Julian saw in his mind those teenagers flipping him off, thought about James spending his summer hiding in the house. “Maybe we should start looking,” he said.
She smiled, kissed him. “Maybe we should.”
Two
They’d narrowed the choices down to three, and though Claire was leaning toward a foreclosed McMansion that was part of the new DesertView development on the south end of the city, Julian thought they should be more prudent. Just because they were in good financial shape at the moment, it didn’t mean they always would be. Claire’s office had seen a slight downturn in clients recently, and the Web design business was notoriously fickle. If they ended up overextended, someone might be buying their foreclosed home in a year or two.
Personally, he liked a ranch-style house only a mile or so away from where they lived now, in a nicer version of their present neighborhood. It was slightly smaller than their current home, with one bedroom fewer, which meant that his office would probably have to be moved into the garage, but it was situated in the middle of a double-size lot, which meant they would have quite a bit of land. On the east side of the property was what amounted to a small orchard, with two lemon trees, two orange trees, an avocado tree and a fig tree. The previous owner had also had a large vegetable garden, and though it was overgrown and full of weeds, with a little work it could easily be restored to its former glory. Claire wasn’t thrilled with the fact that the house was smaller than the one they had now, but, as he’d been telling her, if things continued to go well for them, they could always add on.
“If we got that house, you’d be back to your old school,” he told James, trying to lure the boy over to his side.
“I don’t want to change schools,” Megan said, overhearing them.
“You’ll be going to the same junior high either way,” Julian pointed out.
“I like Mom’s house better,” Megan insisted. “It has a pool.”
“I like pools,” James admitted.
The pool was another strike against the McMansion, as far as Julian was concerned. Maybe he was just being paranoid because all summer the Albuquerque newscasts had kept a running tally of backyard drownings, but to his mind the benefit of being able to swim and have fun was more than offset by the potential for serious injury and death.
There were three houses in the running, and the dark-horse candidate was an older two-story home within walking distance of the historic downtown district. It was big enough for Claire, had yard enough for Julian, and while it was not the first choice for either of them, it had no major drawbacks to which the other could object.
The real estate agent was the one who’d suggested they look at the property, and it was she who suggested another walk-through when, after a week, and despite her numerous high-pressure phone calls, it became obvious that they were no closer to choosing a house than they had been the first day. “I’ve been in this business for over ten years,” she said, “and I’m pretty good at matching home to homeowner. Let me take you through the house one more time. I think, looking at it with fresh eyes, you might see some very positive attributes that you may have overlooked before.”
So, Saturday morning, Julian, Claire and the kids all piled into the van to meet the realtor at the house.
“I still like the one in DesertView,” Claire said.
“And I like the one with the fruit trees. But it can’t hurt to check things out again. In fact, maybe we should look at all three of them today and see what we think. Besides, we don’t have to decide right now. If we can’t agree on one of these, we can just wait a month or so. I’m sure there’ll be more homes up for sale.”
It was only a five-minute drive, but Megan still brought along her iPod, and her earbuds were in before Julian even put the van into gear.
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror as he drove down the street. It occurred to him that while this generation had access to an almost unlimited amount of music over the Internet, they were much more narrowly focused in their interests than had been the kids of his day—or even his parents’ day. When his mom and dad had been growing up, as they’d never failed to tell him, Top 40 radio played everything from rock to country to easy listening. They’d been exposed to the Beatles and Ray Charles and Glen Campbell and Neil Diamond, all on the same station. When Julian was a teenager, he and his friends had not only listened to music on radio, records, CDs and mix tapes borrowed from their peers, but they’d also been able to raid their parents’ and grandparents’ stacks of old albums and discover for themselves gems from the past. Now that avenue of discovery was completely cut off, for the simple reason that kids today did not have devices on which to play records or, in some cases, even CDs. The music could not be physically translated from those media, and that surreptitious passing down of knowledge—done behind parents’ backs, which made it somehow more acceptable than when adults tried to turn kids on to a song themselves—no longer occurred.
Next to Megan, James could have been playing with his DS—but he wasn’t. Instead, he stared happily out the window, and Julian smiled. As far as he was concerned, the boy was turning out okay.
Julian drove down the street. The Willet kid was skateboarding at the end of the block, and he grinned at the van as it passed, no doubt planning to head back and play in their driveway as soon as they were gone, probably with his punk friends.
Julian was going to be glad to get out of this neighborhood.
There was an accident blocking traffic on Carson Street, so they took the highway and got off two exits down. Now that he thought about it, this house did have the most convenient location of the three. And the neighborhood was nice, with well-maintained homes and people who had probably lived there forever. He could not recall seeing any teenagers or skateboards.
Claire seemed to be giving the house more serious consideration as well. “It has a good yard, as I recall. And I like the fireplace in the living room.” She glanced over at him. “What do you think?”
They drove slowly up Old Main. “Good location,” Julian pointed out as they drove past the brick building that housed Claire’s law office. “You’d be within walking distance of work.”
“It’s closer to Grandma and Grandpa’s, too,” James said.
“That’s true.”
Claire was nodding in agreement, and she did not look displeased. Julian glanced around at the downtown businesses. Most people in Jardine, themselves included, bought their groceries at Safeway and shopped for everything else at The Store. The downtown district was just an area they drove through in order to reach those locations. But as his gaze took in the used-book store, the children’s clothing boutique, the sandwich shop, the ice-cream parlor, the plumbing supply store, the thrift shop, the tax preparer’s office, he could see himself taking a break from work and walking down here during the day, maybe meeting Claire for lunch. The idea appealed to him. This was close to the small-town life he’d originally imagined.
They drove past City Hall and around a park before turning onto Rainey Street. Two blocks down, they saw their realtor, Gillette Skousen, waiting next to the For Sale sign in front of the house. Julian pulled into the driveway and parked, bracing himself. Gillette gave off a distinct Up With People vibe. Blond and perky, with white teeth and perfectly smooth skin, she reminded him of a Disneyland tour guide, circa 1970. He hadn’t liked her before and still didn’t like her now, but she seemed competent and was a friend of Claire’s sister, so he put aside his personal antipathy and got out of the van to meet her.