I knew I would marry my husband the moment I met him on a
dance floor in South Padre Island, Texas.
It was an inconvenient realization; I was a senior in college, on spring
break with my girlfriends, and in a satisfactory relationship with a good guy
at home. But when this stranger in
pink began singing “Summer Nights” to me as if he were John Travolta himself,
our future nuptials were a foregone conclusion.
“I like you!
Where do you go to school?” I shouted over the cast of Grease’s urging to
“Tell me more, tell me more…”
“I go to school with you,” he replied.
“Tell me everything you know about C.B.C.,” I demanded of a friend
the following morning as we sat dangling our sun-ripened legs in the hotel
pool.
“I think he’s from Long Island,” she began.
“Long Island?” I repeated, crinkling my nose.
At the time my knowledge of Long Island consisted of the
following: The Great Gatsby, Joey
Buttafouco, Long Island iced teas.
“Well, is he staying in Philly after graduation?”
“No. I think he
accepted a job in New York.”
This was getting more complicated. As a native Philadelphian already enrolled at a Philadelphia
law school for the fall, I had aspirations of eventually becoming the District
Attorney and owning a big, historic home on the Main Line. For this inevitable marriage to work, I
would have to persuade C.B.C. to return to Pennsylvania someday.
For the three years that I attended law school, C.B.C. and I
carried on a long-distance relationship.
Every two weeks, either I would board a train to visit his dingy first
apartment above a Turkish restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, or he would commute
to the Main Line, where I shared a spacious, neutral-smelling two-bedroom
apartment with a good friend from college.
On the weekends we spent in Pennsylvania, we’d follow the
same routine every Sunday: 10 a.m. mass at St. Matthias and brunch at Hymie’s
followed by a winding walk through the neighborhoods of Merion, Narberth, and
Bala Cynwyd. As we walked, we’d admire
and discuss the many magnificent homes lining the sidewalks: Stone farmhouses,
exquisite Tudors, and- my personal favorites- brick colonials.
“I can’t even imagine how much money it takes to own one of
theses homes,” I’d say.
“We’ll do it someday,” he’d reply.
“Own a home in Pennsylvania?” I’d ask, hopefully.
“No. But someday we’ll own a home.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.
Maybe Long Island.”
I’d crinkle my nose.
The breadth of my knowledge of Long Island had expanded since dating
C.B.C.; I now knew that it was also heavily congested.
“But Long Island isn’t home,” I’d protest. “Long Island doesn’t have good soft
pretzels, and Tasty Kakes, and Wawa.”
“Everything you love about Philadelphia has to do with
food,” my husband would observe.
“No. I also
like how everyone on the Main Line puts electric candles in their windows
year-round.”
Putting white candles in the window is an old Pennsylvania-Dutch
custom. As
far as I had seen, it was not observed on Long Island.
“We’ll put candles in our windows,” C.B.C. would assure me.
The worst part about Sundays was driving C.B.C. to Suburban
Station so he could catch a train back to New York. I’d cry as I took I-76 back to my apartment. One night, while I was struggling to
get through some case law reading, C.B.C. sent me the lyrics to the Coldplay
song, “Swallowed in the Sea.”
The streets you’re
walking on,
A thousand houses
long,
Well that’s where I
belong,
And you belong with
me.
“This song reminds me of you,” he said. “I promise you some day we will live in
the same state, the same city, the same house.”
A year after I graduated from law school, C.B.C. and I
married, as I’d predicted, and moved to New York City. I was surprised by how quickly I
adjusted to life in a new city, and how quickly it felt like home to me. Within weeks I was fearlessly
navigating the subway, taking solo runs through Central Park, and carping on
slow-moving tourists like a true New Yorker. I forgot all about living in Pennsylvania (though I still
missed Wawa) and living in a traditional home. But after Minnow was born, the desire for a grassy yard, a
formal dining room, and little white candles in the windows began to
resurface.
Our home search began in earnest in 2011, when Minnow was
about six months old. We found a
beautiful town on Long Island with paved sidewalks, tall trees, and excellent
schools. It reminded me of the
Main Line, so we decided to concentrate our search there. Almost immediately we made an offer on
a center-hall colonial, which the owners accepted. The house was charming, but not perfect. It had aluminum siding, which my
husband didn’t like; only one full bathroom, which I didn’t like; and a sagging
roof, which our inspector didn’t like.
After the homeowners refused to split the cost to replace the roof, we were
forced to walk away from the deal.
I was devastated. Our daughter’s
toys and accessories were prevailing over the rapidly dwindling space in our
one-bedroom apartment, and we needed a solution.
We relocated to a two-bedroom apartment in Bronxville and
signed an 18-month lease to give us time to continue the search for our
dream starter home. We downloaded
the Trulia, Zillow, and New York Times Real Estate apps to give us a head’s up
on the housing market. We
attended open houses almost every weekend.
In July of last year we saw a whitewashed brick colonial on
a manicured street in our preferred town. It looked exactly like the homes I used to draw as a
child: Square body, triangular roof, chimney, symmetrical windows, attached garage. It was breathtaking but, unfortunately,
its appeal ended at the curb. The
interior was wrapped from floor to ceiling in bold, botanical-print
wallpapers. The carpets were fit
for a cat, and no one else. The
kitchen cabinets, painted sky blue, were original to the house and dated back
to the 1930s.
It was absolutely perfect and I knew, as much as I knew
about my husband the first time we met: It would be mine someday.
“I don’t see it,” my husband said after we left the open
house. “It needs a lot of work.”
“So did you,” I quipped.
We didn’t make an offer on the house and it sat on the
market for several months. The
homeowners bumped the price down a few times, but it didn’t sell. Each time the price was reduced I would
inform my husband, and each time he would voice his doubts. One day in late November the house was
no longer listed for sale on any of my real estate apps. I was, again, devastated. I called the seller’s agent and she
gave me some encouraging news: The owners had decided to take the house off the
market during the holidays, but intended on relisting it after Christmas.
The weekend after Christmas we walked through the white
brick house for a second time.
This time my husband was more open to the idea of living there because
this time I had a special ally: Peanut.
She’s coming, and she needs a bedroom! We made an offer on January 2nd. Our offer was accepted on January 4th. We signed a sales contract on January
13th. The dream of
owning a home appeared to be within reach.
And then, for lack of a better term, a lot of shit went down. Our home inspection revealed that the
house was missing several roof shingles, presumably from Super Storm Sandy, and
exhibited evidence of termite damage in the basement. The sellers, at first, refused to fix either problem. Then it took them six weeks to sign the
sales contract because they didn’t want to represent that all of the appliances
were in working condition ("an ambiguous phrase," they said) and wanted us to agree
that they could leave “any an all personal property on the premises after
closing and title [would] automatically pass from sellers to buyers.” (That’s a literal line from the
original contract. If you had seen
the state of their garage and basement, you would understand why we couldn’t
sign off on that.)
Then the 86-year-old seller husband had an emergency
appendectomy, from which he had to recover in the hospital for six weeks.
Then we were constructively evicted from our apartment, and
moved in with my in-laws.
Then the sellers (again) asked me if we would mind if they
left their pool table in the basement.
(We minded).
It took over four months, but on Monday, the guy I met on spring
break and I became the owners of our very first home:
As we walked through the house after closing, my husband
stopped at the living room window and began scanning the wall below it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He pointed to an outlet to the left of the window. “And that’s where you’ll plug in your
candle,” he said.
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