Around the corner from my house, just down the street, there is a little cottage.
It lives next door to the elementary school, nestled in a tiny lot with two enormous, unruly trees. Their roots have dug rebelliously up under the sidewalk, causing it to crack and buckle... after all, they were there first, weren't they?
It's not quite pretty... not quite. Grey stucco is stained with rain... but after all, that could be fixed. A tiny gable offers a window, to gaze out over the wide street. Ivy clings and clambers up one side of the wall, tentatively curling its fingers toward the front window. There is a porch, and I don't think I need to say any more than that.
There are only two bedrooms, my mother says. But I want to know how big they are.
The people are having trouble selling it, she says. There isn't a down payment... and it goes for five hundred and sixty dollars a month. If there were two people to a bedroom... it would be a hundred and forty dollars a month, not including utilities and all the other things that they would have to pay. But if they were careful with their bills... and perhaps just burned candles from time to time (because, after all, it saves money and it's just so much prettier), they could surely do it.
My room has just been redecorated. It's beautiful, and I love it. But my fingers itch to reach out to this little house, to give it a little TLC, to make it pretty again. I don't know what it looks like inside... but the kitchen is newly redecorated, I know that.
And so... I pose the question. Are there three people, three girls, that I know... who'd even like to come look at it with me?