Seasons of Her Life (67 page)

1985

 

It was a ramshackle office, the decor early junk, consisting of
aluminum lawn chairs and a plywood desk covered with artificial wood-grained sticky paper peeling and curling at the edges. Prints of Whistler's Mother and something by Grandma Moses hung askew on a mustard-colored wall. Everything was old and dusty, including the man sitting across from Ruby. The sign on , the door said the offices were inhabited by Angus Webster, Realtor. Even the man's name sounded old, Ruby thought.

Angus Webster looked old. The word
wizened
popped into Ruby's mind. Pale blue eyes hid behind smudged spectacles. Never eyeglasses, for eyeglasses denoted something modern, whereas spectacles denoted a period gone by. He was a slight man with puffy pink cheeks that huffed and puffed when he spoke. Rather like a squirrel eating a nut. He wore a battered baseball cap that said he was a member of the Knights of Columbus. It covered a full head of wiry white hair that matched his thick eyebrows, one of which trailed down the left side of his face. A gold tooth winked when he spoke.

“We're a mite off the beaten track here in Lords Valley. I'd be interested to know how you found your way here,” he said in a voice that sounded as if it were made of gravel and molasses. Sort of sticky. Ruby sat back in the rickety lawn chair.

“Does that mean you don't much care for outsiders in ... these parts?”

“Not at all,” he mumbled. “Not much call for property by outsiders around here. Might be one or two pieces, but that's it.”

“I'd like to see ... both of them. Now if possible.”

Angus nodded, the baseball cap bobbing on his head. The brim was greasy and a leaf was stuck to the visor. It had probably been there for a very long time. “You didn't say how you found Lords Valley,” he complained as he struggled up from his chair. It creaked and groaned. Or maybe it was Angus Webster's joints creaking.

“I developed car trouble and ran out of gas at the same time. The man at the Mobil station fixed the fan belt and filled my tanks.”

“That's a spiffy vehicle you're driving, Mrs. Blue. Don't see cars like that in these parts. We're simple folks. We drive trucks,” he said, spitting into a spittoon, dead center. “You need a vehicle with four-wheel drive around here.”

Ruby nodded as she gathered up her purse. She slid behind the wheel of her car, a duplicate of the one she'd sold after the fiasco on the Point Pleasant bridge. She waited a full five minutes before Webster settled himself and started the engine. She noticed
his
vehicle had a running board.

The trip to the first piece of property that
just might be
for
sale
took thirty minutes of solid driving—up hills, down hills, around corners, and across a field because it was a shortcut. Ruby bounced along behind, keeping up with the old man with the lead foot. Twice her head hit the visor as she jounced over ruts big enough to bury a bear.

When the ancient truck ground to a halt, Ruby had to swerve to avoid hitting it. Mr. Webster didn't believe in signaling.

“Here 'tis,” Webster called. Ruby watched as he put both feet on the running board before he stepped gingerly onto the ground.

Ruby's heart fluttered.

“A real fixer-upper,” Webster cackled. Ruby's heart fluttered again before it started to pound.

“You said there were two properties.”

“What I said,” Webster said, wagging a finger, “was there might be more than one, but there ain't. T'other one doesn't have a clear title. Probably won't ever have a clear title, not leastaways in my lifetime. This is the only one available. Comes with a right nice parcel of land. Hundred acres. Taxes ain't bad. Septic tank in the back. You got your own pond for fishing. Deer run right through here.”

Ruby's eyes widened. The house looked like an antebellum mansion gone to seed. “There's a hole in the roof,” she sputtered.

Webster snorted. “One in the back, too, bigger. Porch floor is rotten, front and back. Told you it was a fixer-upper. Price is right for a fixer-upper.”

In its heyday it must have been beautiful, Ruby thought, with its wrap-around porch and floor-to-ceiling multipaned windows. Over the front door that Webster said was solid oak was a fanned window of stained glass.

“Seven fireplaces, all with solid oak mantels. Staircase is in bad shape, but it's oak, too. Oak costs a fortune today. Price is right,” he muttered.

