Entry #3-Sight Unseen
Plum called before I had decided whether to report what I had found at the Hollis House or sell it.
My phone rang just as I was pulling into the office parking lot. Unknown number. I almost let it go to voicemail. Brokers learn to fear unknown numbers. They are usually clients with bad news, lenders with worse news, or people who have decided you are personally responsible for the housing market.
I answered anyway.
“Patricia,” Plum said.
No greeting. No preamble. Just my name, as if she had been holding it in her mouth for a while.
“How did you get this number?” I asked.
“I asked.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you need.”
I sat in my car with the engine running, staring at the office door. Through the glass, I could see my desk. My calendar. My little framed license on the wall. All the props of a woman who knew what she was doing.
“You said you knew a buyer,” I said.
“I am the buyer.”
I laughed before I could stop myself. “You?”
“Yes.”
“You want to buy the Hollis estate?”
“I want you to broker the sale.”
I closed my eyes. “Plum, you can’t be serious.”
“I am almost always serious.”
“The house needs inspection. Survey. Structural review. The roof alone—”
“I don’t need to see it.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“I don’t need to see it,” she repeated. “I know the house.”
The way she said it made my skin prickle. Not I know about the house. Not I’ve seen pictures. Not I’ve driven by.
I know the house.
As if it were a person.
As if it had spoken to her.
“Plum,” I said carefully, “people don’t buy property site unseen.”
“They do if they’re serious.”
“This isn’t a handbag. It’s a decaying mansion with foundation issues and a history that makes buyers nervous.”
“Then it’s priced accordingly.”
“It is.”
“Good.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “You haven’t even asked the listing price.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll tell me when it matters.”
I should have ended the call. I should have told her she was wasting my time. I should have recognized the danger in a buyer who made the process feel less like a transaction and more like a trap being gently sprung.
Instead, I asked, “How do you know the house?”
There was a pause.
“I know its history,” she said.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
A chill moved through me, though the car was warm.
“I can provide proof of funds,” Plum continued. “Cash. No financing contingency. No inspection objection. You’ll have a clean offer by the end of the day.”
I swallowed. “The seller’s attorney will want everything in writing.”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll need to sign disclosures.”
“I’ll sign what needs signing.”
I looked toward the office. My desk. My overdue notices. My carefully maintained illusion of competence.
“Why me?” I asked.
Another pause.
“Because you’re hungry,” Plum said. “And because you already know the house wants to be sold.”
I hung up feeling as if I had agreed to something without actually agreeing to anything.
By three o’clock, the proof of funds arrived.
By four, the offer was drafted.
By five, the seller’s attorney called back.
They were interested.
Of course they were interested. The Hollis estate had been rotting on the market for over a year. The owner was tired. The attorney was tired. Everyone wanted the problem gone.
I sat at my desk and prepared the paperwork with the careful hands of a woman defusing a bomb.
Site unseen.
Plum had said it like that. Not sight unseen. Site unseen. As if the land mattered more than the view. As if the ground beneath the house was the point.
I typed her name into the buyer information line.
PLUM.
No surname. No middle initial. No company.
I stared at it.
Then I typed it anyway.
When I finished, I leaned back in my chair and looked at the screen.
Every page said sale.
My stomach said surrender.