Despite my battered and bruised feet, I nearly skipped home. It had been a long day, the bright spot being Skyping with Jack while he fed the babies their lunches of strained peas and pureed peaches. He’d still worn the T-shirt and pajama bottoms he’d slept in, but I refrained from commenting. I’d come to understand that writers had a few eccentricities I had to learn to live with. Not scheduling certain things like dressing in the morning or vetting one’s sock and underwear drawer on a monthly basis were just a few of the quirks to which I was making an effort to adjust.
I couldn’t wait to get home and kiss my babies and tell Jack that not only did I have a lead on a nanny, but I had three new clients—in addition to Jayne Smith—and six house showings already scheduled for the rest of the week. They’d all seen the ad I’d placed in the latest edition of Charleston Magazine, for which Nola had suggested including a picture of Jack and me, all three children, and the dogs in front of my Tradd Street house. She said it would make people believe that I knew what people meant when they said they were looking for a family home, and that I understood that historic homes were meant to be lived in.
I wasn’t sure I believed all that, but if it helped me sell houses, so be it. During my downtime, in which I’d dealt with the prospect of losing my home, an angry ghost, a difficult pregnancy that included months of bed rest, and my undefined relationship with Jack, I’d lost out on two news-making sales in Charleston—the Chisholm-Alston Greek Revival purchased by a well-known international fashion designer and the old, dilapidated yet still magnificent Renaissance mansion known as Villa Margherita on South Battery. I’d cried for days after learning those homes had sold and I hadn’t been the one to broker the deals. If anything, my anguish meant that my competitive spirit, dormant for so long, had reemerged kicking and screaming.
It was a good thing, considering we owed Nola for the money she’d given us to purchase the house when my ownership was contested. She was already a successful songwriter, having sold two songs to pop artist Jimmy Gordon and having one of them featured in an iPhone commercial, and she’d willingly given us the money, but neither Jack nor I would feel good about it until we paid her back in full with interest. Despite recent career setbacks, Jack had just signed a healthy two-book contract with his new publisher, but we were still trying to recover financially. Not to mention the fact that we owned an old house whose favorite hobby seemed to be hemorrhaging money.
My pace slowed as I neared my house, catching sight of not only Sophie’s white Prius parked at the curb, but also Rich Kobylt’s truck still in the same spot as I’d last seen it. This couldn’t be good. I hadn’t been able to reach Sophie when I tried earlier, and I wondered if she’d been avoiding speaking to me on the phone. She mistakenly believed that people would prefer bad news to be delivered in person. I didn’t, simply because if there were no witnesses to me hearing the news, then I could pretend it never happened.
I stopped, considering retreating to the office, but I suddenly became aware of my feet—or what was left of them—and knew I couldn’t. With a heavy sigh, I slipped off my shoes and limped the last hundred feet to the garden gate barefoot.
Sophie and Rich were standing by the indentation in my yard, now surrounded by yellow tape, along with a woman in her early twenties. Sophie spotted me and turned around with a huge smile. Her daughter, two months younger than my own babies, was worn in an outward-facing papoose, and gave me a single-toothed smile. She had dark, curly hair like her mother, big blue eyes like her father, Chad, and baby Birkenstocks over socks on her tiny feet. In my opinion, only babies looked good in Birkenstocks.
“Melanie!” Sophie said enthusiastically, making me immediately suspicious.
“Good to see you, Sophie. I’ve got to go change and check on the babies. . . .”
“Nice try. Nola and Jack are with the children.” She looked down at my shoes dangling from my hand. “And you’re almost undressed anyway. You know, if you wore Birkenstocks, your feet wouldn’t hurt.”