“Who owns it?” Ruby asked.

“People,” Webster said curtly.

“Why are they selling it? How long has it been for sale?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe five years, maybe more.”

“I don't need a hundred acres. It's all woods, mountains.”

“Goes with the house. Price is right,” he repeated.

“It will cost me twice the price of the house to fix it up. If I were considering buying it,” she blustered.

“Has a barn, a chicken coop, toolshed, and watering troughs.”

“I don't need any of those things,” Ruby said in a jittery voice. “Are you sure this is all you have?”

“Yep. You want to see the inside?”

“I'm here. Why not.”

“Has sixteen rooms.”

“Sixteen!” Ruby yelped.

“Yep, and that don't count the pantry or the garage or the cellar and attic.”

“Heat?” Ruby asked just to hear her own voice.

“Ain't none, leastways no central. Franklin stoves. Blast you right out of the house. Chimneys work good. You step where I step so's you don't go through the floor.”

This is crazy, Ruby thought.
There's no way I'd buy this nightmare.
Andy would kill me. Still it wouldn't hurt to look.

The ceilings were high, twelve feet or so, and they were water-marked. Rusty chandeliers hung in all the rooms.

The bathrooms were quaint, their size alone intimidating, bigger than her bedroom on Ribbonmaker Lane. When she got to what Webster said was the master bedroom, she closed her eyes and tried to visualize a fire blazing in the baronial hearth. The room was furnished with a four-poster with a handmade quilt, ruffled curtains, a dressing table, rag rugs on the oak floor, and a rocking chair with bright red cushions. The kind of room she'd once promised herself.

“I want to see the kitchen,” Ruby said as they trooped down the long staircase. She did like the carved banister and the newel post at the bottom of the curved stairway.

“Won't like it. Needs work.”

He was right, Ruby thought in dismay when she stepped over the cracked linoleum. The stove was a horror, the sink a nightmare. The shelves lining the wall were ugly and rotting. “What's that?” Ruby said, pointing to a rusty fixture at the sink.

“Pump. You have well water here. You have to prime it.”

“Oh, God,” Ruby muttered. She closed her eyes again and imagined a Sears, Roebuck kitchen. A bow window with a window seat. She'd put a rocking chair next to the fireplace, and a basket of logs on the oversize hearth. Fieldstone was beautiful.
Only a lunatic would buy this dump.

Ruby screamed when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

“Just a rat,” Webster said in disgust. “A couple of cats will clear them right out.” Ruby shuddered.

“The floor's rotten,” Ruby said.

“Yep. Window's rotted clear through, too.”

There was no way she would even think about buying this monstrosity. No way at all. Andy would commit her.

“Want to see the root cellar?”

“No.”

“Peach trees, apple trees and some pear, all over.”

“I like plum trees. Those sweet green ones.”

“Might be one or two. Can't be certain. You want to see the outside buildings?”

“Might as well.”

She should have known better. The barn was little more than a roof and floor. Parts of several stalls remained. The garage didn't have a roof, but it did have two sides and part of a third. There was no door. Ruby knew if she pushed real hard, it would tumble down. The chicken coop seemed to be intact for some reason, but it was an eyesore.

A dimwit with no brains at all would pass this one up, Ruby thought.

“I don't need a hundred acres,” Ruby said again stubbornly. “Where's the pond?”

“Fed by a natural spring. A real beauty. You can swim in it. Good exercise, they tell me, swimming.” He pointed off into the distance. “Down there. You don't have on the right shoes, Mrs. Blue.”

“Who does the carpentry work around here? Who does renovations?” She was asking only out of curiosity.

“The Semolina brothers. Fine work they do. Craftsmen. You don't find real craftsmen these days.” His face wore a disgusted look when he said, “And they don't wear hard hats the color of canaries, either.”

“If they're craftsmen, they must be in demand.” She was nuts, why was she even talking about this? She had no intention of buying this nightmare. None at all.

“They take their time. You young folks, everything has to be done yesterday. You can't speed up the Semolina brothers.”

