“Do you mind if we show ourselves around?” The man asks after he has slowly made his way inside.
“Go anywhere you like, please. Can I get either of you a drink?”
I followed all the advice in the house selling tips video on Gwendolyn’s website. I baked cookies and left a pretty platter of them on the counter. I turned on every light.
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Gwendolyn says, smiling openly, as if she’s an old friend of mine. This is the weirdest, damndest thing! Gwendolyn Golden is in my house.
“I’ll be in the little office here if you have any questions.” I point to a tiny formal living room converted to a computer den. I go inside and perch on an overstuffed chair and watch them make their way into the kitchen.
After living in that amazing old mansion in North Carolina, there’s no way Gwendolyn Golden could like this house. Maybe she’s not looking for herself—of course, why didn’t I think of it? She grew up in this town, maybe she’s buying a home for an indigent old aunt.
“Oh my God,” I hear Gwendolyn say under her breath to the realtor who is dragging his leg as he walks beside her. “It looks like a mini version of the So Perfect house!”
I shouldn’t have been straining to eavesdrop. Now I know that I’ve been revealed as a savant to the object of my adoration. Perfect. I feel my face burning with embarrassment as I turn on the computer to try and look busy.
Alas, when I click on the Internet icon it goes to my homepage, which is the So Perfect site. In my nervous state, I accidentally click again and the latest video begins to play, with its cute little bars of intro music that ends in Gwendolyn and Armand lightly laughing. I scramble to turn it off and fight the urge to hide.
I breathe deeply to calm down. I have been in perpetual motion all day, so this sudden enforced stillness is jarring to both mind and body. I got the kids off to school, cycled through the laundry, and worked my library shift before coming home to get the house in shape for tonight’s viewing. When it was as good as I could get it, I was shocked to discover that I had half an hour to spare before the bus came.
Spare half hours are very rare for me these days, and quiet time for reflection is practically nonexistent, so I decided to follow the advice of my favorite lifestyle guru (who happens to be in my house right now!) and enjoy a quiet tea break. I filled my teakettle and opened a cupboard to see my herbal options, with names that gave me enough optimism in the grocery store aisle to put them in my cart: Calm. Happiness. Hope. Enlightenment.
I drank two cups of Hope before heading outside to await Mr. Marley’s bus. I knew from daily experience that he’d pull up alongside the road, put on his safety lights, and open the door for my children to disembark from another day in their school lives. It’s still strange to me to think that, moment by moment, they’re growing up.
I remember how shocking it was when June first started preschool and began coming home with information that I not only hadn’t taught her, but didn’t necessarily believe. One of her little friends had said that green was prettier than pink, so June instantly had a new favorite color. One said that PBS Kids shows were for babies, so June’s new Clifford backpack embarrassed her. Carrots, always a favorite, were suddenly “pukey.”
I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that throughout the school year my kids spend more of their sentient moments without me than with me, learning all sorts of things that I’m not privy to, growing not only up, and up, but away. My sister Suzie says it’s simply the way it is and there’s no use fighting it. I just don’t think I’m a trusting enough soul for this process of letting go a little more every day. I want to hold on tight.
The plowed snow was crunchy and deep, and although it was bitter cold this afternoon, I waited outside for the bus to arrive. June knows to lead the twins in through the back door if I’m ever not out there. But the one day I stayed in and watched from the window, James fell down and cried, and I rushed outside anyway. Their days are so long, I never blame them for getting tired and cranky. James and Joy are only in first grade, but they’re growing and growing.
After homework came piano practice, and then dinner. Then in a very cheerful voice I said, “We’re going to get cleaned up, and you’re all going to Aunt Suzie’s for a little while.”
“It’s a school night,” eight-year-old June said skeptically.
I smiled big. “I know! But some people are coming to look at the house, and it will be boring for you to stay out of their way. Can you help the twins wipe their faces, honey?”
