I was happy too.
About fifteen minutes later we turned onto Iroquois, and nerves mingled with my exhilaration. I twisted my hands together, glancing at Nick. Would he think I was nuts? What if he reacted just like I thought my parents would? What if he told me there was no way in hell a girl like me should buy such a big old thing that needed so much work? Maybe I shouldn’t have brought him here.
Immediately I was annoyed with myself—why did I care so much what he thought?
“Is it that one?” he asked as we neared it. “The one with the sign?”
“Yes.” My agent’s black Audi was parked on the street. “You can pull in the driveway. No one lives here.”
Nick pulled into the drive, and we got out. Linda, my agent, glided over to us. She was tall and thin with dark skin and wide-set brown eyes, and always dressed in impeccable suits with matching heels. “Coco.” She offered her hand. “Good morning.”
“Morning, Linda. This is my friend, Nick Lupo.” She took his hand too, tilting her head thoughtfully.
“Are you the Burger Bar Nick Lupo?”
He nodded.
“I love that place!” She shook his hand enthusiastically. “This is so exciting.” Her eyes traveled from Nick to me and back again. “And how do you know Coco?”
Nick and I exchanged glances. “From college,” I said. “We met at Michigan State. Shall we go in?”
Linda unlocked the box on the side door but insisted we go in through the front. “I’ll meet you there. It’s a much more impressive entrance.” I was glad, since the side door led into the kitchen, which was probably the area in the worst shape.
“What year was this built?” Nick asked as we approached the front door. He tipped his head back to take in the peeling gray-blue paint on the shingles, the flaking white trim. I hoped he’d see the possibilities and not just the disrepair.
“Nineteen-oh-two, I think? Linda mentioned that Albert Kahn might have designed it. And look— it’s on a double lot. It has a nice, deep yard too. It was on the Home and Garden Tour a few years back.” I chirped away, nervous on many levels.
But when Linda pulled the front door open, Nick took my hand and squeezed it briefly before going in. “It’s beautiful. I’m excited to see the inside.”
It sounds insane, but walking through the house with Nick at my side, I was reminded of the time I took a pregnancy test in college. We discovered that the condom broke one night, and two weeks later, my period was late. After I peed on the stick and brought it out, Nick and I stared at the stupid thing for the longest minute of our life, his hand gently rubbing my back. I remember how I kept glancing over at him to try to figure out what he was thinking. He said no matter what the outcome was, we’d be fine, but I wanted to know how he felt. Was he scared? Was he mad at himself? Was he thinking that we’d ruined our lives? Just like then, his expression today gave nothing away, and he moved through the rooms with a maddeningly calm demeanor.
(The test was negative, although Nick eventually admitted he was nervous as hell but didn’t want me to know it. When I asked if he thought we’d come close to ruining our lives, he gave me a strange look and said, “Of course not.” However, I noticed he bought a different brand of condoms after that.)
But underneath my anxiety, that feeling that I got the first time I walked through the house was back. In fact, it was even stronger. I could actually see myself here…hanging new wallpaper in the dining room, painting the master bedroom walls, ripping out linoleum in the kitchen.
And I saw Nick too.
Tearing off the old kitchen cabinets, laying new tile for the backsplash, advising me on the layout of my sink, fridge, and stove. But I imagined him not only in the kitchen—I saw him laying new bricks in the patio out back, carrying heavy furniture up the stairs, cracking open a beer and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the top of his wrist.
Catching me behind the waist on the staircase.
Setting me on the counter in the butler’s pantry.
Crawling up my body, my hands threading through his hair, in a king-size bed in the master bedroom, moonlight streaming through the windows.
I saw it so vividly it was as if the wind was knocked out of me, and I paused in the doorway to the bedroom, unable to move.
“You OK, Coco?” Nick put a hand on my shoulder.
“What? I’m fine.”
“Oh, well, you’re sort of frozen there, and I’d like to see the master bedroom.”
“Right. Sorry.” I stepped aside so he could enter the room, flustered and hot in the face.
And in the pants.
When we’d gone into every room, peeked in the dank basement and admired the deep, wide backyard with its overgrown grapevines and a huge weeping willow, I thanked Linda and told her I’d be in touch.
“All right, sounds good, honey. Like I said, I heard from another agent that his clients—she’s a bigwig at GM, just transferred, been living in corporate housing with four kids—are planning to make an offer this week, so just let me know.”
“OK. I will.” We got into the Mercury, and I looked up at the house, a dose of reality sinking in. This week? Was I nuts? That meant I had to ask my parents for money within a day or so…was I up for that, considering I’d be dealing with Angelina too?
And why was Nick so quiet?
“You think I’m crazy,” I said as he turned on the engine.
“Not at all. It’s a beautiful house.”