The Petersons cancelled at noon, so Beth had ninety minutes before the Nguyens. She could have driven back to the office. Instead she walked the house.
She'd shown it eleven times. She knew the script — original hardwood, updated kitchen, natural light in the master. She knew where to pause (the bay window) and where to keep moving (the half bath with the pipe stain behind the mirror).
Without clients, the house was different. Not empty — she was in it. But without the performance, her attention went somewhere else.
She noticed the floor in the hallway listed slightly left. Not enough to see. Enough that her weight shifted each time she crossed it, a correction so small she'd been making it for eleven showings without knowing.
The kitchen counter had a worn spot near the stove. Not the cutting board area — everyone saw that. Three inches to the right, where someone had rested their hip while stirring. Thousands of meals. A groove worn by leaning.
The back door stuck, then didn't, then stuck again. She'd been compensating for that too — a half-turn of the wrist she hadn't decided to learn.
Beth stood in the living room. The light from the bay window reached the far wall at this hour, which it didn't during afternoon showings. The wall had a faint rectangle where a painting had hung. Two nail holes, slightly different heights. Someone had moved it, tried to get it level, and given up or decided the first position was right after all.
She could have put any of this in the listing. She didn't.
At one-thirty the Nguyens arrived. She walked them through the original hardwood, the updated kitchen, the natural light. Her weight shifted in the hallway. Her wrist turned at the back door.
They made an offer that evening. Beth took three percent. She never told anyone what the house had taught her, mostly because she couldn't have said what it was.