The long gravel driveway lined with old oak trees. The two massive buses idling, blowing exhaust into the pristine morning air.
And Arthur calmly standing his ground, refusing to be bullied by a woman in a white silk robe.
“Sarah,” I said, “listen to me carefully. I cannot let you in. I do not have a key. I do not have the deed. That is Arthur’s house.”
“Make him leave!” she screamed.
“I can’t do that. You are trespassing on a stranger’s property.”
“I want to talk to him.”
David’s voice suddenly barked through the phone. Sarah had clearly put me on speaker.
“Mrs. Whitmore, this is completely unacceptable. You need to call off your hired actor right now. We have 25 guests who need to drop their bags and get dressed.”
“David,” I answered, maintaining my calm. “There is no actor. I sold the property in November. I told you both at dinner. Sarah ignored me. I told her again via text. She ignored me. You need to tell the bus drivers to turn around.”
“We can’t turn around!” Brenda shouted from somewhere in the background. “We don’t have a hotel. Sarah said the farm was ours for the weekend.”
“Sarah was mistaken,” I replied through the phone.
I heard a different voice, a calm, deep, grally voice.
It was Arthur.
“Folks,” Arth Arthur said, loud enough to be picked up by the phone, “I’m going to ask you one last time to clear this driveway. I’ve got a load of mulch getting delivered in 20 minutes, and your buses are blocking the road. I don’t know who Rachel is to you, but she hasn’t lived here in 8 months.”
There was a stunned, breathless silence on the other end of the line.
The reality of the situation had finally brutally pierced through Sarah’s delusion.
It wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t a negotiation.
It was just a man, his house, and a driveway. Driveway they weren’t allowed to be in.
“Mom,” Sarah whispered, her tone shifting from angry to terrified. “Where are they supposed to go?”
“I don’t know, Sarah. I suppose you and David should start calling hotels. Goodbye.”
I ended the call.