Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Savannah…
Corbett Prescott was nothing short of incorrigible, and it was getting on my last fucking nerve!
I shot him a text back, noting that I was about to show a place and that there was nothing more to discuss.
That no, the current owners weren’t willing to go forward with the sale to his clients.
They wanted to ensure their property went to someone responsible when it came to the property’s historical husbandry.
His buyers had lost them, and the sale would not move forward. There honestly wasn’t more to discuss. Now kindly let me get on with my day… Jesus H. Christ, typical male, he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer!
I put my phone on silent, texted my assistant back, and told him where I was – the Habersham property. It was one of ours, so I wouldn’t have to deal with Corbett Prescott or any of his bullshit. It was just a question of whether Hal Lindstrom would like it.
His budget was very forgiving, but by the same token, he was looking for just himself. He didn’t want or need anything so grandiose as a five-bedroom, but he still wanted something historic, and that would allow him to live that Jim Williams, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil type fantasy.
I’d scoured listings and found something to start with that I thought might suit him.
It was a one-bedroom, two-bath home for just under a million in the heart of the historic district, just off Columbia Square near Colonial Park Cemetery.
There was plenty of fine dining and entertainment well within walking distance, however, it was on-street parking only.
Still, while unassuming from the front, its two stories had beautiful porches overlooking a small patio garden in the back with huge potential for elegant entertaining within its twelve-hundred-square-foot footprint, and it had once belonged to the prominent Lane family.
It checked more boxes than it didn’t where Hal was concerned.
I had gotten lucky and found parking on the street, right out front. I looked fondly at the 1995 Silver Jaguar XJS. It was the car my grandparents had bought the year I was born to celebrate their semi-retirement.
My grandfather had loved that car, and my parents had taken ownership of it after his death. It’d barely been driven, and upon my college graduation, it had been gifted to me, just as my grandmother’s watch had been gifted to me by her at my high school graduation.
I loved both so much and missed home with a fierce ache in my chest. But that ache was one that would have to be pushed down and ignored, as a sleek black Tesla pulled up and stopped in the middle of Habersham Street, essentially double parking beside my Jag and flipping on its emergency flashers.
Ah, Hal’s Uber is here, I noted, as the man himself climbed out of the back and let his gaze critically eye the property’s front. I stood on the small front porch, forcing a smile as he slowly closed the door and stepped behind my Jag and up onto the low curb.
His Uber pulled away just in time, as the person behind them looked like they were about to lay on their horn to get them moving.
“Savannah, good evening!” Hal called out from the sidewalk, and I could hear the trepidation in his voice.
“Good evening, Mr. Lindstrom! Come on inside. I know it doesn’t look like much from the street, but once you’re inside, I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” I laid my accent on thick as golden honey, and Hal didn’t bat an eye.
He came up the steps to the modest front stoop, and I pushed open the door to let him pass me into the cooler interior of the old Lane house.
“This is not…” he faltered, and cleared his throat as he passed into the living room, and I closed the door behind him.
“Oh, now, don’t you worry about a thing, honey.” I playfully patted his arm. “This is just the first of many properties I have to show you. This is just to get an idea. Now, I know it doesn’t look like much from the front, but just look at this, right here!”
As you entered the home, there was a hall that led directly into it – a living area off to the left with an upright piano against one wall and a modern working gas fireplace.
The home was full of big, beautiful, tall windows, allowing plenty of natural light, and the stark-white walls made it feel voluminous.
It had a quaint dining room and a modern kitchen, both open to the living room, but, more importantly, to the vast entertaining space of the lower back porch and the small back garden.
Hal didn’t like it, I could tell, but I pressed on with my bubbly routine of hyping up all the positives about the place. He was warming to parts of it. Even if he wasn’t sold on this particular property, I was taking notes and getting a sense of what he was after.
We stood in the kitchen, and I marked things on my legal pad, scribbling notes for myself as we discussed and he described more of what he had in mind.
One thing about real estate was that it wasn’t for the faint of heart. Clients you thought would be a dream could turn into a nightmare, and the ones you fully expected to be trouble could turn on a dime and be your dream client in disguise.
I was having trouble getting a read on Hal Lindstrom.
At times, he was pleasant, but at others, he was cold and very nearly unreadable.
By the end of this showing, I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was about him, but my woman’s intuition was subtly and cautiously peeking through with alarm in her eyes.
I ignored her, made it through the upstairs, and onto the top porch where I leaned a hip against the railing in the deepening gloom and asked, “So, final verdict… what do you think?”
