She's wearing doll clothes.

"No," she says, "Mr. Streator is right here." She lifts her penciled eyebrows and looks at me. "Am I wasting his time?" she says. "I hope not."

Smiling, she tells the phone, "Good. He's shaking his head no."

I have to wonder what about me made her say middle-aged.

To tell the truth, I say, I'm not really in the market for a house.

With two pink fingernails over the cell phone, she leans toward me and mouths, Just one more minute.

The truth is, I say, I got her name off some records at the county coroner's office. The truth is, I've pored over the forensic records for every local crib death within the past twenty-five years.

And still listening to the phone, without looking at me, she puts the pink fingernails of her free hand against my lapel and keeps them there, pushing just a little. Into the phone, she says, "So what's the problem? Why aren't they living there?"

Judging from her hand, this close-up, she must be in her late thirties or early forties. Still this taxidermied look that passes for beauty above a certain age and income, it's too old for her. Her skin already looks exfoliated, plucked, scruffed, moisturized, and made up until she could be a piece of refinished furniture. Reup-holstered in pink. A restoration. Renovated.

Into her cell phone, she shouts, "You're joking! Yes, of course I know what a teardown is!" She says, "That's a historic house!"

Her shoulders draw up, tight against each side of her neck, and then drop. Turning her face away from the phone, she sighs with her eyes closed.