Multiple Listings

by Tracy McMillan

  So I said yes.

  We showed our business plan to the owner of the building and put in a bid, and when we got it over five other bidders, it seemed meant to be. Now I’m Nicki Daniels, restaurant owner. Or, co-owner. An added bonus is that the restaurant is only six blocks from the new house, which means not only that we’re going to be putting down deeper roots in our community, but Cody can be a big part of it, too.

  I can see Jake through the plate-glass window. He looks like a prizefighter—wiry, pumped, thrilled. He’s going over the plans with our contractor and third partner, Miguel, moving through the space, making big arm gestures and motioning where things will be added, and where they’ll be taken away. This is Jake in his element: doing something daring, executing a vision, making shit happen. It gives me chills.

  I really do love him.

  It seems like only yesterday I was delivering papers off Sandy Boulevard, wondering if I’d ever (I mean ever) even have a real pair of Nikes. I had to wear the fake, cheap ones they sold at Payless. They were plastic and made my feet stink and all I wanted was for my feet to smell okay at a slumber party. Now look at me—upstanding lady, owner of two businesses, mother, girlfriend, and home owner. Crazy.

  “Hey, babe,” Jake says, kissing me. He’s all business. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure.” I throw a quick nod to Miguel as Jake leads me by the hand through the kitchen, out the back door, and into the parking lot out back. “Where are we going?”

  We’re lucky to have Miguel. He’s not only a really talented general contractor—he’s very well known in Portland for his great taste in materials and design—he’s stable, methodical, and family oriented. Miguel is in his midthirties, on the stout side, with square hands and a striking pair of pale brown eyes. It’s that face that gets him all those jobs, I think. At one point, I thought Peaches might totally hit it off with him, but I always stop just short of introducing them because that wouldn’t be a fair thing to do to Miguel, not to mention his two kids. For a one-third interest in the business, Miguel is putting up all the money for materials and labor to transform this eighteen-hundred-square-foot space from a crappy café that serves food out of cans into the kind of place Portland is known for: stylish, with high-quality local ingredients, but low key enough to take a toddler to.

  Easier said than done.

  Once outside, Jake stops in front of his car door and puts one hand on each of my arms. He looks me in the eye silently, then leans in and gives me one of those kisses he knows how to do. Soft, but there. Really there. “Baby, I love you.”

  I open my eyes wide, delighted. I like what this project is doing for our relationship.

  “I want you to know how much I love you,” he says, kissing me again. He’s blinking a lot, like it’s making him nervous to say this, and that’s making me nervous. “I’d do anything for you.”

  “I love you, too, baby.” I give him a big hug, like, snap out of it, you’re being too serious, and he shoots back a sexy smile, like, I know I’m a lot to handle sometimes, but I love you. He opens the rear door of his vintage Toyota 4Runner—and takes out one of those big paper bags from Anthropologie, the kind with the rope handles.

  He hands it to me. I’m not prepared for how heavy it is, and my arms drop a good six inches. “Whoa. What’s in here?”

  Jake smiles his devilish smile. “Look inside.”

  I open the bag and paw through a couple of layers of pink polka-dotted tissue paper. That’s when I see it/them. Holy crap. The bag is stacked with bricks of twenty-dollar bills.

  “It’s twenty thousand dollars.” Jake breaks into a wide grin. He’s proud of himself.

  And I’m terrified.

  “Are you crazy?” I drop my voice to a whisper. I’m sure I’m making one of those facial expressions that he really can’t deal with, too. “We could get robbed!”

  Jake’s smile leaves the building. “What? This is what you asked for. Double what you asked for.”

  “Okay, but I didn’t ask for it in a paper bag!” All I can think about is how twenty thousand dollars would turn even good people into armed robbers.

  I can see the left side of Jake’s face beginning to twitch. I know that means he’s getting angry. “Nicki, you told me you wanted me to put up money. I went out and called in a bunch of favors, I went out on a limb for this, and got you twice what you wanted. Because I love you and I want you to trust me. And now here you are making me feel like shit.”

