Was the after-work plan I cobbled together a good idea? Probably not. But once my workday was done I realized that I was fresh out of good ideas, so I was left to settle for questionable ones.
I assumed that it would take me a day or so to get an appointment arranged to see the inside of Doyle’s house, but I was wrong. When I phoned the listing agent asking if she could meet me for a showing, her eyes apparently began flashing dollar signs at the prospect of mining a buyer for a house for which she was already representing the seller. She asked me what time I got off work. I told her I was done at six. Without a moment’s hesitation she asked if 6:15 would work for me. “You won’t believe the water features in the backyard,” she exclaimed. “They are worth the purchase price all by themselves. Trust me, they’re…”
I didn’t tell her that I already knew.
When I called Viv, our part-time nanny, she informed me that Lauren would be late getting home, too. Viv promised me that she was happy to stay with Grace a little longer. In my head I added a small bonus to her monthly check. I also left Lauren a voice mail at her office that I would pick up some Thai takeout for dinner.
The woman I was meeting was named Virginia Danna. She pulled up in front of Doyle’s house in a silver Lexus SUV, the big version, the fancy Land Cruiser clone that was all shoulders and hips. I was parked a couple of doors farther north and walked the short distance from my car in time to meet up with her near the front porch.
“Dr. Gregory?” she beamed when she spotted me coming. “You’re going to absolutely love this place. The bathrooms need a little work, but oh, oh, the potential with the…” She was a tall, thin-the word svelte actually came to mind-elegantly dressed woman with just a hint of an accent, as though she’d emigrated to the United States from someplace when she was quite young. Despite her last name, for some reason I was guessing she was from Brazil. Her wardrobe made few concessions to winter. She wore no coat and she balanced effortlessly on high heels. All in all, very not-Boulder.
“Ms. Danna?”
“Yes, yes. I’m so sorry. My manners sometimes escape me when I’m excited. And this house, it…” She reached out to shake my hand. “Will you excuse me for just a moment?” She pressed a speed-dial button on her cell. “Yes, yes. Dr. Gregory is here. We’re going in now. Fine, fine. Yes, I’m sure. Doctor Gregory. That’s right, on Twelfth. Thanks!” Ms. Danna turned back to me. “With what’s happened to some poor agents in Denver-I’m sure you heard-we’re required to check into the office before all private showings. I hope you understand, it’s…”
“Of course.”
She was in the lockbox in seconds, retrieved the front door key, and held the door open so I could precede her inside. “I don’t really like to show houses when they’re unfurnished like this one is, but…” She sighed. “I tried to get the owner to rent some things, you know, just for… The right furniture makes everything seems so much brighter and…”
Ms. Danna had an obvious penchant for uncompleted thoughts. Regardless, I was grateful for the opening she’d just offered about Doyle. Offhandedly I asked, “Is the owner in town? Did he move to a larger house?”
She was easing me out of the cramped entryway into an adjacent living room with scratched red-oak floors, the original single-pane metal casement windows, and an undistinguished fireplace. “In town? No, no. Not exactly. But we’re in constant touch, constant. I promise I can get a response to an offer in a heartbeat. A day at the outside. He’s motivated, he is-he’s already dropped the price once. Don’t get me wrong; I mean that in all the right ways. Do you live here in Boulder?”
The last question was ripe with raw hope that my answer would be yes and that I might offer her the opportunity for a real estate trifecta: a buyer who purchases a home from a listing agent and then agrees to enlist the same agent to sell his existing home. Three commissions-seller, buyer, seller-and a veritable cascade of closings.
“I do. In Spanish Hills. But I work downtown near the Mall, on Walnut, and with the traffic lately, the drive is getting…” I tried to find the right word before I settled on “tiresome.”
Her excitement at my disclosure was palpable. A Spanish Hills listing? Although naming one of a few other even more precious local neighborhoods might have earned me an almost orgasmic response, in Boulder it didn’t get a whole lot better for local real estate purveyors than Spanish Hills. “Inventory” in Spanish Hills usually meant that there was a single home for sale. With my pronouncement that I lived on one of the rare parcels across the valley, I felt an instantaneous change in the electrical charge in the room.
But Ms. Danna knew that she had to sell me on the house at hand and couldn’t risk my getting too sentimental about leaving my current home. She played her hand well. “Don’t I know?” she said. “That’s the beauty of living right here on the Hill. Everything is so close: Chautauqua, downtown, the greenbelt, the mountains, the turnpike, shopping. The location is so…”
Perfect?
I caught her staring down at my left hand and accurately predicted her next question. “You’re married?”
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“One.”
“Spanish Hills?” she mused. “It’s so pretty up there. I have clients who have waited for years to… the views are so…”
Expansive? And the houses so… expensive. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I lived in one of the few modest homes-modest by Boulder standards-in the whole neighborhood. She’d be so disappointed.
“Yes, it is lovely,” I said, but I was allowing my eyes to wander the recesses of the bland living room and was beginning to wonder what I’d hoped to gain by traipsing through Doyle’s empty house. I moved through an opening from the living room into an equally bland dining room. Ms. Danna followed right behind me.
“Good size, don’t you think?” she said. “Plenty of room in here for a…”
Table? Family gathering?
