Authors: Jane Smiley
Gordon said, “Last year I was down in North Carolina, where they have those famous courses. Pinehurst. You been down there? They’ve got seven courses. Anyway, the locals play for twenty bucks a round and the tourists play for a hundred.”
At last, a response. All five of the commissioners smiled. Gordon continued.
“When they get a famous golf tournament in there, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars for the local economy. Joe?”
“I think some form of /files/21/10/85/f211085/public/private mix would work best in this situation.” I cleared my throat again. “You’ll notice that we’ve asked for acre-and-a-half lots, though in this township, lots are three acres. This is because we don’t want to break up the grounds. Theoretically, we could put one hundred ninety-two houses on the five-hundred-and-eighty-acre property without asking for a zoning variance, but”—I cleared my throat again and paused for a moment—“our real interest is in making sure that the community has a say in what we do, and, let’s say, agrees with what we do, because, of course, Salt Key Farm is and always has been an asset belonging to the whole community”—how was that again? I thought to myself; the only people around here that Mrs. Thorpe knew were her house servants and her stable hands—“so we would like to cluster the houses together on smaller lots, leaving plenty of open space—some cultivated, some in pasture, and some for—ah, wildlife. The Salt Key community aims to maintain the historic values of the farm, while adding to them by making the farm more accessible and useful to the general region.”
The commissioners stared down at the plans again, passing them back and forth and turning pages. Behind me, Gottfried shifted position and crossed his legs the other way, then pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose. The commissioners looked at him. I stood quietly, waiting for more questions. One of the commissioners who hadn’t yet spoken said in a quiet voice, “I see you got a waste-treatment plant here. Does that creek run all year around?”
Behind me, Marcus stood up, and in a moment he was beside me. He said, “I’d like to answer the questions about septic, waste treatment, water, all of that. We expect to have a modular state-of-the-art plant, expandable at any time that we need more capacity. We expect to set a new standard for environmental protection in this area. Now I think my friend Mr. Lovell’s dilemma illustrates some interesting features of the world of the future. Ms. Saylor, who unfortunately left during the break, came into the region from outside—what, about two years ago? I believe she has some sheep and is planning to start a boutique wool farm for upscale knitting supplies? Very interesting, and I would be glad to discuss further the market possibilities for specialty goods, but Ms. Saylor has left. Anyway, folks coming from outside have a certain belief or, you might say, picture of a place like this, and that is that it is pristine and unpolluted, because, you know, it looks so pretty, so when they get here, they are all the more disappointed to discover that many years of what you might call an unnaturally depressed local economy has resulted in some corners being cut with regard to environmental concerns, and while we around here might understand that sort of necessity, others don’t. So we at Salt Key Corporation have addressed that concern by designing—and I can show you the design if you would like me to, though I don’t have it with me—this, as I say, state-of-the-art facility to, essentially, make the waste products of the development vaporize—it’s really amazing what technology does these days—and of course this plant will be accessible to the surrounding community, should that need arise.” He paused, then grew confidential. “This part of the plan, by the way, is my particular passion. And I will oversee it myself.” Ah, he was grinning. They were grinning. I glanced behind me. Jane was staring at the floor, Gordon was staring at the ceiling, and Gottfried was staring at Marcus. He went on casting this spell, and then he fell silent and one of the commissioners said, “Looks expensive to me. And you’re talking a lot of effluents. There’s got to be an impact report, and I don’t know what all. You got this plan to Jerry Taylor, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Mr. Taylor had the plan the same day you did.”
“He’s got a terrible cold and laryngitis,” offered Vida. “He called me today.”
“So he’s not here. You folks are going to have to come back next month; that’s the first thing. But I do want to say that I think everything on here looks expensive.”
“Sir,” said Marcus, “I assure you. There is plenty of money.”
“Well, you don’t have to assure me, since we’ll see the letter of credit.”
That was where they began talking like this was a done deal. There’s always a moment at any meeting like this where the tone changes from
no
to
yes
. It may be long before they have a discussion or actually vote, and even before the commissioners think they’ve seen everything and even begun to make up their minds. Before that moment, whoever wants it has to work to make it go; after that moment, whoever doesn’t want it has to work to stop it.
Gottfried blew his nose again. I saw Vida look at him and give him a little smile, and I heard him clear his throat. But he didn’t say anything. Now there was a longer, rather more awkward, pause after which the first commissioner said that he and his colleagues needed to have some time alone. So our group stood up and, since the township center had only one room and a couple of rest rooms, we went out onto the porch where the commissioners had previously been smoking and stood there. It was cold.
