14
Terri got
up early that morning, like most mornings. Breakfasts, lunches, a quick hard
run on the treadmill. An hour going over her listings, answering emails,
double-checking her tours for the day. The old Kelly place had received 18
offers, with the winning bid $300,000 over asking. The world had gone mad, and
for maybe the first time in her life, that seemed to be working out in her
favor.
Her phone
reminded her to wake the boys up at 7, but they’d already been up for 15
minutes by then, they had crashed into the kitchen, shoving and screaming and
laughing, and she set aside her work and grabbed them both in a group
tickle-hug.
They were
so happy. She was happy, too, as long as she was wrapped up in them, it was
impossible not to be. They could make happiness out of nothing, out of a
garbled word, out of a break in the clouds, out of a song on a commercial. The
whole world just seemed to wait in line for a turn to delight them.
Cooper
had it a little less. He was intense, his blood sugar ran on a hair trigger, he
needed a snack and whole milk before the sleep was even out of his eyes, or
there’d be hell to pay over nothing later, a crooked line in a drawing or a
bent piece of paper could send him screaming to the floor. But she knew him,
she could feel his equilibrium from a mile away, and it was just one of the
things she always had a handle on.
Spence
was three, and usually acted like it, but he had a heart a mile wide, like
Scott. She tried to set a good example, and she could have taken credit for it,
but she loved the idea that it was all Scott, just that innate character of him
shining through in Spence’s face. It kept him with her.
After the
usual blur, the boys were dressed and off to school and preschool, and Terri
hurried over to her first house. She had put it first on purpose.
She took
the Front Street bridge over to Southside, then wound her way up Montrose
Turnpike. She’d driven it a thousand times. She hadn’t driven it in years.
A Cape
Cod, like most of the homes in the area, but big, two stories with a basement,
white. Four acres of undeveloped woods sprawling out behind it. She’d buried a
rabbit out there. They’d buried it, held a funeral for it, she’d sung Amazing Grace and felt stupid for it
now, now that she had two children, to have been so upset over a pet. But she’d
been devastated. They both had been. He probably still was. He probably had a
picture of the rabbit in his wallet. It was probably the closest he’d ever felt
to a real loss.
Her hands
ached. She’d been squeezing her steering wheel to its death, thinking about
those days, and what came after, and if she let herself she’d wander further
still; to Scott, to the happiness she’d built with him, and there, in that
space, the little twinges of vengeance she’d felt. This is what you could have had. This is what we could have been, and
you’ll never have anything close to it.
Then it
was gone. Scott was gone. And some part of her pointed and snarled: “This is
what you get for gloating. This is what you get.”
She knew
it wasn’t right. She knew Spence, the boys, the things that had happened, they
weren’t some sort of plot device in her life, every element in the universe
orbiting her, waiting for their cue to enter and exit her stage. She knew it
but she didn’t feel it. This was her payback.
Stop it.
She
would. She had a job to do, she had to go sell chunks of her home out from
under her friends (stop it), she had
to betray her town and everyone living in it.
You have to stop.
She
couldn’t, so she got out of the car, threw herself into what had to be done.
Assumed the smile, assumed the posture. She couldn’t stop it, but she could smother
it under routine for a while.
She
didn’t know the woman in front of the Kelly home. The woman had requested her
specifically but she had no idea why. All she knew was her name, Wendy, and
that she was from out of town. How she got here, how she qualified to buy, she
had no idea.
She was
tall, rail thin and wiry, pretty but not that pretty, and she had a frown that
clearly never left her face. She looked evil, but like she thought she was good
at hiding it. And she knew already that she had no interest in the house. She
never even glanced at it.
The
woman, Wendy, stepped forward, hand extended, like she was the one trying to
sell something. Terri felt an urge to run, the way a rabbit feels the stalking
creep of a fox deep in its legs, but she’d spent the morning angry at her self,
loathing herself, and her anger, eager for a new nest, sensed a home in this
person. Whatever she wanted, Terri was ready to fight her. So when Wendy got
close enough to shake hands, Terri, who had been raised to be kind, to be
charitable, to be nice, looked at the hand, looked back up, and said: “What do
you want?”
It
cracked the air like thunder, and Terri’s mind spun, disbelieving what had just
happened. What are you doing?
“Um, ha
ha, hello? That’s a strange way to greet someone. My god.”
“I’m not
greeting you. I’m asking you what you want.”
Terri
could feel her knees shaking, and she didn’t fight it. She was angry. She was
beyond angry. She was pissed. She had no proof, no substantial reason to think
this woman wasn’t just another customer, but she knew, she could smell it, and
she was committed. Even if she was wrong, even if this would cost her a commission,
she was committed. There was something vile about this woman. It was seeping
out of her.
And then,
the woman shifted. Her innocent act sloughed off of her like a snake skin. The smile
was gone. She seemed to get bigger, somehow. This was the real her.
“So, I’m
not sure what you’ve heard, Terri, but we don’t need to be enemies.”
Terri didn’t
say anything. She stared back, up at the taller woman, no idea what to say or
do. Her gut had been right, but she had no idea who this woman really was, or
what she wanted. She wanted to go back, reset, grab onto that rapidly receding
moment before she went on the attack. She had stumbled out of her element,
hugely.
“How
about, we reset?” continued Wendy. “I’ll take you to lunch. My treat. No
bullshit this time. I mean, I get it now. I do. I thought this would be a good
way to get to know you, but it wasn’t genuine. I’m sorry.”
Another
act, an act of contrition, literally. But whatever the hell this woman was,
Terri needed to know. She nodded.
“Great!
And again, I’m sorry about this. My fault. Completely my fault. I’ll be in
touch.”
The woman
walked away, leaving Terri by herself on the front steps of the house. She
waited until Wendy’s car was out of sight before she wobbled to the steps to
sit down.
