by Lisa Tognola
By the third week of March—just six days after Wim had received the most disappointing bonus of his career and six weeks after we’d put our house on the market—showings had slowed to a crawl and my mood had turned black. I found myself wondering why I’d bothered working myself into a state of such total exhaustion.
I sat across from Wim on the family room sofa, staring at a framed photo of our family in Park City, Utah, taken just one year earlier during a ski vacation. It was my favorite photo: the five of us leaning against a rock wall beside a covered bridge, a tall bank of white snow behind us, everyone smiling at the camera. Now I wondered when, if ever, we would be able to afford another family vacation like that one.
“I don’t see any other solution,” Wim was saying. He was gazing out the window at a robin returning to its nest.
“Betsy said it’s the right thing to do,” I said.
My teeth grazed my bottom lip as I waited for him to say something else, but there was nothing else to say. Somehow our house’s continued presence on the market seemed a failure on my part, a weakness I didn’t want to admit to the world. Yet I had no other option.
“I’ll call her tomorrow morning,” I said finally.
The next day, we lowered the price of our house.
Then we waited.
Each time our house was shown, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the one. Perhaps this was the buyer who would enjoy watching the robin family return each year to its nest in the holly tree outside the bedroom window to raise its babies. Perhaps this was the buyer who would love the way the morning sunlight transformed our yard into a gilded landscape. Perhaps this was the buyer who would revel in the neighborhood kids on the lawn together catching fireflies on warm summer nights. Perhaps. Perhaps.
CHAPTER 34: GETTING CARRIED AWAY
Lexington Ave, Rye – March 2008
One chilly day, I walked Copper with my friend Sherri, eager to show her our new house for the first time. None of my friends had seen the interior since we’d started construction.
For the past nine months, I’d hesitated to even talk about our house much for fear of being judged. Friends teased me about moving to “the other side of the tracks,” implying that I would be entering a high-income, bourgeois world of hobnobbing pretension and snobbery. As if by crossing over Main Street I would suddenly become a swan of the upper class, the ultimate Park Avenue wife (albeit in the suburbs). It brought back memories of the gold-gilded faucets and crystal knobs of my youth, the big conflict of pride versus embarrassment.
Sherri and I walked up Lexington Avenue. I could see my house in the distance as we passed a large Tudor, where a homeowner stood leaning against a Lexus parked at the edge of her driveway. She was talking to a house painter, and we caught a few fragments of their conversation: “… open the beach house … through August … Nantucket Harbor …”
I thought of Mrs. Schreiber’s dangling shutter, her Honda Civic, a pan of homemade brownies. Would our new neighbors throw block parties on the Fourth of July? Or would they be busy opening up their houses in Nantucket? Would they help haul our water-soaked rugs to the curb if our basement flooded? Or would they just give me the number of “their guy”?
When we reached my new house, I heard heavy footsteps as Sherri and I entered the dusty foyer and caught a glimpse of broad shoulders and gray hair that I quickly recognized as Brodie’s.
“I’m just tidying up,” Brodie said by way of greeting. He was holding a tall broom. I remembered the laborers once telling Wim and me that Brodie liked to work beside them, sharing some of the grunt work. I was impressed by his work ethic. At the same time, I was glad that our paths seldom crossed because I found his demeanor brusque. The tension between him and Luke lately only made it worse, as Wim and I sometimes found ourselves caught in the middle of their disagreements.
“Did you see the driveway?” Brodie asked after I’d introduced him to Sherri. “We painted some lines according to Luke’s drawings. One side runs right down the center of that tree at the edge of the street.” He pointed in the direction of an ancient-looking oak near the curb.
“Well, we’ll just have to move the tree,” I joked.
Brodie didn’t crack a smile. “We’ll need to reduce the driveway size by a few feet,” he said, reaching down to pat Copper’s head. “Why don’t you and Wim massage that over the weekend and let me know.”