“God in heaven, Marcus!” exclaimed Jane, as soon as the door closed behind us. “Can’t you stop lying? I nearly fell out of my chair at all that shit vaporizing into thin air. State-of-the-art indeed! You are shameless!”
Marcus shrugged and wrapped his muffler more tightly around his chin. “Someone, somewhere, has some modern technology, and I guarantee we’ll find it. It’s easy to find. It’s only a lie if it doesn’t exist. It isn’t a lie if you just don’t know right now what it is.”
Jane shook her head.
I said, “I’d like to know about the plenty-of-money part.”
Marcus burst out laughing and slapped me on the back as if I had made a tremendous joke. I laughed too; I couldn’t help it. But he didn’t actually answer my question, because the door opened and Vida called us back in. They wanted to ask about the time frame we were looking at. Marcus dipped his head graciously and said, “Well, that all depends on you. Things are in place on our side. All the ducks are lined up in a row, and we are ready to move.”
“Well,” said the main spokesman of the group, “we are drawn to several features of the plan, including the golfing facility, assuming you are aiming at real quality, tournament-style quality. So we’ll want to know who your course designer is going to be. And we like this part about retention of the house and the gardens, especially the gardens. I understand there are several varieties of old and rare plants on the property, which we think should be cataloged and preserved. You know, old Thorpe was something of a collector. Vida, has the heat gone off in this room? It feels very cold now.”
“Might have, Mr. Nickles, it’s after eleven.”
“Well, we’ll hurry then. Now, we don’t often have to deal—or may never have had to deal—with anything like this, but we like it, at least for now. Pete, here, has some reservations, but we know Gordon, and we know Gottfried, and so, young man”—he looked right at Marcus—“we are going to advise you that we think it’s okay to go on with this, though nothing’s official yet until Jerry Taylor gets out there and really looks the place over, and he’s not going to do that in the snow, so you’d better put yourself on ice for a bit. And now, if no one has anything to add, I am going to have to leave, because the chill in here is giving me some problems.” And he got up, put on his coat, and went out. And so did the rest of them.
My phone rang at 6:30
A.M.
Wednesday, which meant it was Gottfried, since that was when he got up and began his business day. As soon as I picked up the phone, he said, “I want to build those houses. I know just what to put there, something that will fit in nice with the big house. And I want to go into that house today, if you can get out there. Dale wants to see it, too. Dale’s as excited as I’ve ever seen him. You know he refurbed the wooden moldings and paneling at the statehouse in Nebraska before he came here. And he was thinking of going to England and Germany, but now this has come up. He’d stay here for this.”
“Dale is an unusual person,” I said.
“Well, you think I don’t know that? I give Dale just about everything he asks for. My wife says that if Dale wanted my kidney, I’d give it to him, and she’s just about right.”
“The thing about those houses, Gottfried—”
“Now you’re going to palm me off with some mealymouthed deal. I knew you would, Joe. I knew when I found out about this, and you didn’t tell me first thing, that there was something going on and you weren’t going to tell me; you were making other deals without me.”
“Gottfried, when did you ever tell me you wanted to build hundreds of houses at once? Didn’t you always tell me you are a craftsman rather than a building contractor? Aren’t those your very words?”
“I’ve had my eye on the Thorpe place for thirty years.”
“Since you were seventeen years old? Yesterday you said twenty.”
“Yes. It’s been a very long-term thing. I’ll meet you out there in half an hour.”
“It’s dark.”
“They got lights. I’m bringing Dale with me.”
“Gottfried, I’m still in bed. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.”
“You got some woman with you?”
“Is that your business?”
“Well, if you don’t, what are you waiting for? You can stop at McDonald’s on the way out. They’re open.”
“I don’t want to meet you out there. I have partners. We have to talk about things. I don’t make decisions alone.”
“I’ve already talked to Vida.”
“This morning?”
“Yeah, and she said the main reason they looked favorably on your plan—and don’t think for one moment they are fooled by that asshole and his sister; what was she wearing? I couldn’t believe it; she looked like she was going to a party—was because I was there. Gordon Baldwin just gets by, you know. Everyone knows he has some shady deal going on, but he hasn’t been caught yet, so he gets by. Me, they trust. So because I was sitting there and everyone knows me and I’ve been doing good work around here for thirty years, they gave you the benefit of the doubt.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me, Gottfried.”
