Love, Suburban Style, Page 3

  Cosette, for that matter, could be an actress. She’s a natural onstage, and performed in a few professional musical productions when she was younger. With her father’s acting talent and her mother’s voice, she’ll be able to go far, if she chooses to pursue that route someday. But Meg pulled her back when she realized New York is just too cutthroat when it comes to child performers. She didn’t want that for her daughter; Cosette’s life has always been complex enough.

  But maybe, she thinks hopefully, Cosette will want to get involved in the local theater once they move. If they move.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Kris is saying, and Meg snaps right back to the present. Oh. She’s talking about the divorce.

  She can’t tell her old friend that she’s better off without the jerk. Not with Cosette standing right here. She’s been asking more frequently about her father, and Meg is determined not to bad-mouth him. But it’s pretty hard to find anything remotely positive to say about a man who chooses not to acknowledge his own child, especially when that child isn’t exactly oblivious to his absence in her life.

  “So are you still acting, singing, dancing… all that good stuff?”

  “I’m on a career hiatus at the moment, actually,” Meg tells Kris, and feels Cosette tense up beside her.

  For as many mother-daughter clashes as they’ve had since Cosette hit adolescence, Meg’s daughter remains a staunch, proud supporter of her mother’s work. She was outraged about the lost Brigadoon role and assured her mother that something much bigger and better must be right around the corner.

  Meg has yet to tell her that smaller—but infinitely better is more what she has in mind at this point.

  “What about you? What are you up to these days?” she asks Kris.

  For Meg, who is a big believer in cosmic coincidence, the unexpected answer is a clear sign that her tentative new life plan is meant to become a reality.

  “I’m in real estate,” Kris says cheerfully. “I sell houses right here in Glenhaven Park.”

  Rounding the corner into the front yard, Sam immediately spies the source of the scream. Lori Delgado, soon-to-be-lady-of-the-house, is standing on the unkempt lawn. She’s wearing exactly the same clothing as Sam: faded Levi’s, a white T-shirt, and sneakers. Ah, the Saturday-in-suburbia homeowner uniform.

  Unlike Sam, who’s Been Here, Done This more times lately than he cares to count, she’s wringing her hands and staring fearfully up at the gloomy Victorian house.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam saunters to a stop—knowing only too well what’s the matter.

  “This place is haunted!”

  Yup, just as he suspected. She must have heard the rumors about the place, and now the legendary Duckworth ghost has already put in an appearance, courtesy of the power of suggestion and a vivid imagination. In broad daylight, no less. Usually the new owners wait until the wee hours, and well after they’ve settled in a bit, before they start seeing things.

  Sam wonders wearily if he should feign surprise, as he did with the last two sets of new neighbors. Or should he just come right out and admit that he’s well aware of the home’s reputation?

  Indeed, having grown up right next door, he’s known all his life that the old Duckworth place is supposedly haunted. Neighborhood kids used to dare each other to walk up the steps on Halloween night—not that deaf old Mrs. Duckworth would have heard the doorbell, much less greeted them with mini Zagnuts and tiny boxes of Chiclets.

  In fact, that was the whole point.

  In retrospect, there was something purely all-American about having grown up on a street like this, with a house like that. And in retrospect, Sam figured out that the “haunted” rumors stemmed from the home’s ramshackle appearance and classic Victorian architecture. With its broken shutters, untidy yard, and black wrought-iron fence, the Duckworth place exudes a delicious air of foreboding.

  Which is why Sam, mired in skepticism, remains utterly unfazed by the string of recent events involving the place.

  Now, he mildly addresses the new homeowner: “Haunted? Why do you say that?”

  “Why? Because I just saw a ghost!” Lori Delgado blesses herself and murmurs something in fervent Spanish. “I just want to go home.”

  Sam wants to remind her that this is home—it’s about to be, anyway—but is pretty certain she means home as in Brooklyn.

  “Where are your husband and your kids?” Sam asks, looking around and seeing no evidence of the couple’s ten- and twelve-year-old daughters or their SUV, which was parked on the driveway earlier.

  “We left the girls with my mother, and Joey just went down to the hardware store. We were going to start working on the kitchen today.” Lori bites her lower lip.

  Sam nods. This place is even more of a fixer-upper than his.

  Sure, the three-story house, with its mansard roof, fish-scale shingles, and elaborate original trim, has tremendous potential. But Agnes Duckworth, the spinster who moved in circa World War II and rarely emerged, was hardly a female Bob Vila. In all the years Sam lived here as a kid, he never once saw anyone do any kind of maintenance on the house next door.

  Old Agnes passed away a good two years ago, and the house has since changed hands three times. Nobody stays long enough to do anything to it.

  Sam is really hoping the Delgados will, though. Not so much for the neighborhood aesthetic, but for his daughter’s sake.

  “They’ve got two girls, Dad!” she announced excitedly. “And they’re around my age, and really nice!”

  Poor Katie is starved for female companionship. She lives with her father and brother, their only local relatives are Sheryl’s widowed dad down in Larchmont and Sam’s bachelor brother in Manhattan, and the neighborhood is full of boys.