We walked him out, his heavy work boots crunching along the construction debris. He waved a hand at the scattered fragments on the ground. “You should be careful walking around here.”
His warning struck me as uncharacteristically sensitive.
Then he said over his shoulder, pointing to Copper, “She could get a nail stuck in her paw.”
I lifted a hand in thanks and turned to Sherri. “Come on, I’ll show you the house.”
We entered the foyer and I looked around, unsure of which way to turn. I looked into the living room, at the elegant limestone fireplace surround I’d copied from Coastal Living. My thoughts flashed back two years to when, at the peak of my house lust, a new friend, Denise, had guided me through her newly remodeled craftsman-style home in the Township. While our youngest daughters played together in the playroom, I gazed longingly at the family room with its built-in bookcases, window seat, and stone fireplace—features I pined for in my own house—and felt a twinge of jealousy that I tried to hide under a forced smile. By the time Denise showed me her master bathroom—high ceilings, his-and-her sinks, and an oversize shower—I was so completely overcome with envy I could muster only a compliment about her claw-foot tub, the one part of the house that I knew was old. Denise had been kind and gracious, and instead of being happy for her, I’d been resentful. I’d wanted what she had, and maybe more.
Standing next to Sherri in my own foyer, I felt suddenly self-conscious, and I found myself playing down the house so as to not appear pretentious.
I tried to read her face. Was she wrought with the same sense of longing I’d felt over Denise’s house? She didn’t seem to be, though she did seem quieter than usual. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said, deciding against starting the tour with our state-of-the-art kitchen.
I led the way, but Sherri walked briskly past me as we passed through the master bedroom door. She let out a small gasp. “Wow,” she said, peering around the room. Slowly taking in her surroundings—elegant French doors, tray ceiling, gas fireplace—she blinked, as if she’d entered a dim room and she couldn’t trust what she saw until her eyes had become accustomed to the dark.
“We tried to create a relaxing environment,” I said in an effort to sound nonchalant, though I felt my mood brighten as I remembered how Wim and I had planned the room with fastidious detail, even deciding in advance where to hang our ketubah, the Jewish marriage contract of our vows and responsibilities to each other that we’d read aloud at our wedding and had framed in gold. We’d chosen a wall beside the door so it would be the first thing we saw when we entered the room. Together, we’d fantasized about making our bedroom a romantic retreat.
“Imagine waking up to a warm fire and drinking morning coffee out on the balcony,” I remembered saying as we studied the master bedroom plans.
“Maybe we could build a coffee nook in the corner, with an espresso machine and a small built-in fridge, so we won’t even have to go downstairs,” Wim said.
I shook my head and smiled. “Do you think we’re getting a little carried away?”
“And whose bedroom is this?” Sherri was asking as she crossed through the bedroom into an adjacent room.
“Um—it’s Wim’s closet.” I winced inwardly.
“This is all his?” Her mouth was agape as she glanced around a room that rivaled my childhood playhouse in size.
“Well, we had this leftover space …” I broke off when I saw the shock on her face.
I followed her into the connecting space—a bright, L-shaped room with two windows and a sloped ceiling.
“Which room
is this?” she asked.
“This is my closet,” I said. “It was unused space,” I added quickly.
Her face registered no judgment, only bemused wonder.
I was looking out the window, explaining to Sherri how Luke had cleverly converted the roof eaves into closet space, when I heard another small gasp. Sherri was gone. Apparently, she had discovered the master bathroom.
“If I lived here, I’d never go on vacation,” she mumbled—to herself, but for my benefit.
After the tour, we headed outside in search of the painted lines that Brodie had mentioned. As soon as I caught sight of the “driveway”—outlined in unmistakable neon pink on the existing macadam—I found myself wishing the lines had been drawn in chalk so I could erase and redraw them. What had inspired Luke to design a driveway so curved and narrow?
“Is it even wide enough for two cars?” Sherri asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said with a frown. “And my architect isn’t going to like it when I tell him.”
