Oh no, here came that strange rage again. She could feel her cheeks starting to burn and her face turning beet red and her heart pounding a mile a minute. What was going on? She had never lost her temper in her life. This was twice in one month. It was either late menopause or some weird form of road rage—or, in this case, real estate rage. Whatever it was, she realized she’d better calm down. She didn’t want to have a stroke before she had a chance to finish up all the loose ends she still had to deal with.
As she drove across town, she tried to calm herself. First of all, it really could just be a rumor that Crestview was coming up for sale. With the ladies from St. Martin’s, you could never be sure; being of a certain age, many of them were a little deaf and often got things mixed up. Maggie hoped and prayed that this was the case today. And it really made no sense. Why would Mrs. Dalton be selling? The Dalton family had owned Crestview for as long as she could remember, and they certainly didn’t need the money, so surely, Fairly Jenkins must be mistaken. Still, Maggie hated to have to spend the next six days wondering about it. But how could she find out? She couldn’t just call Mrs. Dalton and ask her outright; it would be far too rude and pushy. Oh Lord, why, of all the houses in the world, did it have to be Crestview? She should have canceled her hair appointment when she’d had the chance. Then she never would have even known about it. With all she had to do in the next few days, the last thing she needed was one more thing to have to worry about. And even if by the slightest chance it was true, and Mrs. Dalton was selling Crestview, there was not a thing in the world she could do about it now. Besides, she didn’t have time to think about anything but the task at hand. She would just have to try to put it entirely out of her mind and get on with her day. Dear God, what next? That was the point: she didn’t want to know what next. She didn’t need any more surprises. Life had surprised her enough.
Magic City
IF MAGGIE HAD LIVED MOST OF HER LIFE UNDER THE SPELL OF HER childhood, she wasn’t alone. A lot of people still had a few stars left in their eyes, and no wonder, growing up in a place called the Magic City, with all of its lofty aspirations and illusions of grandeur. You could see it everywhere you looked, from the towering smokestacks of the iron, coal, and steel mills to the grand mansions atop Red Mountain to the sparkle in the cement in the downtown sidewalks. The city was bustling and alive, with block after block of elegant stores, where mannequins stood in haughty poses, dressed in the latest fashions and furs from New York and Paris; blocks of showrooms filled with fine rugs, lamps, and furniture, displayed so beautifully you wanted to walk in and live there forever (or at least Maggie had). There had always been an excitement in the air. A feeling that Birmingham, the Fastest-Growing City in the South, was right on the verge of exploding into the biggest city in the world. Even the streets had been laid out extra wide and stood waiting, as if expecting a tremendous rush of traffic at any moment. From the beginning, Birmingham had been bursting with ambition and hated being second to Pittsburgh in steel production and having the second-largest city transit system in the country. Even the towering iron statue of Vulcan, the Greek god of fire and iron, that stood on the top of Red Mountain was only the second-largest iron statue in the country, and during the war, when headlines announced that Birmingham, Alabama, had been named the number two target city in America to be bombed by Germany and Japan, everybody was terribly disappointed; they would have loved to have been first! Their only consolation: they did have the largest electrical sign in the world, which greeted all visitors as they came out of the train station. It blazed with ten thousand golden light bulbs that spelled out WELCOME TO MAGIC CITY. Birmingham was a city with a pulse that you could hear beating, working, and sweating, striving to become number one. The giant iron and steel mills clanked and banged and spewed out pink steam and billowed thick smoke all hours of the day and night. Coal miners worked in shifts around the clock. Streetcars and buses ran twenty-four hours a day, packed full of people either going to or coming home from work.
In the afternoon, parents used to drive their children up the mountain to Vulcan Park to watch the sun set over the city, when the sky would come alive with layers of iridescent green, purple, aqua, red, and orange that streaked across the horizon as far as you could see. Everyone thought it was a special show the city put on just for them. It never occurred to them that the beautiful colors were caused by all the toxins and pollutants spewing out from all of the mills surrounding the city. They also never dreamed that one day, most of old downtown Birmingham, its magnificent movie palaces, restaurants, and department stores with the beautiful shiny brass doors and silver escalators, would all be shut down for good. But they were.
