Playing the Maid

The Attic

As far as old country houses go, this one was entirely too big to be quaint, but too friendly to be imposing. It stood on its own acre of land about an hour north of San Francisco, up near Napa Valley. While this made the commute long for us, my wife Emma and I had already been telecommuting to our respective offices a few days each week, and we made new arrangements so we only had to be in SF the same two days during the week.

It was only by luck we'd been able to afford it. When house had come up for sale, it found a buyer before we could even contact them. Weeks later, Emma still spent her evenings looking at pictures of that old place. We joked about the commute, how impractical it would be, and seeing as it was off the market, there didn't seem like there was much we could do about it.

One weekend, Emma suggested a road trip, wine tasting in Napa Valley, and I said it seemed like a good idea. Of course, one of the wineries she wanted to visit was only 10 miles from the house, so we just had to go take a peek.

The surrounding terrain was beautiful, and driving up the dirt road felt like taking a trip into a state park. It was a large three story house that managed to straddle the line between being overly fancy and come-on-in inviting. There was still a "for sale" sign in the yard, and it didn't look like anyone was home, so we took a brief walk around the estate. The front was rocky with low growing plants that would have been classified as weeds in the suburbs. The back had a large stone patio and a small flower garden next to a large shady oak tree, all overlooking a hillside bluff.

As the sound of a car approached, we thought it best to say hello and confess to what we were doing. Though, Emma poked me, saying we shouldn't say we knew it was sold. The car belonged to a real-estate agent named Betty. She was a middle-aged, Asian woman, stocky but not overweight.

She explained that the new buyer's home loan had fallen through, and the previous owner was still in a hurry to sell on account that they'd just moved to London and needed the money to pay for a home there. When we explained that we were interested in the house and confessed we weren't sure if we could make it work, she offered to take us out for dinner.

The next day, the house was ours. There were a few issues, like broadband service was non-existent, but a tech savvy friend offered to hook up internet over radio, and that worked well enough.

The previous owners had been antiquers and left most of their furniture. Though none of it was very expensive, most of it having a dent or scratch somewhere, it afforded the home a sort of old world charm. A few of the upstairs rooms were still empty, and we set up our offices there. Since the new house was much bigger than our old apartment, it felt like we'd transplanted our old place into those few rooms and the rest of the place was some sort of hotel or museum.

I was just setting up our old workout equipment when Emma burst into the room, her face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Hey Jules, guess what I found?" she asked me as my name is Julian.

"I dunno, a chest filled with gold?"

"No," she said smiling, shaking her head side to side.

"A body?!"

She huffed, "No, be serious."

"I don't know, seems like the price on this house was too good to be true. There's bound to be something ominous lurking around here somewhere."

"Well, let me show you."

Emma grabbed me by the hand and practically dragged me over to the end of the hallway that ran beside our bedroom.

"See anything?" she asked.

"Other than the prettiest girl in the whole world?... nope." I tried to get in compliments when I could.