“I’ve found our dream house!” she announced.
Rob halted in the entryway, one hand on each boy. All three were knee-high in mud splatters. “I didn’t know we were looking for one.”
“Before you say anything, please take a look. It’s a big place that needs a little work.” In truth, it was a little place that needed big work. She thrust the listing under Rob’s nose.
Rob’s eyes had skittered right past the image and down to the listing price, where they widened with amusement. “Did you win the lottery?” He laughed. “We don’t have that kind of coin.”
“But we do!” Phoebe insisted. She’d done her homework and prepared a small speech. “The Realtor says the market has improved. If we sell our place, we’ll have plenty to deposit on the lake house. And extra to fix it up. Just the way we like it!”
“But I like this house,” he said, tugging Patrick’s wet uniform over his head.
“No, you don’t. You just don’t realize it because you’re always at work. I live here with the kids day in and out. We’re busting at the seams.”
Newly freed from their soaked soccer gear, the twins bolted away and up the stairs. There was a thundering overhead and the kitchen ceiling shook. Phoebe gritted her teeth.
“Is this about the Warrens?” Rob asked.
Phoebe prickled. Don and Victoria Warren lived next door. Not to be confused with Vicky. Or Tori. “Vic—tor—ee—uh,” she’d told Phoebe the first time they’d met. “As in the queen. I don’t do nicknames.”
Don andVic-tor-ee-uhhad recently remodeled their entire house, from foundation to chimney top. Even before their long and noisy renovation Phoebe had struggled with what Rob called “neighborly bonds” with the Warrens. They were the kind of people who had their house decked out, within a twinkle light of being visible from space, for Christmas. And all before midnight on Thanksgiving. The decorative extravaganza kept Phoebe and Rob’s bedroom illuminated like a Walmart parking lot. But onlyuntil the twelfth day of Christmas, Victoria assured her. Which only served to piss Phoebe off further. What kind of person kept track of when it was the twelfth day of Christmas?
They hosted lavish parties with ridiculous themes. Like their annual Kentucky Derby party (“A soiree!” Vic-tor-ee-uh had trilled), where they served only mint juleps and made everyone don fancy little hats. Phoebe liked wine. And she loathed hats. What she loathed most was attending parties where people were required to do anything other than shower and show up. For her, as the mother of toddler boys, those two things, themselves, were reason to celebrate.
Rob, being the better sport, felt otherwise. “Come on, honey. Surely you can put on a hat for one party.”
“No. No, I cannot.” Phoebe was more from the Robert Frost school of thinking. The whole “Good fences make good neighbors” thing was written for people like the Warrens. She doubted Robert Frost ever had to don a Kentucky Derby hat for a “soiree.”
“They have a thing for holidays,” Rob had said, with a resigned shrug. “Think of them as jolly.”
Phoebe had rolled her eyes. “Jolly assholes.”
Just last weekend the Warrens had hosted an elaborate open house. A “Welcome Summer!” gathering, they’d called it, which just happened to coincide with the completion of their renovation. The handsome Dutch Colonial had been completely gutted, along with, in Phoebe’s opinion, much of its original character. The old brick fireplaces had been covered up and replaced with a floating gas wall insert of turquoise glass and metal. The antique hardwoods were ripped out, replaced by a cold gray tile meant to look like driftwood. Phoebe had dragged her best friend, Anna Beth, with her to the party.
“Doesn’t it feel coastal?” Vic-tor-ee-uh had crooned, as sheled a gaggle of nosy neighbors room to room. Never mind that they were a hundred miles from the nearest coast. Anna Beth had grabbed Phoebe’s hand as they detoured sharply from the planned route and into a brass and marble–appointed powder room that was more befitting a czarina than a stay-at-home mother. “Welcome Summer gathering,my ass,” Anna Beth hissed as she slid the pocket door closed behind them. “This is a smug ride on a show pony.”
They’d spent the rest of the “tour” doubled over in giggles, trying to flush the hands-free smart toilet by wiggling their rear ends over the bowl, until someone knocked on the door.
Now Phoebe gazed back at Rob with what she hoped was masked ire. What was he insinuating? The Warrens’ house was ridiculous. All Phoebe wanted was a house with a separate bedroom for each boy and a yard to play in. And maybe more room. The lake house would afford them all of that. Plus the lake.
“Honey. Hear me out. Our lives are crazy busy. School, kids, work. Forget paying bills and mowing the lawn and trying to keep up with cleaning this dump.”
“Dump?” It was Rob’s turn to prickle.
“This house is our hub. It has to function, or we can’t.”
Rob stood up slowly. “Maybe we can work on the kitchen a little. I know it’s dated, but it still works. Mostly.”
“Right. And the last thing you cooked in here was…?”
Rob held up his hands. “All right. But I don’t think now is the time.”
“You’re up for that promotion,” she reminded him. “You’ve been groomed and waiting your turn in line for years. Dan said so.”
Dan was Rob’s boss at the marketing firm. He’d been hinting at moving Rob up in recent months, and a position had finallyopened. Interviews were already underway, but Dan had told Rob off the record that it was just a formality. The job was his if he wanted it.
“Then we should wait until I get the job.”
“The house is a steal. It won’t be there if we wait!”
