice to meet you!”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Jay.”

  “Are you the one house-hunting?”

  “We both are,” Jay said. He gestured to Wallace. “This is my partner, Wallace.”

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought the smile faltered for just a moment before she extended her hand to Wallace. “Good to meet you, Wallace.”

  To be fair, openly gay couples were still a rarity in New Hampshire. Even if she were fine with their relationship, she might be taken by surprise for just a moment. Jay assured himself there was nothing to worry about. This was the twenty-first century. Nobody was going to refuse to sell their house to a gay couple. After all, Mrs. Grant and her husband were moving out. Why would it matter who moved in after they left?

  But a week later, after Wallace made an offer on the house through Rowan, based upon the loan amount the bank had preapproved—plus a bit more out of their own savings—Mr. Grant turned the offer down.

  Chapter Twelve

  “WE DON’T know it was because his wife found out you were gay,” Rowan said, though she didn’t sound particularly convinced. “I suppose it’s possible. We try to keep the buyer and the seller separated until the day of closing so that sort of thing won’t happen….”

  “Bastard,” Jay muttered.

  Rowan shrugged. “Maybe he’s just being a dick about the price. It might not have anything to do with you being gay.”

  They’d offered twenty thousand less than Grant’s asking price, which was still ten thousand more than market value. He was simply asking too much for a house in that area.

  The three of them were seated in a booth at the Chinese restaurant at the end of First Street, a couple of blocks away from Jay’s apartment. Wallace had been quiet since Rowan dropped the bomb about Grant refusing their offer. His face seemed calm, but Jay knew him well enough by now to know he was quietly seething.

  Wallace set his chopsticks down on the edge of his plate and said, “Offer him another ten thousand.”

  “That’s still 10K less than what he wants,” Rowan said, her expression dubious.

  “I know. He’s not getting that last ten thousand. Not from us.”

  “The Victorian is still available.”

  Jay and Wallace exchanged a silent look. Something had changed since the last time they’d looked at the house in Rockford. It was hard to put a finger on why, but they’d both lost interest in the Victorian. The yard wasn’t what Jay wanted, and… it just didn’t feel right—not to either of them.

  But they could only go so high on the offer for this house. The bank wasn’t willing to approve more than two hundred fifty thousand. Anything more than that had to come out of the money Wallace had received from his housemates when they bought him out. He wasn’t willing to bankrupt himself over it, and Jay didn’t want him to.

  “I think we’re going to pass on the Victorian,” Wallace said.

  “All right,” Rowan said. “I’ll make the offer.”

  THE SECOND offer was turned down—rudely.

  Rowan called Wallace on the phone to give him the news. “According to his agent,” she added, “what he said was, ‘If they want it, they can pay full price.’”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe he’s just stubborn about the price he wants. Or maybe…. I don’t know. Maybe he does have an issue with you.”

  It frustrated Wallace that he couldn’t tell if this was a case of discrimination or just general douchebaggery. Not knowing made it difficult to determine the correct response. But one thing was clear. He didn’t feel comfortable throwing more money at the house. They’d need a financial buffer to handle moving expenses and unexpected repairs, not to mention closing costs.

  “Fine,” he told her. “We’ll start looking at other listings.”

  CHRISTMAS CAME and went. Thanks to Wallace’s dislike of the holiday, it was somewhat subdued, though he made no attempt to prevent Jay from putting up a tree and decorating in his own apartment. He also took his turn slicing vegetables for the Christmas dinner Jay put on for the two of them and a few friends who didn’t have family nearby. Jay respected his dislike of Christmas presents, so he didn’t buy Wallace anything. But Wallace had long ago learned that not getting Jay a present was a poor life choice. The first Christmas they’d spent together, Jay didn’t say anything when there was nothing under the tree for him on Christmas morning, but Wallace caught him a couple of times glancing wistfully at the base of the tree. Those looks made him want to curl up and die.

  So the next Christmas, Wallace had bought Jay a home cappuccino maker. Jay was ecstatic. And from that time on, there was always one big present for Jay under the tree on Christmas morning—something to show him Wallace loved him, if not the holiday. This year it was an iPad.

  There had been some new listings over the holidays, and they’d trudged out through the snow with Rowan to look them over. But nothing had excited them. One house looked quaint, but both Jay and Rowan had been forced to step outside because the smell of mold was so overpowering. Another house was perfect—for a horror movie. Perhaps when it had been new, a hundred years ago, it had been a great sprawling farmhouse for a big family. Now the rooms felt dark and ominous.
And the basement was a rat maze of brick passageways and low ceilings.

  “I keep expecting to find a sealed door with ancient, evil symbols painted on it,” Jay whispered. The three of them were alone, so there was no reason to whisper, but part of him was afraid the house might overhear him and get angry.

  “Has anyone heard voices saying ‘Get out!’ yet?” Wallace asked.

  “Not yet,” Rowan said, “but if you guys have seen enough, I’m all for leaving before that happens.”

  There had also been a beautiful colonial home for sale, with enormous rooms big enough to host a ball and an attached carriage house and stable. Jay swooned over it, and the price wasn’t bad, but unfortunately it was in bad shape and would have required much more than they could afford to make it livable. It would also never have passed the bank inspection needed to get a housing loan.

  Same-sex marriage became legal in New Hampshire on January 1. That didn’t mean Wallace and Jay immediately ran out and got married, however. They both wanted it to be special—something with a bit of spectacle that everyone who attended would remember for the rest of their lives. They didn’t want to rush it, though the attempt by a group of Republican legislators to repeal the law made them nervous. The attempt was voted down by the New Hampshire House in mid-February, but it reminded them they couldn’t put it off for long. If a repeal did succeed at some point, they might still be considered married if it was a done deal. If not, they’d at least have standing if they took it to court.

  Then, in late February, Rowan called Wallace again, brimming over with excitement. “He wants to sell!”

  “Who?”

  “Grant. The… nice man with the house you wanted.”

  Wallace and Jay were in the Barnes & Noble café. They hadn’t been talking—just reading together and drinking coffee in a companionable silence.