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and is obsessed with dolls.

      I turn my head to keep an eye on the shop as we drive past, noting its location. Very cute. Very charming.

      Speaking of charming—which is not a word I use often, but I’ve found myself speaking it, or thinking it, pretty constantly since we arrived in Glenhaven Park: “Ooh! Look at that—is that a bakery?”

      “Yes, isn’t it charming?” Verna asks, equally well versed in the local vernacular.

      “So charming. Look, Jack, it’s called Pie in the Sky.” Perched up on the second floor of a skinny building, the exterior is painted sky blue and the sign is hand-lettered on a fat, white cloud in the plate-glass window. “I love it. Isn’t that a great name? It’s so fitting!”

      “It’s almost as fitting—and charming—as Bug in a Rug,” he fake rhapsodizes. “Although, unless they’re selling bugs or rugs, I really don’t see why that—”

      “So I take it they make good pie at that bakery?” I ask Verna, cutting off Jack. Usually, I find it amusing when he mock gushes. Not today. I don’t want Verna to pick up on it and decide not to sell us a house here.

      Okay, okay, maybe I’m being paranoid, but I really want things to go well. I really feel like Glenhaven Park can be my new hometown.

      “Oh, absolutely! They make great pie.”

      “I love pie!”

      Not that I ever allow myself to eat much of it these days. But back when I was fat, and depressed, I could have eaten a whole pie by myself in one sitting. It’s one of my favorite things in the world.

      “If you have time while you’re here in town, you really should stop in and pick one up to take back to the city with you,” Verna advises. “The prices are so reasonable and the key lime, especially, is scrumptious. They make it only once a year, for Saint Patrick’s Day, so they have it this weekend.”

      Scrumptious, charming and reasonable prices?

      What’s not to love about Pie in the Sky?

      Or Glenhaven Park, for that matter.

      Yes, I can so see us living here—Jack and me. Without Dupree. Er, I mean Mitch.

      I feel like celebrating. I might even allow myself a piece of pie.

      “The first house we’re going to look at is right back this way,” Verna informs us, turning right around a corner, and then right again.

      I’m half expecting the scrumptious and charming streetscape to give way to a pocket of seediness, but so far, so good. The houses are set a little closer to the street and to each other here, but that’s no biggie. Not a derelict or a rat in sight.

      “Here we are.” Verna glides the Mercedes along the curb.

      For a second, I think she’s referring to the two-story stucco Tudor with the white wooden trellis arching over the front walk.

      Whoa—I love it! I absolutely love it! I can just see—

      Oh. Oops. We’re still gliding.

      When we do come to a stop, it’s in front of the house next door to the Tudor.

      A house that…isn’t half-bad. Seriously. I don’t absolutely love it on sight, but…

      “It’s nice,” I tell Verna, mustering some enthusiasm.

      “Isn’t it?”

      Sure it is. Especially if you like small, low ranch houses circa 1971, with vinyl siding in a deep yellowy gold precisely the shade of First Morning Pee.

      So this is our price range. It could be worse.

      It could also be a whole lot better.

      I don’t dare look at Jack as Verna leads the way up the walk, maneuvering her shiny black patent-leather loafers carefully around the puddles left over from last night’s rain.

      “That azalea will be scrumptious in a couple of weeks.” She points at the overgrown shrub that obscures most of the living-room picture window.

      I nod and murmur something appropriately passionate about the soon-to-be-scrumptious azalea, while scanning the listing sheet she just handed me.

      Built in 1972—what’d I tell you?

      It’s billed as the Perfect Starter Home, which right off the bat tells you—at least it tells me—that you’re probably not going to want to stay long. The nine-hundred-square-foot house has a front entryway, plus an LR, Updated EIK, 2 Brs, 1B, At Gar, FP.

      This I have learned by doing my homework this past week, translates to Living Room, Updated Eat-In Kitchen, Two Bedrooms, One Bathroom, an Attached Garage and a Fireplace.

      There is also a Level Lot with Mature Plantings, catchphrases I noticed in quite a few ads as I was perusing the papers. I’ll admit, I’ve never given much thought to Level Lots and Mature Plantings, but some people must be into them. And you have to admit, there’s not much appeal to a Steep, Rock-strewn Lot or Immature Plantings, which would be…what? Saplings?

      I don’t know.

      I just hope the inside of this place is more promising than the outside, because I’m already not loving it, Perfect Starter Home or not.

      Verna unlocks the front door—which is made of yellow-orange wood and has an arched window in the top—and we step inside. There, we find ourselves standing on a rectangular patch of tile patterned to look like flagstone.

      This, I assume, would be the front entryway, separated from the carpeted LR by a flat gold metal strip of flooring. It’s like we’re standing on this ugly little fake stone pier jutting into a turquoise shag sea that smells strongly of cat.

      On the upside, there probably aren’t any rats in this house.

      On the downside: in addition to a strong cat aroma, there are warping sheets of wood paneling, fake brick veneer on the fireplace and those small slatted windows you have to crank open.

      The Updated EIK is no better. Avocado-green appliances, green—a different shade of green, like emerald—indoor-outdoor carpeting, sagging dark brown cupboards with black metal pulls. Okay, so…updated when? 1973? And the tiny eat-in alcove, which lacks a table and chairs, is mostly occupied by a plastic step-pedal garbage can and a litter box. I’m not sure which smells worse.

      Onward we trudge, encountering a highly pissed-off-looking black cat who doesn’t look the least bit pleased to see us.

      Bathroom: blue tub, blue sink, blue tile and an even smaller, narrower, crank-open window, which is located just at boobs level in the wall above the tub. No curtains, shade or blinds. The lovely Tudor next door has a prime peepshow view. Nice.

      Bedrooms: small rectangles, pretty much the same size, though the master is distinguished by a shallow double closet with pressboard slider doors that aren’t quite operating on the track. In fact, one is swinging free from the top track and nearly knocks me unconscious when I go to open it.

      Garage: oil stains on the only patch of floor visible amid heaps of things like broken-down lawn furniture and rusted yard tools. It smells of spilled gasoline. Heavy scampering overhead alerts us that something—maybe another cat, maybe God-only-knows-what, a raccoon? A bear cub?—is living in the rafters.

      As we go back through the house, Verna keeps pointing out all the potential. I honestly do keep trying to see the place without the home-owner clutter, the god-awful furniture, the cheap, shiny drapes, the litter box, and oh, yes, not one but two pissed-off black cats who watch us warily and stealthily follow us from room to room.

      Finally, as we return to the living room, I look over my shoulder at Jack and raise my eyebrows, as if to ask, Well? What do you think?

      Jack shakes his head slightly at me, as if to say, I’d rather endure all eternity amid the rats and roaches, beneath the circus-freak family, with the Mad Crapper creeping

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