CHAPTER 35: ADAM AND EVE
Rosemead, CA – September 1994
The furniture in our small Rosemead apartment was a reflection of us as a couple—an eclectic collection struggling to take shape. Excited by the potential to make our new space our own, we dressed up our apartment with books, houseplants, and my dad’s recycled accessories. Despite our efforts, our décor remained “early law firm.” Making use of this dubious distinction, my graduate-school classmates and I once used our family room sitting area to portray an office for a mock couple’s therapy session we had to videotape for a class project.
The morning of the video session, I scrambled to ready our apartment for visitors. Wim helped me dust the light fixtures, his five-foot-nine frame allowing him to access areas I could only reach with a stepstool.
An hour later, it was clean, but I still wasn’t satisfied. “It looks so … generic,” I said, trying to visualize the apartment from someone else’s perspective.
“There’s only so much you can achieve with paperweights and candlesnuffers,” Wim remarked, unplugging the vacuum cleaner and winding the cord into a neat coil around the handle.
I knew we couldn’t create red-carpet luxury on a student’s budget, but I was convinced we could do better than this. “We don’t even have anything on the walls. My grandma’s apartment has more style than ours.”
“Yeah, we should really cover our sofa in plastic too.”
“At least she has real art. Our walls are so bare my friends are going to think we just moved in.”
“Why do you care so much what your friends think?”
“I just want it to look nice.”
Deep down, I knew Wim did too. Like me, he had grown up in a nicely decorated home—cozy and comfortable with a stone fireplace, floral upholstery, and potted orchids scattered throughout the living room. Unlike my parents’ home, whose streamlined look bordered on austere, his parents’ house was filled to the brim with knickknacks—picture frames, needlepointed pillows with inspiring messages (“Love Changes Everything”; “Follow Your Dreams”), and more seasonal wreaths than you’d find at a church craft fair.
But it was silly to spend too much energy on our apartment. By the same time next year, if everything went according to plan, we’d be living close to the beach and the only noise we’d hear would be the ocean waves rolling off the Pacific. However, the video shoot demanded something now.
“Wait here.” Wim stepped out onto the patio—our own private Eden, replete with hanging baskets, decorative plant stands, and garden ornaments. In the tiny space, we grew jasmine, raised gardenias, and nurtured the tomatoes we started from seed. Our interior design was limited by budget constraints, but our sunny exterior knew no bounds. Pots of varying sizes containing fragrant flowers decorated the small patio with rich blues, vibrant pinks, and cheerful yellows. A large trellis supported climbing morning glories, the celestial blue blossoms masking an unsightly cement wall and summoning hummingbirds that hovered quietly to draw in nectar. We were proud of our garden and treated our flowers like babies—obsessively so, falling just short of carrying in our wallets two-by-three-inch photos of our precious pink petunias.
Wim grabbed our braided ficus, lugged it into the house, placed the potted tree in a wicker basket, and slid it into the vacant corner by the window. Then he went out for more plants. Within minutes, our place looked homier. I loved the ficus in particular; it reminded me of the plastic tree my mother had purchased for my grandmother’s apartment long ago, the one I’d often stared at during our dinners together.
“How’s that?” Wim asked.
“Better,” I said. “But there’s still something missing.” I rolled the vacuum cleaner back into the hall closet. As I pushed it inside, something next to Wim’s golf umbrella caught my eye. I reached into the dark space and grabbed the end of a mahogany-stained bamboo handle. “The oriental fan from Chinatown!” I yelled to Wim from inside the closet. The fan was the first item we had ever purchased together as a couple. “I forgot all about this!” I said, scurrying toward the futon. “We can hang it on the wall there.”
“Now?”
I darted back to the closet, returned with a hammer and nail, and eyed the wall space. “Hold it up for me?”
