Lookie-Loo
Lookie-Loo
2019
A very reaches into her bag for the iPad, then pauses. She really needs to stop doing this at bedtime. She has read the blogs. She knows the risks. Blue light and electromagnetic radiation. The ways they can mess with a person’s eyes, and sleep cycle, and cardiac rhythm. Avery makes a concerted effort to avoid using smartphones and other electronics once she has climbed into bed for the night, and she leaves them a few feet away, not right next to her on the nightstand. But this has been, objectively speaking, a very shitty day, and Avery needs this. She pushes her hand back into her purse and pulls out the tablet.
Avery presses the button at the top of the iPad until the screen lights up. She has earned this. She has been diplomatic and patient. Avery is nothing if not the picture of diplomacy. How many other women would have handled this situation as well as she has? After encountering Ebony Freeman unexpectedly at the start of what should have been a romantic village getaway for Avery and Henry (not Avery and Henry and Henry’s ex), Avery had understood that she needed to take Henry for a walk as soon as possible. So she took him away from the cottage. And Ebony.
All day, she kept the tone of her voice light and even. She accentuated the positive, treating their unexpected encounter with Ebony, though unfortunate, as only a temporary setback and not what it was starting to feel like to Avery: the crumbling of the dream vacation that she had spent so much time planning.
“Well, that was embarrassing,” Henry said with a low bark of laughter as they walked through the village. Avery didn’t want to talk about it right then, but the fact that Henry had finally said something about what had just happened was a good sign. It was better than doing what he’d done initially, simply pulling luggage into the cottage with that synthetic smile on his face, washing his hands noisily in the bathroom basin, and taking out his camera to fiddle with the lenses as if nothing had happened. Avery dreaded the idea that Henry was having thoughts he might have to keep to himself.
Avery’s next step is to book another place to stay by tomorrow afternoon. She looks over at Henry, his face partially hidden by the plump pillow, his breathing growing heavier and slower. It’s midnight already. She and Henry spent an hour of what should have been lovemaking time swiping away at the tablet, looking for accommodations within a two-hour drive.
More precisely, Avery was the one who spent an hour curled up on the sofa in her frastaglio-trimmed La Perla nightdress and robe, peering at the screen and reading descriptions to Henry, while Henry said sure, sure to whatever she read out loud. She had waited for him to come over to the sofa, take the tablet out of her hands, and pull her into bed. But he hadn’t. Then he dozed off. After making her way over to the bed on her own, Avery couldn’t sleep. Which is why she is back to looking at the tablet. Only she’s no longer looking at vacation rentals.
Avery is doing what Avery does when she is stressed and too distracted to read a book or article. She is looking at properties for sale. But she isn’t planning to buy anything. She’s being a lookie-loo. There’s no other way to put it. Back in Connecticut, Avery likes to take note of the addresses with signs out front that advertise weekend open houses and stop by on her way back from putting in extra hours at the office. And whenever she travels, she goes online to search the real estate listings.
Avery attaches the portable keyboard to the iPad, now, and perches iton her book on French chateaux. She types in the search term annonces immobilières . Where should she look tonight? So many choices. She moves the cursor and feels her heart rate step up as photos, prices, and property descriptions fill the screen. Versailles. Nineteenth-century mansion. Twelve rooms. 400 square meters.
The home has custard-colored walls with white moldings. And look at those floors! There are wooden floors in the hallways and the bedrooms that look like originals and give off that warm feeling that comes with polished oak. Then there is sleek, gray stone flooring extending from the kitchen into the dining area. En suite bathrooms. Study. Cellar. Garage. Avery releases her breath slowly as a sense of satisfaction flows over her. She switches her search parameters, now, to the south. She is looking at a two-bedroom apartment in Nice. Art Deco building. Open-plan kitchen. Plenty of natural light. Harbor view.
Avery could argue that scanning the real estate ads is a great way to get a sense of economic and social trends in a city or region, or that it’s an interesting way to get a sneak preview of an area she’d like to visit. But the truth is, Avery simply loves reading the housing classifieds. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a historic villa in Aquitaine in need of a major overhaul, a sleek, ready-to-move-in apartment in Bordeaux with minimalist furnishings, a comfortable-looking rural bungalow in Brittany with a garden and swimming pool, or one of those ridiculously tiny apartments in the centre ville of Paris that are barely big enough for a sleep and a pee. This is Avery’s favorite way to daydream.
In every case, Avery can imagine walking into a space with an architect and drawing up a refurbishment plan, or walking over to the window to take in the view, or flipping a wall switch to fill a darkened room with an ivory glow. She sees herself taking off her heels and leaving them near the door, shuffling over to the largest, softest piece of furniture in the house, and letting her body fall back into a place where she can feel comfortable and safe and happily foreign. A place where she is so unknown to those around her that no one has any expectations of her. Where no one would think that she is being any more or less herself when she is simply being Avery.
Sometimes, Avery imagines she is holding an infant in her arms or pulling herself off a couch to chase after a toddler. Listening to psychology podcasts or books on her AirPods as she navigates the house. Taking calls from legal clients in the afternoon. Billing for way fewer hours than she does right now. But always, she is in someone else’s home, someone else’s living room, on a sofa that she has seen in the housing classifieds or an issue of Architectural Digest . In a place that is somewhere else. Anywhere else.
She clicks, now, on the image of an old farmhouse with stone walls. Great potential , reads the ad . In need of a little TLC. Avery feels like the ad could be talking about her. There are other people like her. She has seen more reports, lately, about people who recognize that being productive doesn’t have to mean going flat out, two hundred percent. But the people who are beginning to embrace this approach to work tend to be older. They have fully developed careers and home lives. Avery is still on the uphill climb toward both.
Avery looks over at Henry, sputtering slightly in his sleep. Henry, who can sleep so soundly next to her even when the woman he ghosted, less than a year ago, is just next door. She feels a tinge of irritation. What is that like, she wonders, to go through life being Henry?