Dana was impressed. “Do they even know you?”
“Well, we didn’t think they did. But I guess, you know, they’ve been there this whole time. Saw us fix up the Faux Chateau, and then the Sleeping Beauty.” Andy ate the last cookie, because he could see that Dana wanted it and that she would hate herself for eating it.
“Thank you for eating that,” she said. “Are you thinking it’s another rental property?”
“Well, ideally,” Victor said. “Because then a big chunk of the cost is covered. But it would have to be someone who’s okay with us being in the pool all the time.” Rory snorted. “Us and probably all our friends.”
“Probably,” Dana said. “We had a minute of thinking we could put a pool between the cottage and the house. But the logistics were like, oh my God.”
“They’re going to be bad enough if this comes off,” Andy said. “But we’re willing to tear that house down if we have to.”
A week later, while Andy and Victor were down in Escondido taking Victor’s father out to dinner, they got a text from their real-estate guy Elliott: House next door available. Sending email. Asking price based on recent comps plus two years estimated rental expense. Andy saw the message after they returned to their hotel at the beach. “Honey, looks like you might get your pool.”
Victor read the message over his shoulder. “Our pool. Open up the email?”
Andy got his tablet out, opened his email, and pulled up the message.
The number was on the high side, but they’d expected that. The proposed vacancy date was earlier than they’d expected. “We can afford it, right?”
“Oh, definitely. Especially if we get a tenant.” They brainstormed for a few minutes. Once the former owners were safely away, they could get an inspection and see if the house was salvageable at all. If so, they might need an architect to look at it to see if there was any possible way to make the thing less of an excrescence. “I guess that’s what we get for buying a castle,”
Victor said, smiling. “Now everything else has to live up to it.”
Andy was studying the street-view photograph Elliott had attached. “You can’t even really see the goddamned thing behind those fucking cedars. All
you can see is dingy beige stucco, and brown trim, and that shitty little excuse for a window. Is that a picture window behind the cedars?”
Victor squinted at it. “Could be.”
“I am so not a fan of brown asphalt shingles. It can’t possibly be two stories, can it?” The shape of the house was so obscured by overgrown trees, it was hard to tell. Neither of them had thought to take a picture from the back. All they had really been aware of was a desolate, empty, large yard in between a shabby fence at the alley side, and a row of arbor vitae up by the house. “You know, these people should be living in a condo, not a house.
They clearly are not gardeners.” Andy wasn’t either, but at least he cared how the outside looked. Their own backyard was very low-maintenance, designed for entertaining. The front was a shallow formal garden with turf bordered by lavender at the sidewalk edge, and white Iceberg roses up by the house. “If the front matched the cottage garden Paige is doing at the Sleeping Beauty, that could be cute.”
Victor made a sound of agreement. He was still thinking about how tall the property was (or wasn’t). “If it’s sound, maybe we could pop the roof.
Build up. Make it another duplex. The top unit could be our private guest house, for when friends are in town, and the bottom could be for the regular tenant.”
Andy was watching Victor think. You are so cute. “Remember how much it cost to re-do all the systems and shit at the triplex.”
“Yeah, I know. Let’s run this by Patrick and his team. If the studio picks up ‘Countdown 4,’ and if I get the same rate for that, it would be a wash.”
“If they pick it up based on your script,” Andy pointed out, “you’re going to get paid more. And I really don’t think they’d bring you back and not give you a raise. You got quite a bump from two to three, and not all of it was because of your story credit.”
“And I want it.” Victor was grinning. “I want that pool.”
“I want it too.” Andy laughed. He was so excited. “God that would be awesome. Maybe we could plant our own bamboo grove.”
When they put in an offer on the Faux Chateau there were a lot of hoops to jump through. They hadn’t been married then, for one thing. Then there was the Sleeping Beauty triplex, and by that time Victor had two of the
Countdown movies out. On this one, the banks and lawyers took about five minutes to say ‘okay.’ Andy couldn’t wait to tell somebody, so he texted Rory: We got the house
Cool!! How bad is it?
Andy almost wrote ‘we need explosives’ but settled for Salvageable. He expected her to reply with something snarky.
Instead she wrote Will you teach me to swim?
How do you not fucking know how to swim?! You grew up in San Diego!
Yeah okay but we didn’t have a pool and none of my friends did either Did you not swim in the ocean?
I got wet in the ocean. I did not swim
Andy was amazed that he never knew this. Honey you’re going to be the cutest little feathery mermaid when I get done with you. btw thanks again for dinner, we’ll experience the joy of bamboo some other time ROFLMAO
And incidentally you and Dana will be playing Tybalt and Romeo.
Govern yourselves accordingly
Uh what
I’ll send you the lines later. Besos y Abrazos chica Y lo mismo para ti. Andy disconnected, highly satisfied. He and Victor had combed
