ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife
Book One, Part Two, Chapter 53: A Bidding War
Cindi and I are still at Charles Street, standing in the back yard.
“This property comes as is,” she says. “There will be a bidding war. It will go for more than its asking price.”
A bidding war? Ernie, Joshua, and I went through a bidding war twice before — once for another house on Charles Street, a block north, and once for a shotgun at the western end of Highland Avenue. Both times we lost out.
Cindi begins taking photos.
“Isn’t that a waste of time?” I ask.
She gives me a puzzled look and continues taking photos. “I’ll e-mail these to Joshua when I get home. Also, I’ll take photos of the street, to give him a feel for the neighborhood.”
I think: How can Joshua win a bidding war? This house is listed at fifty-seven nine. Joshua can pay no more than sixty thousand. How can he afford it, even if he wants it?
“What will it go for, Cindi?”
“It’s already attracted multiple bids. It’ll probably go for close to seventy-five thousand.”
Impossible for Joshua. Way too much.
She sends the photos to him. He calls me. “I like the brick garage, the attic, the clean basement, the room arrangement, the neighborhood. If you sell Daddy’s stock, we can get this place. Then I’ll pay you back.”
Cindi sends in his bid of seventy-one, seven-seven-seven. Ernie was fond of the number seven and so is Joshua — he was born in 1972.
“I thought about bidding seventy-two, seven-seven-seven,” he says, “but we’re already maxed out.”
A few hours later, Cindi calls him. “You have a final chance to up your bid, Joshua, if you want. All bidders have been officially alerted that multiple bids have been submitted, so make your last and best offer.”
He thinks about it, calls me to tell me his thinking, then calls Cindi back. “I trust you, and my daddy trusted you,” he tells her. Then he ups his bid by a thousand. He calls me back. “No one else will be fool enough to top our bid. I think we’ll get it.”
The next morning, he e-mails me. “I tossed and turned all night. If we get this place, it’ll have to pass inspection as a condition of sale. I don’t want a big surprise. At this sales price, we won’t have much money left for repairs.”
Later, he leaves me a phone message. There’s a lightness in his voice I haven’t heard since way before Ernie died. “Little mama, where are you? I hope you’re there.” I call him back. “We got it,” he says. “Cindi asked if I was happy. I guess I am, but we’ll have to scramble for the money. We have three days to show proof of sufficient funds. I have a line of credit. I can use that, too. If I pay it back within thirty days, I don’t have to pay any interest . . . at least, I think that’s how it works.”
Ernie, where are you? What do you think about all this? Would you have bid so high? Are we crazy to pay fifteen thousand over asking price?
I remember what he told me: “Hang on to your money, Ernestina. You won’t have that much.” But he also said: “Joshua is the best thing we ever did together. We don’t want to let him down.”
I sell Ernie’s stock.
