We first step into the small living room—or rather, I skid, as the combination of socks and booties turns the floor into a hot skillet and my feet into pats of butter—and we admire the picture window and the view. “There’s not a crackhead to be seen out there,” Mac remarks with more than a little awe.
We then wander into the dining room, which feels extra cozy with its raised hearth surrounded by built-in bead-board shelves. “Lovely,” we all murmur. The walls are covered in wallpaper—normally my nemesis—but it’s so rich and understated that at no point do I begin to look for loose corners to tug. We move on to the family room.
One of the rules I’ve learned from watching the home-buying shows is that you’re not supposed to base your opinion on the homeowners’ possessions; rather you’re obligated to look beyond their stuff to see the real features, like double-paned windows, or the real problems, like a water-damaged ceiling. A professionally staged living room is great, but it doesn’t matter if the furnace is on its last legs and the house is located in a floodplain.
Of course, the home-
selling
shows are all about staging, because it’s a fact that well-presented houses sell faster.
26
And even though my head understands that staging is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, my heart can’t help but leap when I see their furniture. “Oh, my God,” I exclaim. “They have the Lancaster sofa set from Restoration Hardware! That’s what we have! We already know exactly what it would look like if we lived here!”
We pass through the breakfast area (sunny! airy!) and the well-appointed galley kitchen (a warming drawer! double ovens!) and into the narrow mudroom with the spanking new front-loading washer and dryer. Mac gets a faraway look on his face, lost in a daydream about all the towels and jeans we could wash in a single load.
27
“Shall we check out the backyard?” Liz asks.
We put our shoes back on and step out onto a tidy stone patio that overlooks half an acre of young trees, all enclosed by a new fence. “The dogs would have so much fun out here,” Mac remarks.
“Yeah, not really. Daisy would pee on the patio and then demand to be let back into the house, and Duckie would do nothing but stand in the farthest part of the yard and protect us from falling leaves and squirrels with his nonstop barking. Then I’d have to wade through snowbanks in my slippers to get him to stop, because he never comes when he’s called,” I reply. “No, thank you.”
“We have plenty of room to put in a pool,” Mac says.
“And now I’m back on board with the yard.”
We return inside, stomping off snow and reapplying the sockcondoms. We check out the cute basement and find it more than suits our needs. The ceilings are high and the windows well positioned to eliminate glare when setting up the home theater. There’s a wee office off the main part of the basement, and the second we step inside, Mac shouts, “Mine!”
Off the office, there’s an additional storage area where we stumble upon a litter box. Okay, this? Is the biggest selling feature of all. Even though our current house is huge, there aren’t a lot of good places for the kittens’ boxes. No matter where I place them or how often I change the clay, the open-concept layout means the stink wafts through the whole place to the point that when visitors come over, they don’t notice the crown molding or cherry floors. Rather, the first thing out of everyone’s mouth is, “How many cats do you have?” Shameful.
After a thorough basement inspection, we move up to the second floor. The first room we see must be the owners’ little girl’s room, because it looks like Easter has thrown up on a Disney film. Everything is either pale pink or mint green. Pink-and-green gingham ribbons suspend white wooden blocks spelling out SOPHIA over the big window. The floor is covered in a floral pastel rug in shades of green and gold, and a white chair rail divides the walls in half. The bottom part of the wall is ballet-slipper pink, and the top part is covered in pink toile wallpaper. Only rather than the traditional eighteenth-century pastoral scene of oxen and farmers and straw-roofed huts, the lime green line drawings are of bunnies and frogs in repose.
“Obviously you’d want to change this,” Liz notes.
Obviously.
I mean, I’d need to find blocks that spelled out MIA.
The other bedrooms are large and well laid out, and some come with attached baths where the fixtures are new and the water pressure impressive.
According to the MLS listing, the whole house has been recently renovated and everything’s brand-new—the floors, the furnace, the water heater,
etc.
The house is compact, but it’s move-in ready, and all we’d have to do would be to replace the owners’ sturdy leather family room set with our own.
As we put our shoes on again and take one final glance behind us, Liz says, “The house shows really well and it’s priced right. But what do you think?”
Mac and I glance at each other. In theory, this house is what we want. Granted, it’s smaller than what we have now, but it’s in a nice neighborhood, and it wouldn’t require a single tweak before moving in. The best part is, we’d never have to deal with Vienna again.
And yet now that we’re standing here in the handsome foyer with the good closets and indestructible floor, something about the place doesn’t feel right. There’s no opportunity for us to make our mark on it, because everything’s already been done just so. I mean, I don’t want to do major construction, but updating things a bit would be a lot of fun.
Nothing particularly draws me to this house. At first, I thought because they had our sofa, that was a sign, but upon closer inspection, they’ve got the Maxwell model, not the Lancaster. The difference between rounded and squared-off arms is subtle, but crucial.
This house is like meeting a guy who’s totally into marriage, comes from a fantastic family, has a well-paying job that makes him happy, and whose favorite hobbies include buying you designer handbags and watching reality television. I mean, where’s the challenge? Where’s the struggle? Where’s the satisfaction that comes from finally breaking Mac—I mean
him
—of his bad habits?
“Liz, I have kind of a weird question. Is it possible that sometimes a house can be too perfect and it’s kind of a turnoff?” I ask.
She smiles back at me. “I see that all the time. Remember, purchasing a house is more than just figuring out numbers. You buy with your gut, too. And if your gut says this isn’t the one, then we have plenty more to see.”
We walk out to the car and Liz asks me again if I wouldn’t rather sit in the front seat.
“Nope,” I reply. “If I do, Mac will try to make me use the navigation system.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” he calls over his shoulder.
