Perfect Nightmare

“There’s a rooftop garden,” she heard the agent tell Steve. “I won’t pretend it has the best view, but it’s quite charming.”

Kara caught Steve’s eye, and they nodded at each other. So far, so good.

Then they came to the kitchen. It was barely big enough for one person to maneuver in, the stove had only two burners, and the tiny countertops were covered with Formica in a particularly ugly shade of brown. It was nothing like the enormous, custom-designed kitchen with granite countertops that Kara had lived with so long that she’d almost forgotten there was anything else. Now the ugly truth hit her.

You can get used to it, she told herself. But even if she could adapt to the size, she knew the kitchen would still need a complete remodeling.

A remodeling they’d never be able to afford if they bought the place.

So she’d just have to get used to it, she decided, hustling Lindsay down the hall, hoping her daughter hadn’t noticed quite how bad the kitchen was. “Let’s take a look at the bedrooms.”

The master bedroom seemed almost as small as the kitchen, but at least it had windows. On the other hand, the windows faced another building, which was barely ten feet away. If the neighbors hadn’t had their shades drawn, Kara realized, she would be looking directly at them and see whatever they were doing.

And they could look back, which meant she’d have to keep her shades drawn, too.

The master bath looked like it belonged in an old motel.

A cheap old motel.

It’s the city, she reminded herself. This is how people live here. Modern plumbing is not an option.

“Two blocks to Central Park,” the agent was saying as she and Steve followed Kara and Lindsay into the bedroom end of the apartment.

“Hear that?” Steve said to Lindsay. He turned back to Rita Goldman. “What about the schools?”

Lindsay, obviously uninterested, wandered away, and Kara followed her into the other bedroom.

Small.

Tiny closet.

Saying nothing, Lindsay turned, walked out of the bedroom and headed for the front door. Kara, Steve, and Rita Goldman followed. As they left the apartment and moved toward the elevator, no one said anything at all. The silence stretched until the elevator arrived, its door slid open, and they all entered.

As the elevator started down, Kara finally spoke. “Nice light in the living room. I love those big windows.”

“Maybe we should have gone up to see the rooftop garden,” Rita Goldman suggested. “Shall we do that?”

Kara glanced at Lindsay and read her daughter’s feelings. “I don’t think we need to,” she said. “I don’t really think this is what we’re looking for.”

The Realtor nodded, her lips pursed, and no one spoke until they were back on the sidewalk. “I’m sure you’ll all love the next one,” she said, smiling just a little too reassuringly.

But even before she’d finished speaking, Kara saw the expression on Lindsay’s face and knew that one of them, at least, would not love anything that Rita Goldman had to show.

And Kara knew there would be nothing she could do about it. Suddenly she felt like crying.

Chapter Six

Sunday morning is when the big edition of the New York Times comes out.

Which is why Sunday morning is my favorite time to wake up.

I know Sunday is a lot of people’s favorite day, and I know that for a lot of them, it is also because of the paper. But for most of the others, the paper is loved because of the Arts section, or the book reviews or the sports or the editorials.

I love it because it lists the addresses of open houses.

And every open house presents me with a possibility.

An exciting possibility.

Today there were two new listings in the real estate section. I circled each of them with my red felt pen, then located them on my map.

Finding them on the map is especially exciting, because it gives me clues as to the kind of people who live in the houses. Today, both the houses seemed to give promise of the kind of girl I’m looking for, and since they are both convenient, I was at first tempted to visit both of them.

I began my very meticulous routine.

First, I plot my route. In the event I decide to actually go visiting today, I shall rent a car from an agency in Port Jefferson. Perhaps some kind of Chevrolet — the sort of car one sees by the dozens every day but never notices.

Exactly the sort of car I like best for my outings.

Then I plan the route I shall take from the car rental agency to the first house, then to the other, and then back to the agency, always using the busiest — and the most anonymous — roads. Most of the looky-loos (a term I deeply despise) show up in the middle of open house hours, so I shall time my trip to slip in when the houses will be at their fullest.

After all, it doesn’t take me long to find out whether I’ve found the home of the girl for whom I search…

And no one will notice me at all.

I reread the ads, studying them carefully. The first house had four bedrooms. That’s a good sign, but its listing agent turns out to be one of those vile, pushy women who darts from room to room keeping track of everyone, babbling inanely, and insisting that everybody sign her book. The last time I saw her, she talked about interest rates and market conditions until I wished I’d never awakened that morning. Now I try to avoid her, but I’m not sure I can today.

After all, the house has four bedrooms, and chances are strong that one of those bedrooms belongs to a girl, although there is no virtual tour of that house on the Internet.

The other house is smaller, but is listed by an agent who is lazy and invariably spends most of his workday smoking on the front porch or the back steps, or the terrace if the house has one, smoking cigarettes and letting the prospective purchasers wander through by themselves.

I shall certainly go see this one.

After all, one never knows what surprises await just around a blind corner.

Still, neither of these listings gave me a shiver of anticipation like the one I saw on the Internet a few days ago.

I just have a feeling about that one.

After plotting my route and planning my day, I doodled on the newspaper with my red felt-tip pen, circling the two ads over and over again. Oddly, the circles around the open houses seemed to turn into eyes.

Two big red eyes that reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember what.

Underneath the eyes, I drew a mouth.

A big, red, smiling mouth under the big, red eyes.

It was absurd, I know, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop. The larger and more grotesque they got, the more they made me smile.

Perhaps I won’t go out at all today.

Perhaps I’ll just spend the day dreaming.

Still, the open houses call me. Oh, I do love Sundays!

Chapter Seven