agitated. So these days I brought only myself and sometimes some laundry, and the three of us sat in the dining room eating meals that had already started to seem old-fashioned to me: meat loaf and mashed potatoes, shepherd’s pie. I always planned to leave on Sunday after church (with no discussion, I had begun attending again after my father’s funeral, though it was for my mother’s sake, and I never went on the weekends I remained in Madison), but then thinking of saying goodbye, picturing them sitting in the living room that evening, my mother needlepointing in front of
and my grandmother reading, always made me far too sad and I ended up staying a second night, sleeping again in my old bed. The next morning, if it was during the school year, I’d have to take off around six o’clock to get back to Madison and change clothes before work. Interstate 94 would be dark and mostly empty, me and a bunch of eighteen-wheelers.
It was, I suppose, for all these reasons that I had not started looking for a house to buy until the summer of 1977. My realtor turned out to be a woman named Nadine Patora who was lively, zaftig, and over a decade my senior. Given the modesty of the houses I was considering—I’d pay forty thousand dollars at the absolute most— she treated me with more patience than I had any right to expect. By early July, we’d looked at more than thirty places, and there was only one I’d seriously considered, a little brick one-story in the Nakoma neighborhood, but after thinking it over for a few days, I hadn’t made a bid. I wanted a house I really loved, one I’d be happy to stay in forever and sink endless energy into, rather than one that was merely adequate. Otherwise, why not keep renting? “I bet you’re just as picky with men,” Nadine said, smiling mischievously as we drove one Sunday afternoon to an open house.
I laughed. “I guess that would explain why I’m still single.”
“No, it’s good.” Nadine leaned over and patted my knee. She was divorced, with two teenage daughters. “Take it from someone who settled for the first thing that came down the pike.”
Most of the houses we looked at sounded quite appealing in the MLS listings Nadine showed me, but I’d know from the minute I stepped into them, and sometimes from the outside, that they weren’t right: The windows were too small, or the kitchen cabinets depressed me, or a sour smell hung in the rooms, and I didn’t want to run the risk of assuming it would vanish along with the current owner. And so when Nadine called me the Thursday after the Fourth of July and said, “I’ve found your new home,” I honestly didn’t believe her.
It was a two-bedroom bungalow on a street called McKinley, not quite as pretty as where I lived presently, but it was unlikely I could afford to buy in my current neighborhood. And McKinley did have a pleasant energy, I thought as soon as Nadine and I turned on to it, passing a man walking a dog, two children in bathing suits darting through a sprinkler. The house we parked in front of was white-shingled with a narrow porch and, as I saw when we went inside, a living room that had window seats, and a kitchen that was small and old-fashioned but very light. Even before I consciously thought I might like to live in it, I found myself imagining where I’d place various pieces of furniture, wondering whether my round breakfast table would fit in the kitchen, or which wall I’d put my headboard against in the master bedroom upstairs. The house was empty—there was a convoluted story I half listened to Nadine tell about the owner having moved to Tennessee six months before but putting the house on the market only this week. I peeked behind the shower curtain and opened all the closets; I walked down to the basement. The clincher was a little oak cabinet in the second-floor hallway, shoulder-high, with a clasp that you turned shut. It was about the size of a medicine cabinet you’d find behind a bathroom mirror but slightly deeper—too small to keep linens or cleaning supplies or anything truly practical. It seemed a place to store love letters, secret charms or trinkets.
Back in Nadine’s car, I said, “I want it.”
“Aren’t we decisive all of a sudden.”
“You were right,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
“All right, then.” Nadine seemed amused. “If you’re sure you wouldn’t like to sleep on it first, how much are you offering?”
The asking price was thirty-eight thousand, four hundred. “Thirty-seven?” I said uncertainly.
She shook her head. “Thirty-two. You’ll go up, he’ll come down, you’ll meet in the middle.” She glanced at her watch—it was a little before five on Thursday afternoon. “You want to give him twenty-four hours?”
“Are we allowed to make him decide that quickly?”
“If you’d rather, we can say forty-eight.”
“No, twenty-four would be great. I just don’t want to be pushy.” In fact, twenty-four hours was preferable; I was driving to Riley on Saturday, and I strongly wished to avoid being on the phone with Nadine in front of my mother or grandmother. I hadn’t told them I was hoping to buy a place because I was afraid my mother would try to give me money, which I doubted she could afford after my father’s death. My plan was to tell them when it was all finished, when rather than just mentioning the possibility, I could invite them to Madison, show them the actual house, and call it mine. The three of us would sit on the front porch drinking lemonade, I thought—well, assuming I bought some outdoor chairs.
“Pushy, my fanny!” Nadine was saying. “You’re offering this man money. Now, the likelihood is that negotiations
go through the weekend, but I’ll see what I can do.” She punched my shoulder lightly. “Kind of exciting, huh? Cross your fingers, babycakes.”
THAT NIGHT, ABOUT
twenty minutes after I’d turned out the light for bed, the phone rang, and I thought immediately that it might be Nadine, with an answer already, but when I picked up the receiver, a far more familiar female voice said, “Don’t you dare think of skipping the Hickens’ barbecue.”
“Dena, I thought you had a date tonight, or I’d have called to tell you I made an offer on a house.”
“You finally found one that meets your exacting standards? Hot damn—let’s go see it!”
“Not now,” I said quickly. “We’d be arrested for prowling.” By this point, I was seated at the kitchen table—the kitchen was where I kept my phone—wearing my white sleeveless nightgown. I’d been sleeping in the living room pretty much since school had let out in June. It was not yet ten-thirty, I noted on the wall clock, which meant I really couldn’t scold Dena for calling late. She already mocked my early bedtime, and my usual defense—that I had to get up in the morning to be at school—wouldn’t cut it, given that it was summer. “It’s on McKinley Street,” I said.
