No Place Like Home Read Online Free PDF

you don’t want anyone to know where you’ve been.”

    “ That’s the place. They also have the best French fries in Illinois.”

    “ And I’ve never heard of it?” I can see why, she thought as they stepped inside. From the pavement, it looked like a seedy dive. Inside, it made no pretensions to style or atmosphere; the table coverings were paper, the chairs looked less than reliable, and the smell was heavenly.

    Her Reuben was the best she had ever eaten, dripping with sauerkraut and salad dressing. “You’re certainly right about the food,” she said.

    He said, modestly, “I nearly always am. Where do you live now, Kaye?”

    “ In a studio apartment on Williams Street. Is that important?”

    “ It might be. We’re trying to establish what you really want, so that I show you that and not what I think you should have. What made you choose that apartment? And what do you hate about it?”

    She thought it over as she nibbled at the corned beef that peeped out of the edge of her sandwich. “It was mostly the fact that I could afford the rent,” she said.

    “ Williams Street is not a luxurious neighborhood, but neither is it a slum. Let’s be serious, please.”

    “ Sorry. I like it because it has huge windows and it’s one big room—all open space for my plants and my cat. I hate it because it’s new, so the walls are thin and if the upstairs neighbors make noise it sounds as if I’m living inside a bass drum.” She thought about it. “I suppose what I’m really saying is that I want an old house, one that has a history to it. One with a classic style.”

    “ I’m a bit prejudiced towards Victorians myself,” he agreed. “I suppose it’s because I grew up in one. Nevertheless, you’d be amazed at all the people who say they want an old house, and end up buying a new one.”

    “ I wonder why.”

    “ Partly because it doesn’t sound like a bass drum if there are no upstairs neighbors,” he said gravely. “And a new house has all kinds of advantages—things like plumbing that isn’t half-plugged.”

    Kaye shrugged. “You can’t decorate a water pipe at Christmastime, but you can certainly hang holly on an open staircase.”

    He pulled out his notebook and jotted a few words. “Are you finished with your sandwich?”

    Kaye looked regretfully at her plate. “I give up.”

    “ Take it home to the cat.”

    “ Omar is a spoiled baby and a picky eater, so—” She stared at the sandwich and changed her mind. “That corned beef is too good to waste. I’ll eat it myself, for supper.”

    Brendan grinned. “Just don’t think that I’m going to start providing all your meals,” he teased.

    “ Oh? I thought it was part of the service.”

    They looked at eight houses that afternoon. Kaye rejected all of them, and each time she shook her head, Brendan, with unruffled good humor, merely locked the front door behind them and drove on to the next. By the time they got back to the shopping plaza, Kaye felt as if she had just finished a marathon run.

    “ If house-hunting is always this tough,” she said, tossing herself down in the chair beside his desk, “you should insist on a medical check-up for clients before you start.”

    “ We won’t keep up this pace, now that I have an idea of what you’re really looking for.”

    “ Eight houses, and not a single one of them what I want.”

    “ The Georgian brick came close—at least from the outside.”

    “ How do you know?” she challenged. “I said hardly a word about any of those houses.”

    “ You have very expressive eyes, my dear,” he said, in the same tone as if he were the wolf talking to Little Red Riding Hood. “It was in the way you looked at it, before you went inside and the chopped-up interior made you feel ill.”

    “ I was very tactful,” she said defensively.

    Brendan laughed. “Outrage is hard to hide, Kaye. Be sides, I felt the same way myself. I can also tell a great deal by how fast a