The next morning we got up early for the drive to Manhattan. Driving in the East Coast is very different from what I’m used to in California. Sure, the traffic laws are pretty much the same, but the unspoken rules of the road are just different and the behavior of the local drivers is hard for me to predict. I guess if I spent more time behind the wheel I’d get used to it, but with my limited exposure to the East Coast roads I found the driving to be quite stressful.
We got to New York a bit more quickly than I’d expected, so we had time grab lunch and walk around the neighborhood.
I wasn’t sure what had interested Emmy so much about this particular house, but moving to New York after I graduated was her idea anyhow, so I just went along. I agreed that for the music scene New York was hard to beat, and the big cities on the East Coast were definitely going to be very important in our bringing new Strays into the fold. Also, moving into the real estate development and management business in the East Coast was a big step for my work, too. Logically, moving to New York made all kinds of sense.
The place Emmy wanted to see was a few blocks from the U.N. Building on the East side, which surprised me. I would have expected Emmy to want someplace in Greenwich Village, or Chelsea or someplace a bit more arty than the East Side, but whatever. Walking around, the neighborhood seemed nice, but not all that special. It was mildly interesting that the townhouse next door was the Moroccan Embassy, but other than that the street was fairly quiet.
The real estate agent showed up late for our appointment to tour the house, and that didn’t help my attitude much at all. When he finally did arrive he gave off the vibe that he felt put out that he was even there. He stood to make almost half a million dollars if he made the sale, so you’d think he would jump at the chance to show the house to buyers with verified financials, but that sure wasn’t the feeling I got.
The house itself had some aspects that I really liked, like the giant kitchen down in the basement and the great views across the East River from the upper floors, but the furniture and decorations were absolutely not to my taste.
“This place looks as if it was decorated by someone’s grandma,” I told Emmy, looking at the flowery wallpaper in the sitting room.
“We would have to have it completely redecorated,” Emmy agreed. “But I think that would be the case with any house we were to buy.”
“Yeah, probably,” I admitted.
“This house was designed for entertaining,” Emmy pointed out as we looked at the giant commercial kitchen. “It would be ideal for dinner parties.”
“And how much of that do we do?” I asked.
“Not much now,” Emmy conceded. “But I do think that we should perhaps socialize more than we do now. Do you think Marie-Anne would like this kitchen?” She asked.
“Marie-Anne? Are you thinking of hiring her away from your parents? Would she even leave them?”
“She might,” Emmy said. “Especially if we had a baby for her to shower with attention.”
“Did she do that for you?” I asked. Emmy almost never talked about her childhood, so any little nugget like this was welcome information.
“Yes, she did,” Emmy answered, remembering back. “She always had a little treat for me, or kind or encouraging words when I felt sad. She was a wonderful person to have around.”
“Was she your nanny?” I asked, wondering who had actually raised Emmy.
“No, I did not have a nanny,” Emmy said. “My mother was home most of the time and she was the one who instructed me.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that ‘instructed me’ thing, so I stayed quiet.
“My parents are both from the oldest lines of my people, and the old ways are very important to them,” Emmy continued, lost in thought. “I am certain they will want to instruct our baby as well.”
Again, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but it wasn’t the moment to have that discussion. We continued our inspection of the townhouse, thankfully without the realtor, who was parked in the third floor sunroom facing the East River, incessantly yammering on his phone. I was happy to look the place over at our pace.
“I like that the two servant’s apartments are on the top floor, with windows with nice views, and their own little deck,” Emmy commented. “So often they are stuck in the basement, or some other undesirable location.” This was the first place like this I’d ever really looked at, so I had no reference, but it did make sense. Putting the staff in a spot the owners didn’t want to use seemed like just the kind of thing that would happen in a really wealthy home. If Marie-Anne was going to live with us, I wanted her to feel wanted, not begrudged.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Do you think Marie-Anne would like to live here?” I asked. Up until a few minutes before it hadn’t even occurred to me that we might have a household staff, but now that the possibility that she might come to work for us was very appealling.
“It is worth asking," Emmy said.
Finishing up our walk-through, I told the realtor, “We like the house, but it’ll need a fair bit of remodeling and redecorating. I’m going to talk to a couple of designers for some ideas and I’ll get back to you.”
“Don’t take too long,” he said as we walked out. “There’s a lot of interest in this house. Houses of this quality don’t come up for sale very often.”
“We’ll have an answer in a few days,” I replied. “And this house has been on the market for eight months, with the asking price dropped twice. I don’t think we are at risk of having it sold out from under us.” Yeah, the guy was an ass, and I wasn’t going to accept his sad attempt at a snow job. “We’ll call you, one way or another.”
