Like everybody else, I’d been thinking about buying a place in Ptown. My boyfriend and I live in New Hampshire, but every chance we get we head out to the Cape, usually by car, which gets really old really fast, if you know what I mean. And we were spending a fortune on guest houses. But you know how it is, you talk about buying a place, and then you don’t, and the next season the prices have gone up again and you wish you had, but you still don’t. Massive indecision.
Anyway, this one time last year Paul couldn’t make it, he had a business trip out to California, but we had the reservations for the week and he said he’d join me if he could, so I decided to take the ferry instead of driving. There’s nothing worse than sitting in traffic alone, you know what I mean? And it was a great day. Hot as hell in town, but we got out on the water and it was like being in another world. It really was. You could see the change in everybody’s demeanor. I don’t know how to say this except that everyone seemed to get lighter. They laughed more. Yeah, there were still a few people on their laptops or phones, but there were a lot more people who just put that shit away and talked to each other, or strolled around, or had a drink and a snack.
I felt it, too. I felt—okay, I know how this sounds, but I swear it’s true—that something magical could happen. That it was going to happen.
So I was drinking a beer and just kind of feeling good and this woman sat next to me and we got talking, you know how that happens, and make a long story short, turns out she was going to Ptown to put her parents’ place on the market, her dad had died and her mom was in a nursing home in Boston. And I didn’t really think anything of it at first, we talked about aging parents, you know how you do, then I said that Paul and I had been thinking about buying a place but hadn’t really gotten round to it. So she said, well, if you want to look at the house, you can.
But I was thinking, no, we only want a weekend or summer place, we’re not actually moving, we don’t need a whole house. I told her, yeah, maybe, nice to meet you, you know? But I took her number and we docked and I headed up to Carpe Diem, that’s where we always stayed. But I still had that feeling, you know? So I thought, what the hell, and I gave her a call. I went to see the house that afternoon and when I tell you it was perfect! Three bedrooms, a garden, a fireplace, I couldn’t have ordered anything more perfect. I called Paul and told him I’d found our second home and he said fine, and I put him on speakerphone and we made the deal right there and then. I mean, these things take a long time, we didn’t actually get the place until last winter, but now we have it and it’s all because I decided to take the ferry that day! If I’d driven down, it would never have happened. I think that sometimes if you take a chance (and a ferry!), things just work out.