Spelling It Like It Is by Tori Spelling Read Free Book Online Page B

“Oh, I’ve heard about these scams.” But clearly she knew the truth—why else would she have parted with him while he was still relatively little and cute? I knew she still loved him. Why else would she sign her texts “Hank’s mom”? (Why would anyone sign their texts anyway?)
    We had two goats, five chickens, one rooster, four dogs, a bearded dragon, a guinea pig, and four rabbits, and we were doing fine. But Hank really needed to be on a farm. Perhaps house-hunting for a farm in Malibu was a bit rash, but all I can say is that I did it for Hank. The pig made me do it.
    THE ANIMALS WERE a critical part of this new fantasy that quickly became my obsession. As we worked our way up the coast and started looking up in the canyon, we began to find farms. It was amazing! You could live on the west side, be near the beach, and have a farm with horses and chickens. The prices (I convinced myself) weren’t as crazy if you just drove a bit farther north and inland. We could really do this. We could sell our house, move into a smaller house for less money, and live out my months-long dream of being a farmer.
    That September we went into escrow on a house. It was a little house. When I said we were downsizing, I wasn’t kidding. This house was fifteen hundred square feet, a quarter the size of our house in Encino. It was barely big enough to hold our family, but what did that matter—it was a tear-down anyway. What made it desirable was that it was built on one acre of great property. You stepped out of the kitchen to a glorious view of the whole coastline. The land surrounding the house was full of lavender and fruit bushes. I pictured myself in a chic brimmed hat, holding a wire basket, picking lavender. I would sew little sachets, filled with lavender from my backyard and tied with twine, and give them as Christmas gifts. I saw myself making jam from the kumquats and tangerines. Hank and the chickens would have the run of the horse ring. (There was a horse ring.) And this whole perfect setup was really underpriced because the old woman who lived there needed to sell it.
    We didn’t talk about the fact that one day whatever money we had saved in the price would have to go toward tearing down the house and building a new one. And we also wanted a pool. The kids would die without a pool. But since we couldn’t afford to rebuild the house, much less install a pool, it would have to be a plunge pool out front. I learned that in Malibu it takes eighteen months to get building plans approved, but even that didn’t daunt me. My plan was to move our whole family, including the newborn, to the tiny, ramshackle, two-bedroom house while we waited for plans to be approved. Part of me was thinking that it would make a hell of an episode, or even an entire season, of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition , McDermott-style.
    Lucky for us, it turned out that until we sold our house in Encino, we had no money for the down payment. We had to back out of escrow. That would have been a great moment to let go of this fantasy, return to the Valley, and continue life on our suburban animal farm. But I was unstoppable.
    A week later we found my dream house. Or what I convinced myself was my dream house. It was a single-story bungalow in Point Dume, on the beach side of the highway, with a beach access key. Take that, Kelly Wearstler! It was five minutes by golf cart from the private beach—no paparazzi!—and it was on two acres. We could certainly have a farm on two acres! What else could we possibly need?
    The house, at 2,200 square feet, was about four thousand square feet smaller than our current house. There were only three bedrooms—one for us, one for Hattie and Patsy (her baby nurse), and one for Liam and Stella. Where would my stepson, Jack, sleep? Dean thought he’d like the trailer that came with the house, parked in the yard. I wasn’t so sure. But we did want to downsize.
    There were a few other small issues. I didn’t like the