The Open House
MAGGIE CRAWLED ALONG THROUGH HEAVY TRAFFIC, AND A GOOD half hour later, she stopped at the Contri Brothers Gourmet Deli for cold cuts and then at Savage’s Bakery to pick up five dozen assorted cookies. Everyone said that Red Mountain put on the best realtors’ open houses in town. Even in the 1980s, she’d heard, when the market was hot and it had been hard getting agents to show up at all the newly listed houses, Hazel had never failed to draw a huge crowd and had always managed to come up with some attraction. She would send out announcements to “Come and meet Matilda, the World’s Oldest Chicken” or “Henry, the Cat with Fourteen Toes.” But all they could offer today was a free lunch. Maggie was still feeling thrown by what she had heard at the beauty shop, but she forced herself to just keep her mind focused on what she wanted to get done today. She thought that she probably should start dropping a few subtle hints to Brenda about her plans, but it would be tricky. She didn’t want to alarm her, but she did want to try to prepare her as best she could without tipping her hand. She loved Ethel, but of all the people in the world, she guessed she would miss Brenda the most.
Hazel had put Maggie and Brenda together from the very start. Maggie had the looks, the contacts, and certainly the charm to sell real estate, but she couldn’t do the paperwork if her life depended on it. The only reason she had gotten her real estate license in the first place was that Hazel sat on the real estate board. Maggie’s grades had not been quite high enough to pass, but Hazel had glanced over it, declared, “Close enough,” and pushed it through. Brenda, on the other hand, was a master at reading contracts, crunching numbers, obtaining mortgages, and closing a deal. Any information you needed she could bring up on her BlackBerry in seconds. She was a real treasure in every way: Brenda had been one of the first girls in the Birmingham school system to take Shop, instead of Home Economics, and could fix anything. She always had a large hammer, nails, a wrench, several screwdrivers, measuring tapes, light bulbs, extension cords, and a big flashlight in her purse; anything you could ever need, Brenda had it, including snacks of all kinds. Maggie told her that the boy in the frozen yogurt parking lot who had tried to snatch her purse probably couldn’t have lifted it anyway.
As far as Maggie was concerned the two of them were a perfect pair. Maggie always felt so safe with Brenda around. Just last month, when a creepy-looking man had shown up at an open house because he had liked Maggie’s photo in an ad, Brenda had picked him up and thrown him out the front door. Other than Hazel, Brenda was the most capable woman Maggie had ever known. She just hoped Brenda wouldn’t be too upset at her leaving her in the lurch at work, but it was really only a matter of time. Theirs was the last of the Red Mountain Realty offices that had not been shut down, and it was sure to be bought up by one of the larger companies any day now. Maggie wouldn’t be surprised if it was Babs Bingington’s company, and she was just as glad not to be around when that happened. The way Babs hated her, she was sure to be fired on the spot.
Of course, she should have quit real estate after Hazel died, but at the time, everybody on Team Hazel vowed to carry on out of loyalty; as the business got worse, however, people started to leave. Now there were only three of the original team left: Ethel, Brenda, and herself. Maggie figured that Brenda would be leaving real estate soon to run for mayor,
but thank heavens, she hadn’t left yet. Brenda was the only person who could still make her laugh.
Last St. Patrick’s Day, Brenda had come into the office dressed entirely in green—green dress, green shoes, green wig—and had held out her arm to Maggie and asked, “What color would you say I was?”
Maggie looked at Brenda’s arm. “Oh, I don’t know, sort of brown?”
“I know that! What sort of brown?”
Maggie looked again. “Well, maybe reddish brown?”
Brenda was delighted with the answer. “That’s what I think! Reddish brown! Mother was more caramel, and Daddy was dark brown, but I’m more of a reddish color, aren’t I?”
“I would say so. Yes.”
“I want one of those DNA tests. I’ve got some freckles; who knows? There could be an Irishman in the woodpile somewhere.”
