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strain.”
    “It’s kind of circular,” Jay added. “The stronger you make it, the stronger you have to make it. Add strength up here, you have to add more strength down below to hold it up. After a while, it gets so the ground can’t support it.”
    “Really?” asked Cindy.
    Don shook his head. “We’re talking skyscraper levels of weight now. You’ll never find a house too heavy for the ground here.”
    “He says that because he’s not an engineer,” said Jay. “I could tell you stories.”
    “He could but don’t let him,” said Don. “Unless you have a sleep disorder.”
    Jay went into a lame Groucho imitation. “I like to consider myself a sleep disorder.” He leered at Cindy.
    Backing toward the door of the lumber room, Cindy stumbled over a trunk. It must have been empty, because it moved easily across the floor, raising a cloud of dust. Immediately she began sneezing.
    “Are you all right?” asked Don.
    “Bless you. Bless you. Bless you,” said Jay. Cindy hated that custom. Maybe after somebody threw up a “bless you” might be appropriate, but to invoke the powers of the universe because of a sneeze?
    “Excuse me but I’d better get downstairs,” said Cindy.
    The first step she took informed her that shehad twisted her ankle a little when she stumbled. She winced and limped.
    “You hurt yourself,” said Don.
    “Nothing, a twist, I’ll walk it off.”
    “Let me give you a hand.”
    Cindy had such contempt for women who flirted by leaning on men at every opportunity that now, when she would have liked very much to have a hand getting downstairs—especially his hand—she found herself refusing him by reflex. “Really, finish up here and join me when you’re ready, I’ll be fine.”
    Don took her at her word, dammit. But in fact she was right—by the time she got out onto the porch, her ankle was working fine again. No pain. But also no Don. His arm must be muscled like iron under that sleeve. He could toss me in the air like a baby.
    It didn’t take long for the men to get downstairs. Don wasted no time. He did ask if her ankle was all right, but as soon as she assured him that she was fine, he came straight to the point. “If the price is right, then it’s worth the work to me. House is solid but I’ve got to strip out almost everything and start from scratch. So I have to hold on to enough capital to do that.”
    “If you need time to make an estimate,” she began.
    “Don’t need time,” he said. “I already walked the outside of the house and counted the floors and multiplied the square footage. Before I calledyou. The price has to come in under fifty.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Am I to take that as an offer?”
    “I don’t dicker,” said Don.
    “ That’s the truth,” said Jay. “He can’t play poker because he doesn’t even bluff. If he bids on a hand, fold, because he doesn’t bid unless he’s got a sure thing.”
    “I don’t play poker,” said Cindy. “I just sell houses.”
    “What I’m saying,” said Don, “is that I’m not saying under fifty so you’ll come back with seventy-five and then we’ll settle on sixty-two.”
    “I know,” she said. “You’re saying under fifty because if it goes over fifty you aren’t taking it.”
    “If it goes over fifty I have to go to the bank for part of the money and then pay interest the whole time I’m working on it. And I’ll be working on this one for most of a year. Biggest house I’ve ever tackled. So I can’t afford to borrow. Cash or nothing.”
    “You have fifty thousand in cash?”
    “I said under fifty.”
    “I hear a mistake being made,” said Jay.
    Cindy looked at him in surprise. “You mean the house isn’t sound?”
    “Sound as a dollar,” said Jay. “Or a yen, or whatever. I just don’t think he’s going to make back what he’s putting into it. Not in this neighborhood, not this year.”
    “If he’s putting in less than fifty thousand—”
    “But he’s putting in