  “What, exactly, happened in there?” he asks Lori Delgado.

  She shudders and describes, in her thick accent, how she was removing a switchplate in the kitchen when the light started turning on and off.

  “You probably just did something to the wiring,” Sam informs her. “Do you want me to take a look at it?”

  “No,” she says sharply. “It wasn’t just that. The room got really cold, and I could feel that I wasn’t alone. And when I turned around, I saw… something.”

  “What was it?”

  “A person. Just standing there in the doorway, watching me.”

  “Was it a tiny, wrinkled woman with a pitch-black bun?” Sam asks with a grin, remembering his sporadic childhood glimpses of old Agnes Duckworth—

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “No, of course not.” He carefully straightens his mouth.

  “I have no idea what the ghost looked like. I didn’t stay long enough to see.”

  She shudders and hugs herself.

  Sam refrains from telling her that it was probably her imagination. At this point, he doubts she’s capable of glibly shaking off the trepidation and going back up the sagging steps on her merry way.

  She turns to him. “Um… Sam, is it?”

  When he nods, she asks, “Do you mind if I use your telephone to call Joey on his cell? Mine is in the house, and I’m not setting foot back in there. Ever!”

  “Ever?” Sam echoes, and adds hopefully, “But… what about when you move in?”

  “We aren’t moving into a haunted house. I told Joey that this deal was too good to be true. I knew there was a reason this house cost over a couple hundred grand less than anything else in this neighborhood.”

  “Well, it’s a fixer-upper,” he points out, and she snorts.

  Sam wonders if she’s aware how many owners it’s had since Agnes Duckworth died. No need to mention that now.

  He has a feeling it won’t make a difference, anyway. Lori’s mind is obviously made up.

  “Sure, you can use my phone.”

  Sam leads the way toward his own ramshackle Victorian next door.

  So much for the nice new neighbors with daughters Katie’s age.

  Boy, is she going to be bummed when
she finds out.

  Chapter

  2

  It just sold again for how much?” Meg asks, thinking she must have heard wrong.

  “The asking price was one point one. It went for one point two.”

  “Million.”

  “Right.”

  Meg curses under her breath, knowing Cosette can’t hear her anyway. She’s in the backseat, plugged into her iPod and not even pretending to be interested in Krissy’s impromptu tour of Glenhaven Park.

  Krissy turns her silver Lexus down North Street en route to Meg’s childhood home, newly occupied by a married couple with a teenaged daughter.

  “Did somebody add on to the house or something?” she asks, trying to fathom who would pay that kind of money for a very nice, but certainly not lavish, suburban home.

  “No, it’s pretty much the same as it was when you lived there, actually. There’s a new patio out back. But the kitchen really needs to be updated. I think they said they were going to gut it.”

  “One point two million, and it needs a new kitchen? I can’t wait to call my parents and tell them.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “You’re right. Why frustrate them?” Meg decides her parents are better off oblivious to the fact that, had they waited another decade or so to sell their house and move south, they’d have gotten five times the money for their retirement nest egg.

  “So basically”—Meg casts a glance over her shoulder to make sure Cosette isn’t listening—“you’re saying that I can’t touch a house in my own hometown for under a million dollars.”

  “There are a few in the high sixes and low sevens,” Krissy tells her. “Why? Are you thinking of coming back?”

  “Yes, but shh.” Meg indicates her daughter with a nod. “I don’t want to break it to her just yet.”

  “Oh, she’ll love it here. There’s so much for kids to do. We’ve still got a terrific recreation department.”

  “Really?” Meg remembers participating in some of their community theater programs when she was growing up. “Do they still put on plays and musicals?”

  “Yes. And a lot of kids play soccer…”

  “Soccer? It would be good for Cosette to get back into that.”

  “There’s a swim team, too.”

  “Unfortunately, she can barely doggy paddle.” Or ride a bike. Or toss a Frisbee. Or play hopscotch.

  This isn’t the first time Meg is realizing just how deprived her urban child has been.

  Too bad we can’t afford to move here, she reminds herself, as Krissy slows the car in front of the house where she grew up.

  “Oh my God.” A wave of nostalgia washes over Meg. She presses her knuckles against her mouth. “Can you pull over for a second? I just want to look at it.”

  “Sure.”

  “Cosette…” She turns to wave at her daughter in the backseat until Cosette removes one earphone, music blasting from it.

  “What?” She is obviously aggravated at the interruption.

  “I just want to show you where I lived with Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Her daughter flicks a gaze at the brick Tudor. “It’s nice.”

  “It looks almost exactly the same, except the trees are taller and my mother always planted red geraniums in that bed out front, instead of pink… what are those things?”

  “Impatiens.” Krissy laughs. “City girls don’t do much gardening, huh?”

  “Not unless you count the stuff I’m growing on leftover takeout in my fridge.”

  “Well, for the record, geraniums need sun. This yard used to get it when the trees were younger. But now look. It’s all shade. Impatiens love shade.”

  “I’ll remember that.” But Meg doubts she’ll become much of a gardener even if she winds up here in suburbia. She has a fear—well, according to her daughter, it’s an obsession—when it comes to bees.