Brenda had such a good sense of humor about herself—a trait you more or less had to have if you worked for Hazel. Brenda and Hazel had a lot in common on that score. In Brenda’s lifetime, she had gone from being Colored to Negro to Black, and now African American, and it was a running joke between them. Hazel would come in the door and ask Brenda how she was feeling today, and Brenda would say, “Well, I felt very black yesterday, but today I’m feeling a little colored. How about you?” Hazel would think and say, “I think I’m feeling a little more short-statured than height-challenged today.”
Brenda always said to the new people, when they were surprised at some of Hazel’s humor, “She may not be politically correct, but she’s hired more minorities than any other company in town.”
Maggie had hoped to drop a hint while they were preparing the food platters, but when Brenda arrived at the open house, she was in such a state that she couldn’t. Evidently, something had happened to her favorite purse, the one with twenty-seven secret compartments she had ordered from the TravelSmith catalog, and as they were putting out the wine and cheese, Brenda was going on and on about it. “I could just cry. The whole inside was ruined, and I had to throw it out in the garbage.” Maggie was still somewhat confused about the details and asked her why there was a pint of ice cream in her purse in the first place. Brenda made a face. “Oh, you don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do …”
“No, you don’t.”
“All right, I don’t.”
Brenda sighed. “Oh, well,” she said, throwing a bunch of grapes on a plate. “It was all Robbie’s fault!”
“Robbie? Why?”
“Because she buys summer flavors just so she can catch me, that’s why! Anyhow, I had to run out and get another pint to put back in the freezer, but when I got back, Robbie was already home, so I put it in my purse and I forgot about it until this morning. When Robbie got up, there was this green gooey stuff leaking out all over the floor.”
Maggie had heard something like this before; only the last time, it had been an entire coconut cake Brenda had hidden in the top of the linen closet, and Brenda had blamed the ants for her getting caught.
“Oh dear. What did Robbie say?”
“Oh … you know Robbie. She said, ‘I guess that pint of ice cream just jumped out of the freezer into your purse when you weren’t looking, didn’t it?’ ”
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? Anyhow, I didn’t forget to call Cecil. We have two tickets for the Dervishes. I’m sorry I’m late, but I had to take everything out and wash it all off. My checkbook is just ruined, but enough about me … what did you do last night?”
Maggie started to say something, but a gal from Ingram Realty walked in, and the open house started.
THANKFULLY, A LOT of agents had shown up, including Babs Bingington, who had marched through and, as she left, made her usual snide remark: “Well … it’s not Mountain Brook.” Unfortunately, she was right. Since the market was down, Brenda and Maggie had been happy to get a call from the owners of a midpriced home in a part of town they didn’t used to handle. But the minute they walked inside, they knew it would be a problem trying to show it. The wife, “Just call me Velma,” collected what she lovingly referred to as “pinecone art.” Everywhere you looked, there were hundreds of pinecones with little plastic eyes, dressed as Santa’s elves or as Scarlett O’Hara in evening dresses, and pinecone babies in diapers or in tiny pinecone cribs, and she informed them with a happy smile, “I’ve got lots more up in the bedroom and out in the garage.”
Oh, dear. How do you tell a nice woman like that that potential buyers wouldn’t find the pinecones just darling, “like part of the family,” as she did? How could they explain, in a nice way, that the pinecones and all the geegaws had to go? Collectors were always a problem. Trying to separate people from their eight hundred spoons from around the world or their collection of ceramic chickens, pigs, cocker spaniels, cats, elephants, cows, birds, deviled egg plates, teapots, or whatever they collected was always difficult. They’d once had a client with forty-two toy Chihuahuas, all named Tinker-Bell. Trying to show that house had been a nightmare. But thankfully, Maggie had managed to talk Velma into letting her put away some of the pinecones for today’s showing.
