Danielle Steel - The House

“I'll call you back in an hour,” Marjorie promised. Sarah did her laundry while she waited, and threw out the dead plants. She couldn't believe how long they'd been there and that she'd never noticed them before. It was a hell of a statement about her, she reproached herself. When Marjorie called back, she said she had four condos to show her. Two were lovely, one was so-so, and one was kind of interesting, though maybe too small for her, but worth a look. The last one was on Russian Hill, which wasn't Sarah's first-choice neigh-borhood, but she was willing. The other three were in Pacific Heights a few blocks from her. Sarah agreed to meet her at noon. She was suddenly excited about it, although she knew it would probably take time to find the right thing. Maybe her mother could help her with the decorating. The domestic arts were not Sarah's strong suit.

She had already calculated that if she put ten percent down on a condo she purchased, she would still have plenty of Stanley's money to invest. Ten percent of half a million, if she spent that much, was only fifty thousand. That would leave her with seven hundred thousand to invest. If she went totally crazy and bought a house for two million dollars, she'd have to put up two hundred thousand. She'd still have half a million of Stanley's money left. And she made enough money at the law firm to pay a mortgage. She didn't want a house. She didn't need that much space. An apartment seemed like a much better solution to her.

She ran down the steps of her building at eleven-thirty, stopped at Starbucks, and met Marjorie promptly at noon at the first address. They started on Russian Hill, and Sarah didn't like it. Marjorie was right. It was a converted garage that had been made into a house, and it just didn't work for her. Neither did the ones in Pacific Heights, all three of which were apartments, but none of them seemed warm and welcoming to her. They were cold and small and cramped. For half a million dollars she wanted to buy something that had soul and that she loved. She was disappointed, but Marjorie told her not to be discouraged. There were going to be lots more on the market before the end of the year. And after Christmas, there would be even more. People didn't want to be bothered selling their houses over the holidays, she explained to Sarah. This was a whole new world for her. She was discovering the horizons Stanley had alluded to in his letter. She was doing just what he had urged her and the others to do. He had opened an important door for her.

She and Marjorie talked about a house again, as they walked back to their cars at the last address. Sarah still thought it would be too much for her. It might turn out to be depressing to have too much space and no one to share it with. Marjorie smiled at what she said.

“You're not going to be alone forever, Sarah. You're still very young.” Compared to the real estate broker, she was. She looked like a child to Marjorie, but Sarah shook her head.

“I'm thirty-eight. That's not so young. I want something I'll be comfortable in by myself.” Those were, after all, the realities of her life.

“We'll work on it,” Marjorie promised her. “And we'll find exactly the right thing. Houses and apartments are like romance. When you see the right one, you know it, and everything else falls into place. You don't have to beg, plead, push, or force it to work.” Sarah nodded, thinking of Phil. She had done a lot of begging, pleading, and pushing in the last four years, and it was starting to hurt. She hadn't heard from him in two days. He obviously wasn't pushing himself, or even thinking of her.

He finally called her late that night, after she went to a movie by herself. The movie was lousy and the popcorn was stale. When the phone rang, she was lying on her bed, still dressed, feeling sorry for herself.

“Hi, babe, how are you? I tried to get you earlier, but your cell phone was off. Where were you?”

“I was at a movie. It sucked. It was one of those stupid foreign films where nothing happens, and people snore in the audience so loud you can't hear the movie.” He laughed at her description, and sounded like he was in a great mood. He said he was having fun with his kids. “Thanks for the call on Thanksgiving,” she said acidly. If she was miserable, she thought he should be, too. It was irritating to hear him so happy, especially when she wasn't included.

“I'm sorry, babe. I meant to call. It got late. I was at some disco up here with the kids till two in the morning. I forgot my cell phone in the room, and by the time we got back it was too late to call you. How was Thanksgiving?”

“Fine. My grandmother and I talked about some interesting stuff, about her childhood. That's rare for her. It was nice.”

“What did you do today?” He sounded as though he were calling one of his children, not a woman he was in love with. And the reference to the disco he'd been to on Thanksgiving night wasn't wasted on her either. She didn't feel like part of his life, not an important part in any case. It sounded almost like a duty call, and she was too depressed to enjoy it. It just depressed her more, for everything it wasn't, and probably never would be. She was just a woman he spent weekends with. She wanted more than that. He didn't. It was the same deal it always was with him.

“I looked at apartments. Condos actually,” she said in a dead voice.

“What brought that on?” He sounded startled. It was unlike her to think about where she lived. And condos were expensive. She was obviously doing better than he thought. He was momentarily impressed.

“Actually, my couch and my dead plants brought it on,” she said, and then laughed at herself.

“You can get a new couch and throw the plants out instead of buying a condo. That's a pretty radical solution for a couple of dead plants.”

“I thought it might be fun to look,” she said honestly.

“Was it?”

“Actually, no. It depressed the hell out of me. But I decided I really want to move. The broker says we'll probably find something after Christmas.”

“Christ, leave you alone for a couple of days, and you get into all kinds of mischief.” He was teasing her, and she didn't bother correcting him. It hadn't been “a couple of days.” She hadn't seen him in two days shy of two weeks, between the holiday and his trip to Tahoe with his kids, where she couldn't be included, his week in New York before that for depositions, and their insane policy of only seeing each other on weekends. And it would be yet another week before she saw him again. Hell, why not make it a month? she wanted to say, but didn't. It was almost as though he were trying to prove something, except he wasn't. He was just being Phil. “Well, don't move before I get back. I've got to go check on the kids. They're downstairs in the hot tub with a bunch of college boys.” And who was he in the hot tub with? She couldn't help but wonder. It didn't matter really. All that mattered was that he was not in the hot tub with her, or anywhere else for that matter. They were living in separate worlds, and she was tired of it. It was too lonely here without him, particularly over a holiday weekend.

She slept fitfully that night and woke up at six o'clock the next morning, forgot that it was Saturday, and started to get ready to go to work. And then she remembered what day it was, and went back to bed. She had two more days of the weekend to get through before she could escape into her work at the office. She had finished all the files she'd brought home with her. She had checked the newspaper for condos, had seen all the movies she wanted to. She called her grandmother, who was busy all weekend, and she didn't want to see her mother. Calling her married friends would just depress her. They were busy with husbands and kids she didn't have. What had happened to her life? Had all she accomplished for the past ten years been work, lose track of friends, and find a weekend boyfriend? She had no idea what to do with herself with spare time on her hands. She needed a project. She decided to go to a museum, and drove by the house on Scott Street on her way. She hadn't done it on purpose, she had just turned, and there it was as she drove past it. It was even more meaningful to her now that she knew it had been built by her great-grandfather, and her grandmother had been a child there. She couldn't help wondering who would buy it, and hoped they'd love it, as the house deserved.