“I need lots of space,” Trish had told me at our first meeting.
I had to solve her problem. My reputation was on the line. I wanted to point out that if she bought a house with more space, she would fill it as well, and soon, she’d be looking to upsize again. But people’s hunger for more does provide me with a nice lifestyle as a real estate agent, so I held my tongue. I’m not just any agent. I’m Estelle. Yes, that Estelle. I’m the real estate agent who created a new niche of housing sales, one focused on solving problems. Trish had a problem; she needed more space. I had to solve her problem. My reputation was on the line.
As a part of every new client meeting, I will survey their current dwelling. I followed Trish to her home. Unfortunately, Larry and I had just returned from Fiji two days prior, and I didn’t take the time to do my usual background research on Trish.
When she drove into that side of Malibu, I knew this would be rough. We parked in front of her house. A valet took our keys and parked our cars in an oversized garage around the side.
Then came the house itself. It was 29,000 square feet, a mansion.
The house was a work of art. It was opulent and grand. The foyer was huge. Everywhere you looked, you saw beauty. The bold architecture was modern but with a nod to the classical. It was furnished with only the best. Original paintings in every room. Vases and sculptures were arranged throughout the mansion. The house featured dozens of spaces that defied convention by straddling a space that was both within and without the house. It was the ideal home for someone who wanted to bring the outside inside. Every room that faced the ocean had a private balcony. Each room had an entertainment center that disappeared into the wall with the touch of a button. Many described it as like being on a cruise ship.
Despite the house’s beauty, every room was buried in clutter. Full shopping bags squatted on every surface, even the floor. When you walked into a room, you shuffled your feet forward, brushing the shopping bags aside like stalks of wheat or corn. It was madness.
Trish was a compulsive shopper. There were all the upscale shops represented in her house of clutter: Saks, Ralph Lauren, Polo, Hilfiger, and Victoria’s Secret. But there were just as many bags from Target, K-Mart, Hobby Lobby, and Walmart.
There were thousands of unopened bags. Trish was an addict, one who needed more space. Or perhaps a twelve-step group, an inner voice observed.
“Esther, has Lupe put Charlotte down for her nap?” Trish said from outside the room as I stared at the overturned bag of Rolex watches I’d just knocked over. I was tempted to pick one up. There were Yachtmasters, Presidents, and Daytonas lying on the floor like an upended sack of oranges.
The watches had fallen onto a toppled tower of jigsaw puzzles. That image was seared into my brain. Solid gold Rolex watches resting atop discounted puzzle boxes of dogs playing poker and a kitten clinging to a curtain. All the puzzle boxes had a round sticker that read, “Only a $1!”
I needed to get out of that place. I had to get away.
“Trish, I have to go, but I have just the place for you. I need to make some calls, do some research, and maybe some legwork, but I’ll be in touch soon. Promise,” I said, kissing the air near her cheek before beating a hasty retreat out of there.
Back in my car, I started to hyperventilate. I was in over my head with this one. It was way too late to cancel the contract. Estelle Matthews never canceled. Nor at this point could I pawn her off to one of the junior members of my firm. Trish had insisted that I handle her case personally. I had to think. And by think, I mean drink. So I pulled into a liquor store near my apartment. Yeah, sue me. I’m a billionaire real estate mogul yet I live in an apartment-a foolish consistency and all that jazz.
I plopped my fifth of Bacardi onto the counter.
“Is that all?”
“Yeah, well, not unless you have any hot tips on houses that have, oh, let’s say, infinity square feet,” I cackled as I considered going back and swapping my fifth for the 1.75.
“I see,” the man said.
I looked up and saw him for the first time.
He was an older Chinese man with a wispy, scraggly, uneven, white beard that mesmerized me.
“I was joking; just the rum, please.”
Wong reached to the wall behind him, pulled down a small beige card, placed it on the counter, and slid it over to me, using only the tip of his index finger.
“Give call. He have house you need.”
Could this day get any more unreal?
Without thinking, I picked up the beige card with one hand as I passed him a twenty with the other.
After Gimlet number three, I remembered the surreal scene at Trish’s and then the bizarre exchange at Smitty’s Bargain Liquors. I pulled out the faded card. Apparently, Wong had had it for quite a while.
I flipped it over.
Big House, for sale, (555) 555-5558, ask for Jerry.
I snorted, and a mist of Rum and Rosa’s sprayed from my nose.
The phone number was obviously fake, all those fives. Crazy. But if you were making up a phone number, why would you deviate on that last digit? You jumped on the five-bandwagon early and rode it hard for nine stops; why add a single eight at the end?
Maybe the eight was a typo?
Trish’s problem was an intractable dilemma. In the glorious age of “the customer is always right,” I didn’t dare suggest she might have an addiction. That wouldn’t do at all. I needed a solution. I usually listened to the universe when it sent me signals. I looked down at the card again.
Maybe this was such a sign?
Screw it.
I picked up my phone and called Jerry.
Jerry told me the house costs a hundred dollars.
I nearly hung up on him.
Jerry asked for a minute to explain.
I gave him a minute. The minute turned into an hour.
When I hung up on him, my head was spinning. The rum was gone. I fell into my bed and dreamt about a house with hallways that went on and on and on.
“Now, don’t judge it too quickly, Trish,” I said.
We parked in front of the house. It didn’t have an overhang, a valet stand, or a 14-car garage around the side. It was a modest two-story building.
Trish rolled her eyes.
“What the fuck is this, Estelle?”
I recoiled at her casual profanity.
I must get her inside; this house will sell itself. This house is HER solution. Estelle Matthews delivers again.
“Just give me a minute, Trish,” I said, unfastening my seatbelt. I insisted on driving us together. If she had been in her car, she would have been halfway back to Malibu.
She looked at me, exasperated, then at the house again.
Something shifted in her. I didn’t like her expression.
“Sure. I’ll give you a minute; then I’m headed back and write about a hundred reviews. By next week, you’ll be lucky if you can get a job selling RVs, let alone houses. Let’s get this over with.”
Of course, Trish’s price won’t be a hundred dollars. I have to mark it up somewhat to justify my involvement. My firm doesn’t flip two-bedroom condos, you know.
Trish had a space problem. I solved that problem.
I purchased the house from Jerry three seconds after entering. I tried to pay Jerry a fair market price. I offered him 500 million. He said he wouldn’t dream of it. He just wanted to be rid of the thing.
If I had been smart, I probably would’ve had a feeling of doom. I wasn’t smart. I forgot all about Charlotte and all that stuff Jerry had told me about the damn glasses.
“A tesser-what?”
“A tesseract. Your new home is a tesseract. It is a four-dimensional house, a portal to infinite space. You must remember to wear a pair of these glasses,” I said, tapping the row of glasses that sat near the front door.
Without the glasses, one could get lost in Trish’s house. From the outside, it wasn’t a big house, but on the inside, it was infinitely big. It appeared to be maybe 2,400 square feet. You could walk around the thing in two minutes. But on the inside, an infinite array of hallways twisted away in impossible gravity-be-damned directions. Without the glasses, one would get lost.
I never understood how the glasses worked. But when you wore them, you could safely find your way back to the front door. In my rum-membering, Jerry insisted the glasses were crucial to living there. When I met him at the house, I put on a pair and wandered a hundred yards into the house. When I turned around, I saw arrows directing me back toward the entrance, projected on the lenses of the glasses.
It was only much later that I would remember that none of the glasses I saw would fit a three-year-old child’s head.
Last I heard neither Trish nor her daughter has been seen since.
Stories by Shawn 