“Not much thought put into landscaping,” he said, as we started down the flagstone path to the front door. He was right. The house sat on mud and straw. Up until a few weeks ago, most of the county had been covered in snow.
“Construction was just completed this month, and it’s a bit early in the season to plant,” I told him, getting out the keys. “I did bring along some drawings that one of the area’s top landscape design firms prepared. Some clients have their own ideas, of course, about what they would like. But I imagine you’ll want to at least take a look—the plans come with the house.” Was I babbling? It felt like it, though the Zellers didn’t seem to notice. The kids raced around me into the house before I’d gotten the door half open.
“Be careful,” I called after them. “The floor’s just been polyurethaned. It’s very slippery.” Paul had warned me about this. One of the workmen had taken a fall and twisted his ankle.
“Oh, don’t worry about them, they’re made out of Silly Putty,” Anne said, walking into the middle of the living room and looking up at the soaring cathedral ceiling. Pink-tinted sunlight flooded the room, creating a kind of halo around Anne’s upturned head. I’d never been in that house until that moment, and I’d just met this woman, so it seemed very odd to me that I should be experiencing a déjà vu. But there it was: that ministroke of time flashing backward—or forward, I’m never sure which. But simultaneously, I felt as though I’d lived through that exact moment before and would do so again.
“I love this room!” Anne said, turning in a circle, arms outstretched. “All this light! And that fireplace—my God, we could all just move in there and live—it’s so enormous, do you know what I mean?”
“The caulking hasn’t been finished here.” Richard pointed to the hearth, where firebrick didn’t quite join white marble.
“And the flue’s not in yet,” I said. “It’s being specially fitted by a firm in Springfield. I’ve a list of things that still need to be finished. All final details, I assure you. I’ll give you a copy if you like.”
“You certainly have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Richard said. It felt like he’d just turned around and slapped me across the face. As Nana had suggested, I’d memorized a lot of facts and figures, and then brought along copies of backup materials I thought might be of interest to the Zellers. But instead of coming across as competent and in control, I’d seemed—what? Officious, maybe. Nana’s inexperienced and nervous assistant. But then I realized that he’d known that all along. That Nana had said something to him about me. I could just hear her:
“And I’m so, so sorry! But I’m short-staffed today of all days. I’m going to have to have one of my junior people let you in. She doesn’t really know anything about this listing. But the first time around I believe the only important thing is for you to see the place through your own eyes and get a feeling for it. It’s like a blind date, don’t you think? And I’m positive that you’re about to fall head over heels in love.”
I didn’t blame Nana; she was just trying to protect her backside and a possible sale. I did resent him. Putting me through my paces, seeing how far and fast I could jump. And I sensed he enjoyed playing the bully. But I wasn’t about to let him see that he’d gotten to me. Without changing my upbeat tone, I said, “Well, I sure hope so. I have the blueprint, too. Shall we spread it out in the kitchen and take a look?”
Paul had assured me that the kitchen alone would sell the house. He loved carpentry work and had lavished a great deal of his own time on the cherrywood cabinets and cupboards, the dark walnut island topped with gray-veined white marble.
“The architect visualized the kitchen as the house’s hub,” I said, stepping up to the raised dining area. I was parroting what Paul had told me about what Frank had explained to him. “You may not have noticed, but you get a view of it when you come in the front door. And it communicates one way or the other with every room. Whichever way you enter—from the deck or the back hallway—it really welcomes you in, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes, it’s absolutely fabulous,” Anne said. She walked around the room, touching the brand-new top-of-the-line appliances: Sub-Zero refrigerator, Miele dishwasher, La Cornue range. The brushed-aluminum handles for the stove top were still wrapped in protective plastic. I unrolled the blueprint on top of the island, as Richard came up behind me.
“Let me take a look at that,” he said. Instinctively, I stepped back.
“Come show me the deck,” Anne said, grabbing my elbow. “I want to see the view again while we still have some light.” I sensed that she wanted to get me away from Richard, give him time to study the designs without my running commentary.
“It’s so peaceful here,” she said, as I slid the double-hung Andersen door shut behind us. Foolishly, I’d decided I wouldn’t need my winter parka, a faded and thoroughly unstylish navy blue down, when I set out earlier. But now the temperature was dropping as the sun sank lower, and I felt goose bumps rising up my legs and arms.
Suddenly a load of pine needles and other debris showered down on us from above. I heard shuffling and giggling and looked up to see that Katie and Max had somehow gotten out on one of the upper bedroom balconies.
“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I thought the upstairs doors were locked. You better tell them to get in. I’ll run up and—”
“Don’t worry. They’re not about to jump or anything,” Anne said with a laugh. Then she called up to them: “Come on down here, guys. I want you to see the incredible kitchen and this amazing, enormous deck. I’m thinking this would be the perfect place for a Ping-Pong table.”
Richard stepped outside with the children. The dying sun reflected off a lowlying bank of clouds, washing the woods in front of us with a reddish glow. Something glinted through the trees.
“What the hell is that? I saw it when we drove up before—a junkyard or something?”
“You mean the—well, I guess—sculpture garden?”
