“Lost here?”
What he means is: How does someone wind up lost in the middle of a residential neighborhood that isn’t near the Metro or any other landmark that would feasibly draw an idiot like me to this spot on the sidewalk, in front of this perfect home.
I remember my Nikes.
“Yeah, um, I was out for a run and I guess I just got a little overzealous. This isn’t my usual route.”
“Gotcha. Did you take a fall then? Are you hurt?”
I look down at my charcoal-gray leggings, soaked through up to the knees.
“Ugh, yes, I sure did.” I roll my eyes at my clumsiness. “But no, thank you, I’m fine. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” I push out another laugh. “Honestly, I probably should’ve called it quits a mile ago. But you gotta take advantage of this weather before it’s sweaty and disgusting out, right?”
He smiles—he believes me. “For sure,” he says. “I won’t miss that.”
He’s handing me an opening. Should I say something about the house?
“Oh, are you moving?” I feign surprise. “This is such a cute neighborhood.”
“I know. We love it here. But yeah, to London.”
This is my chance. But will it sound unhinged to ask when they’re planning to list—if maybe, possibly I could have a sneak peek inside? Or, worse, I might give myself away. Although heisbeing really nice to me. Dammit, here comes the Prius. I lock eyes with Ian in the driver’s seat and give my head a slight shake, willing him not to stop. He picks up some speed and keeps going.
But now my “dead” phone is vibrating. The man’s gaze darts to my palm.
“Oops, guess it still has enough juice to let me know the battery needs charging!” I hold it flush against my side, out of view, while I reject Ian’s call. That decides it, I just need to get out of here.
“Well, good luck,” I say. “I love London.” I have never been. “Would you mind pointing me to Mass Ave.?”
“Oh, sure, you want to go three blocks that way, then take a right on Redwood. That’ll take you straight to Massachusetts.”
“Thank you so much. Have a good one!”
I take off in a jog. The man is almost certainly also heading to Massachusetts Avenue, so I know I can’t stop until I see the Audi pass. Once it does, I text Ian my location.
“Margo, what the actual fuck?” He gets out so I can reclaim my place in the driver’s seat.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I buckle my seatbelt. “But everything’s fine. And you’re the one who left!”
“Because I didn’t want to look like some creeper in front of the guy’s house.”
“So if he’d caught me in the backyard, I would’ve had to fend for myself, then?”
“You’re being ridiculous. I’m the one who told you not to go back there.”
We don’t say anything for a couple blocks. Fighting about houses is just a thing we do now.
I break the silence. “I’m calling Ginny. The kitchen is incredible. So is the yard.”
Since we spoke earlier, Ginny has done some recon with her sister-in-law and learned the sellers are working with an agent from Long & Foster. “It has to be Theresa Reynolds,” she says. “Everyone in Grovemont uses her. I’ll call her now. Stay by your phone.”
I weave down Massachusetts, through Dupont Circle, and hang a right toward the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. Ian must still be annoyed, but he pecks me on the cheek and tells me he loves me before getting out. Muscle memory after all these years.
He had a girlfriend when we first met, playing in a kickball league together in 2008. I was twenty-three, making poverty wages as an editorial aide atThe Washington Post. I’d only moved here from Seattle a year before—still felt like an alien who would never speak the language of a planet where everyone else had graduated from the same Ivies as their parents. I’m not particularly athletic,but the interns and other aides all did kickball, so I figured it was a box someone my age should check.
Ian had been a baseball player through high school, so the team sports thing came naturally to him. I loved how the group always seemed to turn toward him, no matter what else was going on. If he spoke, people wanted to listen. It wasn’t that he was obnoxious about it; there was just something about his presence—calm, confident—that pulled you in.
I wasn’t sure if he even knew my name, but one Thursday, when postgame beers devolved into an all-nighter in Adams Morgan, still in uniform, we found ourselves alone together in a corner of the bar. That’s when we discovered we had something in common: we were both miserable in our jobs. I was sick of being poor and having to fight for every byline. At only twenty-seven, Ian was making more money than I’d ever dreamed of as an associate at Covington & Burling, but spending most of his days doing document review in a windowless room. Talking to me made him feel better, he said, like he was finally being seen. As he leaned across the table to kiss me, I noticed that his eyes weren’t brown, that there was some green in them, too. For the first time, I understood what “hazel” meant.