Kneeling awkwardly on the lumpy futon, Wim unfolded the heavy paper fan until the accordion-like pleats extended into a brilliant display of delicate pink cherry blossoms, an exotic branch design with black Chinese characters on a tan background. Fully extended, it had the wingspan of an eagle.
I dashed off to grab a pencil and a ruler and returned to the sound of hammering. “I wanted to mark it first! My parents don’t want a bunch of holes in the walls.”
“What are they going to do, evict us?”
I folded my arms across my chest and looked at him with mock annoyance, but he was right. Our Rosemead apartment was merely a safe and controlled petri dish for how we might create a home of our own, just as our patio garden was a testing ground for how we might nurture and raise children together. One of the things I loved about my husband was how clearly he was able to see and sum up a situation.
CHAPTER 36: DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL
Lexington Ave, Rye – March 2008
One Saturday afternoon, Wim, Luke, and I met at the house to discuss construction details—things like crown molding, door paneling, and driveways. Wim and I answered question after question as we trailed Luke through the house.
“No door between your dressing area and bedroom, correct?” Luke asked.
I hesitated. Who could remember? These were decisions we’d made months ago.
“No door?” Luke repeated.
“Agreed?” “Agreed,” we said in unison. In our state of overwhelm, we were grateful for Luke’s prodding.
“I made an executive decision in the family room to remove the soffit over the window seat,” he continued. “We can put it back, but I think it makes it feel more open. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” we repeated. After ten months of construction, Wim and I had lost the stamina to debate details.
Wim and Luke moved on to the basement sound system. I stepped outside, where I spotted a huge box of roof shingles placed in the corner of the front porch. It reminded me that we were still a long way off from finishing the house, let alone buying patio furniture. For now, I decided, this makeshift chair would do. I hoisted myself onto the wooden container and tilted my head back to face the sun, absorbing its rays while I fantasized about summer and rocking on my front porch with my lemonade in hand.
When Luke and Wim finally made their way outside, they found me perched atop the crate.
“Careful when you get off of that,” Luke said. “You don’t want to get splinters in your butt.”
His playful remark caught me by surprise. In some way it expressed the changed nature of our relationship, which somewhere along the line had crossed from business to friendship. Perhaps beyond friendship. I stole a look at Wim. He seemed unfazed
and was laughing along with the joke. I was afraid he might suspect something, but it seemed my fears were unfounded—And besides, I reminded myself, what is there to suspect?
“Now, for the driveway.” Luke turned to me. “Janie, you said you have some concerns.”
The three of us gathered around the driveway—which, I noticed, was now outlined in two colors.
“So, the pink line was Brodie’s attempt at my drawings,” Luke said. “The yellow line was Vince drawing it out yesterday while I specified where it should actually go.”
I took note of Luke’s dig at Brodie. Lately, the two had had some contentious exchanges—something Wim and I found worrisome. Their disagreements could delay the project, costing us time and money.
“Angling the driveway entrance is more aesthetically pleasing,” Luke explained. “It creates a nice feeling when you return home.”
Driveway aesthetics had never crossed my mind. As far as I was concerned, a driveway led to a garage, and that was that. But Luke wasn’t just designing our house—he was creating the experience of living in our home with a passion that matched our own. We’d once used the word “sexy” to describe how we wanted our house to look. Luke was trying to do that for us, and here I was, about to take the romance out of things. Still …
“I’m afraid I’m going to have trouble backing up,” I said. “It’s not easy driving a minivan; I think the driveway should be double this width.”
Luke and Wim exchanged a look.
“Are you really that bad a driver?” Luke asked.
His smile told me he was teasing, but still, I felt hurt. Despite my delight over the friendship Wim had forged with Luke—a relationship that seemed to help ease some of Wim’s financial and emotional stress—I envied their camaraderie. They shared many traits: an appreciation for high quality, a fastidious attention to detail, and a wry sense of humor. They respected and seemed to “get” each other. Maybe I just enjoyed Luke’s attention so much that I didn’t want to share it.
