Moving Can Be Murder by Susan Santangelo Page B

needs to be done, make your list, and Jim
and I’ll do what you say.”
    I held up my right hand and said, “Girl
Scout’s honor.” I hope she didn’t notice that my left hand was
behind my back. Those fingers were crossed.

     
    “You want to price the house much too low,”
My Beloved sputtered at Nancy the next evening. The three of us
were seated around our kitchen table, where we’d all sat together
hundreds of times before. This time, though, we weren’t friends
getting together for a friendly cup of coffee or a glass of wine.
We were there to hammer out the final details of the house listing.
This was a business meeting, and Jim meant business.
    He leaned forward in his chair, breathing
hard, like he usually does when money is involved. “There is no way
I’m letting this property be listed for such a low price.”
    Keep your mouth shut, I told myself. Let the
two of them hammer it out.
    Unless they came to blows, of course. Then
I’d have to break it up.
    I had a momentary, cheery thought. Maybe if
Jim couldn’t agree with Nancy about a listing price, he wouldn’t
want to sell the house.
    Yeah, and then he’d keel over from a heart
attack when he was shoveling the sidewalk or mowing the lawn.
    So much for that fantasy. No way that was
going to happen, if I could prevent it.
    Nancy reached into her designer briefcase,
pulled out a sheaf of papers, and slapped them on the table in
front of Jim. I had the sneaky feeling she wanted to slap him with
the papers, and was working hard to restrain herself. Maybe listing
the house with a close friend hadn’t been such a good idea after
all. Too late now. And I knew she would’ve killed me if Jim and I
had listed the house with any other real estate agent.
    “These are comps from houses that have sold
in this neighborhood in the past two years,” Nancy said to Jim. “I
want you to study them carefully, and see if you notice a
trend.”
    My Beloved pushed his glasses on top of his
head and squinted to read the information. “You see,” he said after
just a few seconds, “these comps prove my point. Most of these
houses sold for over a million dollars.”
    “Look again, Jim,” said Nancy. “You’re
missing the point. All the ones that sold for over a million
dollars were newer homes.” She pointed out three houses she had
highlighted in yellow. “The antiques all sold for considerably
less. The highest one, four months ago, sold for eight hundred
twenty-five thousand dollars. It was on the market for over a year,
and the sellers had to come way down on their asking price to
finally get it sold. Buyers today want open floor plans and
skylights, not cozy rooms with low ceilings and uneven floors. This
isn’t going to be an easy sell. You’ve got to price a house right
in this competitive market. This property should be listed in the
sevens.”
    I could see the calculator in Jim’s brain
figure out the bottom line. He looked at me for guidance, but no
way was I going to get in the middle of this one. He’d always been
the financial genius in the family.
    I raised my eyebrows, then sent him a look
which said, “Whatever you do is fine with me.”
    My Beloved sighed in defeat. “Seven hundred
seventy-five thousand dollars,” he said. “And not a penny
less.”
    “Exactly the figure I was thinking of,” said
Nancy. She winked at me, and handed him a pen “You’ll see that I’m
right, Jim. Leave everything to me.”

     
    For the next few weeks, Jim and I worked
like, forgive the expression, dogs. We rented a storage unit in
town, and I was assigned the job of packing away all our personal
items. Since we’d been in the house over thirty years, we were
drowning in stuff, much of it saved for reasons that neither of us
could remember. I wanted to throw a lot away, and Jim wanted to
save all the things that I didn’t. Funny that women are accused of
being packrats, and it’s the men who can’t part with that tattered
college sweatshirt or