“I mean that load of crap at the bottom of the driveway.”
“Richard,” Anne said.
“Okay, so I don’t mince words. And I expect the same in return.”
“That farmhouse and about ten acres around it belong to Luke Barnett,” I replied. “His family used to own all this land—for about as far as the eye can see. They were given the original land grant for the territory. The Barnetts were once a pretty powerful force around here, but now. Well. Luke’s had to sell off most of what he owned to keep himself going. He makes those sculptures out of things he scavenges from around town. Tourists sometimes buy them.”
Though more often they don’t. Most of the time now, the world just passes Luke by. Which is how I think he wants it, or at least that’s what I tell myself. Paul and I haven’t spoken to him for—how long has it been? Months. No, actually more like a year. How odd that the last time I saw him, in person, was not far from this very spot, looking down on what was then a bulldozed, treeless, rubble-strewn hillside. He blamed me, of course, for everything. Just as I blamed him. The truth is, we’ve been adversaries almost from the start, forced to face off against each other at every important juncture of our lives. Even now, a year after the big blowup, after all those months of silence, I had the sense that we were still circling each other. Angry and wary. Waiting to see who’d give first.
Oh, there was more, so much more, I could say about Luke. But I wasn’t about to share it with the Zellers.
I knew, shivering out there on the deck in my cheap black suit, that on an important level I’d failed. Though Nana would have nothing to complain about. I’d done what she asked and shown the Zellers the house for her. But I knew they’d be calling her, not me, for the follow-up. What had I been thinking, trying to impress someone like Richard Zeller with my quickly memorized facts and figures? And Anne? Though she seemed so open and enthusiastic, I knew that she could very well just be stringing me along, judging my every move. I could easily imagine her and Richard picking me apart—“Oh,
my God, did you see what she was wearing?”—on the way back to the city. In fact, I was positive that Richard Zeller had seen through me in an instant: a small-town nobody. I sometimes think that every single mistake I’ve made in my life is a result of believing that I had a shot at becoming something better than that.
“Well, it’s a real eyesore, whatever it is,” Richard said as he turned away, and we all followed him back into the house.
2
“You think Rachel would want to lend a hand around here again this I ou think Rachel would want to lend a hand around here again this summer?” Kathy asked me when I dropped Lia off with her the following Monday after lunch. Kathy is married to Paul’s younger brother, Bob, and she’s been helping to make ends meet at the farm for the last several years by running a day-care center out of their finished basement. She comes across as such a positive person: even-tempered, sympathetic, seemingly content under the layers of extra fat that circle her waist and dimple her cheeks when she smiles and laughs, which is often. In-laws in the close-knit Alden family, we are frequently in each other’s company, in and out of each other’s houses, so you would think I’d know her about as well as anybody. But I was totally taken by surprise when she had to go up to Albany Psychiatric last summer. Bob said it was postpartum depression after Danny, but that was really about as much as I was able to get out of either one of them. Paul told me not to pry. But since then I can’t help but see the shadow cast by Kathy’s determinedly sunny disposition, the way her gaze doesn’t quite meet mine when we talk.
“I’ll ask her. I know she enjoys helping you out, but she’s looking to make some real money this year,” I told her before calling across the room for Lia to come back and give me a good-bye hug. Lia, who’s still half days at the pre-K in town, treats Kathy’s place like a second home. She was already organizing her two cousins and a couple of the other kids into some kind of game involving Kathy’s plastic bowling set. My youngest was born bossy and utterly self-assured. We call her the Little General.
“Bye, Mommy!” Lia shouted, and I knew that was all I was going to get from her. Beanie, my shy, willowy five-year-old, still clings to me every morning when I drop her off at school and will curl up in my lap at night and tuck her head under my chin. She has so little armor, whereas Lia is a walking arsenal of self-confidence. Sure, they’re both still very young, but I’ve grown to believe that we come out of the box fully assembled for the most part.
“I mean to pay her, of course,” Kathy said, sounding a little defensive. “Whatever the going rate is. She can tell me, within reason, you know. But I’m already getting six new kids from that ad I put in the Rambler last month. And I’m sure to be picking up drop-ins from all the summer rentals. I could just really use her.”
“I’ll ask her tonight. She’s going to be applying for her driver’s permit in January, and she’s already talking about saving money for her own car. I hate to even think about it. She’ll be gone before we know it.”
“All I want to do is make it through the summer in one piece,” Kathy replied with a self-deprecating laugh. She used to be such a good listener, but I’m not sure she’d even heard what I said about Rachel.
“Okay, I’ll talk to her about it. But if not Rachel, I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone pretty easily. It’s not like there’s a lot of work around here in the summer for girls Rachel’s age.”
“I know, but I’d really love it to be her. She’s so great with the little kids, and I trust her. And not just because she’s family. She’s a good person. You guys are doing something right.”
