Lost Along the Way(70)

“We’re not. Anyway, Nick seems like a nice guy. Do you guys spend a lot of time together?” Cara asked, changing the subject.

“I guess we do, yeah. He’s become a very good friend of mine.”

“I’m glad you have someone to spend time with out here. How’d you meet him?”

“House hunting, actually,” she said. “We were just looking for a house.”

November 2009

“See anything you like?” a strange voice asked. Meg looked up from the photos of homes for sale in the window of a real estate office. She was surprised to see a tall, dark, and handsome man standing next to her on the sidewalk, drinking a coffee. She wasn’t sure whether he was referring to the houses or to himself. She in no way wanted this man to think she was even remotely interested in him; she made a show of waving her diamond rings in front of him so that he would see she was married.

“I’m sorry?” Meg asked. “My husband and I are interested in houses. That’s all I’m interested in,” she added coolly.

“Great! Hopefully I can help you. I’m Nick. This is my firm.”

“Oh,” Meg said, feeling more than a little embarrassed that she’d mistaken his sales pitch for a come-on. “Then, yes! There are a few things here that look interesting! I’m Meg, and this is Steve,” she said as her husband returned from parking the car in a lot across the street.

“Hey, Steve. I’m Nick. Meg tells me you guys are looking at houses.”

“We are!” Steve said as he shook his hand firmly. “Do you think you have a little vacation home for us in your inventory somewhere?”

“Why don’t you come inside so we can talk? I’m sure we can find something that might interest you. Do you have kids, or is it just the two of you?”

“No kids . . . yet,” Meg said. “But hopefully one day we will, so we want a four-bedroom.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, albeit half-heartedly. “And we’d like something with a yard.”

“You got it. Let’s see what we can do.”

Over the next two months Meg and Steve made the drive to Montauk almost every weekend so that Nick could show them properties that fit their needs. One Saturday in January he drove them to a quaint house tucked in the woods. The mailbox was dented and the pavement on the driveway had cracked like uneven slabs of layer cake. The front yard was covered with dead trees and plants that had long since surrendered to the cold, and one of the shutters on a second-floor window was hanging on for dear life. From the outside it looked like a house little kids in the neighborhood would be afraid to visit on Halloween.

“This is what you wanted to show us?” Meg asked, more than a little confused at how Nick had come to the conclusion that this would be a good vacation home for them.

“I know what you’re thinking. It’s scary.”

“It looks like it belongs in a Stephen King movie,” Steve said.

“This house needs work, but it has great bones and it’s in a good part of town. If you’re willing to invest a little money in renovations and cleanup, you can buy it cheap and turn it into something really great. You’ll be able to make a nice profit down the road. It has character,” he said, looking at the sad structure and somehow managing to keep a straight face.

“It looks like it has ghosts,” Meg joked.

“Let’s keep an open mind,” Steve suggested as they climbed out of Nick’s car and stood in the front yard. “He makes a good point. We have the time to do some work, so we don’t need to pay for something that’s totally finished. If we buy a fixer-upper we can do whatever we want with it. I kind of think it could be nice.”

“Maybe,” Meg said. “It does have a nice front yard, and this is a quiet street.”

“There’s a huge rental market in the summer for this part of town. If you choose to rent the house, even just for the month of August, you can make a nice amount of money. The house will basically pay for itself. It’s a really smart investment if you have the patience to do the work.”

Meg wasn’t sure how, but somehow Nick was starting to change her mind.

They climbed the rickety porch stairs and Nick opened the door. The appliances in the kitchen were twenty years old and were surrounded by cheap pink Formica counters on a diamond-patterned linoleum floor. The window in the living area was broken and a light fixture dangled precariously from the ceiling, but Meg still felt something tug at her heart. The second she stepped inside she began to play a home movie of her future in her head. She heard her kids laughing; she heard Sinatra playing on a stereo; she heard herself calling them all for dinner. She could see everything. It all just seemed to make sense.

“I can kind of see us living here,” Meg said.

“I can, too. How weird is that? This house is a mess, but it’s the first one we’ve seen where I feel like we belong.”

“I told you there was something about this place,” Nick said. “It has so much potential. Not everyone can see it, but it really does.”

“It just seems like a nice family home,” Meg said as she wandered into a bathroom off the kitchen and imagined pairs of sandy flip-flops tossed in the corner and tiny bathing suits hanging on a wall hook to dry. She knew she would most likely never have children, but she wasn’t ready to fully abandon her dream.