She smiles. “I’m Connie Walsh. This is my office, Colonel. Please come with me.”
The woman lawyer gives me no time to apologize for my mistake, and I follow her into a room with a large table and many chairs and tall windows open to the bright air. She offers me coffee or tea. I would like tea, but I tell to her no thank you, and when I sit, I do not allow myself to become too comfortable. I take a short breath to begin my talk, but it is as if she knows what I have come to say and raises her hand. “I’m sure our letter came as a shock to you, Colonel. The situation is this: San Mateo County has made a number of mistakes. First, they levied a tax on my client—the previous owner of the property—she did not owe. Second, they evicted her for non-payment. And third, they auctioned the property. Unfortunately, sir, this is where you come in, and I’m afraid we have no choice but to demand the county reverse this whole process by rescinding the sale so my client can reclaim her home.”
I feel a heaviness in my fingers, a heat in my chest and face. “But Inow own the home.”
“Is the sale final?”
“Of course. I paid for it cash, I have a bill of sale.” I open my valise and withdraw all the paperwork from the sale of the home. The woman lawyer examines them a moment. She sits back in her chair and looks into my eyes as directly as would a man, a man of influence and status. “Are you willing to sell the county back the house? I’d see to it they made it as comfortable a transaction as possible.”
“Please to me listen very carefully, Miss Walsh. The only comfortable transaction possible is if the county tax office pays to me one hundred and seventy thousand dollars for the property. If they pay me this, I will move, but only in the autumn season. My wife is sick and she needs a summer’s rest. I also will require time to find a new home.”
“Mr. Behrani, you paid a quarterof that.”
I stand and step away from the chair. “The market will already pay me this. I believe this is something you should discuss with the gentlemen at the county tax office. Good morning, Miss Walsh.” I offer my hand to this woman lawyer. She takes it very briefly and she stands as well.
“The rightful owner of that house is living in a motel, Mr. Behrani. All her belongings are locked in storage. Why should she have to wait any longer than necessary to get back into the home that was wrongfully taken from her?”
Again, I feel the blood in my chest, my face, behind my eyes. Who are these people? To whom do they think they are speaking? “Of course you do not understand what I have said: Iam the rightful owner of this property. Iam being wronged. You have heard my offer. You are fortunate I have decided to sell the property at all.”
I leave quickly and without another word. The downstairs café is full of people seated at small tables drinking coffee, eating pastries. There is music playing, one of the European composers, and men and women who have dressed in only T-shirts and blue jeans look up at me as I pass them by. They view my face, my suit, the valise under my arm, and as I return their eyes back to them, they look away as if I have come to collect something they cannot pay.
I SPENT THE LAST OF THE AFTERNOON IN A LAWN CHAIR AT THE DEEPend of the motel’s pool. No one else was around and I closed my eyes to the sun, smoked, sipped a Diet Coke, and kept tapping my good foot on the warm concrete; I couldn’t relax: I still didn’t like the way Connie had sounded on the phone earlier; she’d said she’d seen the “new owner” this morning and the good news was he was willing to sell the house back to the county, but the county still had to admit their mistake, want to rescind the sale, then actually buy it back. She sounded tired and put out, like she had nine other things on her mind. She told me to call back at the end of the day, then she made herself sound cheerful and told me to stay optimistic, we’re just warming up. I didn’t like how she put that; if I was going to move back into my house this weekend, shouldn’t we be heated up pretty hot already? Still, I was glad to hear the Arab family was willing to sell and move, and I was trying to concentrate on that piece of news.
A shadow moved over me and I looked up into Lester’s smiling face. I hadn’t heard his car pull up. The top two buttons of his uniform shirt were undone and he stood with his fingers resting on his hips.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself.” He squatted, his leather holster creaking slightly. He took my hand and kissed it. “Let me take you on a proper date tonight, Kathy.”
His eyes looked hopeful and I couldn’t help myself. “We gonna fight over the check again?”
“No, because you’re going to let me pay.”
“Only if we go someplace nice.”
He smiled under his mustache. “That was my plan.”
“My lawyer says the Arabs will sell my house back.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “A bunch of other bullshit has to happen before I can move back in though.”
“With the county?”
“Yep.”
“Still, it’s progress.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.”
“Then we should celebrate.” He leaned forward and kissed me. His mustache tickled and he tasted like one of those eucalyptus lozenges, though I didn’t think he had a sore throat or cold. I hoped I didn’t taste like somebody’s ashcan. He stood and asked if seven-thirty was okay and I said I’d be ready, should I dress up?
He nodded and smiled and I watched him walk out to the motor lodge parking lot, get into his Toyota station wagon, and drive off. I wondered what he’d tell his wife about tonight, about where he was going and who with, and I wondered again what I thought I was doing, having been with a married man only once before, back in Saugus, Mass., for one night when I was still using. He was a bar customer, a salesman who dressed in custom-tailored suits, silk ties, and even gold cufflinks. We all thought he overdid the wardrobe, but one night Jimmy Doran let him stay after hours while we cleaned up and soon four or five of us were doing lines and drinking and moving to the sound system. After a while the salesman was making moves on me and the Enemy Voice in my head was a cooing dove.
A LREADY NADEREH IS DRESSED AND IN THE KITCHEN AREA SLICINGeggplant for one of the many dishes she will prepare for tomorrow evening’s dinner party. But it is only Friday morning, no later than eight o’clock, and I sit at the counter with hot tea and toast.
“Nadi-joon, do you not think you will be able to cook one meal in one day?”
“Khawk bah sar, Massoud.” Dust on your head, she to me says. And she smiles as she turns to rinse her hands in the sink’s water. Before her, the kitchen window is only partially blocked by the staircase to the new widow’s walk, something I was grateful to see, for Nadi has said nothing of it. The najars completed their work yesterday not long after the lunch hour. I was so pleased with the final appearance of it, the long straight rails of the staircase, the strong wide boards of the walk, the railing there too, that when I wrote the young najar his final check I included a fifty-dollar bonus for such a professional job well done. I was of course still feeling the beneficial effects of the visit I had made to a lawyer in downtown Corona that afternoon, a very short gentleman wearing a silk bow tie who, for one hundred fifty dollars, heard the details of my situation, examined the paperwork of the sale from the county, and then advised me there was nothing anyone could do against me. The property belonged to me now and I could do with it what I wish.
Last evening Nadi, Esmail, and I stood on the new structure and watched the sun disappear. It was a ball of bright saffron sinking into the sea, turning the water purple, the sky orange and green. Nadi put her arm around our son’s waist and she began to tell him of the beauty of the Caspian, did he remember any of it? But, for the first time, there was very little evidence of pain in her voice when she spoke of our old life, and I put my hand upon her shoulder and listened to her speak to our son and as the sky and ocean colors slowly darkened I felt a certain regret that I must sell this property that has brought my Nadi back to herself. But I felt also all the more determined to make it worth my troubles, to earn back at least three times my original investment. For two days I have heard nothing from the woman lawyer in San Francisco. Nor have I heard from the county tax office. And this is as it should be; I will not contact them. They have heard my offer. And if they refuse it, I can turn to the open market. Yesterday I received two telephone inquiries regarding the home and I have made appointments for showings on Monday.