I tried to keep the tense excitement from my voice, but I feared I was failing. The house has been on the market since I missed the first payment, though I opted to go without a sign to keep a low profile from my sister, the kids, and my neighbors. There aren’t many people looking now, and virtually everyone searches online first, so I thought the trade-off was worth it.
Only a handful of potential buyers have walked through. I have almost given up hope of the place selling. The housing market here is terrible; some say it’s the worst it has ever been, and anyone with a choice isn’t trying to unload property. I don’t have a choice, unless I counted asking Blake for help. And I don’t.
The bank that holds the mortgage to this house has already started the process of foreclosure. My loan officer explained that if I miraculously get an offer, the bank will have to agree to it in what’s called a “short sale.” If I don’t get an offer, the house will be foreclosed and my credit will be ruined. I say all this in terms of “I,” because that’s how I feel about it. The house is in Blake’s name too, but since I haven’t seen him around here for the past six months, I don’t think in terms of “we” anymore.
“I’m not moving!” James yelled while June wiped his face with a wet paper towel. I wished I hadn’t fed them spaghetti, there was a layer of sauce all over the table.
I wondered if I made the right choice explaining the basics to the kids over dinner. I thought it would be better to let them absorb it in stages instead of springing it on them all at once when we’re forced to move out.
“We have to move,” Joy reminded her twin. “We’re being foretold so we have to move no matter what. Right, Mom?” Joy wiped her own mouth.
“That’s right. But don’t worry,” I told them. I say that phrase to my children almost constantly these days. “We’ll move somewhere nearby, and maybe at first it won’t be perfect, but I’ll make it really great for us.”
“Within the school district?” June asked with panic in her voice.
I stopped cleaning the table and turned to face her. “I promise, June.”
I know how hard it was for her when Blake left. I know how much she needs to trust the things that remain, like the familiarity of her friends and teachers. I won’t tear her away from all that. June gave me her brave smile and kept the twins on task as they put their shoes and coats on and headed for the door.
“Aunt Suzie knows we’re coming?” June asked.
Suzie is ten years my senior and has always been a more conscientious mom to me than our real one. She moved here to be close to me and the kids, and I’m afraid to imagine what would happen to us without her.
“Of course, honey,” I replied.
I have never let the children go anywhere without careful thought and planning. Sending them four houses down to my sister’s is as far as I will ever let them go alone while they’re so small. It made me sad to hear my eight-year-old daughter imply that I might send them off into the night without a warm and welcoming destination planned.
Sometimes I feel that although I’ve been banking up love, and care, and sleepless nights, and endless hours of nursing and rocking each of them, there’s still not a single dime in my Mom account that I can draw on. Motherhood is for deposit only. I guess that’s as it should be while the children are young, but if they try to put me in a home someday, I swear I will not go quietly.
“Please bring these to Aunt Suzie,” I said, handin
g June a box of the warm cookies I had just baked so the house would smell lovely. “But don’t let Uncle Dan gobble them all up. Tell him I said that he has to share.”
Joy and James giggled. June held the box like it was full of fine china.
“If you drop it, that’s OK. Cookies are yummy no matter if they’re whole or broken,” I told her.
June nodded but didn’t relax her grip.
“I’ll be there soon,” I said as they trudged out. I watched them march along the sidewalk in their snow boots until they entered Suzie’s house.
I hear footsteps above me, along with muffled voices. I can’t quite believe that Gwendolyn Golden is standing in my master bathroom! I hear the thunk of a cane overhead followed by a sliding sound. I remember noting that the realtor had nice shoes that appeared to be evenly worn, and I wonder how he manages that. It’s strange to think of carrying your damage on the outside where everyone can see it.
Soon I hear footsteps coming back down the stairs. I wait for a long time while a hushed conversation takes place in the kitchen. No one has gone through the house in weeks. There are so many homes for sale, and so few buyers, that I’ve been trying to reconcile myself to either losing this house or going to Blake for help. I’m so torn about it. On one hand, it’s his house, too, and his credit along with mine that will be ruined. On the other hand, I picture him and his “colleague” Francine enjoying the sunny weather in Spain during breaks from their long-term project abroad, and I think that having his credit ruined would be a drop in the bucket compared to the flood he deserves.