“Listen, I did not spend all that time last night poring over my map just to have some officious German voice second-guess me. My map kicks ass. My map is
bank
.”
Mac chuckles at me. “Still trying to make ‘bank’ happen?”
28
“Of course.” I have a running bet with my college roommate, Ann Marie. It started when I was convinced I’d come up with the expression “all that and a bag of chips.” She didn’t believe me, claiming I’d heard someone say it on
Oprah
.
29
I never forgave Ann Marie for crushing my dream, so ever since then we’ve had an ongoing challenge on who can make the Next Big Expression happen. She’s been trying to get “sweet baby Ray!” into the collective unconscious, while I’ve been pushing “bank.”
Despite being a blond-bobbed soccer mom from Connecticut, Ann Marie is vaguely terrifying. She once instigated a coup at a Pampered Chef party . . . and it wasn’t bloodless. Ann Marie works as a prosecuting attorney, and I sat in on one of her cases once. She showed up to court that day in a tangerine print shift, a padded headband, and a triple string of pearls. I had to laugh when the defense visibly relaxed upon spotting her. They had no idea they were about to be hit by a Lilly-clad guided missile. As the shell-shocked defendant was led out in cuffs, he kept repeating, “What just happened here?”
My point is that even with my international audience of socially networked teenagers reading my term, she’s more likely to make her expression mainstream first. I’m pretty sure I heard a random person exclaim, “Sweet baby Ray!” at the grocery store last week, but I’m going to pretend they were looking at barbecue sauce.
Still, you have to admit that “bank” kicks ass as a turn of phrase. It’s short for “bank on it” or “you can take that to the bank,” kind of like how Vince Vaughn
30
described everything as “money” before he got all famous and bloated.
I tell Mac, “I was thinking I’d work ‘bank’ into my next book, maybe have Ezekiel say it after a particularly successful barn raising or something.”
“Do the Amish even use banks?” Mac wonders.
“No clue,” I admit.
“Wait. You write about the Amish,” Liz interjects. “Shouldn’t you know? Wouldn’t that have come up in your research?”
I shrug and smooth out my map. “Why would I research them? They don’t read my work, so it’s not like I have to worry about my inaccuracies offending the Amish community. Or the zombie community, for that matter. What are they going to do, download my books on their Kindles? Read my Twitter feed? Does the milking shed have Wi-Fi? Seriously, you think Stephenie Meyer spends her time researching vampires’ banking habits? Doubtful. She’s probably too busy taking money baths.”
31
Liz wrinkles her brow.
32
“I’m curious, then: If you haven’t done any research, then how do you know so much about the Amish?”
Mac speaks up before I get the chance. “She watched John Stossel do a report on them on
20/20
. Once.”
“And yet my books about the Amish have done well enough to buy you this Benz,” I calmly respond. I wonder what Mr. Stephenie Meyer drives. Probably a flying fucking car.
Mac’s grinning when he glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Maybe if you knew a little more I could have upgraded to the big engine.”
I know he’s teasing me, but this still grates a little. I choose not to explain—again—how my books really aren’t about being Amish or the undead eating flesh. Rather, they’re about what it’s like to be a teenager. I want kids to read my books and feel like I did when I watched
The Breakfast Club
; I want them to know that like John Hughes, I’m quite aware of what they’re going through.
33
The Amish bit is really just a device for a couple of reasons. I like to write about stolen glances and clandestine feelings rather than big, blown-out, fully articulated sex scenes. The buildup to a first kiss can be every bit as riveting as a couple yanking each other’s pants off, sometimes even more so.
I’ve gotten decidedly more modest as I’ve aged. At twenty-two, fresh out of college and four years of playing I Never at fraternity parties, I’d have had no problem going on and on about my character’s o-r-g-a . . .
34
But I’m a proper
35
married lady now, and writing explicit scenes just doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not judging anyone else who puts out racy novels—and I’ll probably even read them—but writing them isn’t for me. Plus, there’s something very satisfying about keeping my characters innocent.
I’ve chosen to write about the Amish because their stories aren’t going to get bogged down with technology, either. I don’t want my writing to get all cloudy and convoluted because I didn’t realize that Tumblr is the new Facebook which is the new Myspace.
Also, if I had to deal with characters that ran around spouting text message–speak like, “OMGWTFBBQ!” I’d probably want to kick a lung out of myself. Sure, the technology, lingo, and costumes change from generation to generation, but the pressure of being trapped somewhere between childhood and adulthood is universal.
In other words, the point isn’t about getting sparkly in the sun,
Stephenie
.
While I pout in the backseat, we get to the next house. We’re a little farther east in the Cambs, and the trees in this neighborhood are more mature, forming what’s got to be a spectacular canopy over the street when the leaves fill in. That’s the one downside of new construction in a subdivision. Sure, you might get a fancy community clubhouse and wide, smooth streets covered in fresh blacktop, and a brand-new roof, but unless the builder spends a mint on landscaping, the tiny little trees are dwarfed by whatever house they’re placed next to, no matter how modest. Given the choice, I’d prefer a house that’s older, maybe in a more established neighborhood.
The driveway is way longer than the last one, and under the snow I detect the sound of crushed shells. The house is solid brick, not just a brick facade, like where we live now, and the yard is substantially larger than the last. Homes in this neighborhood are set farther apart, and if you squint just right, it almost looks like an estate. This is a promising start.
Our promising start comes to a screeching halt the second we step inside.
“What’s that smell?” I ask, pulling my wooly scarf over my nose and mouth. I’m assaulted by an aroma that stings my eyes and burns my throat. My lungs instantly feel like there’s a steel vise around them.