As we walked back to the garage where our car was parked, I asked Emmy the question that had been bothering me, but hadn’t wanted to broach. “Emmy, do you really, I mean really, want to live in New York? Sure, music scene, sure, easier to get to Europe, sure, probably a lot of Strays... but seriously, wouldn’t living in Los Angeles give us most of those things anyway? It’d be a lot easier to build out a home studio for you, or even find a place with a recording studio already, than it would be here in New York. That place we just looked at?” I continued. “That was about what we can expect for ten million bucks here. I’m not even sure where we could even put a studio in that house. Maybe if we completely cleared out the bedrooms on the sixth floor we could find room, but it would take something like that,” I said. “Sure, the house is almost six thousand square feet, but it’s only twenty-five feet wide and that really constrains the possibilities.”
“Yes, you are right about that house. Of all the townhouses I looked at online, it seemed to have the best potential. I do like the house, but I am not certain that it could be built to our needs,” she said, sighing. “Would you prefer to live in Los Angeles? Do you not like New York?” Emmy asked.
“I like New York well enough,” I said. “But it’s a bit overwhelming. It’s hard to ever relax here.”
“I would be happy living in Los Angeles, Leah, if that is what you want and feel best. But I would like to ask you for one truly enormous favor, Emmy said, stopping and turning to face me.
“Of course, Em. You know I’d do anything for you. Anything. Whatever it is, I’ll do it. You know that,” I said, taking her hand.
“This is a big favor, though,” Emmy said. “Well, two favors, really, but one is much bigger than the other.”
“What’s the little favor?” I asked as we started walking again.
“I have never had a famous New York hot dog, and I would like to have one for lunch. With sauerkraut and mustard and ketchup!”
Laughing, I said “Of course we can do that. Let’s go downtown, maybe see the World Trade Center monument. There should be hot dog carts near there. So what’s the big favor?”
“Please buy me that house,” Emmy said, and I could tell from her voice it meant a lot to her.
“So you do want to live here?” I asked, puzzled. Hadn’t she just agreed that L.A. might be a better fit?
“No, I think that you are correct and Los Angeles would probably be better for us at this time. I am thinking that at some point in the future we may wish to have a New York address as well, so that when we are here we would have a place of our own.”
“Would you want to have a studio built?” I asked, wondering just how much time she thought we would spend here.
“Yes, but it does not need to be very elaborate,” Emmy replied, thinking about it. “I think we could leave the bedroom on the sixth floor that has views of the river, just open up the street-side bedroom, deleting the closet and en-suite to make more room. That should be enough.”
“Emmy, if you want to spend the money, I have no objection. I mean, it’ll probably appreciate in value, so it isn’t as if it’s a terrible investment. I think the main reason it has been sitting on market so long is that it’s just so old-fashioned inside in a terrible way. Nobody wants that style any more. But if we remodeled to more modern tastes I’m sure we’d get our money back when it came time to sell,” I said, more or less thinking out loud. “But that real estate agent was an ass. I’m going to check to see if anybody else has the listing and buy it from them instead.”
“You are terrible!” Emmy said, swatting my shoulder, and that was that. We were going to be New York homeowners.
I hailed a cab, and asked the cabby to drop us off by the best hot dog stand that he knew downtown. As luck would have it, the driver was a vegan, so he had no recommendations. “Take us to the World Trade Center Memorial, then,” I told him. Emmy held my hand on the drive, in a really good mood. While she gawked out the window at the passing scenery, I used the opportunity to check online and found that yes, the house we just looked at was in fact listed by another agent. I called her up, and after five pleasant minutes of conversation, told her that we would be by her office that afternoon to seal the deal. Seriously, that agent just made the easiest money of her life by merely not being a jerk.
After a couple of hours wandering around downtown, we made our way to the new realtor’s office and signed the paperwork that Royal Holdings, LLC was committing to buy that townhouse. Our lawyers and bankers would take care of the rest.
That evening we went to a Broadway show and had a late dinner at a restaurant Emmy had wanted to try. Apparently the place was ridiculously hard to get into, unless you’re really famous, or really beautiful, or really rich. When Emmy called to get us a table, they were happy to accommodate, since she was all three.
The food was good, but honestly, not as amazing as people claimed. It was amazingly expensive, so I guess it’s that whole ‘confirmation bias’ thing.
The night out did put Emmy in a really good mood, though, and she expressed her appreciation when we got back to our hotel room. Sure, we had an early flight, but so what? We could sleep on the plane.
Back home in Palo Alto, Emmy dove into research on New York designers and remodeling contractors, while poring over the photos of the townhouse the new real estate agent shot for her. I just wrote it off as a pet project of Emmy’s, figuring that if it made her happy, then I would benefit as well. “A happy wife makes for a happy life,” or so the saying goes. She had the free time, since The Downfall were taking a break for a few weeks, so why not? In fact, it was the first break the band had ever taken since forming, to everybody’s amazement. The three of them were absolute workaholics.