Candler’s insistence that he truly loved me knew no bounds; he was relentless, determined to win back my trust and affection. He begged, pleaded, flattered, bought cards, filled the house with flowers and attempted every form of manipulation he could muster. I maintained separate bedrooms and attempted as best I could to keep the peace with very little interaction. My gift for creating beautiful spaces quickly changed all of that. One never knows where a skill set can lead; in this case, my God-given, Jacqueline-Sterling-inspired gift of decorating led me in the wrong direction.
The open house behind us, agents and their clients began clamoring at our door. I fended calls from the realtors and notified Candler every time there was an appointment. Contractually required to leave the premises during a showing, we were thrust out of the house multiple times a day – together. Despite my determination to create a protective emotional space from my husband, our forced exile eventually gave way to conversation.
Candler loved to invent stories about potential buyers’ reactions to our temporary home. “As soon as they step through the doors they’ll have to catch their breath from the beauty you’ve created,” he would say. His stories continued with them drinking in every detail with pleasure, from the hand-carved horseshoe desk in the library to the magnificent French blue silk sofa in the formal living room.
The red meteorite that had thrust us into the showhome business floated in front of the black marble fireplace in the keeping room, its Valentino fringe gently dusting the imported marble floors. In Candler’s version, buyers and agents ooh’d and ahh’d over the beauty of the room and the view of the enchanted New Orleans-style patio which I had designed as a tranquil oasis from city life.
Gifted agents knew the looks in buyers’ eyes when they were hooked, and every buyer who crossed the threshold of our townhouse assumed that look within minutes. But almost as quickly, the house would begin to shake and shimmy like a cheap motel room bed. The bellowing horn, loud enough to rupture an ear drum, would sound, not once, but three times. The unexpected assault to the buyers’ senses was so egregious that once the shock and awe affect lifted, they would sprint from the house to the shelter of their cars. Many a time we saw agents feverishly strapping on their seat belts, their faces contorted, as buyers sat with their hands over their ears, their lips moving feverishly, their agents, inches away, unable to hear a word over the rubble and shriek of the train.
Living in a $1.7 million home directly on top of train tracks seemed to be as big a problem for buyers as it was for us. After more than sixty showings in the first three weeks, the home had not received any offers. One could only assume it was a result of the fatal flaw which no interior designer or landscape architect could possibly overcome.
Unknowingly, I had chosen a house that met the quintessential criteria of home managers: a home with enough upside to enjoy living in it, but a fatal flaw that prevented the home from selling quickly. Such terminal builder defects ensured longevity for home managers as the property could sit unsold for years. My visionary talents had provided us with yet another coup d’etact.
Living with Candler created a multitude of domestic challenges. Clearly he had been raised in a barn or with servants. Wet towels, dropped from his twice-daily showers onto marble and hardwood floors, lay in their resting place until I swept through to hang them. Clothing, worn for five minutes or two days, lay in piles wherever he disrobed. Silk-tasseled pillows were thrown to the floor so he could lounge on upholstered furniture, a no-no I was raised with. His office was strewn with papers everywhere, as though someone had opened a bag of confetti from the ceiling. Obsessed with perfect teeth, Candler brushed so many times a day I was sure he was wearing off the enamel. His oral hygiene habits left spit in sinks, toothpaste in puddles, mirrors splattered with water and soiled towels dropped on counters. The long expanse of black marble in the kitchen was continually flaked with crumbs from bags of potato chips and sticky spots from orange juice or lollies. Candler’s unfamiliarity with the concept of a dishwasher, or dishwashing for that matter, resulted in ice cream bowls, plates, soup pots, pasta bowls, and an assortment of utensils continually left for “the maid” (that would be me) to mind. Water stood in puddles, invisible on the dark countertops, due to his unorthodox form of hand drying. Shaking his wet hands in the air in the vicinity of the sink meant that anything within a 6-foot radius of his body received repeated showers.
Candler’s lack of attention to detail (slob) meant that I was in a constant state of sweeping through the house emptying trash cans, shutting toilet lids, fluffing hand towels, rinsing sinks, wiping down countertops, washing dishes, picking up wet bath towels and dirty clothes, organizing closets and squeegeeing the three-sided glass shower daily where soap and hair clung after he bathed, twice a day.
No matter how many times the home was shown during any given day, Candler, aka King Kong, managed to reap a wide swath of destruction everywhere he walked. I begged, pleaded and demonstrated proper domestic cooperation techniques, but not even a minor sign of improvement was on the horizon. It was with great distress I began to realize that I had not only signed up for the death sentence but marrying Candler, but maid and mother to him on my way to the grave.
With every sweep of laundry I gathered off the floor, I could feel frustration rising. Even in the early weeks, the tremendous daily burden showhome living (with Candler) was placing on my life began to make me ooze self-pity from every pore; I could feel it seeping onto my designer blouse collection. In an effort to control my own increasing put-upon-persona, I replaced resentment with confidence that I could house train the wild beast. I considered sending him to my mother’s boot camp for household cleanliness, but she said no. She couldn’t live with him, even for a week’s crash course. I was faced with taming this monster alone. It was just going to take a little time; what I didn’t know was that time wasn’t on my side.
My hectic little-red-hen life of single parenthood and business owner for the last 30 years had left me little time to pursue my vision of writing the great American novel. My dream, forever nipping at my heals, was begging me to give it life. I had been storing up ideas for decades, anticipating the moment I could finally let it take flight. With the loss of all my files during the mold years I had begun making notes again filled with books titles, synopses, and character studies, all carefully cataloged. But it quickly became apparent that, without some cooperation from King Kong, I would never be able to get on with anything other than servanthood as long as we lived in showhomes.