The Identicals(31)

“Pack a day,” she says. “Hence the congestive heart failure at age seventy-three.”

“Did he have a dog?” Polly asks.

“No,” Harper says. “No dog.” Technically this is true, but Fish was over here all the time, and Billy had no rules, so Fish used to lie across the sofa like a fat pasha. Polly can probably smell him, and although huskies aren’t known as shedders, Fish still leaves hair wherever he goes.

Harper knows that Polly will not approve of the wall-to-wall carpeting, but Billy was adamant that he liked the feel of it under his feet. Much friendlier than wood floors, he said. Harper is sure Polly will also not approve of the recliner or the clunky old coffee table reclaimed from the dump or the Jaws poster hanging on the wall in the powder room. Billy had been inordinately proud that the movie was filmed on the Vineyard. If Harper closes her eyes, she can hear Billy’s voice, clear as day: You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

Harper says, “I’ll give you the grand tour.” She leads Polly through the living room into the dining room, where the table is covered with old onion lamps, broken fixtures, wires, cords, outlet covers, bulbs of various shapes and sizes, and a pile of unpaid invoices.

Harper will have to deal with what’s owed, referring Billy’s current customers elsewhere and dismantling the business. It might be a good thing she got fired.

The dining room has four tall, skinny windows that look out onto the backyard, which is a nice size but completely unkempt—woods and unmowed grass, in the midst of which is a patch of overgrown vegetable garden. Billy had allowed Harper to put it in back when she was still working for Jude, and in the first season they harvested zucchini, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and one enormous misshapen pumpkin that won honorable mention at the Ag Fair.

“Windows,” Polly says, like a toddler learning new words. “Yard.”

They head into the kitchen, which Harper knows is the weak link. It features peeling linoleum floors, stained Formica countertops, and particleboard cabinets, several of which are loose on their hinges. With a stranger standing next to her, Harper can see how terribly the house presents, but she never gave it any thought because it was what it was: Billy’s house. The fridge is a hundred years old, but it kept Billy’s beer cold. Billy would rather have eaten takeout from the Home Port every night than spend money on renovating the kitchen. But the kitchen looks so bad that Harper feels she should apologize.

“Needs work,” Polly says with a rise of her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Rest of the house?”

They wander through the three bedrooms upstairs, including the lavender bedroom that belonged to Harper before she finally moved out a week after her thirty-seventh birthday. They peek in the two underwhelming bathrooms—the tile floors are fine, but the sinks and tubs and toilets are outdated. And one of the bathrooms is Billy’s and still has a can of shaving cream on the sink, along with his green comb. The green comb had been Billy’s since the beginning of time. It probably cost him five cents at a drugstore on Charles Street in Boston in 1978, but it’s so deeply ingrained in Harper’s mind as Billy’s comb that it’s as if his beating heart is there on the bathroom counter. Harper struggles not to lose her composure in front of Polly Childs.

They peer into the shallow linen closet, then into the deeper closet that holds the washer and dryer.

“Laundry,” Polly says. “Good.”

“Well, yeah,” Harper says. The house is an eyesore, she understands this anew, but at least they aren’t hanging out at the Laundromat every Saturday.

Polly turns to Harper and says, “Listen. I’m not going to bullshit you.”

Harper nods. “Good.” Although really, she could use a little candy coating, a little pie in the sky.

“You have two options,” Polly says. “We sell this as a teardown, lot only. Listings in Vineyard Haven have taken a nosedive lately. This town can’t decide what it wants to be. And Daggett Avenue is… meh. So it would be listing at six, closing at half a mil.”

“Oh,” Harper says. This is far less than she anticipated. “The other option?”

“You gut it. New kitchen, obviously, new bathrooms. The whole house needs a new coat of paint. You pull up the carpet, restore those wood floors, buy new furniture, every stick, and hire a landscaper. If you pour a hundred twenty-five, hundred fifty into this place, I would list it at one point one, and you walk with a million bucks, guaranteed.”

Harper stares at Polly’s feet. She’s wearing Jack Rogers sandals, the same color purple as her Roxie, and her toenails match as well. How does she do it? Harper wonders. How, with all she’s been through, does she keep on keeping on?

“Can I sleep on it?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” Polly says. “Call me tomorrow.”



Harper drives home slowly, and all the while, her phone buzzes. It’s Drew calling. What did he not understand about their last conversation? They went on six dates, and now the relationship is over. The phone rings again, and Harper thinks, That’s it! She’s going to throw the phone out the window, then back up over it. She checks the display: Nantucket, MA. It’s not Tabitha’s phone, but maybe it’s the landline. Maybe her mother’s landline. Despite Harper’s conflicting emotions, she needs to talk to someone with taste and good business sense about Billy’s house. She answers.