Up the street from her house was a
playground, a small tot lot really, where the kids in the neighborhood went
with their moms or nannies or the occasional dad to play on weekdays. Cassie used to go up there sometimes on her
days off, her Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
She didn’t really want to talk to anyone there – she got enough talking
in her job selling new homes. She just wanted to watch the kids play, see the
joy in their faces and listen to their laughter. She ended up chatting with some of the moms,
but when they found out none of the kids belonged to her, they began to keep
their distance. People were so
suspicious these days. They all thought
someone was out to take their children or harm them in some way.
All she wanted to do was relax and
watch the children play, but somehow that got twisted into something
sinister. So she stopped going to the tot
lot and spent Tuesday or Wednesday in her own condo on the balcony
listening to the gentle gurgling of the water fountain she’d installed all by
herself. She was happy and comfortable
there, so it was no great loss not to feel welcome at the tot lot, but it made
her sad not to be part of that innocent bit of neighborhood life.
As much as
she knew about the ten or so neighborhoods she’d put together over twenty years
of selling new homes, she knew almost nothing of the one she lived in. In her work neighborhoods she’d been in every
home. She knew who lived in each house, how old they were, what they did for a
living, how many children they had, what their pets’ names were, how much money
they had in the bank, whether they liked wood, carpet, tile or stone on their
floors, how they’d upgraded their new house, if they’d upgraded at all.
She knew if the husband was kind to
the wife or if the wife belittled the husband behind his back. She knew what kind of parents they were. If they weren’t yet parents, she knew how
hard they were trying or that they were too busy with their careers to have
kids. She knew where they’d lived before
the house she sold them. She knew whether they preferred coffee or tea with
their cookies and if they liked the oatmeal raisin or the sugar cookies better. She knew if they’d had health issues or
financial problems or if their parents were helping them out. She knew that one couple had paid cash, while
another had financed everything.
She knew which kids were well
behaved and which ones were going to terrorize the neighborhood like Little
Chad Grissom. She knew which of her homebuyers would have their landscaping
done right away and which ones would take a year to do it like Eddie Petrocelli.
She knew all this and more about
every neighborhood she’d ever sold, but she didn’t even know her own next-door
neighbor’s name.