The kitchen had been recently renovated and had a nice little built-in breakfast nook with a large window facing the yard. A compact laundry room was stuffed into what had probably once been a butler’s pantry. The quality of the remodel wasn’t congruous with the asking price for the house; the new cabinetry and appliances were the kind of warehouse stuff you might expect to find in a Boulder rental.
Ms. Danna apparently shared my impression. “Some new countertops in here, maybe stone, or even cast concrete, and you’d need to do something with that…”
What? I couldn’t tell. “Yes,” I said. I was beginning to recognize her real estate dilemma. She was trying to sell a house in Boulder in winter that’s main selling point was its yard. And yards don’t show too well when they’ve been stripped of all their green, and elaborate water features don’t show too well when they’ve been drained of all their H20.
We made it through a quick tour of the two upstairs bedrooms and two adjacent cramped bathrooms. She had been correct in her earlier appraisal: The bathrooms were in need of a sledgehammer and a good designer. The master bath was lined with chest-high plastic tile in a color that resembled one of the fluids that Grace emitted from her nose when she had a sinus infection.
As my enthusiasm for the house failed to swell, Ms. Danna’s enthusiasm about her prospects seemed to go into decline, but she tenaciously held on to some hope for the finale. “The two highlights of this property are the media room in the basement, and that wonderful backyard. Which would you like to see first?”
She didn’t wait for my reply. She hit two switches on the wall near the back door and instantly the yard lit up like a resort. My eyes were drawn to the granite waterfall that I’d seen in the dark the night before.
“That’s nice,” I said.
“Nice? Imagine the water splashing over those rocks, the sound of that stream. Fish in the pond. The birds, the flowers. In spring, I think you’ll find that it’s…”
Breathtaking?
“The basement?” I asked. “Where are the stairs?”
The lower level wasn’t the same size as the upper level. The media room was big enough-I pegged it at fifteen by twenty feet-but the whole basement wasn’t even twice that size. A bland powder room, a mechanical room, and a long, narrow storage room completed the downstairs floor plan. On the top third of the storage room wall was a wide opening with a hinged lid.
“More storage?” I asked.
“Crawl space,” Ms. Danna said.
“May I?” I asked, touching the handle on the door.
“Of course.”
I opened the awning-style lid and peered into a neat crawl space about three feet high. The floor of the entire space was lined with thick-mil plastic.
“Radon?” I asked, trying to act like someone who was actually interested.
She nodded. “Nothing to worry about. It’s under control. Completely. I have all the reports. It’s been mitigated to levels that the neighbors would love to have. Really, it’s…”
Whatever. I closed the lid on the crawl space.
“Did you see that projector in the media room?” she asked. “It’s a top-of-the-line Runco. And, yes… yes, it’s included. All the theater electronics are included. Audio, video. All of them. Denon, B amp;O. The furniture, too. I don’t have to tell you that those chairs are all recliners, and they’re not La-Z-Boys. Custom. Crème de la crème. Electronics, finishes, everything. He spared no expense down here. The owner loved his home theater, he…”
I didn’t know what she was talking about component-wise, and I didn’t really care. I was one of those people who couldn’t imagine going down into the basement to watch a DVD so I could pretend I was sitting in a theater. I’d just as soon curl up with my wife and daughter and my dogs and watch a video on the old VCR in the bedroom.
“Wow,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Oh, I forgot, the screen…” She took my hand and led me out to the far wall of the theater. A big white movie screen was hung within an ornately carved frame of polished wood. I was guessing mahogany. “Now, don’t you touch it-fingerprints, fingerprints. I forgot who makes it-somebody good, no, somebody great. I have it in my notes. It’s the same screen that Spielberg has in his private screening room at his place in… The same exact one. It’s like… the best. I promise I have the name back in the office. I’ll get it for you. I will. First…”
Thing? “Wow.” It looked exactly like a movie screen. Spielberg knew what he was doing.
After what I hoped was a suitable amount of time spent staring at the blank screen, I led Ms. Danna up the stairs and as we walked out the front door I gave her my appraisal of the property. “It’s a little small for us, I’m afraid.”
She was ready for that argument. “Oh, I know, I know, but the potential? You get a good architect to find a way to cantilever the upstairs a little bit and you could expand that second story in a heartbeat. Think of the covered porch down below and the views from your new master suite upstairs. Just think! You could have a deck that faces the Flatirons! And closets? Oh, I don’t have to tell you, do I? You’re a man with…”
Vision?
The night was cold and a bitter wind was blowing down from the north with the sharp bite of Saskatchewan.
As Ms. Danna replaced the keys in the lockbox she made it clear that she was eager to show me a couple of other “things,” though “the price points are up a notch or two from here.” I declined, although I admit that I was curious exactly how many digits constituted a “notch” in Boulder’s hyperinflated housing market. Resigned, she gave me her card and asked for one of mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have any with me.”
It was partly true. I didn’t have any with me.
But I wasn’t sorry.
I walked her down the serpentine front walk to her big Lexus and shook her hand, thanking her for her time. Over her left shoulder-at the upstairs window of Mallory Miller’s house-I spotted what I thought was the same silhouette I’d seen the night before while I’d been trespassing in the backyard with Sam.
Ms. Danna saw me looking. “Such a tragedy,” she said. “That girl’s father must feel…”
Awful.