The House

She smiled at Phil. That was the clincher. She almost laughed when she said it. “Thirty thousand square feet.”

“Are you nuts?” He shoved the breakfast tray aside and jumped out of bed. “Have you gone insane? Thirty thousand square feet? What was it? A hotel? It sounds like the fucking Fairmont, for chrissake.”

“It's even prettier,” she said proudly. “I want you to come and see it.”

“Does your mother know you did this?” As though that mattered to either of them. He had never even mentioned her before. He disliked Audrey as much as she did him.

“Not yet. I'll tell them at Christmas dinner. I want to surprise my grandmother. She hasn't seen the house since she was seven.”

“I don't know what's gotten into you,” he said, glaring at her. “You're behaving like a lunatic. You've been acting weird for weeks. You don't just go out and buy a house like that, unless you bought it as an investment, and you're going to sell it for a profit, after you redo it, but even that doesn't make sense. You don't have time to take on a project like that. You work as hard as I do. You're a lawyer, for chrissake, not a contractor or a decorator. What are you thinking?”

“I have more spare time than you do,” she said demurely. She was tired of his being insulting about it, and about her. She wasn't asking him to pay for it. He acted as though she was, which was hardly the case.

“Really? How do you figure you have more spare time? Last I heard, you were working fourteen-hour days.”

“I don't go to the gym. That gives me free evenings five days a week. And I can work on it on weekends.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” he asked, looking outraged. “Twiddle my thumbs while you wash windows and sand floors?”

“You could help. You're never here in the daytime on weekends anyway, Phil. You always end up doing your own thing.”

“That's bullshit and you know it. I just can't believe you would do something this stupid. And you're going to live in a house that size?”

“It's gorgeous. Wait till you see it.” She was offended by everything he'd said, and hurt by the way he said it. If he had bothered to look, he'd have seen it in her eyes. He didn't. He was too busy putting her down. “It even has a ballroom,” she said quietly.

“Great. You can rent it out to Arthur Murray, and maybe pay for the repairs. Sarah, I think you're nuts,” he said, and sat down on the bed again.

“Apparently. Thanks for being so supportive.”

“At this point in our lives, everything is about simplifying things. Going smaller. Having less. Being less involved. Who needs a headache like that? You have no idea what you're getting into.”

“Yes, I do. I spent four hours with the architect on Thursday night.”

“So that's where you were.” He sounded smug, and relieved. He had actually been worried about it for two days. It was why he had taken her out to dinner the night before. “You've already hired an architect? You didn't waste any time, did you? And thanks for asking for my advice.”

“I'm glad I didn't, if this is what you would have said.”

“You must have money to burn. I had no idea your firm was doing that well.” She didn't comment on that. How she had gotten the money was none of his business. She had no intention of explaining it to him.

“Let me tell you something, Phil,” she said, with an edge in her voice. “You may be ‘simplifying,’ as you put it, and ‘going small.’ I'm not. You've been married, you have kids, you've had a big house. You've had all that. I haven't. I haven't done any of it. I've been living in this crappy apartment since I passed the bar, with the same shit furniture I had when I left Harvard. I don't even have a goddamned plant. And maybe I want big, and beautiful, and something exciting to do. I'm not going to sit here for the rest of my life with a bunch of dead plants, waiting for you to show up on weekends.”

“What are you saying?” His voice got louder, and so did hers.

“I'm saying that this is exciting for me. I can't wait to do it. I love it. And if you can't get behind it, or be supportive of me, or even polite, for chrissake, then to hell with you. I'm not asking you to pay for it, or even help me. All you have to do is smile and nod and encourage me a little. Is that so fucking hard for you to do?” He didn't answer her for a long moment, and then got up and stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door. She had hated everything about his reaction, and she had no idea why he was doing that to her. Maybe he was jealous, or threatened, or hated change. Whatever it was, it wasn't nice, or even pretty to watch.

When he came out of the bathroom, with his hair wet, wrapped in a towel, she was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. She looked at him sadly. There was nothing gracious or kind about anything he'd said. He'd been just plain mean.

“I'm sorry I wasn't happy for you about your house,” he said grimly. “I just think it's a really bad idea. I'm worried for you.”

“Don't be. If it's too much for me to handle, I'll sell it. But I'd at least like to try. Do you want to see it?”