Chapter 11
It took a little cajoling to get Wren in the car, but the promise of hitting the Wendy’s drive-through on the way home proved to be enough convincing. (Though Arthur almost lost her when he suggested they stop off for toilet paper, dish soap, and bread on the way to the showing.)
Yes, he had scoured the listings, filtering out all the homes out of their price range and leaving behind a paltry, depressing selection.
Horrifically outdated homes with visible water damage, total teardowns, and properties that warned of the gruesome crimes that had once been committed there. That was all that was left.
But there was one. Just one. And it was beautiful.
Just the picture-perfect neighborhood. Gorgeous cream-white siding, old-fashioned country-style shutters, big windows, a front porch big enough for a rocking chair.
The inside was even better—gorgeous hardwoods, an open floor plan, an adorable kitchen that reminded him so much of the one he grew up in, down to the high-top table in the corner where he’d eat his mom’s homemade waffles every Saturday morning.
If they moved quickly, they might just swipe this one out from under the noses of all the other young families looking. Maybe they could snatch it up before the sellers realized it was horrendously underpriced.
The drive over to see the Needle—that’s what he’d been calling it, as in “the needle in a haystack”—was almost too perfect. Sunny and warm with a breeze to break the heat. A few clouds in the sky, but the pretty kind—fluffy and playful.
Their apartment was on the very outer edge of the city, in the no-man’s-land between urban and suburban. A land of bleak strip malls and busy “stroads”—that’s half street, half road—clogged up with gas stations and fast-food joints and unsightly power lines.
As they drove out farther into the suburbs, everything started to feel brighter, more open.
The sky bluer, the air coming in through their open windows cleaner.
They passed an adorable little elementary school, too cute to even believe.
A hand-painted mural on one of the walls outside.
A state-of-the-art playground with roller-coaster-like contraptions made of lime-green steel, seven different styles of swings, and full tunnel slides. And…was that a splash pad?
“How did it go at the doctor this morning?” he remembered to ask. “Everything OK?”
“Hunky-dory,” Wren said, shooting him a thumbs-up.
Within a mile or so of the house, there was a shopping center with everything they could possibly need.
A Target, a Starbucks—plus another Starbucks inside the Target—a grocery store, a lovely little boutique wine shop, and a couple of chain restaurants and ice cream shops.
If they lived here, they’d never need to go far.
It reminded Arthur of his neighborhood when he was growing up, which, coincidentally, wasn’t far away.
Before he even saw the house, it felt like home.
They turned onto the street in question. Like a perfectly composed photograph, each opposite sidewalk was lined with great, broad trees, branches forming a makeshift archway over the road, which was called Cherry Blossom Way.
“Would you look at this neighborhood? Gorgeous,” Arthur said, gawking out the driver’s-side window.
“Wonder what it’s like at rush hour. Lot of through traffic, I bet. Maniacs speeding by, mowing down innocent children. Would it kill them to add a few speed bumps?” Wren quipped, holding tightly to Ferdinand, whom she’d brought along for the ride, his tongue flapping in the breeze.
Arthur rolled his eyes. “You said you’d have an open mind. I really think if you give it a chance, you’ll see how great it could be to live somewhere like this.”
That had taken some convincing, too. But Wren had said she’d try to see it his way.
“This is me having an open mind. But I’m a safety nut, you know that. Can’t turn it off.”
“OK.” He laughed.
They pulled into the driveway next to another car and hopped out. The house matched the pictures, which was a good sign. It was in terrific shape, smaller than he expected, but infinitely more charming. The perfect size for their family.
“Spacious driveway,” Arthur noted. “Big enough if we decide to upgrade to a minivan.”
“Crack,” Wren said, pointing one out. “Crack, crack, crack.”
She kept jabbing her finger at little hairline fractures in the cement.
“Just cracks,” he reassured her.
“Yeah, for now. But this thing is a ticking time bomb. Could be on top of a sinkhole for all we know!”
“I really doubt it.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you when the ground collapses one day and we end up in China.”
“It doesn’t work like that; that’s a myth.”
“I’m just saying I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way.”
Linda Kellerman, teeth somehow even whiter than the last time they saw her, greeted them with something resembling a smile.
“Doctor,” she said cheekily when she saw him.
Arthur turned red. His phone call to her apologizing, coming clean, and begging her to keep working with them had not been a fun one.
