The new townhome had an elevator and a grand staircase in the foyer, a terrace level filled with light (woman cave and my office), and a top floor with all the bedrooms we needed. Between the house and the rear detached garage was a beautiful brick patio and covered walkway to the house. Above the garage, an outdoor brick-and-iron staircase led to an unfinished studio apartment. The space begged for a gardener to create a beautiful New Orleans-style courtyard.
Although not in Buckhead, we were only slightly west in the prestigious community of Vinings. The village square, only one block away, was designed with beautiful white clapboard buildings, white picket fences, and lush plantings. It was charm personified.
When I told my fiancé the home had an elevator, he replied, “Who needs an elevator?”
My husband had arrived on America’s shores as an athlete from Australia to run for Tulane University. As a distance runner, 10-mile daily runs were effortless for him. At only 33 and in prime condition, his gait was akin to a graceful gazelle gliding effortlessly across an open expanse.
I had become an athlete within two years of my Edward-Scissor-leg braces coming off. I began ballet at the age of five. By ten I was a soloist in our local ballet company. Two years later I was selected for the junior company of the Atlanta ballet. By 16 I became a member of the senior company troupe, by eighteen a soloist. I took up running at the age of 22 and weight-lifting the same year. I had logged more hours in a gym or a ballet studio than the entire Dancing with the Stars series contestants combined. At the time of our marriage, I was 50 years old with the body a 25-year-old athlete, thus my husband’s question regarding the elevator. The answer lay not in our health, but the health of future buyers who wouldn’t mind the train track that was stealthily hidden 30 yards from the house’s back door. This was discovered in the most dastardly fashion our very first night.
After an exhaustive day of moving, we waved good-bye to the movers, mounted the stairs, tossed sheets on our brand new mattress and climbed in bed. Having positioned our Louis the XIV gilded bed on the only wall without windows, fireplaces, or doors, we were faced with one small annoyance; outside our undressed bedroom window, position directly across from the bed, stood a massive street lamp. Much larger than an ordinary lamp, it appeared as an enormous glowing object which shed light in a 100-foot radius for security purposes for the well-disguised veterinary center next door. We groaned at the blaring light.
“How will we ever sleep?” Candler asked.
A problem solver to the core, I jumped off our high mattress, turned on the overhead light and found the box marked “Violet’s lingerie.” Ripping open the tape I began rummaging through the contents.
“Don’t you have anything to put over that window?” he asked, still lying in the bed.
“Nope,” I said. “It’s in our contract, nothing over the windows. They want the carved woodwork to show.”
“Not even a sheet at night so we can sleep?”
I turned in stunned horror, “A sheet? Did you grow up in the slums?” I suddenly thought maybe a trip to Australia to visit his roots might not be a bad idea.
“That’s unreasonable,” he said. “We can’t sleep with that light blaring.”
“Of course we can,” I said, extracting a thin pair of black socks from the box. Flipping off the light, hoping back up onto the mattress, I handed him a sock.
“What am I suppose to do with this?” he asked.
I lay down and placed the sock over my eyes. The heel rested at the top of the bridge of my nose, creating a perfect arch that sealed out light. “Try it,” I said.
He laid back and stretched the sock across his face, adjusting the heel until folded around the bridge of his nose just below his eyes. “Not bad,” he said.
“Say good night to the mother ship dear,” I said.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
I began to laugh.
“Really it’s not funny. Stop laughing,” he insisted.
I howled.
“Not funny,” he said sternly, as though he had previously experienced an alien abduction with nightmarish experiments.
I tried to contain myself. Just as my laughter began to subside, the entire house began to shake. We sat straight up in bed. Our socks feel from our eyes, the mother ship flooded our room with light. Both of us grasp the sides of the bed as the vibration became more and more profound.
“I think we’re having an earthquake,” I said.
We stared at each other in horror. The vibration intensified.
“What should we do?” he asked with a panicked voice.
“I have no idea,” I said. “In the movies people are always getting in doorways.”
“Doorways?” he said, panic rising in his voice. This was the first giveaway that my husband had zero crisis-management skills.
The whole house began to shake violently. And suddenly we heard the whistle of a train, a 120 decibels loud, crossing through the center of our bedroom. We quickly covered our ears, which made no difference whatsoever.
If one measures a train by the duration of the vibration, this was a short train, as we would soon come to learn. It blew its whistle three times and was gone in five minutes. Shell shocked we stared at one another, the mother ship’s light bearing down on us. Suddenly I began to laugh.
“How can you laugh?” he said. “It could have ruptured my ear drums. Why didn’t you tell me there was a train? I hate trains.”
“You never said anything about trains. I asked you what limitations you might have on a home and you said none,” I responded.
“I hate trains,” he insisted.
“The moment to express that criterion passed weeks ago when I asked if there were any no-nos”
“I won’t live near a train,” he said, his voice rising.
“We are living near a train,” I said flatly.
“This is unacceptable!” he said.
“We walked into the village yesterday when I showed you the house. You saw the train tracks just two blocks away,” I said.
“I didn’t realize they ran through the bedroom,” he said.
“Me either,” I said.
We laid back in the now-still bed, placing our socks carefully across our eyes, our hearts still racing from the assault to our senses.
“Maybe there’s only one every now and then,” I said. As soon as the words slipped from my mouth, the house began to vibrate all over again.
Candler flew into a rage, pounding the bed and screaming. Though I couldn’t hear a word he said over the whistle, I didn’t have to. His face, distorted in a blood-red rage, said it all; I watched as his large mouth spewed unheard obscenities, his long arms violently flailed through the air. I ducked a couple of times to keep from being hit by accident.
“Son-of-a-bitch builder,” I heard him say as the last whistle faded. “I’m not putting up with this. That lying SOB landscaped the backyard to hide a train track 10 feet away! I’ll sue his ass.”
“Sue him,” I said. “You’re living virtually free in his property. Besides, a clause in our contract guarantees we will hold him harmless regardless of any disasters or distress.”
“This is fraud!” he screamed, “No one would buy a house if they knew a freight train ran through the bedroom and blew its horn all night.”
“We didn’t buy the house,” I said calmly.
“Damn it!” he swore, “I’m not going to put up with this!”
I, having just spent $5000 moving, another $65,000 purchasing furnishings, chandeliers and hiring electricians, just had to ask, “What would you suggest we do?”
Candler was silent. He fell back down on his pillow, his pulse still pounding. I took the silent approach. It seemed safest. After several minutes, still cursing under his breath, he covered his eyes with my sock.
And thus began our first night as showhome managers. We armed ourselves with earplugs, headphones, sound machines, sleeping masks and every type of light-blocking, sounding-muffling apparatus we could muster.