Baltimore Noir (21 page)
J
eannie always made it a point to say that the house on Goodwood Gardens had never been her choice. Charlie, however, clung to his belief that their first home in
Baltimore had been a marital compromise. It was an argument without an ending—like their family, and like the house itself.
Goodwood Gardens was not actually a park, as the name suggested, but a short residential road in Plat Four, the fourth portion of land developed in the early twentieth century in Roland Park, a magical neighborhood of curving, tree-shaded streets that boasted grand, century-old houses of stone, stucco, and shingle.
The omission of a word such as “street” or “road” or “avenue” in the Gardens’ address was something Jeannie found maddeningly pretentious, but Goodwood Gardens had been established as the city’s millionaire’s row back at the dawning of the twentieth century, and its identity had held. It didn’t seem like a place that anyone, least of all a girl who’d grown up in a ranch house in San Mateo, should have disliked so heartily.
Jeannie and Charlie’s house had been built in the 1920s, making it one of the newer houses on the street. The residence was huge—ten bedrooms, ten baths, and two powder rooms—more than enough room for a family of three. The place reminded one of an embassy, perhaps located in Salzburg or some other romantic Teutonic locale. The exterior was beautifully half-timbered white stucco, and was ornamented with two battlements from which hung, respectively, the flags of the United States and Maryland.
Jeannie had wanted to remove the flags—the previous owners had left in a hurry, not bothering to take them along—but Charlie thought the neighbors would wonder why. So the flags remained, respectfully illuminated through the night by the klieg-like spotlights that nestled around the house: an excellent security feature, but also another way of showing off the structure, making it look more like a State Department residence than the home of a computer game designer, his three-year-old heir, and the heir’s out-of work, out-of-sorts mother. The only solace, Jeannie thought, was that the house had experienced a succession of seven active owners during the last ten years, so it was completely updated and there were almost no home improvements to be done.
“Just needs a little Restylane,” Hodder Reeves, the real estate broker, had said with an airy wave of his hand the first time he’d walked them through. The house was for sale, but without a sign in front. The house had never needed any signage; the real estate agents knew when it was on the market, and brought select clients registered with their own firm who’d been pre-authorized as having sufficient buying power, and who clearly understood that only offers in the range of two million would be considered.
“A little patch-up on the plaster, here and there, to make things perfect. You’re from California. You know how that stuff’s done,” Hodder had said, winking at Jeannie, who was lingering on the first floor while Charlie was leading their son, Ivanhoe, through the second floor’s maze of interconnecting bedrooms and baths.
Charlie and Jeannie had offered that day, and six months later, as Jeannie weeded the grass underneath the ancient boxwood hedges that now belonged to her, she thought more about Hodder Reeves. He knew the house well, having managed, for the last five go-rounds, to be both the listing and selling agent for it. Six percent of a house like theirs—that appreciated between twenty or thirty percent each time it sold—was practically enough to live on, although Hodder had plenty of other listings in the charmed North Baltimore trifecta of Roland Park, Guilford, and Homeland. Having grown up on Ridgewood Road in a handsome eight-bedroom Greek revival house that backed up to the one next door to Charlie and Jeannie’s, Hodder was a Roland Park boy through and through. His father had founded the region’s largest party services company, which Hodder’s older brother, Stuart, had taken over; Hodder had also mentioned that all the Reeves men had graduated from Gilman, which would be the perfect school for Ivanhoe.
Jeannie couldn’t imagine what a school full of boys would make of a new student called Ivanhoe. Charlie had wanted his firstborn to have a unique name with a historic pedigree. He had suggested Ivanhoe right after birth, when Jeannie was still delirious from mood-altering drugs. When she came to full consciousness and saw the name Charlie had ordered inscribed on the baby’s crib chart, she was upset at first, but once again her husband got what he wanted.
Jeannie had gotten over the name brouhaha, but what continued to bother her, she thought as she yanked at some stubborn clover, was that Ivanhoe was one of the heroic personalities in the educational computer game that Charlie had made his fortune designing. Although Charlie would point out that the game’s success was Jeannie’s doing because of how she, an English major temping at Charlie’s fledgling games company, had suggested Charlie read Sir Walter Scott and Mary Shelley for ideas—after all, these were stories old enough not to be copyrighted.
