“Great. Call me when he leaves.” She didn't tell him that Phil had had a jealous fit over him the night before. And she loved the thought that the house was going to keep her busy now. It would make things less depressing when Phil left on Sundays, and every night during the week. With a house that size to remodel, she was going to have a lot to do. It would take up all her spare time.

She stopped and bought groceries on the way home that night, and was thinking of cooking dinner, since they hadn't seen each other for so long. She was surprised to see Phil walk in just after seven.

“Didn't you go to the gym?” He never got to her place before eight.

“I thought you might like to go out to dinner tonight,” he said, looking slightly mollified. He rarely apologized verbally, but always tried to make it up to her in other ways, if he had offended her in some way.

“That would be nice,” she said pleasantly, and got up to give him a kiss. She was surprised by the strength with which he hugged her, and the fervor of his kiss. Maybe he really had been jealous. She almost thought that was sweet. She'd have to go out for sushi and turn her cell phone off more often, if it had this effect on him.

“I missed you,” he said lovingly, and she smiled at him. The relationship they had was so weird. Most of the time he didn't want to see her, and then when she fended for herself, he was jealous, had a tantrum, and said he missed her. It seemed as though one of them always had to be uncomfortable. One end of the seesaw had to be up and the other down. They could never be on an even keel at the same time. It somehow seemed a shame.

He took her out to dinner that night, at a restaurant she liked, and he seemed to be making an effort. And as soon as they got back to the apartment, he insisted he was tired and wanted her to come to bed with him. She knew what he had in mind, and she had no objections. It had been three weeks since the last time they made love. And she could tell when they did that night that he had been hungry for her. She had missed him, too, but not as much since she was distracted by the house. She hadn't said anything to him about it at dinner. She wanted to wait until after breakfast on Saturday morning. She somehow thought he'd be in a better mood. And she didn't know exactly why, but she had the feeling he'd disapprove. Phil hated change, and there was no denying it was an outlandishly big house.

She made him scrambled eggs and bacon in the morning, with blueberry muffins she had bought the night before. She even made him a mimosa, with champagne and orange juice, and brought him the paper while he was still in bed.

“Uh-oh,” he said with a sly smile, as she handed him a cappuccino with little flecks of chocolate on it. “What are you buttering me up for?”

“What makes you think I am?” she said with a mischievous smile.

“The breakfast was too good. The cappuccino was perfect. You never bring me the paper in bed. And the champagne and orange juice was outrageous.” And then he looked at her with worried eyes. “You're either going to dump me, or you've been screwing around.”

“Neither,” she said with a victorious look, as she sat down on the end of the bed. She couldn't contain her excitement any longer. She was dying to share it with him, and know what he thought. She was hoping to take him over to see it that afternoon. “I have something to tell you.” She smiled at him.

“No kidding,” he said, looking anxious. “I could figure that much out. What did you do?”

“I'm moving,” she said simply, and he suddenly looked panicked.

“Away from San Francisco?”

She laughed and was pleased. He actually looked frightened. That was a good sign.

“No. Just a few blocks away.” He looked relieved.

“You bought a condo?” He seemed surprised. “You told me you decided not to.”

“I did. I didn't buy a condo. I bought a house.”

“A house? Just for you?”

“Just for me. And you on weekends, if you like.”

“So where is it?” He looked skeptical. She could see that he thought it was a bad idea. He had already done the house thing, in his marriage. He didn't want anything more than the small apartment he had. All he had at his was one big bedroom, and a tiny back room with a triple bunk for his kids. They hardly ever stayed there, and it was easy to see why. They had to be contortionists to fit in. When he wanted to spend time with them, he took them away. The rest of the time they stayed at his old house with his ex-wife. He was perfectly satisfied just seeing them for dinner once or twice a week.

“It's on Scott Street, not far from here. We can go over and see it this afternoon, if you want to.”

“When do you close escrow?” He took a sip of the cappuccino as he listened.

“Tomorrow.”

“Are you kidding? When did you make the deal?”

“Thursday. They accepted my offer. I bought it as is. It needs a lot of work,” she said honestly.

“Jesus, Sarah. That's a headache you don't need. What do you know about fixing up a house?”

“Nothing. I'm going to learn, and I want to do a lot of it myself.”

