and so does the dog under the table, yelping. “Would you like to see the cabin now?”
I half hope that it will turn out to be a derelict pile, but it’s a city girl’s dream in light-blue clapboard, with white window frames and a white porch. Situated almost a hundred yards away from the main house, it stands on its own in splendid isolation on the edge of the woods, and I have an unnerving vision of myself as Connie Chatterley, engaged in amorous trysts with my illicit lover in our quiet, leafy retreat.
“You don’t need me for this, right?” Mr. Larsen fingers the cigarettes in his breast pocket. Mr. Walsh wanders off into the direction of the garage. Showing people round is evidently woman’s work again.
We enter an L-shaped living room with kitchen; a bedroom is tucked into the inner right angle of the L and looks out toward the woods. All the rooms have dark hardwood floorboards, even the bathroom and the tiny utility room.
Karen Walsh breaks the silence. “My husband’s grandfather used to have pickers sleep in here during the summer, but—well, it’s much too small now.”
“How many people do you employ?” I ask, making conversation to cover my delight at what I’m seeing.
“Up to forty once picking starts. It’s mostly students from schools and colleges around here. And backpackers, from Europe and Australia. They have a camp site over there.” She cocks her head toward the forest.
“And who lived in here before? I mean, before now?”
She tucks her short, light brown hair behind her ears in a nervous little gesture. “Our previous tenants—they moved out three months ago—well, it was a very unsuccessful arrangement. They kept complaining about everything—the dogs, the dirt, the dial-up Internet access, of course, and in the end they left one weekend when we were all away on a family visit, without ever paying the rent that was due.”
She gazes at me as if she was going to say more, but then she decides against it. With her long, sinewy arm she reaches up the banister. “Will you come and see upstairs?”
The upstairs bedroom is larger than the downstairs one, and it has two dormer windows that look away from the farmhouse toward the woods. It’s the perfect place for a study. I have to bite my lips not to burst out laughing.
“It would be very different from what you’re used to,” Karen Walsh says tactfully.
“But I don’t want what I’m used to! I want to get away from what I’m used to! I want a change, a real change! May I?”
My vehemence seems to take her aback a little but she nods, and I open the bedroom window.
“Smell that?”
“N-No—”
“That’s what I mean. This would feel like a vacation in the country, not like work at all!”
We laugh together, and she lays a quick hand on my arm. “Leave it to me.”
When we come back into the living room, Mr. Walsh is fiddling with one of the doorknobs.
“Pop? Dr. Lieberman says it’s exactly what she is looking for.”
“You reckon?”
I try to look resolute but keep my mouth shut.
“We don’t rent out for longer than a year at a time.” He straightens up, his fists propped against his hips.
“That’s fine with me, sir.”
I’m not sure why I want this place at all, given that my prospective landlord seems convinced that I will be a pain in his neck. The only answer I can come up with is that I am in love with the idea of living on a farm, and that I have fallen in love at first sight with the blue cabin.
Mr. Walsh gives his daughter-in-law the curtest of nods and leaves the house.
“So you don’t wanna look at the lofts in town?” Mr. Larsen throws away his cigarette and squints into the late afternoon sun.
The Paul Newman eyes and mine meet in similar stupefaction on their way from the cigarette butt on the porch back to the Realtor’s face. I half expect Mr. Walsh to take Mr. Larsen by the scruff of his polo shirt and shake him till he picks up the offending piece of garbage, but he just walks off toward the main house.
“No, thank you,” I say.
The signing of the lease goes without a hitch. I thank Karen Walsh for her hospitality, feeling that we have established a tentative kind of rapport. When I offer to shake Mr. Walsh’s hand, he indicates by an abrupt little jerk of his head that he intends to accompany the Realtor