  After my conversation with Peaches that day, I realized she was right and asked Jake if he could put up ten thousand dollars. Just to have some skin in the game, as they say. At the time he’d looked worried, but he didn’t protest at all, and to be honest, I sort of forgot about it. I really just wanted to know that he would if I asked him to.

  “I trust you! I do! I just think it’s dangerous to carry all this money around!” He’s overreacting and I don’t really know why. It seems pretty straightforward to me. “Why wouldn’t you just get a cashier’s check?”

  “I thought it would be cool to see the actual money. I thought it would be romantic. I was wrong. Again. Nothing I do is enough for you, is it?” Jake gets into the car. “This is bullshit.”

  “Jake, don’t! I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make that big a deal out of it.”

  “Yeah, well. Too late.” He starts the car and throws it into gear. “You’re welcome.”

  He takes off.

  I stand there. I know what just happened: Jake flew into one of his moods, where he gets all hostile, then, in a split second, spins off into the wind. Because that’s what he does. He’s impulsive and at times has difficulty handling his feelings. He’ll be back in an hour or two, probably with a bouquet of leaves or something, so I’m not especially worried.

  But what I am wondering is this: what am I supposed to do with all this cash?

  * * *

  “Are you effing kidding me?” Peaches is sitting in the front seat of my car, staring into the Anthropologie bag, looking at the bricks of bills. “I can’t decide whether to steal it or make it rain.” She picks up one of the stacks and starts dealing twenties off of it the way rappers do in music videos. “Damn. Maybe Jake isn’t so bad after all.”

  “Please stop that. I swear, even Cody wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Because he’d be afraid you would ground him,” Peaches says. “But he’d want to.”

  “Probably,” I say. I grab the twenties off the floor and furiously restack them. “Let’s go inside.”

  I called Peaches to the bank because I felt like somehow if she’s with me, I can’t get robbed. Peaches is useful like that. One time in our early twenties, I happened to get two free plane tickets to New York City (long story), and on the first night, while walking down Thirteenth Street, a guy ran up behind me and yanked the little purse dangling from my hand. It happened so fast and was so unexpected I was sort of like, Oh well, whatever, isn’t that what they said New York City was like? But Peaches immediately went tearing after him. She starts yelling, Stop, you asshole! That’s not yours! She even hollered at people passing by, Stop him! And in half a block she’d made such a commotion, and was gaining on him so fast, he tripped and fell and she stepped on him with her pointy heels and grabbed the purse back while a crowd cheered her on.

  “Peaches,” I say calmly when the bell dings. Our teller is ready for us. “C’mon. It’s our turn.”

  I hoist the bag onto the narrow little counter in front of the teller window. “I’d like to make a deposit, please.” I hate trying to talk to someone on the other side of security glass. I always think they can’t hear me. Then I have to shout and everyone can hear my business.

  “Go ahead, slide it under the window,” the teller says. She motions to the little dish.

  “No, we have cash,” Peaches says, way too loud.

  “Peaches!” Of cour
se she has to tell the whole bank we have a bag full of cash. “Be quiet!”

  I read once that the first ten years of a marriage are a power struggle between the couple—each person vying to get the other one to do things their way—and after that people sort of just accept the other person for who they are. That’s pretty much where Peaches and I are now—I accept her. She’s an exhibitionist, she likes having—no making—people look at her. Even though she sometimes embarrasses me, I get it: that’s Peaches. She’s going to talk too loud at the bank, try to engage strangers in conversations about random stuff, and possibly (probably, even) give her phone number to some dude without a muffler on his Harley. I’m also taking into account that she’s especially giddy at the moment, probably because she’s in the presence of so much money.

  I open the bag and show the teller the stacks of bills. The girl’s eyes widen. She motions to the door at the end of the row of windows. “Meet me at the door over there.”