  Bees, wasps, yellow jackets, hornets… things that buzz and sting.

  It stems from a childhood incident when she accidentally stepped on a hive while playing at a friend’s house. She wound up in the emergency room, puffy and in terrible pain.

  She hasn’t walked barefoot through the grass ever since… not that there’s much opportunity for that in Manhattan.

  Meg glances over her shoulder to see that Cosette is plugged into her iPod again, having supplied the obligatory interest in the old homestead. “Listen, Krissy… I need you to find me something that I can afford. I really want to come back.”

  “Just like that? One look at your old house, and your mind is made up?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.” Well, that depends on how you define “long.”

  “What’s your price range?”

  She’s been socking away all those alimony checks from Calvin for quite some time, so she has a good idea what she can afford without a mortgage. Financing the house is out of the question, considering that she no longer has a solid source of income.

  “Five hundred is my limit.” It seemed like such an astronomical number until… well, right this second.

  “There’s nothing at that price right now,” Krissy says flatly. “If you can go up to six seventy-five, I might be able to—”

  Hearing a car door slam, they both look over at the driveway to see a shiny red BMW now parked there. A tall, tanned blond man in tennis whites and stylish sunglasses has emerged and is looking at them.

  “Hello, Brad,” Krissy calls through her open window. “It’s Kris Holmes—from Better Homes Realty.”

  “Oh! Hi.” He takes a few steps closer. “I know the market is hot, but don’t tell me you’re here to talk me into selling already. We’re not even unpacked yet.”

  Kris laughs. “No, this is my old friend Meg Addams, and that’s her daughter Cosette”—she waves a hand at the backseat—“and Meg grew up in your house. She wanted to see it.”

  “Really? Do you want to come inside?”

  “I’d love to.” Meg looks at Kris.

  “You go ahead. I’ll stay here and return a couple of calls.” She pulls out her cell phone.

  Meg starts to ask Cosette if she wants to come, but why bother?

  Climbing out of the car, she finds the homeowner extending a handshake. “I’m Brad Flickinger. Meg, is it?”

  “Yes. This is so nice of you,” she says, following him up the familiar brick walkway edged with narrow mulched flower beds. “How long have you been here?”

  “Six weeks. We love it. You moved away from here?”

  “Yes, but I’m coming back.” That decisive statement just pops out, but it sounds right. It feels right.

  “That’s terrific. Glenhaven Park is a great place to live. Come on in.”

  It feels strange to have him hold open the door for her as she steps inside—as though he lives here and she’s just visiting.

  Which—hello!—is exactly the case.

  It’s just…

  How many times did Meg burst through that door and run through this house calling “I’m home”?

  The layout is the same, but the color palette, the furniture, the art, and the rugs are not. It even smells different. Like paint, and perfume. And strangers.

  Brad takes her through the house. Every room brings back a memory. There’s the hearth in the living room where she used to perform show tune medleys for her tirelessly enthusiastic audience: her parents. There’s the radiator window seat in the dining room where she spent a chilly January weekend reading To Kill a Mockingbird for eleventh-grade English. There’s the crack between the kitchen countertop and the tall pantry cupboard where she lost a love letter she had impulsively written to her unrequited high school crush, Sam Rooney.

  The notches her father cut into the molding beside the back door are still there. They’ve been painted over a few times, but she can see the marks that measure her height every year on her birthday.

  Seeing her running her fingertips over the wood, Brad remarks, “It’s not in great shape—it’s al
l nicked up—but Olympia and I are about to gut this kitchen and redo everything, including stripping and refinishing the moldings and floor.”

  “That will be nice,” Meg murmurs, turning away from the door and her memories. “So Olympia is your wife?”

  He nods. “And Sophie is my daughter. She’s over at the dance studio, rehearsing for her jazz recital this afternoon.”

  “Mrs. Heyl’s dance studio?”

  “No, Broadway Baby, above the sushi place on Main.”

  Broadway Baby? Sushi place?

  Things sure have changed around here, Meg thinks.

  Aloud, she says, “Broadway Baby sounds like something I would have liked when I was a kid.”

  “You took dance?”

  “Yes, but back then, it was only ballet. They didn’t offer much of anything that had anything to do with Broadway. I had to get there on my own.”

  “Get there? You mean Broadway?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you perform?”

  “Well… not anymore. But I did.”

  “In which show?”

  As she gives him the briefest possible rundown of her stage credits, Brad’s eyebrows rise toward the sunglasses now perched on his head. “And now you’re moving back up here?”

  She nods. “I’m going to give voice lessons, and maybe—”

  “Will you teach kids?” he cuts in enthusiastically. “Because our Sophie—she’s thirteen—is incredibly gifted when it comes to musical theater, and Olympia and I were just saying that we need to step it up a notch.”

  Meg has no idea what he means by that, but since it apparently involves her being able to earn any kind of income from the apparently well-off Flickingers, she nods in total agreement. “I’d love to meet your daughter and maybe—”

  “Terrific. Do you have a card?”

  “No, I… not yet. If you have something to write on, I’ll give you my cell number.”

  “Great.” He opens a drawer and promptly produces a pen and pad. “You’re going to love it here.”