Page 2 of Finding Basil (Foggy Basin Season Two)

As he grew closer to his new home, he slowed the car. His foot came off the peddle without him realizing it as he took in the scenery.

There were beautiful hills, the trees turning their autumn colors through the evergreens like a great painter had been set loose on the landscape.

The town itself could have been on a postcard, with a tall church steeple in the center, no one high-rise in the mix.

Once the car was rolling to a stop in the center of the road, he pulled to the side to get out and take in the fresh air and the beauty of the place.

There was fog in the basin, hanging low and misty over the city, but not so thick as to hide the place completely. Cars rolled through the streets of the town without hurry, and there was a park filled with people picnicking on the cool, beautiful day.

After he got back into the Jag, he made sure the address was in the GPS on the dash and set out on the way home again.

Home. What a beautiful word. It evoked good memories and happy thoughts of Christmas mornings, hot breakfasts and a yard with green grass and a tire swing.

Of course, he’d had none of those. His home had been an apartment in New York City and a trip to Central Park to see green grass.

Still, he’d had a good life when he was young, his parents were upwardly mobile professionals, and his nannies that helped raise him made sure he did his homework and ate his vegetables.

Still, he couldn’t help longing for the homes he saw on television and in movies. Those lovely scenes of people loving one another, drinking coffee on a porch to watch the sunrise. He hadn’t seen a sunrise since camp when he was eleven.

That was much too long.

The road to his home bypassed the town by a mile. He drove out on a road where only one other vehicle was also driving, and that was a tractor. Once the driver of the tractor waved him around the thing, Herb cheerily waved as he passed.

That was the life. He had dreamed of it — that kind of community, where people didn’t ignore everything from muggings to bank robberies, but gathered around car wrecks, hoping to see some blood.

Pulling up to the house, he saw a car there in the driveway. His realtor had promised to come to give him the keys and show him around when he got to town. She waved to him as he parked and walked over to the car as he exited.

“Mr. Buffet?”

“Yes, and you must be Cordelia Meadows. By the way, that’s a great name for a realtor.”

She was an older woman with short white hair and a smile he figured she wore most of the day. He wondered how much her cheeks hurt at night when she finally got home. “I’ve been told that, but I assure you, I didn’t know that was what I would be when I got married thirty years ago.”

“Luck, then.”

“It was, if you don’t count his underwear on the floor every morning and his never learning how to use the coffeemaker,” she said, laughing. “Shall we do a tour and then you can settle in? Are you movers on the way?”

“Yes, I only had boxes and garment bags, so it’s a small truck.”

“Wonderful. Like the ad said, it’s furnished, so very turnkey.”

The house was more beautiful in person than he’d imagined looking at the photos.

The stairs creaked as he stepped on them, and the boards of the porch looked a little bowed, but he figured there were a few things that would need fixing now that he was a homeowner. She unlocked the door for him before handing him the keys with a smile. “Welcome home, Mr. Buffet.”

The entry led directly to the staircase in the center, the dining room on the left and the living room on the right.

They took the right and went into the living room, which was dark with the curtains drawn, terrible yellow curtains with a strange white swirl through them that was almost as yellow as the rest.

Once Cordelia opened them with a billowing of dust, the sun lightened the room considerably, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

The furniture looked much better in the photos, mostly because they were avoided.

The worst of it was an ugly orange velour sofa with swirly embroidery on the bottom by the mismatched legs.

“That’s…what décor period would that be?”

She laughed and said, “Whatever it was, may it never become popular again. Well, you can always replace the pieces you don’t like, right?”

“Right, and that may be the first.”

The dining room table was dated as well, thin plasterboard with a peeling wood sticker over the top, another replaceable piece.

The kitchen was down from the dining room, and it was as dated or worse than the other things, including having a refrigerator that had to be a hundred years old.

It was one solid door with a long horizontal handle that had lost its shiny cover long ago and was simply a dark metal handle.

It stood out on the partially white, partially metal spots where the white had been worn away.

“I thought this was done in retro style, not actually retro.”

Upbeat to the end, it seemed, Cordelia said, “Well, the bones of this place are so good, and it would be easily updated.”

All he saw with every room they toured were dollar signs. “Sure. Sure,” he said, trying to keep upbeat as well.

The floors creaked in most of the rooms, and when they went up the stairs to the second story, they were worse. It was like someone tuning a terribly out of tune cello.

There were three small bedrooms, one main bedroom, and one bath. Besides the powder room on the first floor that only had a toilet and sink, this was the only bathroom in the place.

And the tub in the upstairs bathroom needed replacement too.

He saw good bones, however. The layout was nice; the roominess of the place outweighed his condo by three times.

Outside, she walked him to the greenhouse, where there were several cracked pieces of glass that needed to be replaced, but the mechanisms all worked, and the shelves were lined up in five long rows.

“Are you going to plant?”

He nodded and said, “I am thinking of trying out my hand at farming. Herbs, to be specific.”

“Like oregano, thyme, that sort of thing?”

“Yes. What do you think?”

She smiled brightly. “I think that would be lovely. We have a few storefronts in town, if you’d like to start an apothecary.”

He hadn’t thought of that. “Well, maybe down the line. For now, I’ll be trying my hand at growing things first.”

“Oh, my, your name. Herb. Is that why?”

He laughed and said, “Yes. Cheesy and silly of me, but yes.”

“Cheesy works. Would you like a tour of your land?”

His eyes moved down to her three-inch pumps and said, “I can go wandering on my own. Thank you, Cordelia.”

“If you have any questions, give me a call. I also have a list of contractors in the area if you want to remodel. Plumbers, electricians, whoever you may need.”

“I have a feeling I’ll need them all.”

“It’s an old house, but they built things better back then. I’ll leave you to get moved. I have a showing in an hour.”

As she left, Herb walked up the creaky stairs to the front porch and, as if she had timed it, the second she was out of sight, his foot went right through one board, right before the front door.

He hollered, but she was already gone, and he struggled to get out of the newly formed hole in his porch, but once he did, he saw his slacks torn to ribbons. “Welcome home, Herb.”