I close my eyes and try to breathe evenly. I don’t want to think of how awful it will be when Gwendolyn and her realtor thank me and leave. How I’ll have to smile and say it was my pleasure, and then smile bigger when I tell the kids there’s nothing to worry about, that the right buyer might still come along in time.
When I don’t think I can stand the suspense a moment longer, I hear the thunk-shuffle down the hall and look up to see Gwendolyn Golden already in the doorway.
I burst into Suzie’s house without knocking. The kids look up in shock, like something awful is going to happen, suspended in mid-chew. James has milk dripping down his face and Joy somehow managed to get chocolate on her forehead.
Then they re-animate, each smiling a gorgeous smile of relief, and I realize that they haven’t seen me truly happy in a long time.
“We have a good offer!”
Suzie hugs me, and I feel an overwhelming sense of gratefulness.
“It’s enough for the bank to approve,” I say, testing the words. “I won’t lose my credit. We may even be able to buy a smaller place that needs some work, maybe right here in this neighborhood.”
June smiles and it looks so genuine that I feel tears on my cheeks.
I suddenly understand how terrified I have been for the past six months since Blake left. I knew I was angry, I knew I was disappointed, but I hadn’t allowed myself to face how truly scared I’ve been.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” James asks, looking up at me. He reaches out his napkin to dry my tears.
“Don’t worry. These are happy tears, honey. Don’t worry!”
My tears mix with laughter as I scoop him up into my arms and dance him around Suzie’s kitchen.
Chapter Ten
Armand
I haven’t seen Gwendolyn in two whole weeks, not since I left for what was supposed to be a long, fun weekend in New York City. I’m on my way to her now because I just can’t stand it anymore—I miss the poor kid something fierce! I also need to explain to her what Trey’s been cooking up, with me stewing right in the middle of the pot, making me the main course at his big old banquet.
Trey’s focus groups have done an about-face, not just about my face, but about my lisp, my walk, my hair, and everything else about me. They seem to think I’m delicious now—even better alone than I was with Gwendolyn. She’s been taking all the tabloid guff about our faking it. I don’t think that’s very fair… but then again, I was the mastermind chef, decorator, and gardener, and I have to admit it’s kind of nice that people are beginning to know it.
I just wish there could be a good guy without a fall guy! If I don’t get Gwendolyn’s blessing I might have to stop poking around in the ashes of our former empire with Trey. I hope she says I’m free to spread my wings and fly out like a phoenix. If she doesn’t, I don’t know what I’ll do.
My plane lands hard on the runway and I look out my little rectangle of window to see flat land for miles.
I didn’t realize anywhere on earth could be so blessed cold. The weather here is drizzle-nasty, and the sky’s so gray it almost matches my roots. Ugly billboards line the pot-holed pavement, and they only seem to point further into nowhere. I shouldn’t keep on complaining this way—my mama always said that saying mean things would sprout thorns from my tongue.
But is it mean to notice that the houses along this sad, flat highway look like dentist offices built in the 1970’s? They’re all single-storied and flat-roofed, like whimsy is a sin. Some have brick the color of blah, others wear bland beige siding in desperate need of a good old-fashioned power washing. Every car I see is dirty with age and road salt. The few patches of dead grass that show through the snow look like bald spots on the heads of sad old farmers with their pants pulled up to their armpits.
Only twenty minutes on the ground and I’m already depressed!
