Love Stories in This Town Read Online Free PDF Page B

opened the freezer and saw ice-cream sandwiches. I thought, I love ice-cream sandwiches .
    Maybe it was the caffeine—which I was drinking for the first time in months—but the next few houses were a blur. We chattered about mortgages and contracts. As Joe drove, I furnished the house in my mind: a sleek couch in front of the fireplace—maybe leather? I imagined myself in the craft room, sliding fabric under the needle, really making a go of Madeline Designs, now that I no longer had to waitress every night.
    Joe's cell phone rang. “Hello?” he said. “No, no,” he said. “Couldn't have been me.” He snapped the phone shut and turned to look at us. “Somebody took the key to the first house. That was the owner. He's pissed.” He shook his head and chuckled.
    I looked at Greg, who said coldly, “Why don't you check your pockets, Joe.”
    Joe's phone rang again. “What?” he said. He started to flush. “Well, okeydokey,” he said. “I-I-I …” He stopped talking and nodded, then closed the phone. “I guess we're the only ones who've been there. But I just don't—”
    “Watch out for the divider,” said Greg in a steely voice.
    As we doubled back to all the houses we'd seen, I tried to calm my husband. “It's going to be perfect,” I said, as he muttered, “total waste of our time.” After Joe found the key to our dream house, locked in another house, he called the owners. “Hi there, Joe Jones, Lone Star Realty,” he said. “The funniest thing—”
    “Don't turn on University,” said Greg from the backseat. Joe turned on University. We sat in traffic caused by a construction site—a site we had driven by earlier—in complete silence.
    By lunchtime, we had returned the key. The house looked better than ever. A lemonade stand had been set up by the park. A little boy rode by on his bicycle, a wrapped birthday present in the basket.
    Joe took us out to lunch. I popped my pills right at the table and changed my Maxi Pad in the bathroom. I was not healthy. I ate a cheeseburger with avocado, cheddar, and bacon. I called my father in Haralson and said, “We found it,” and my father said, “That's wonderful, Kimmy.”
    Across the restaurant, Greg spoke excitedly into his cell phone. “Mom,” he said, “Listen to this, Mom …”
    Over lunch, we filled out the paperwork, making an offer for full price and then some. Joe assured us we would get the house. Between bites of his burrito, Joe told us he had just hit his stride at Enron when the shit storm hit. “Thought I'd give this real estate thing a try,” he said. He talked about his six-month-old baby, whom he called “Girly.” His wife, also an Enron-employee-turned-realtor, he called “Doll.”
    After lunch, we drank Diet Dr Pepper and looked at many houses that sucked, feeling superior.
    That night, I wore a strapless dress. It was deep green, and had a matching jacket with three-quarter-length sleeves. We wandered around the Woodlands, trying to find a restaurant where we could splurge, though we were nervous about spending every cent PharmaLab had promised and hundreds of thousands they hadn't. If we got the house, we could no longer say, “Oh, screw Big Pharma. Let's just move to Wyoming and live off the land.”
    Though we were outside, I felt as if we were trapped in a mall, with one neon-lit shop after another. All we could find was a Cheesecake Factory, and I've never liked cheesecake, so we returned to the Great American Grill.
    “Cheers,” I said, holding my margarita high.
    Greg brought his glass to mine, and said, “Cheers, my love.” We toasted ourselves, and the little family we would begin, as soon as I was no longer bleeding heavily. A week before, I had packed some Victoria's Secret Supermodel Sexy Whipped Body Cream into my suitcase. It would keep.
    The gold minivan pulled up as usual in the morning, but Joe was no longer at the wheel. Instead, Doll—whose real name was Sally—hopped out. She was short and plump,