“We don’t aim to be skunked.”
At Mr. Lang’s remark we laughed, as usual.
Then at last, around four, we were home, Sonya with the veil pinned up, but without her corsage, as she tossed it to one of the girls, the one who came up with a handful of rice to throw at us, as we sailed down the courthouse steps. I unlocked the door, put the bags inside, and picked Sonya up in my arms. Mrs. Persoff, who lives next door, was cutting peonies in her garden, and suddenly stopped and stared. “Yes!” I called to her. “It’s what you think! Congratulate me!”
She dropped her shears and clapped her hands, and Sonya blew her a kiss. I carried her in. “Okay,” I said, still not putting her down. “Frog turned into a prince — three wishes coming to you, say what they’re going to be!”
“I want to be carried upstairs.”
I carried her up. “What next?”
“I want to be flopped on that bed.”
I flopped her. “One more?”
“I want it turned into Cloud Nine.”
I turned it, for the rest of the afternoon.
Chapter 15
Next morning, life went on as before, and yet was entirely different. When I went into the office, they all gave three cheers. Elsie the switchboard girl, the three salesmen, Jack Kefore, Mel Schachtman, and Gordon Carter, and Helen Musick, my secretary, and five minutes later, from the way they acted, you’d have thought I’d always been married — except for Mrs. Musick. She followed me into my private office, wanting to know the “details,” especially who the bride was, whether she knew her, and so on. I cut back to the Christmas speech, said I “fell for her then, pretty hard, and began taking her out,” then pretended I’d hesitated a bit, on account of the bride-to-be’s age, and then “suddenly made up my mind — and that’s about all.”
At least some of it was true.
I added: “You’re coming to dinner tonight.”
“Oh no! She doesn’t have to do that!”
“She’ll be calling you.”
“Well I certainly look forward to meeting her!”
Then I got to the things that were waiting for me, mainly interviews with people who’d called in in response to our Sunday ad, about houses they wanted to list with us, to sell. It was something I couldn’t wish off on a salesman, for two reasons: It involves appraisal, which salesmen weren’t too good at, and it also involves a risk, the risk of losing a listing, in case the owner wouldn’t accept the price I put on his place. In that case, I won’t take the property on. I think I’ve said I lose three out of ten listings that way, but the ones I do get sell fast. But a salesman won’t take that responsibility of losing a listing for me, so the result, if you leave it to him, is a bunch of places that hang fire for months, because of some silly price the owner thinks he can get if he just gets tough and holds out for it — while the overhead goes on, the woman who shows it gets sore, and your reputation sags, with the “For Sale” sign out on the lawn for months, where SOLD, Graham Kirby is the one thing that builds you up.
So, with a half dozen people waiting, I had to dust out and talk. For the next day I did, and landed four of the six. One of those I landed was typical, a retired admiral, employed by a defense contractor, a helicopter concern, as lobbyist, but now ordered out to San Diego. Of course, he had to get rid of his house, which was in Riverdale, not far from Mother. I called on him Tuesday morning, had a look around, then went inside and told him: “I can sell this place for you.”
“The price will be eighty thousand dollars.”
He got it off in a rough, quarter-deck voice, not even asking me to sit down. “...Wait a minute,” I said, choking back a rise in temper. “Who said what the price will be?”
“Well I do, I hope.”
“No. You don’t, and I don’t.”
His wife, a quiet little woman in her fifties, looked up at that, and began staring at me. I went on: “Admiral, the buyer will. But it’s my business to know what he’ll pay, so I’ll say what we’ll ask. You don’t have to take my word — put your appraiser on it, and if his figure’s higher than mine, then I’ll stand corrected, and accept what he says. But I’m an appraiser, myself, and I’ll be greatly surprised if his figure and mine differ much. But this much I guarantee: You cannot get eighty thousand, and if you insist on that price, you’ll wait and wait and wait, and show the place and show it and show it, and lose the interest on your money, which is compounded the first of next month, and pay and pay and pay, for upkeep, water, and taxes — and in the end, you’ll have to take seventy thousand, which was all it was worth in the first place.”
“The price will be eighty thousand.”
“Then get another broker.”
I turned to go, but the wife darted in front of me, to block my way to the hall. “Please, Mr. Kirby,” she begged me, “don’t go — not yet.” And then, to him: “Who knows what this place will bring? Mr. Kirby, whose business is real estate, or you, whose business is chopper blades? And who’s going to sit here month after month, in Maryland, all alone, while you’re in California, living the life of Riley? I won’t have it! You can’t order people to pay eighty thousand dollars, as though they were seamen or something. You can’t—”
“The price will be seventy thousand dollars.”
I must have glanced at one of the chairs, because he suddenly pushed it toward me and asked me to please sit down. I bowed, thanked him, but waited until she sat down. She did, smiling at me. He sat down and we started to talk, he suddenly uncorking such matters as only an Annapolis man has.
When I got back to the office, Mother was waiting, with a dispatch case full of old pictures of me, “which I thought Sonya might like to have — perhaps for framing.” So we sat there a few minutes, going through those old snapshots of me, with the Cabin John grammar school baseball team, with the Northwestern High football team, as a Boy Scout, at the wheel of my first car, and with the gloves on, as a member of the Yale boxing team. And then, suddenly, what she’d really come about: “Gramie, are you asking me to lunch?”
“...Yes, of course.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll ask permission.”
She had Elsie ring Sonya, and then: “Sonya, your mother-in-law.” And after the greetings: “I’m here in your husband’s office, with some pictures I came across, that I thought you might like to have — and he’s asked me to lunch. Is it all right with you if I go?... Oh, thank you.”
And then when she’d hung up: “You can’t do things behind her back — it’s protocol. It’s the linchpin of marriage.”
So we went to the Royal Arms and ordered, and then she drew a long breath. I said: “Cool it — Jane’s not a complete fool, and—”
“Gramie, all women are fools. Complete fools.”
“She hasn’t yet turned into a she-wolf.”
“Don’t worry, she will.”
“And even she-wolves have to eat.”
“With you, she might go on a hunger strike.”
“Not with the bill collector. And she might, she just very well might, listen to what he says.”
“You mean she’s beholden to you?”
“She eats when I send the check.”
“Unless she decides to sell out.”
“In which case, we can bid the place in and get started, instead of waiting ten years. Or twenty. Or thirty. These spry, pretty women live a long time. Look at Grandma Moses.”
“Then, very well, we’ll see.”
“So why don’t we change the subject.”
“Why don’t we? Perhaps, at last, I could bring up what I wanted to talk about. What I had in mind when I fished my invitation.”