“Has she lost her way or been out in the sun too long?”
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s out of her little blonde mind if she thinks I can afford a house on the ocean side of the highway. I sure can’t afford a house with an ocean view.”
“Maybe it’s just an ocean peek.”
He wasn’t amused and was even less so when he pulled off the worn blacktop. He stared out the windshield and gaped.
“What the hell is that?”
From what I could see of the shape and window style, that was a 1950s bungalow. A tiny, ramshackle bungalow sitting amid a sandbox of dune weeds, overgrown shrubs, and vines that crawled up the exterior walls and onto the shallow-pitched roof. On the upside, the house sat smack in the middle of what had to be several ocean front lots. Contrary to all good sense and reason, I fell in love with it.
“Oh, Saber, talk about a clean slate!”
“It’s an eyesore,” he growled back. “I’m surprised the neighbors haven’t torched it.”
“They can’t. There are laws against fires on the beach.”
He leveled a look at me. “We are not getting out of the car. I don’t care what Amanda says. It’s not even safe to go look in the windows. The vines will strangle us if the snakes don’t get us first.”
“Come on, Saber. Think of it as an adventure.”
“I’m thinking it’s a waste of time.”
“But we’re here.”
“So are the rattlers and brown recluse spiders. Not to mention sand fleas.”
I snorted. “You’ve killed werewolves and vampires. What’s a little wildlife compared to that?”
He gave me his stony cop face. I threw up my hands.
“All right. But can I at least get some pictures for my design class?”
“You brought your camera?”
“No, I was hoping I could use yours.”
“Remind me to take that damn thing out of my car.” He sighed. “Okay, a few pictures, and we’re outta here.”
I leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, then twisted to fish his digital camera from the backseat floorboard. “Right, and we’ll stop by CVS on the way home so I can put the photos on a CD. It won’t take but a minute.”
“Cesca, it’s Friday, and it’s tourist season. It’ll take more than a minute.”
“Fine, then you can get calamine lotion for your sand flea bites while I get the CD. Come on, let’s go.”
We met Amanda on a mangled flagstone path leading to the front door.
“Sorry about the wait. A colleague was double-checking some facts on the property for me. Well, do you recognize it?”
“As what?” Saber snapped. “A perfect bombing range?”
Amanda kept her sales smile pinned in place. “I know it doesn’t look like much from the outside—”
“Amanda, it’s a wreck.”
“Actually, Saber,” I said, “now that we’re closer, some of the exterior paint doesn’t look that bad.”
“Don’t help,” he shot back. “Now look, Amanda—”
This time she interrupted him. “The house comes with three lots, and I promise it’s better inside.”
“So was the city of Pompeii when they dug it out, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
“The house is one bedroom, one bath,” Amanda went on as she picked her way toward the door, “but the living area is generous, and the entire back of the house is an enclosed porch facing the ocean, accessible through both the kitchen and living area.”
“I’m betting that’s because the walls have collapsed,” Saber groused.
“Five minutes,” I said. “Pictures and we’re gone.”
Saber gave me a martyred grimace but came along quietly when I took his hand. Amanda opened the door with relative ease, considering the bush partly blocking it, and then we stepped into the gloom inside. The ceiling was higher than I expected, with exposed beams. The hardwood floors? Well, dusty was being generous, but they looked like oak and were solid. No obvious rot. No roof, wall, or floor cave-ins. The dingy white walls looked like salvaged wood planks nailed over drywall. I glanced at Saber’s granite face and started snapping pictures. Two slightly warped dark wood doors to the right of the living room were open. One was the bedroom, the other a small bathroom with filthy fixtures. I snapped off more shots of both rooms and gingerly opened the closet door. Not a bad size for a shoebox house, and no band of mutant spiders assaulted me.
“Now back here is the kitchen. It’s small, of course, but you could expand. And here’s the fabulous porch with the view. Isn’t it perfect?”
Though the view was marred by salt air-spotted windows, even Saber sucked in a breath at the magnificent expanse of ocean. I got photos of the grungy kitchen, the porch, and then the view.
“Well, what do you think?” Amanda asked, her bright eyes darting between us but not with uncertainty. More like this was a done deal.
“Is the view the way you remember it, Ms. Marinelli?”