AFTER THE OPEN house, Brenda said she was late for one of her many political meetings. Maggie told her to go on; she would see her later at the office. Maggie didn’t mind closing up. It was nice to see Brenda so excited. Brenda loved politics. The only really strong opinion Maggie ever had about politics, she had learned in the movies. After seeing Doctor Zhivago, she knew she could never be a Communist. The scene when poor Dr. Zhivago (Omar Sharif) came back to Moscow after the war and found that his beautiful family home had been taken over by a horde of strangers had really bothered her.
Before she left, Maggie had to put all the pinecone art she had hidden back where it had been. She then went into the kitchen and gathered up all the realtors’ business cards they had left on the counter and noticed that Babs had left two cards with BIRMINGHAM’S NUMBER ONE TOP-SELLING REALTOR stamped across the top in bright red ink—just to rub it in.
As usual, when she had come through the house today, Babs had completely ignored Maggie and been rude to everyone else. Maggie had always been so uncomfortable around Babs; it was hard to be around someone who just hated you, particularly when you didn’t know why. As Maggie was locking up, something occurred to her. The next realtors’ open house wasn’t until Wednesday. Today was the last time she would ever have to see Babs Bingington again, and if that wasn’t something to look forward to, she didn’t know what was. In fact, as of Monday, she would be saying goodbye to the never-ending saga of real estate forever, and not a minute too soon.
Besides being physically dangerous, real estate was also an emotional roller coaster. Dealing with people selling their homes was always tricky. Some would not leave the house and would follow the potential buyers from room to room. And there were no guidelines to offer help, no official set of rules for real estate etiquette. She was constantly surprised at the cruel things people would say about another person’s home.
IT WAS ABOUT four o’clock when Maggie pulled into her parking spot behind the office. Red Mountain Realty was located in a charming old stone building right in the middle of the village of Mountain Brook. When Hazel was alive, all twelve desks had been filled with busy agents, the phones ringing, and the place had bustled with activity. But now it was mostly quiet—unless, of course, Ethel was on one of her “in my day” rants.
It was said of Ethel that she was set in her ways, but in fact, Ethel just plain didn’t like the way the world was headed and made no bones about it. And this afternoon, she was on her Hollywood rant (again). “In my day, the movie stars were glamorous, but now they all want to look just like everybody else; they go out in public wearing any old rag. Back then, you’d never catch any of them running out to the store in cut-off blue jeans. In my day, the movie stars were carefree and fun. Now they all have causes and take themselves so seriously, running all over the world, palling around with dictators, bad-mouthing Amer
ica. But they sure don’t mind taking all the money they make here. I say they should all just keep their big mouths shut and act.”
Brenda laughed. “That would be kind of hard to do.”
“You know what I mean, and I just give up on the movies. Every damn one has the same plot: everybody in authority is corrupt, and every lead character is a murderer, a thief, a dope dealer, or worse. Hell, if I wanted to spend time with criminals, which I don’t, I could go to the jail and visit for free. Why don’t they make movies about nice people? When I go to the movies, I want to be uplifted and feel good after I leave, not worse. Nowadays, if there is a movie about killers, perverts, or child molesters that shows the very worst side of human nature, they just can’t wait to give it the Academy Award. I used to watch the Academy Awards, but the year ‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp’ beat out Dolly Parton for best song, I just cut it off and never watched it again. Hell, no wonder Western civilization is on the decline.”
Maggie didn’t say anything, but she had to agree. If they didn’t rerun The Sound of Music every Easter at the Alabama Theatre, she would hardly have gone to the movies at all. It was obvious to Maggie that she had lost touch with Hollywood or else Hollywood had lost touch with her; she didn’t know which, but she strongly suspected it was her. She was hopelessly out-of-date. After all these years, Doris Day was still her favorite movie star, and she was the only person she knew who actually liked elevator music—it was the only music Maggie knew the words to anymore. And it wasn’t just music. In the past ten years, modern technology had suddenly taken several quantum leaps forward and had left Maggie in the dust. Things were changing so fast, she couldn’t keep up. By the time she had learned how to work something it was already obsolete. She never had figured out how to program her new oven and couldn’t work a BlackBerry if her life depended on it. She hadn’t even attempted to learn to Twitter.