Good Riddance(85)

“Me personally? No. Someone from my office did, of course. I’ve been told it’s empty and dry. Want to see the cellar?”

I knew cellars were important—their foundations, water heaters, boilers, pipes, mousetraps—so I said, “Sure.”

“May need updating,” said Tammy, “but everything’s in good working order. This is a little doll house. I’d buy it myself if I wasn’t already in contract for a condo.”

I thought I should add, hoping to sound nonchalant about the property, “I’m engaged to be married. This would be fine for a single person, but I really need a bigger place.”

She helped herself to my ringless left hand, then dropped it without comment. I said, “We’re not a very traditional couple.”

“Congratulations anyway,” said Tammy. “Do you want to make an appointment to come back with him? Or her.”

“A man, Stuart. He’s away.”

“On business?”

His absence was hard to explain and harder to make sense of, so I just said yes.

Whether it was the impulse to change the subject or sound less like the real estate novice that I was, I said, “I couldn’t even think of moving forward without an inspection.”

But I’d already made up my mind. “A little doll house” sounded exactly right to me. Two bedrooms would be plenty, and I preferred baths to showers. There was a gas stove, green milk-glass mugs hanging from cup hooks, a one-car garage, leaded glass in the china closet, and a price that seemed too good to be true. So on that day, like someone who bought and sold properties with abandon, whose profession was flipping houses, I offered two-thirds of the asking price.

Tammy said, “Well, honestly, I don’t even think I can take that offer to the seller.”

I reminded her that this was a one-bath cottage, surely uninsulated, with an antique boiler and a postage stamp of a backyard. I’d have to start from scratch. “The wallpaper must be from the 1950s,” I scolded, at the same time thinking, I love that viny wallpaper.

Tammy looked up at the ceiling fixture, a white globe that was not unhandsome, and said, “I suppose I have to present your offer. Expect a counteroffer if she’s not too insulted to make one.”

“Every inch of this place needs updating. It’s my final offer. And it’s not like I’m in love with the place,” I lied.

It took one phone call, a counteroffer that I spurned, a fax, a signature, a return fax, and a relatively small check. On the other side was a lawyer representing the uninterested daughter five time zones away.

My counsel added to the purchase and sale agreement a sentence that struck me as curious: that if the lending bank refused to close for any reason—unrelated to my finances—I could back out.

“Is this standard?” I asked.

“Boilerplate,” she answered.

Simple. I signed it.