2
Ten minutes later I find Audrey sitting in the front seat of my car, seat belt on and eyes cast down on her phone. She’s likely texting her boyfriend, Sam Beckett, or Kendall—Julie’s daughter and one of Audrey’s best friends—probably complaining that her snot-filled mom is going to make her late for class.
“Who are you talking to?” I ask, and I don’t have to look at her to know she’s rolling her eyes at my question.
“I’m not talking to anyone, I’m texting,” she replies. She certainly plays the sullen teenager when she wants to, but most days I know it’s more an act than anything else. As if reading my mind, she adds, “Just Sam.” I steal a glance at her while I back out of our garage and catch the small smile that plays on her lips when her phone buzzes again. Sam is Audrey’s first real boyfriend, and while they’ve only been dating six months she’s clearly smitten. I’m equal parts delighted for her to be experiencing the blush of first love, and terrified about what other firsts come with it. “He’s sick and his dad is making him stay home.”
“Oh? That’s too bad. There must be something going around.” I clear my throat, which now feels like it’s filled with razor blades, hoping I have ibuprofen in my purse.
Audrey asks if I’ve booked the parental driver’s education class Ryan and I need to attend before Audrey can start driving. She’s been asking about it daily for the past week now that her sixteenth birthday (and the day she can get her learner’s permit) is less than a month away. I tell her I have, even though I’ve only left one voice mail, yesterday, and am not officially registered. Satisfied with my answer, she then tells me about Human Pudding—a band she and her friends love whose songs give me a headache—releasing a new album, and about how one of her teachers, who apparently no one likes much, wore white pants that showcased her black-and-pink polka-dotted underwear. Hearing this makes me grateful I never became a high school teacher. Teenagers, at least the ones I know, are fairly ruthless in their judgment of grown-ups—as though your time to make mistakes ends the moment you turn twenty-one and are labeled as an adult. Though I try to listen and respond appropriately, my mind is already past the car ride and school drop-off and on to my work to-do list and what dish I’m going to make for the cookbook club night I’m hosting on the weekend. Soon Audrey is back to her buzzing phone, and I’m lulled into the soft sounds of the car’s interior, and I jump when she speaks again.
“So you’ll pick me up after school, right?”
“Can’t you just walk home?” I turn to her, confusion on my face.
“Mom, seriously—”
I lean toward her and kiss her cheek, closer to her ear than mouth—protecting her from whatever virus I have—and laugh. “Seriously. I’m joking. I’ll be here. Promise.”
“Stick to your day job, Margaret,” she says, but gives me a sweet smile that makes my heartbeat jump, like it so often does when I’m in her presence. A feeling I expect is impossible to describe except to other mothers. “Love you,” she says, leaning over to hug me tight. I hold her until she lets go, like always. “See you at three-thirty. Don’t be late.”
I go to say I’ll be there, I know the time thank-you-very-much and won’t be late because I set a reminder on my phone in between brushing my teeth and pulling on my tights, but my words are cut off by the slam of the car door and she’s off, swallowed up in the tide of teenagers flowing into the open mouth of the school’s front doors.
* * *
Between arguing with Tom about removing the garden statues—we settled on leaving the more tasteful ones and storing the others—late clients, and a snapped heel on my favorite shoes, thanks to a loose walkway stone at my first showing, the day drags painfully by. Plus, I’m feeling at least 150 percent worse than I did this morning, my voice now deep and rough and my fever making me alternate between chills and sweats. So by the time my last appointment arrives, which I pushed up so I could get Audrey in time for the dentist, I’m operating on fumes and desperate for things to go smoothly. I pop a Claritin while I wait for my clients, adding it to my grocery list on my phone when I see the blister pack is nearly empty. I’ve had a dog and cat allergy since I was a kid, and have learned through experience to never go into a house showing without Claritin onboard.
My clients, Noah and Jillian Delacorte, are a young couple, new to Merritt by way of Boston where they’ve been living for the past three years in a one-bedroom condo. With a baby on the way, they’re “ready to move to the ‘burbs,’” as Noah said when we first chatted, and I gladly agreed to work with them. Parents-to-be are generally on a tight timeline to get moved in, as no one wants to be dragging a fussy newborn around to a bunch of showings. However, it’s been two months and a dozen showings later, and we have yet to find them the perfect house. Mostly because Jillian—a pixie of a woman, whose seven months pregnant belly is smaller than mine was at three months—is fairly particular about, well, everything, as it turns out. She once walked right out of a house because the front hallway smelled “a bit earthy,” and she thought that meant mold, despite my assurances it was likely due to the giant potted plant by the front door.
So today, while I wait shivering with fever at a house I’m certain ticks all the boxes, I pray to the real estate gods that Jillian Delacorte is in a ready-to-buy state of mind. However, turns out my shitty day wasn’t done with me yet, and so when Noah shows up without Jillian—the decision maker of the two—I’m a bit concerned. Being the decision maker of the two, it’s critical she be here.
“Hi, Noah.” I shake his outstretched hand as he walks up to me. I look toward his car, hoping Jillian will somehow materialize from inside it. “Where’s Jillian?”
“She wasn’t feeling well, so I told her to stay home.” Noah adjusts his messenger bag on his shoulder, looks toward the house. “She said she trusts my judgment.” I smile weakly at him, both of us knowing how false this statement is.
The house is perfect for them—it’s within budget, has the required three bedrooms, a fenced-in backyard and, by some miracle, both the master bedroom on the main floor and the butler’s pantry Jillian insisted upon—but unfortunately with only Noah here, I know I won’t be writing up an offer tonight.
“I think this may be the one, Meg,” Noah says, after we tour the house. “But I want Jillian to see it, just to be one hundred percent certain.” Of course. So we run through our calendars at the home’s kitchen table and try to find a date that works.
With only a few minutes to spare until I have to get Audrey I sit in my running car—Audrey would have a fit, reminding me how terrible it is for the environment—and return a call to another client who’s having second thoughts about the asking price we agreed on, then with my final minute craft an email to Tom about an idea I have for the agent’s open house. While I’m typing, a text comes through from Ryan. Sorry about this morning. Can I make it up to you later? I quickly type back, Deal and am about to sign off on the email to Tom when my cell phone whistles.
“What the hell?” On top of the screen a little calendar reminder pops up.
Mom—Leave work NOW.
I chuckle. She must have programmed the reminder into my phone this morning, probably while I raced around trying to do an hour’s worth of stuff in fifteen minutes.
After I hit Send on the email to Tom, I pull away from the curb hoping there’s no traffic downtown, so I can get Audrey to her appointment on time and avoid the receptionist’s wrath.