I follow the directions of my GPS toward Gwendolyn’s future home, where I said I’d meet her. I wish Gypsy, my dependable little electronic friend, had different voices that I could switch out, like Donald Duck, or Blake Shelton, or the Queen Mother. Maybe it does and I just don’t know how to work it. I make a few turns like I’m told, and either it’s starting to get prettier outside my window or I’m growing accustomed to how things appear under thick cloud cover. I snailpace through the cute downtown that hugs the river, past the Victorians in a respectable row that are looking tidy even in the dull weather, proving times aren’t so tough here that the treasures are being let go.
I speed up again once I’m out of the town limits. A few more miles and I turn down the street my Gypsy tells me to. The earth is very flat here, and besides the man-made buildings and haphazard landscaping, there’s not much to look at. The village I passed through had some history and charm to it, and I liked how it was snuggled up cozy with the river. I bet after a fresh layer of snowfall to hide the muddiness, it would make a sweet picture.
Contrast that to the subdivision I’m being led into now, like a modern-day Hansel minus the retro lederhosen. Hidden Pines looks like it isn’t comfortable with itself yet. The landscape plants haven’t grown into their full potential, and the gardens don’t seem to have been designed at all. The houses aren’t new enough to still be shiny, fresh, and innocent, but they’re not old enough to have earned themselves some character either. It’s not a place I’d ever choose to live, that’s for sure. I’ll have to trust that Gypsy is more reliable than breadcrumbs and will get me back to civilization okay.
Trey had suggested a suburban So Perfect house at first, but I’m allergic to subdivisions. Even the crazy expensive ones where each house sits on two acres with its own Tuscan style swimming pool out back, circular driveway out front, and pillars strewn everywhere make me break out in hives. The sameness, the blatantly trying so hard to fit in…
It brings to mind a garden I designed five years ago for a suburban woman named Jen. I thought Jen was funny and interesting, in the way that the first person you meet from an exotic country seems novel, carrying all the charm and newness of their type. I chuckled at the snide remarks she made about her life in the ’burbs, which were very witty in a Dorothy Parker sort of way. Jen was a forty-something woman of leisure who’d set aside her career to raise her kids then decided she’d never pick it back up again.
Jen acted like she was my gal pal while we worked together. She loved my designs, and bless her heart, she neve
r raised an over-plucked eyebrow at the costs. She kept telling me about a hairdresser friend of hers named Carl, saying he just couldn’t seem to find the right guy. It was clear she suspected I was gay, but I didn’t confirm or deny. Not everyone can be trusted, and I didn’t want to be Jen’s gay mascot or whatever it was she wanted me to be. I wish it were true that I’m out all the time and not just on a limited case-by-case basis, but it has never been that way for me.
Though I’m sure they’re everywhere, I had never met a woman like Jen before. Getting to know her was like how you feel when you first get a special car—it seems like you’re the only person who has it. But soon you start noticing them all over, and eventually you find yourself walking up to the wrong one at the supermarket.
One day I accepted Jen’s invitation to lunch with her friends. When we got to the table I couldn’t help myself, I let out a small gasp and bit my lip to stop a fit of giggles, the likes of which used to come over me in church and I’d always get whipped for afterwards. The three women sitting there all looked like Jen. A lot like Jen. I got myself under control and joined them in a midday glass of wine before we ordered. I felt like an undercover reporter, because I just had to know what in heaven’s name was going on with those ladies! Were they being mass-produced by some middle-aged executive with a straight blonde hair fetish, a penchant for Botox, and an obsession with suspiciously perky boobs?
One of the ladies said she’d just come from Carl’s, and they all gushed about him for a while, making it clear he was the stylist to all. I think the chitchat was for my benefit because it was about Carl’s love life and how he just had to find the right guy. I kind of wanted to meet this Carl then, to find out if he knew that four of his clients regularly hung out together, and to ask him if it wasn’t a professional ethics breach to give them all the same hair color and cuts.
It was soon clear that unless Carl listened to his iPod on maximum volume while he styled, he knew the women hung out, along with details about their neighbors, husbands, sex lives, mothers-in-law…you name it. I decided to cut the poor guy some slack about his ethical lapses, figuring he had to cope somehow.
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