  Other people in line are now looking at us—exactly what I didn’t want. Our heels click as we walk across the terrazzo floor—nothing like a great sixties floor, I think—and when we reach the door, a heavy lock clicks, and then—

  I’m eight years old, waiting for my dad to appear at the end of the long, long room. This is my second or third time visiting prison, and everything about this place fascinates me. The guard stands next to a door that slides open with a loud mechanical sound. Rrrrrr-clatch! A guy walks out, but it’s not my dad—his uniform is kind of messy and he’s not smiling. My dad always has shiny shoes and creases in his pants. Behind him is another guy, also not my dad—he’s not handsome at all. Another guy, then another guy, then the door shuts and . . . nothing. My dad isn’t there.

  I sit back down on the row of chairs, Mommy lights another cigarette—how long is this going to take? Then the door lurches open again, rrrrrr-clatch! And then—there he is.

  My dad.

  His eyes are so blue! I always forget how much they sparkle, and before I can even finish that thought he scoops me up and I’m sailing over his head and he’s saying my name and my middle name—Nicole Marie! Nicole Marie! My little girl, you’re getting so big!—and all the crazy butterflies I had in my stomach a minute ago are gone now and I’m just flying through the air in my dad’s arms—

  “Can you swipe your card, please?” The manager is waiting for me.

  Peaches pinches my arm. “Lady, wake up.”

  I got lost there for a second. I forgot that I’m holding a bag with twenty thousand dollars in it.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say. I hand the manager the money and she tells us to have a seat while she counts it.

  I follow Peaches to the waiting area, basically a square with two sofas and two chairs. It’s been two hours since Jake took off and he should be texting any minute now to say he’s sorry he lost it and he really didn’t mean anything by it. That’s what he always does.

  “Now that you’ve got the money, I have to say I’m kind of excited about your restaurant,” Peaches says. Just like her to hate on something until it happens, then declare it awesome. “I’m actually thinking I should ask you for a job.”

  “Of course you are,” I say. Because of course she is.

  * * *

  I go over to Jake’s house later that afternoon, unannounced. I rarely do that. We spend so much time together that when we’re apart—even if it’s after a fight—I like to give him his space, but I feel terrible about how the thing with the money went. I know he was just trying to do something cute, and I didn’t handle it right. One of my big flaws is that I’m sort of a perfectionist. I think there’s a certain way to do things, and when it doesn’t happen, I blurt out how I think it should have been, and people’s feelings end up getting hurt. It’s not that I’m stuck on people doing things my way—it’s more a matter of efficiency. To me, bringing twenty thousand dollars in cash in a paper bag just isn’t efficient. Too many things can go wrong with that plan—losing the bag, having it rip, having it stolen—and if something did, you’d kick yourself because you’d look back and see how big the downside was for so little upside. I mean, there’s no gesture cute enough to warrant risking twenty grand. It just doesn’t make sense.

  But making sense doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to the heart. Jake just wanted me to know that he was 100 percent in on the restaurant deal. That he was holding up his end of the bargain and not trying to take advantage of me. That he loves me and wanted to do what I asked of him. I should have been able to see that. Which is exactly what I say when he opens the door.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  It has taken me a long time to learn how to say I’m sorry. I always used to say something euphemistic like, “I apologize,” because it somehow sounded more powerful, less like I was begging the other person to forgive me. Even now, I often want to say I’m sorry, then immediately explain why I did the thing I did. Probably because I grew up with Beth, who could give you the silent treatment for a whole day if you did something wrong. The solution was never to admit any wrongdoing, or, if you did, then follow it up with a whole lot of verbal dancing around that would hopefully distract her from your original transgression.

  But lately I’m figuring out that if I want to have a long-term relationship, I need to be a little softer, a little less argumentative. Jake is not Beth—I shouldn’t react to him as if he is.

  “Will you forgive me?” I say.

  “It’s okay,” he says. He pulls me into a hug, then shuts the door behind me. For a long moment, we stand there, my cheek on his shoulder. “I love you, Nicki. More than anything. I wish you believed in me,” he says. “I just want to make you happy.”