“I don't need a hundred acres,” Ruby said for the fifth time, or was it the fourth, she couldn't remember.

“I hear you. Fifty.”

“No.”

“Thirty-five,” Webster said.

“Twenty-five. Wait a minute, I didn't say I was buying. This house should be torn down and rebuilt.”

“Yep. Better to have the Semolina Brothers fix it. You want to buy this house, don't you?”

Ruby wanted to say no. She meant to say no, but what she said was, “I'll take it, but only twenty-five acres.” They would lock her up and throw away the key. She felt light-headed with the words.

“Contingent on the Semolina brothers doing the work and Sears, Roebuck putting in a new kitchen.”

“They won't like that, Sears, Roebuck doing their work.” Webster spat three feet, tilted forward to see if he hit the mark he was aiming at. Satisfied, he climbed into his truck. “Get in, we can negotiate inside, where it's warmer.”

Ruby's head buzzed as she tried to recall exactly how much she had in her purse.

“What's your offer?”

“Offer?”

“What do you want to chew me down to?”

Ruby rattled off a price that was fifteen thousand dollars less than the asking price.

“Done.” He scribbled out an agreement, in pencil, on a crumpled piece of paper. The pencil was barely two inches long and the eraser was worn down to the metal cap. He spit on it first, his gold tooth winking.

“Shouldn't you be drawing up a contract? Shouldn't I sign something?”

“No need. I'm a man of my word. You look like a lady of your word. We can do business. I seen that right away when I saw you close your eyes in that upstairs bedroom. That was my mother's bedroom.”

“You own this!” Ruby said, startled.

“Yep. Me and my brother, but he's senile. I handle his affairs.”

“I need to move in now. I can pay rent till we close.”

“No need. We can close when we go back to the office. I'm selling and you're buying. That's how we do things. Tomorrow you can have the deed. How you paying for this here property, Mrs. Blue?”

“Cash.”

“That's a fine way of doing business. I accept.”

“And the Semolina brothers, when can they start to work?” This was all moving too fast for her. She'd never done business in such a crazy way. No warning bells were sounding, so it was probably all right. Still, she wouldn't tell anyone until it was official. It was an adventure. That's how she had to look at it.

“Tomorrow morning. Bright and early. You can move in today.”

Ruby nodded. All she needed was some food, a sleeping bag, and a car full of cleaning supplies.

“If I'm going to come back here, I think you'd better draw me a map of some kind. I don't think I could find my way without one.”

Angus Webster spat out the car window at some invisible target. “No need. Two lefts, a hill, a right, another left, and here you are.”

“What about the field?” Ruby gaped at the man.

“That's your last left. Can't miss a field, lessen you're blind.”

But she did miss it, and it was six o'clock when she returned to the house on Orchard Circle. One of these days she was going to find out why her driveway was called a circle. There wasn't a house for three miles in either direction.

Ruby sat in her car for a long time with the heater running. Once she entered the house, she had to lug in wood and then lug it to the upstairs bedroom, if she was going to sleep up there. On the other hand, she could lug the wood as far as the kitchen and sleep on the floor in her brand-new down sleeping bag.

She kept her coat on while she built the fire. The minute the dry wood caught and spewed out warmth, she removed her coat and began to rummage in her bags for something to eat. She chomped down two apples, an orange, and a container of bullion she'd picked up at the pharmacy that doubled as a cafe. She was so hungry she wanted to cry, but the thought of being laid out in a coffin was frightening. She ate another apple.

In her spacious tote bag, she kept all the literature about her blood problem. She knew she had to eat a lot of salmon and other fish, a lot of beans and broccoli. The only sweet she could have was angel food cake. She would stick to the diet Nick gave her or die in the attempt. The only thing she really hadn't done was exercise, but she had that under control, too. She'd run up and down the steps a few times for starters, and tomorrow after the Semolina brothers arrived, she'd go for a long walk and explore her twenty-five acres. If they could get the old stove to work until she got a new one, she might be able to cook.