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“You’ve not seen all of it yet,” Trey interjected.
“I’ve seen enough,” she told him.
Holly quoted her a price that seemed high for the work that needed to be done.
"How long has it been on the market?"
"Seven months," Holly replied.
Jo gave her a counter offer. Her eyebrows went up.
"I don't think they'll go down that far, Jo."
"It's all I can do."
"But it's much lower than what he's asking. I’ll present it to them, but it’s very low. Do you have a higher number you’ll consider?”
“No.”
“Just for convenience, you know, to save the back and forth. I can negotiate on your behalf.”
"Why don't we just let them decide. Pass on the offer and see what they say.”
Holly shrugged and we left the house, locking up and driving away. Jo found a bit of anxiety creeping in. Should she be doing this? For all she knew, there was a reason she shouldn’t buy this house. For some reason, though, it had been love at first sight for her and she just wanted it. She spent the night thinking about it, wondering why she was so drawn to it.
Holly called her the following morning with the bad news. "He says it's out of the question," she reported.
"I'll get back to you," she told Holly, and hung up.
She waited until the next day to do so. As expected, there had been no other offers.
“Maybe I could meet with the owner to discuss it one on one,” she told Holly. “What do you think?"
Holly hesitated. "I doubt they are going to negotiate over a price as low as yours."
"Well, I might be prepared to go up a bit," Jo said, which wasn't actually true. With the estimate for the renovation work that Trey had given her earlier on a separate call, she would not go up one cent. She wanted the house desperately, but she was also frugal, unwilling to overspend for something that didn’t warrant it.
Holly hesitated some more. After so long on the market, the owners were unlikely to get a better offer, and she knew it. Maybe, Jo suggested, she could find if he was prepared to meet at a time and place convenient to them, and let her know what they said. Reluctantly, she agreed.
She called back the following day to say that the owners were prepared to meet at quarter to seven that evening in her office. They didn't have much time, so it would have to be very short.
"Quite frankly," said Holly, "I don't think they are going to say yes. But at least I've persuaded them to talk to you."
Jo got to her office five minutes early. It was bitterly cold today, fall seeming to skip forward directly into winter. There was snow in the forecast. Holly had the harassed look of someone who had had a bad day, but she was wearing a very sleek blue suit with a plunging neckline beneath, so maybe she had better things planned for the evening.
She showed Jo into a small bare room containing a table and three chairs, and not much else. For twenty minutes, Jo sat and watched the snow beginning to fall in the tiny courtyard outside the window. From time to time, she checked her reflection in the window pane.
On the verge of walking out, she stood to seek out Holly and inquire about the whereabouts of the owner. Instead, she found the door opening to reveal a man about her own age, dressed in clothes better suited to an accountant than someone she had pictured as a mechanic, based on the nature of the house for sale.
“I am so sorry I’m late. I got held up in other meetings and then the drive was unbelievable,” he gasped, pulling off a pair of expensive-looking leather gloves, and held out a hand. Jo took it. It was, despite the gloves, extremely cold, which might account for some of his agitation.
"Nice to meet you," she muttered.
He did not respond. Nor did he apologize further for his lateness. Instead, he looked fastidiously around, selected a chair, examined it, and brushed off some imaginary specks of dust before sitting down, not bothering to take off his coat.
"So, I gather you're interested in the property on Mortimer Road?”
His voice was cold, and his lack of interest was plain. He was addressing his words not to her but to the table, as if he found her distasteful.
"Yes, I am."
"And you want to know if I'm prepared to drop the price?"
"Yes."
"I'm afraid the answer to that is no. It's not unreasonably priced in the current market."
"But I-"
"I gather you are unwilling, or unable, to meet this asking price?"
"Yes, but I-"
"Holly should have made it clear to you that I'm not prepared to negotiate at the present time. I'm afraid you've come here for nothing."
He regarded her with a faint air of exasperation. What was really annoying him, of course, was not that she had come here for nothing, but that she had obliged him to do so. He seemed to be waiting for her to apologize for the inconvenience and slither out.