“Thanks,” I said, warmed by her praise for my eldest daughter. But in fact I think we all know that I had very little to do with Rachel’s inherent sweetness. It flows like strong rich sap through Paul’s side of the family, every generation producing one or two offspring who are just naturally kind and generous. And unlike Beanie, Rachel’s gentleness can bend with the wind, snap back after duress. At fifteen, Rachel is plagued by erratic spurts of acne, but other than that she’s showing few external signs of teenage hormonal imbalance or rebellion. Both Paul and I, remembering ourselves at her age, are holding our breaths. Maybe, if we’re careful, if we treat her with respect and understanding, she won’t turn against us—as we turned against our own parents. That’s why I didn’t want to commit her outright to working for Kathy. This was just the sort of thing, Paul and I agreed, that Rachel should be allowed to decide for herself.
The Red River Realty office is on the north end of town, the last clapboard Colonial before Route 198 straightens out and picks up steam heading eastward toward the busier, more built-up areas and River Road branches off to continue its meandering journey to nowhere along what had once been an old stagecoach route. Nana had the building repainted inside and out when she bought it five years ago, hung window boxes that we keep filled with geraniums and English ivy, and landscaped the parking lot with split-leaf maples and evergreen shrubs to screen it from the highway. A stranger, driving past, wouldn’t actually register that it’s a place of business unless they happened to notice the elegantly lettered sign to the right of the red-painted front door. The building and grounds are meticulously maintained, discreetly welcoming. “For people of means,” Nana likes to say, though in truth she’s far less picky than she pretends.
“Well, I would say that at the very least he’s intrigued,” Nana told me when she’d called me at home Friday night. “He seems especially taken by how close the house is to the Taconic. I’ve a feeling that money is not the issue, though I also have the sense he’s holding something back. Not in a calculated way—you know, ‘I want it but you’re going to have to work to sell it to me.’ But he’s hesitating for some reason. Any idea what it could be? What were you picking up?”
Over the past two years of working for Nana, I’ve heard her endlessly discussing and analyzing prospective buyers with Heather and Linda, the other two Realtors at the agency. Though Nana can come across as totally professional, perhaps even slightly detached when she’s face-to-face with clients, as soon as they’re off the phone or out the door she starts a minute and often ruthless dissection of their probable net worth, seriousness vis-àvis the Red River real estate market, and possible hidden character traits that will make selling a home to them either a happy rush to the altar or a slowly disintegrating relationship that leads only to acrimony and broken vows.
Nana’s often making the point that the relationship is like an engagement—and that there’s going to be a big beautiful wedding cake of a house waiting for you at the end. But like any bride, she’s constantly monitoring her fiancé’s commitment and interest, maneuvering behind the scenes and worrying the details in a way that would probably come as a surprise to most of her clients. Friday night was the first time she had ever included me in one of these fraught, secretive machinations, which, I believe, are a big part of the reason Nana and the firm can appear to be so effortlessly successful.
“Well, the look of Luke Barnett’s place bothered him, I know that. I tried to joke about it, but he didn’t go for it. Also I don’t think he likes to feel he’s being sold on anything. He just wanted the facts—no frills. He wants to feel that he’s making up his own mind. He’s totally his own man.”
“Very interesting,” Nana said. “Very good, Maddie,” she added. “I see exactly what you mean. I was going on about how lucky we were to have an architect of Frank’s caliber in the area, et cetera, et cetera, and I could tell he almost resented hearing about it. He needs to come to these conclusions by himself. That’s it. We just have to keep him on track, keep the information flowing in his direction, and try not to get in the way.”
I could hear the phone ringing in the big office down the hallway on the left when I walked in that afternoon. This is where I work at an open-plan cubicle across the room from Heather and Linda, who share most of the space, with soundproofed dividers giving them some privacy. Nana has the smaller, private office on the right, decorated w
ith a few simple Shaker pieces and a large framed topographic map of the county. Nana looked up as I walked past. She was on the phone, frowning.
“… I understand your frustration,” she was saying. “But that’s what happens when inventory is tight. It’s like any other commodity. Scarcity means you have to pay more for what you want … yes … right … ”
I recognized this as one of Nana’s conversational set pieces. She’d been a high-powered television producer in the city before moving up here, and she still loves business jargon, though she’d die before coming right out and saying what every Realtor in the area knows: There are fewer and fewer decent homes available to show. Lately, in fact, some brokers are creating their own inventory by partnering with the developers to put up spec houses and splitting the profits. Though I’m not privy to any of the financial details, this is the kind of arrangement Nana put together with Frank Miles and Nicky Polanski for Maple Rise and the other houses on the old Barnett land. By the time I reached my desk, the ringing had stopped but the line was lit up, indicating that someone was leaving a message. It was the main line, not my direct one, so I didn’t bother to pick up. I’d check the messages later. I tucked my shoulder bag under my desk. Linda was on the phone and Heather was at her computer.
I checked my e-mail and logged on to Promatch to keep an eye out for new listings and changes in inventory, and then made a few calls to clients. Nana has taught me to stay in touch with people as much as possible, even if it’s just to confirm an open house or double-check a closing date. Make it seem like they’re all you’re thinking about, that they’re the top of your list, Nana insists. And what amazes me is that though she’s juggling dozens of clients, she’s still able to give each and every one of them the impression that she’s dropped everything else just to take their call. It was nearly three o’clock by the time I checked the messages for the main office number. There was only one.
Local Knowledge Page 2