The game was a language-building tool, packed with sharp swords and SAT vocabulary. The American Library Association had called Charlie a hero; and once public libraries and elementary schools started buying the program—well, Charlie could either let himself be bought out, which he thought he was too young to do, or do something creative, like take a wrecked old factory in inner-city Baltimore and remake it into a manufacturing plant for the game.
It was like Goodwood Gardens’ past come to life, Jeannie mused, as she continued pulling up weeds from between the bricks. Charlie was the lord of an old factory in East Baltimore; he even went to work in a three-piece suit, wanting to seem like anything but an ordinary computer game programmer. He lunched with people like the mayor, and the lawyer who owned the Baltimore Orioles.
“You know, you could hire someone to do that—but aren’t you cute doing it yourself.” Hodder Reeves’s private-school drawl cut through Jeannie’s gardening trance.
The real estate agent was standing a few feet away from her, hands splayed on the hips of his creaseless khakis, which broke crisply on the tops of his cordovan Gucci loafers. He had no socks on, as usual, and was wearing a turquoise Lacoste shirt that made his eyes look even bluer, and the longish hair that curled around the shirt’s upturned collar seem youthfully thick and blond, though Jeannie knew for a fact he was over forty and got his highlights at the same salon that she frequented.
“Hi, Hodder. Actually, one of my neighbors offered to share her gardener. It’s just that I don’t have that much to do anymore, now that Ivan’s at St. David’s Day School three mornings a week. He’s going into his second week there—I can hardly believe it! He loves school.” Jeannie didn’t mention how it tugged at her heart that her son went so cheerfully, without a second glance back.
“Ivan. Is that a new nickname?” Hodder’s voice sounded teasing.
“His teacher suggested it. Ivanhoe’s a bit … wordy … for three-year-olds, don’t you think?”
Reeves crouched down beside her, his breath smelling of Altoids. “I think it’s charming. As are you. Let me take you to lunch.”
“But why?” Jeannie blurted, feeling self-conscious about the dirt on the knees of her Levi’s.
“I stopped by to see if you’d come for a quick lunch at Petit Louis. After all, it’s our anniversary.” At Jeannie’s blank stare, he added, “We closed on your house six months ago to this day. Don’t you remember, I took you and Charlie out for champagne at the bar there?”
A loud honk came from a black Lexus. Jeannie looked over and realized that Hodder had left his Porsche, with its driver’s-side door hanging open, smack in the middle of the street. The more successful a man was in Baltimore, the smaller his car—and conversely, the larger his wife’s. Charlie had given Jeannie a Humvee as a Christmas present, and it devoured two-thirds of their garage.
“All right, all right.” Reeves gave an apologetic wave to the driver who, after all, could be his next client. “Is it okay if I pull into your driveway? Charlie coming home anytime soon?”
“No, he isn’t coming home till late tonight, but I still don’t think I can have lunch with you. Look at the state I’m in, and I have to pick Ivan up at 11:45—”
The driver honked again.
“Go in and change, and I’ll get over to St. David’s and wait with Ivanhoe for you.” Hodder grinned. “Then we’ll all walk to the restaurant. It’s never too early for a boy to learn the fish fork from the salad.”
The small, smiling maître d’ at the French bistro three blocks away welcomed Ivanhoe without the slightest show of dismay, and Hodder with a great deal of enthusiasm. Immediately, they were seated at a fine table with a booster seat for Ivanhoe, who was delivered a mountain of golden-brown
pommes frites.
“So, tell me you’re happy ever after,” Reeves said, after they’d clinked glasses of the Côtes du Rhône the sommelier had suggested.
“What do you mean?” Jeannie unwillingly put down the menu, which looked fabulous.
“It’s a great house for a family, right? Almost everyone who’s lived there had a litter of little ones.”
“If it’s such a good house for children, why did everyone leave? Seven families in ten years, right?”
Hodder frowned. “Oh, they all have their reasons. Some divorce, some overstretch financially … some change jobs. Most of them choose to sell because, well, the Roland Park market being as hot as it is …” he paused. “The house is worth ten percent more now than it was when you bought it in April. If you sold next spring—twenty-five percent more.”