But business must have just been slow enough, because eventually, after a long lecture on professionalism and respect, she agreed.
She threw him a wink and then began walking them around the property.
“Three-quarters of an acre,” she said. “Really a great lot. Fenced-in yard, as you can see. Flat. A lot of room for a pool, maybe a play set or a fire pit or whatever you can dream up! Personally I think a hardscape with a brick pizza oven would be a lot of fun.”
“A brick pizza oven?” Wren said, aghast. “Sounds like a death trap to me.”
“We love the fenced-in yard. Don’t we, Ferdie?” Arthur cut her off, gave Ferdinand, whom Wren was carrying, a little chin scratch.
The agent smiled and continued.
“Did you just baby talk Ferdie?” Wren whispered.
“I’m just trying to look like a respectable, dog-loving suburban homeowner. It would be super awesome if you’d do the same. Speaking of which, would it have killed you to adopt a golden retriever like a normal person?”
They sped up, caught up with the Realtor, who spun around jovially to face them.
“So, what do you think?” she said.
“It’s stunning,” Arthur said. He truly didn’t get it, didn’t see how this all added up.
Why was this place so, well, cheap? Dirt cheap compared to the competition.
The mortgage would be tight, but the prequalification he got online said they could hypothetically afford it, and hypothetically was good enough for him.
Even better if Linda Kellerman could live up to her name tag and Get Them a Great Deal—and how had it not been scooped up already?
“We’d love to see the inside, obviously. ”
The agent cocked her head, confused. “Not much to see,” she said. “But why not?”
Wren shot Arthur a look of concern, which he deflected with an It’s all good smile. The inside was probably flawless as well. As crisp and bright as the photos, with Glade PlugIns pumping mouthwatering scents throughout. Just a formality to give it a once-over.
They looped back around to the front porch, climbed the wooden steps, and approached the door. Linda fiddled with the lockbox on the door handle and removed the key.
“Can I ask”—Arthur finally gave in—“what’s the deal with this place? The asking price is shockingly—”
The agent swung the door open, and Arthur immediately had his answer.
“Low.”
That’s because, he realized, there was no house.
Just a beautiful exterior facade. The inside was completely empty, barren.
Wooden boards framing out the spaces where, theoretically, there might one day be rooms. Raw subflooring where there should be planks of gorgeous hardwood.
Exposed pipes poking out waiting to be attached to a toilet or farmhouse sink.
“Be still my heart,” Wren cooed. “Someone call Country Living.”
The Realtor ignored her and read Arthur’s face.
“As you can see, bit of a fixer-upper. It was a new build and the previous owners ran out of money midway. But, gosh, can’t you just see the potential?”
Back in the car, Arthur waved and smiled as Linda backed out and drove away, then laid his head down on the steering wheel.
“Is it weird that I like it more now?” Wren joked. “Place is fucking metal. Like something out of the Saw movies.”
“Don’t even joke about those.”
He’d watched one with Wren begrudgingly, just the once, and had nightmares about it for weeks. And besides, he wasn’t in the mood. She reached over and rubbed his back.
“Hey, it’s OK. This one wasn’t meant to be.”
“I can’t believe the photos were all AI fakes.” He was fuming. Sure, it had said as much in the fine print at the very bottom of the listing, that the AI-generated interior photos were simply there to illustrate the home’s possibilities. But he felt duped, and furious.
“The upstairs bathroom having three toilets didn’t tip you off?”
“I just thought whoever built it really loved pooping.”
“We’ll keep looking,” she reassured him.
“There’s nothing else. They’re all like this. It’s either a shithole death trap or it costs half a million dollars.”
Wren didn’t have an answer for that one.
“I just feel stupid,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because. I’m a public school teacher. We’ve had to fight and scratch and claw just to be sort of not broke. Like, of course I don’t belong here, in a neighborhood like this. What was I thinking?”
Arthur winced at his own words. He had grown up in a neighborhood like this. Of course, then it wasn’t a place for elites with generational wealth. It was just a neighborhood where normal families lived. But still, how was it possible that he was actually going backward in his life?
He lifted his head up, caught sight in the mirror of an impression of the steering wheel pressed into his forehead. “Great.”
“You know what?” Wren said. “Fuck ’em. We don’t need ’em.”
“We have to live somewhere.”