All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [89]
“Wait,” I urge Roberto as he’s speaking. I do realize there is a whole string of considerations people weigh, carefully, before deciding to spend their entire freelance-writer life savings on 525 square feet in Mexico. It’s not like buying boots. One ought to ask a few questions.
He puts his hand over the phone. “What?”
“Do you think I can get it for less?” I say. That’s all I’ve come up with. I could probably use my sister Jan here now; she spent her entire summer in Mexico learning how to bargain in the market and has been bargaining ever since.
“No,” he replies. “There’s another offer on the house, so that’s as low as they’ll go.”
“Así es,” I say. That’s how it is.
“Así es,” he says, resuming the conversation. He closes his cell phone, and they have accepted my offer. I realize I don’t even have a check for the down payment, but Roberto says he’ll front the money until Friday, and in the meantime I can retrieve the maximum out of the ATM every day.
WE RETURN TO Delphine’s house, where I meet her, a lean woman of indeterminate age with a white-blond ponytail, leggings, ankle boots, and a black hat. She’s a painter, and the house is full of tall paintings, mainly of tango dancers. I notice how people seem to make their dreams come true in this town, like the way she has a tango studio in the back of her house where masters from around the world come to teach her ocho cortados. When I tell her I’ve just made an offer on a house, she is as enthusiastic as Roberto is blasé and as I am numbly full of wonder.
“That’s what happens,” she says. “People come down here and fall in love with the place, and pretty soon they’re making an offer on a house.”
Delphine shows me to my room, a simple and lovely whitewashed bedroom with cobalt blue tiles and dark Spanish wood furnishings. I splash water on my face and flop down on the bed. This room, I think, isn’t any wider than eleven and a half feet. Well, maybe a little wider. I’m not really a very good judge of space.
Sitting there in the little white bedroom, daylight fading, I can’t fathom that I’ve just decided, randomly, to buy a house. It hits me that as sure a decision as it seemed at the moment—if you can even call such an impulsive move a “decision”—there are a million reasons buying a tiny ruin in Mexico is foolish. I can’t even begin the list.
I can’t call my parents, sisters, or friends to talk it over, either, because they’ll tell me I’m completely loco to even consider spending my entire life savings on an abandoned lot in Mexico that is only eleven and a half feet wide. They’ll ask a lot of annoying questions, such as How are you going to design a house on such a small lot? Where will you live while construction is going on? How will you oversee building from San Francisco? What about all the permits? Where will you get the money to build? Who will rent it? Who will take care of it when you’re not there? What about gas, electricity, and running water? and What happens if there’s a revolution?
I get up from the bed and pace around the little room. I could still back out of the Mexico house. I haven’t put any money down. I’m under no obligation. I could just say oops, sorry, my mistake, disculpame, let the other guy who supposedly had an offer on the place buy the house. Roberto would be pissed off, but getting pissed off at deals falling through is what happens to people who sell real estate. I’ll be leaving town soon anyway, and already I’ve pretty much seen and done what there is to see and do here. I have a real affection for San Miguel de Allende, but so what—there are so many places left in the world to explore.
Yet I feel strangely settled about