Slightly Suburban. Wendy Markham

can’t, we have other plans,” I said to both of them, and wound up feeling like the mean mommy who doesn’t allow Super Soakers or sweetened cereal.

      “What kind of plans?” Mitch asked nosily.

      All right, maybe not nosily. Maybe just curiously.

      Maybe I’m just pretty damn sick of Mitch and his questions and his hanging out.

      Of course Jack hedged, so I was the one who had to break it to Mitch that we’re probably moving to the suburbs.

      Mitch didn’t say much in response. Mostly he just gave Jack a reproachful look, and me the silent treatment as we covered the remaining half block to his building.

      After we left him off, I said to Jack, “I guess he’s going to miss us when we move, huh? Or you, anyway.”

      “Not just me. He loves you, Tracey.”

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mitch loves me. If he loves me, he’ll set me free.

      “Anyway, it’s not like we’re moving tomorrow,” Jack says, “so…”

      That pause seemed ominous to me.

      I found myself wondering how he was going to complete that thought.

      So Mitch will have plenty of time to get used to the idea?

      Or…

      So Mitch will have plenty of time to convince our future suburban next-door neighbors to sell their place to him?

      I probably should have asked Jack to finish the sentence, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

      Anyway, here we are, embarking on a new adventure as future home owners, and I don’t want anything to put a damper on this day because so far, it’s going well.

      I was pleasantly surprised by Verna, the listing agent on a bunch of houses whose ads caught my eye. Not surprised by the fact that she’s sporting a Palm Beach tan in mid-March and has a fresh-from-the-country-club preppy pink sweater, gold jewelry, blond pageboy caught back in a black headband. I was more surprised that she’s treating us so well when most of the listing pages taped in the window of Houlihan Lawrence run upward of a million dollars.

      But when I called Verna earlier in the week and answered a few questions—including the dreaded “What price range are you looking in?”—she didn’t tell me to try the outer reaches of New Jersey. She said, “Sure, come on up!”

      The thing is, anywhere else, our price range—half a million bucks, give or take a hundred grand—would buy a mansion. In my hometown on the opposite end of New York State, I don’t think houses that expensive even exist. But here in the tristate area, that’s the lower end of the housing market, and I’m thinking Jack and I will be lucky if we find something.

      Glenhaven Park is the first town we’re visiting as we launch our official house hunt here in Westchester County. We chose it—well, I chose it—because Jack and I have driven through it a few times while we were up here visiting his mother, and I think it’s charming.

      It has always struck me as one of those old-fashioned small-town movie sets. You know: leafy streets lined with sidewalks that attract strolling pedestrians and kids on bikes; flag-flying Victorian houses with blooming gardens; redbrick schools and white church steeples. In the business district, turn-of-the-century storefronts line the brick sidewalks. Running through the center of it all is a grassy commons where cobblestone paths meander among ancient shade trees, lampposts, benches and statues.

      Beyond the village proper, some of the surrounding roads are unpaved and lined with crumbling old stone walls. That’s where the horse farms and country estates are.

      Here in the heart of town, there are plenty of expensive homes, too—as in a million dollars and well on up. But I circled ads for a bunch of houses in our price range, so I’m excited to see what our money can buy.

      We could definitely afford a two- or even three-bedroom condo in the complex perched on a hill above the town, but I’m tired of sharing walls, a ceiling or a floor with strangers. I want a regular house, with a basement and an attic. I want a garage and a driveway and a car to park there. I want a dome-topped mailbox on a pole, the kind where you put the red flag up for outgoing mail, and I want a yard with trees and a swing set (eventually) and yes, a septic tank. I want to step out my back door on a hot August afternoon to pick fresh tomatoes and basil for a salad, and cut an armload of bright-colored zinnias to put in a vase on the dinner table, just the way my mother always did on hot August afternoons back in Brookside.

      I want my future children to grow up the way I did, and the way Jack did.

      Although, my parents’ cozy, well-worn house in Brookside is a far cry from the stately six-thousand-square-foot Bedford colonial where Jack was raised. His parents sold it after the divorce.

      And while Brookside is a bona fide small town, it’s seen better days, unlike this one. Here, you get the feeling that better and better days just keep on coming.

      At least, I get that feeling judging by the lineup of cars parked in the diagonal spots along Main Street: BMWs, Lexuses—even a Ferrari. Every other car is an SUV, with a few Hummers thrown in for good measure.

      “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you both that Glenhaven Park is very commutable. You took the train up from Manhattan this morning, right?” Verna points at the Metro-North rail station as we pass.

      “Actually, we took the train up to my mother-in-law’s—she lives nearby—and borrowed her car to drive over here,” I tell Verna.

      “Oh! So you’re familiar with Westchester already, then.” She brakes at an intersection, glances into the rearview mirror, maybe at Jack. “Where does your mom live?”

      I can’t tell whether she’s talking to me, or to Jack. Wilma isn’t my mom, she’s my mother-in-law, as I just mentioned. But maybe Verna misunderstood. Or maybe she’s trying to engage Jack in the conversation.

      Good luck, Verna.

      Jack’s been pretty quiet from the moment we woke up this morning, back home in Manhattan.

      True, I had set the alarm for an ungodly early hour for a Sunday, and Jack is never exactly chatty before he has his coffee. But he wasn’t chatty afterward, either, or during the hour-long ride up the Harlem line on Metro-North, or at his mother’s condo during our short visit with Wilma.

      It could be that he’s changed his mind about ever moving to the suburbs after all. Or maybe he’s just upset that he has to miss watching the March Madness game today.

      Knowing Jack, that’s probably it. He grumbled about it the whole time he was setting the TiVo this morning to record it.

      “My mother-in-law lives in Bedford,” I tell Verna when Jack neglects to answer the question, probably too busy wondering how on earth he’ll carry on if there’s a massive blackout in Manhattan and TiVo fails him.

      “Really? So you grew up there? Then for you, this is coming home again.” This time, Verna is definitely looking into the backseat via the rearview mirror, talking to Jack.

      And this time, Jack replies. “Well, I didn’t grow up here in Glenhaven Park, so…not exactly.”

      “She means Westchester in general,” I tell him, wishing he could be more agreeable. “And since Bedford’s practically next door to Glenhaven Park—ooh, how cute!” I interrupt myself to say, gazing at a children’s boutique called Bug in a Rug.

      It’s housed in a Victorian building painted in shades of pink and cranberry, with striped awnings. Totally charming. If you have kids.

      Or charming even if you don’t, because I, for one, am totally charmed.

      “Jack, look at that amazing rag doll in the window! Wouldn’t Hayley love that for her birthday?”

      “It’s bigger than she is,” he observes.

      True. Still…