Jeannie picked up the menu again, because the last thing she wanted to contemplate was the hassle of moving house with a toddler. It was time to change the subject. “I wonder if I should bother with this three-course menu. It seems like a lot—”
“You have the kind of body where three courses is not a crime, and the cost should not be a factor, Jeannie,” Hodder purred. “If you want something light, go for the grilled salmon on greens. But don’t miss the chocolate roulade. You know what they say about chocolate!”
“Ivan will like the chocolate if I can’t finish it.” Jeannie blushed again, as Hodder was wont to make her do. Chocolate was a substitute for love, or, specifically, sex. Charlie was still interested, but Jeannie found herself so tired after a long day with Ivan that she’d rather have a cup of cocoa than anything.
They put their orders in, and more wine came. Ivan seemed to be growing smaller and quieter, and Hodder larg and louder, as the hour went on. He talked about how it was easy to make inroads in Baltimore society because all native Baltimoreans had inferiority complexes when it came to California and New York—and how he’d come back, after his years at Washington & Lee, and a brief stint on Wall Street, because he wanted to be with real people. He told her about his other clients, one a baseball player who had just signed with the Orioles, whose wife might be a nice friend for Jeannie. The baseball couple had driven down Goodwood Gardens during their tour of Roland Park and would have bought in a flash, except nothing was on the market. So now Hodder was shepherding them through Ruxton, though that was technically out of the city, less convenient …
“Are those houses old, too?” Jeannie asked. She’d heard of Ruxton because, for some reason, a lot of the teachers at Ivan’s school lived there.
“Yes. Nineteen-twenties, mostly. Yours is a good ten years older than that.” He smiled. “If the walls in your house could talk, I wonder what they’d say.”
Was Hodder talking about the past or the present? Jeannie wondered, as she picked at her salad, which had seemed delicious at first but had become suddenly acidic. She felt chilly, too, as if the scoop-necked cashmere sweater and tweed pants she’d changed into weren’t warm enough, even on a sixty-degree day. Well, the sweater had a low neck. Possibly too low a neck, from the way both the waiter and Hodder seemed to be smiling at something below the diamond-tipped choker she was wearing. Blame it on the Wonderbras Charlie insisted she wear.
“I wonder what the walls in Ivan’s room would say.” Hodder changed his voice to a sly, light chirp.
“Welcome, little big man! We’d like to teach you how to bowl!”
Jeannie put down her fork, because the truth was, she’d sometimes thought she heard a rolling sound when she was in the kitchen. “Why did you mention bowling?”
“Didn’t I ever tell you? That series of rooms in the basement—the au pair suite, if you ever get one—used to be a bowling alley. The first family had it installed for their entertainment.”
“You mean underneath the kitchen?”
Hodder cocked his head to one side, as if he was tracing the house’s floor plan in his mind. “Yes. Right underneath.” Jeannie nodded and went back to eating. “Interesting.”
“Will you put it back to its original use?” Hodder’s eyes gleamed. “You might be able to get a tax credit for that, through the Maryland Historic Trust.”
“No, the last thing I need in my life is a bowling alley.” Jeannie laughed weakly. The whole thing seemed preposterous, given that she’d grown up in a working class town where the bowling alley was where you went on dates as a teenager. To think that the people in Goodwood Gardens bowled in private—it made her mind spin.
“Hmm. It seems that you do have the energy to go after minute weeds that nobody would ever notice under all that old boxwood.”
“Come on, little weeds grow into trees! How do you think the boxwood got that big?” Jeannie felt suddenly defensive.
“Is everything okay?” Hodder’s voice softened. “I recall how, when you were looking at the house with Charlie, he was a little more gung ho than you were. But I honestly thought you
loved
the house. I would never have agreed to sell it to you if I thought anything different.”
Emboldened by the champagne, Jeannie sputtered, “Come on, do you mean to make me believe that you would turn down two million in cash because you thought one of the partners wasn’t quite there?”
“Touché! I didn’t know you had such fire in you.” Hodder sighed. “You’re right. Who am I to say I didn’t want to make the deal? But now you’re making me feel like a bastard.”