  This is where I want to say something like No one can make another person happy, but I decide against it, because that’s just me trying to be right again. I search my brain for the correct response. What would I say if I believed in him?

  In the beginning, I absolutely believed in him. We met in 2012 at The Echo. I was there with two of my mom friends, Sara and Robin, for an early dinner to celebrate Robin’s birthday. It was a Thursday night, I remember because we were laughing at how lame we’d become that going out on a Thursday was now considered living dangerously. I was thirty-­four, Cody had just turned thirteen. We were all complaining about having teenagers when a round of apple martinis arrived at the table out of nowhere. We looked around at the nearly empty restaurant—our reservation was for 5:30 p.m., that’s how bad our Mom Situation was—trying to figure out who could have sent them. Seconds later, Jake breezed over and, looking straight at me, said, You ladies are too gorgeous to have teenagers. Here’s a little something to take the edge off. It never occurred to me that this young, beautiful guy would find me attractive, but he asked for my number that night, called me the next day, asked me out on a date for the coming Sunday night—where he took me to Beast, at the time the most happening restaurant in Portland, where he introduced me to the chef, Naomi, who proceeded to send out course after course of mind-blowing food.

  Our first six months together were a whirlwind of activity. Jake is the kind of guy who pores through the listings in the Bridge City Weekly every Friday night, and surprises you with tickets to a George Clinton concert, or signs up for a truffle-hunting excursion, or a group hike halfway up Mount Hood in the middle of summer just to see the stars. I’d never met someone with so much energy, curiosity, confidence, and sex appeal. I knew I would never be bored with this guy and I fell completely, hopefully, in love.

  The thing about Jake was there was nothing standing in our way. He wanted to be with me, and there was no fear of commitment to keep us apart. He was present and accounted for from the very beginning. He went out on a limb and declared his love for me and it felt good. It felt safe.

  But the closer I get to taking that final leap into the relationship, the more my old fears come to the surface. I’m sure
this is normal, right? But if I keep doing what I’ve always done—pushing people away—I’m going to keep getting what I’ve always gotten.

  “You do make me happy,” I say. I look up at him, completely unguarded. “You really do.”

  There’s something about surrendering to him, to the relationship, that’s like turning on a blowtorch. He kisses me ferociously and pulls me to the sofa and in seconds we are making love right then and there, amid the old beer cans and the mail stacked up on the table. It’s crazy amazing.

  Like it always is.

  When it’s over, we lie there, breathing heavy, bodies tangled, not saying a word. This is the only time in my life—after orgasm—that I’m perfectly still, perfectly quiet, perfectly at peace. As I watch the sun set through the leaded glass window, I think to myself thank you.

  All I had to do was say yes.

  * * *

  A few days later I surprise Jake with a picnic lunch at the restaurant. He’s been working around the clock—nights at his regular job managing The Echo, and days at the new place, which still doesn’t have a name, by the way—and I thought I’d do something nice and bring him a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich made of sliced pork and cilantro on a gum-destroyingly amazing French baguette. It’s one of our favorite things to eat together, when he’s willing to eat gluten.

  I walk into the main dining room, where the linoleum has been ripped up and now sits in a pile the size of a small shack. You can see what this place is going to be. The ceilings soar to twenty-two feet with exposed ductwork and track lights. The old tin that lined the walls has been cleaned up and it’s gleaming. The way the light is coming in, it’s really special. I’ve got to bring Cody down here. Between my job and the insane amount of paperwork I’ve had to pull together for the loan on the new house, I’ve been too busy to rip him away from his bedroom long enough to come with me. Not surprisingly, Cody’s fine to let the whole restaurant happen without him. He considers it my project, and therefore, boring. I’d like to think he might see it and be inspired to consider what he’d like to do with his future. I mean, beyond his current plan, which is “to be rich and play Magic.”