“It is not what I am seeking,” he said and looked chagrined at having to make the rebuff.
I put my hand on his arm and said, “That’s alright, that’s alright! What did you like about it?” I asked, prepared to take as many notes as it took to get things right.
Too modern, is what it boiled down to. Too much paint. He wanted more wood trim and classic elegance. All things that I could and would work with.
For now, it was back to the drawing board, as they say.
We parted ways. I locked up, and once I was seated in my purring vintage Jag, I started to feel much better.
I headed home, which wasn’t likely what anyone would expect from me. As I was pulling into the small, detached garage on the property, my phone lit up and started to sing Cabaret at me. That could only be one person.
“Fabian,” I said warmly, dropping all pretense and fake accent.
“You alive, Savvy?” he asked me, and I chuckled.
“Oh, I’m alive, and as suspected, the Habersham property was an absolute no-go.”
“Lemme guess, Mr. Lindy has a real hard-on for the classic, antique-filled elegance a la the movies?”
I sighed and said, “Either hold on, or let me call you back. I just got home.”
“Girl, call me back when you’re comfy. You know I’ve got all night,” he declared, and I barked a laugh.
“Okay, gimme five,” I told him.
“Take ten,” he ordered.
I tsked and said, “You’re getting soft, you old Queen.”
He chuckled, and it was very contrived and mirthless. “I’ll get you later for that one.”
“Talk soon,” I said.
“Byyyyeee!”
I hit the red button to end the call and retrieved my phone from the magnetic mount it was stuck to.
I got out of the car and went to the back of the garage, pulling down the overhead door and pressing it until it latched.
The house I was at was a grand old Victorian outside of the city, near the river, but I didn’t live in the big house.
No, I lived in the tired, old, worn-down carriage house next to the garage.
It looked like a shed, really, and was a far cry from the expensive and lush properties that I hawked all day long.
But I wasn’t here for any other reason than it was cheap – allowing every last red cent of commission I earned to go right back into what I truly loved back home.
I went around and unlocked the door under the sagging roof of the old porch that had seen better days.
It was a world of difference on the inside versus the outside. While the teal-green paint on the clapboard siding, which sagged with rot on the outside, peeled and bubbled, the inside of this place was a pristine oasis.
I pulled my sensible kitten heels off and opened the closet door by the front door, putting them on the rack inside.
I set my keys in the bowl on the entry table across from the closet and took my phone and my folio with its notes and such with me into the first doorway on the right that led to my little kitchenette.
I set things on the one sparse bit of counter space next to the stove and opened the fridge to pull out my chilled wine and pour myself a glass.
Three sips later, I was unwinding and taking everything into the small but cozy living room.
The fireplace didn’t work anymore, but that hadn’t stopped me from making it the centerpiece of the room, anyway.
I had put a small space heater with a fireplace effect into it and had sealed off the chimney by taking a board backed with insulation and stuffing it up into the fireplace, holding it in place with spray foam – you couldn’t see any of that mess from in here – but it did the job, sealing out the damp and the draft.
With just a flick of the switch on the side of the small heating unit, the glow effect of the false fire made this little house feel like a home.
I had done a majority of the restoration of the inside of this place myself. My dad had come to help me with some of the tougher stuff, such as tiling the bathroom and fixing some of the plumbing.
Did I ask permission to alter the interior of this dump? No, but I had made it livable on the cheap and had probably raised the property value considerably for the slumlord I rented it from.
Not that the curmudgeonly old fool would ever know. It’s not like he ever came to inspect or to fix anything.
I dropped onto my Wayfair-purchased, cream, boneless couch and sighed with relief, setting my glass onto the glass-topped rescue French Provincial coffee table I’d stolen off the curb up the street.
I had spent a weekend restoring, sanding, puttying, sanding some more, and painting until it looked like a piece out of Home & Garden Magazine, all for the cost of some masking tape, primer, and a crackle-effect spray paint.
I pulled my dusky rose faux chenille throw over my lap and set my laptop onto it next.
I dialed back Fabian, and he asked me, “You drinking your dinner?” by way of greeting.
“You know I am.” I rolled my eyes, and he chuckled.
“I’ve trained you well – so, what did you learn?”
“I have a much longer list of what he hates than what he likes,” I told him.
“Typical,” he said, and I could hear his mouse clicking on the other end of the line. “Let’s have it.”
And that was how we spent another fun-filled Tuesday evening – looking through listings online and coming up with a short list of properties to email to Hal Lindstrom in the morning.
It was the Savvy Savannah way, after all.