“Well, Vida has forgotten more last week than you’ll ever know, so believe it.”
“Why are you yelling at me at six-thirty in the morning?”
“Because I’m trying to goddamn wake you up and get you to smell the coffee.”
“Okay, but I want to tell you one thing once and for all.”
“What’s that?”
“You keep running Marcus down—”
“So what? He’s a jerk.”
“Only so this. You hate everybody who buys one of your houses, so you’re not proving to me anything about Marcus in particular. It’s you who’s the crank.”
“Yeah, well, just meet me out at the Thorpe place.”
Finally, the reason I got up and put on my clothes and went out and started my car in the freezing dark and let it warm up so I could drive out there on the coldest morning of the year with only a cup of coffee in me was I knew if Gottfried really
really
wanted the Thorpe property, he could afford, just barely, if I were to sell his houses I had listed, to buy it, and if he bought it the commissioners would agree to anything he wanted to do, no problem, and it would keep him busy for twenty years and get Gordon out of a deal that he was still a little reluctant about, and furthermore it would return me to the sphere where I felt most comfortable: selling houses one at a time, not owning property and developing it.
Dale was duly impressed. Dale was a forgettable, round-shouldered, bearded, silent guy with a knitted hat pulled down over his eyebrows and overalls and well-oiled Redwing boots and cotton gloves on, but Gottfried followed him around the Thorpe house, and Gottfried stared at everything Dale stared at, and then I stared at it too. Dale whistled and hemmed and nodded and said, “Mmm-hmm,” like he was tasting something, and touched things and got up close to them and peered at them, and when we had finished looking at the library he turned and shook my hand and said, “Thank you for showing me this, Mr. Stratford. This is quite an education.”
“It’s not very elaborate.”
“It’s simple,” said Dale, “but it’s not easy. Here’s what they did. They made all these panels and moldings by hand, with hand planes. That way, if anyone made a mistake, it would only be a thirty-second of an inch mistake, and he could rub it out, no problem. This is beautiful, painstaking work. It’s always harder to make something simple look right than to make something elaborate look right. I’d much rather spend a week putting together leaf moldings with ridges and beads and all that than spend a week making a straight chair rail with a square edge and, let’s say, a groove down the center.”
They looked at the floors and the banisters and the cabinetry and the picture moldings and the window casings and the windows themselves and the interior doors and the exterior doors and the baseboard trim and the window trim and the hinges and the drawer pulls and the bathtubs and the sinks and the sink fixtures and the lighting fixtures and everything else. It was almost noon by the time they had had enough. I was yawning so much I had to go outside in the cold and walk around.
When they were done, they walked me to my car. Dale said, “This house was built around the First World War?”
“Yes. I’m not sure of the exact year.”
“I like it.”
Gottfried broke into an honest-to-God grin.
I said, “It’s a beautiful house.”
“Here’s what I like about it. Now, normally, I’m not much into eclectic. I saw this house once out West that was parts of seven different kits put together. Seven different styles. There was Gothic and Greek Revival and I don’t know what else. I considered it a personal affront, that’s how much I hated eclectic. Go ahead and shoot me, but I did. Now this—this is eclectic too; I see that—but what the guy did, the architect, was he simplified every element of every style that he drew from, so there’s a kind of squareness in some of the rooms that just gives you the feeling of something Greek, and that flows into something a little more vertical, that gives you just the feeling of the stick style. He knew how big it had to be, and he knew how self-important the family was, so he gave it a little museum-type grandeur, mostly in the size and the proportions, but he also knew it was, you might say, their farmhouse, so he rusticated it by smoothing it all out and giving it real grace. Just grace. Myself, I don’t think it ought to be furnished or used—let the elements be seen—but most people like to make use of a building, so I say, let them, if they own it.” He sighed deeply and generously and went on. “Gottfried and I, we’ve got just the picture on what to do with the houses that are going to go along the golf course. What you do is break out the different styles of this house, and you intensify each one just a little—not much but enough to catch the eye a bit—and then you offer the prospective buyers one or two of each of the different styles. I identify four offhand; I can tell you what they are another time. There is some variety in the development, but it all flows together. You won’t get some Tudor monstrosity staring down from the top of the hillside at everything, but at the same time, you won’t have a hundred little versions of the clubhouse dotted all around. That’s what you should do.”