If they moved quickly, they might just swipe this one outfrom under the noses of all the other young families looking. Maybe they could snatch it up before the sellers realized it was horrendously underpriced.
The drive over to see the Needle—that’s what he’d been calling it, as in “the needle in a haystack”—was almost too perfect. Sunny and warm with a breeze to break the heat. A few clouds in the sky, but the pretty kind—fluffy and playful.
Their apartment was on the very outer edge of the city, in the no-man’s-land between urban and suburban. A land of bleak strip malls and busy “stroads”—that’s half street, half road—clogged up with gas stations and fast-food joints and unsightly power lines.
As they drove out farther into the suburbs, everything started to feel brighter, more open. The sky bluer, the air coming in through their open windows cleaner. They passed an adorable little elementary school, too cute to even believe. A hand-painted mural on one of the walls outside. A state-of-the-art playground with roller-coaster-like contraptions made of lime-green steel, seven different styles of swings, and full tunnel slides. And…was that a splash pad?
“How did it go at the doctor this morning?” he remembered to ask. “Everything OK?”
“Hunky-dory,” Wren said, shooting him a thumbs-up.
Within a mile or so of the house, there was a shopping center with everything they could possibly need. A Target, a Starbucks—plus another Starbucks inside the Target—a grocery store, a lovely little boutique wine shop, and a couple of chain restaurants and ice cream shops. If they lived here, they’d never need to go far.
It reminded Arthur of his neighborhood when he was growing up, which, coincidentally, wasn’t far away.
Before he even saw the house, it felt like home.
They turned onto the street in question. Like a perfectly composed photograph, each opposite sidewalk was lined with great, broad trees, branches forming a makeshift archway over the road, which was called Cherry Blossom Way.
“Would you look at this neighborhood? Gorgeous,” Arthur said, gawking out the driver’s-side window.
“Wonder what it’s like at rush hour. Lot of through traffic, I bet. Maniacs speeding by, mowing down innocent children. Would it kill them to add a few speed bumps?” Wren quipped, holding tightly to Ferdinand, whom she’d brought along for the ride, his tongue flapping in the breeze.
Arthur rolled his eyes. “You said you’d have an open mind. I really think if you give it a chance, you’ll see how great it could be to live somewhere like this.”
That had taken some convincing, too. But Wren had said she’d try to see it his way.
“This is me having an open mind. But I’m a safety nut, you know that. Can’t turn it off.”
“OK.” He laughed.
They pulled into the driveway next to another car and hopped out. The house matched the pictures, which was a good sign. It was in terrific shape, smaller than he expected, but infinitely more charming. The perfect size for their family.
“Spacious driveway,” Arthur noted. “Big enough if we decide to upgrade to a minivan.”
“Crack,” Wren said, pointing one out. “Crack, crack, crack.”
She kept jabbing her finger at little hairline fractures in the cement.
“Just cracks,” he reassured her.
“Yeah, for now. But this thing is a ticking time bomb. Could be on top of a sinkhole for all we know!”
“I really doubt it.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you when the ground collapses one day and we end up in China.”
“It doesn’t work like that; that’s a myth.”
“I’m just saying I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way.”
Linda Kellerman, teeth somehow even whiter than the last time they saw her, greeted them with something resembling a smile.
“Doctor,” she said cheekily when she saw him. Arthur turned red. His phone call to her apologizing, coming clean, and begging her to keep working with them had not been a fun one. But business must have just been slow enough, because eventually, after a long lecture on professionalism and respect, she agreed.
She threw him a wink and then began walking them around the property.
“Three-quarters of an acre,” she said. “Really a great lot. Fenced-in yard, as you can see. Flat. A lot of room for a pool, maybe a play set or a fire pit or whatever you can dream up! Personally I think a hardscape with a brick pizza oven would be a lot of fun.”