He rolled his eyes. “You're dreaming. What were you smoking when you decided to do this?”

“Nothing. I admit, it's a little crazy. But it's good crazy. This is my dream.”

“Since when? You didn't even start looking till last week.”

“It was my great-grandparents' house. My grandmother was born there.”

“That's no reason to buy it.” He thought he had never heard anything so stupid in his life, and he didn't know the whole story yet. She was getting there slowly. And he was more skeptical by the minute. “How old is it?”

“My great-grandfather built it in 1923.”

“When was it last remodeled?” he asked, interrogating the witness.

“Never,” Sarah said with a sheepish grin. “Every-thing's original. It's never been touched. I told you it needs a lot of work. I figure it might take me a year. I'm not going to move right away.”

“I hope not. It sounds like you bought yourself a giant headache. It's going to cost you a fortune.” She didn't tell him she had one now, thanks to Stanley Perlman. Phil never asked her about money, nor she him. It was something they each kept to themselves. “How big is it?”

She smiled at Phil. That was the clincher. She almost laughed when she said it. “Thirty thousand square feet.”

“Are you nuts?” He shoved the breakfast tray aside and jumped out of bed. “Have you gone insane? Thirty thousand square feet? What was it? A hotel? It sounds like the fucking Fairmont, for chrissake.”

“It's even prettier,” she said proudly. “I want you to come and see it.”

“Does your mother know you did this?” As though that mattered to either of them. He had never even mentioned her before. He disliked Audrey as much as she did him.

“Not yet. I'll tell them at Christmas dinner. I want to surprise my grandmother. She hasn't seen the house since she was seven.”

“I don't know what's gotten into you,” he said, glaring at her. “You're behaving like a lunatic. You've been acting weird for weeks. You don't just go out and buy a house like that, unless you bought it as an investment, and you're going to sell it for a profit, after you redo it, but even that doesn't make sense. You don't have time to take on a project like that. You work as hard as I do. You're a lawyer, for chrissake, not a contractor or a decorator. What are you thinking?”

“I have more spare time than you do,” she said demurely. She was tired of his being insulting about it, and about her. She wasn't asking him to pay for it. He acted as though she was, which was hardly the case.

“Really? How do you figure you have more spare time? Last I heard, you were working fourteen-hour days.”

“I don't go to the gym. That gives me free evenings five days a week. And I can work on it on weekends.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” he asked, looking outraged. “Twiddle my thumbs while you wash windows and sand floors?”

“You could help. You're never here in the daytime on weekends anyway, Phil. You always end up doing your own thing.”

“That's bullshit and you know it. I just can't believe you would do something this stupid. And you're going to live in a house that size?”

“It's gorgeous. Wait till you see it.” She was offended by everything he'd said, and hurt by the way he said it. If he had bothered to look, he'd have seen it in her eyes. He didn't. He was too busy putting her down. “It even has a ballroom,” she said quietly.

“Great. You can rent it out to Arthur Murray, and maybe pay for the repairs. Sarah, I think you're nuts,” he said, and sat down on the bed again.

“Apparently. Thanks for being so supportive.”

“At this point in our lives, everything is about simplifying things. Going smaller. Having less. Being less involved. Who needs a headache like that? You have no idea what you're getting into.”

“Yes, I do. I spent four hours with the architect on Thursday night.”

“So that's where you were.” He sounded smug, and relieved. He had actually been worried about it for two days. It was why he had taken her out to dinner the night before. “You've already hired an architect? You didn't waste any time, did you? And thanks for asking for my advice.”

“I'm glad I didn't, if this is what you would have said.”

“You must have money to burn. I had no idea your firm was doing that well.” She didn't comment on that. How she had gotten the money was none of his business. She had no intention of explaining it to him.

“Let me tell you something, Phil,” she said, with an edge in her voice. “You may be ‘simplifying,’ as you put it, and ‘going small.’ I'm not. You've been married, you have kids, you've had a big house. You've had all that. I haven't. I haven't done any of it. I've been living in this crappy apartment since I passed the bar, with the same shit furniture I had when I left Harvard. I don't even have a goddamned plant. And maybe I want big, and beautiful, and something exciting to do. I'm not going to sit here for the rest of my life with a bunch of dead plants, waiting for you to show up on weekends.”