Mark handed Ella her coffee. “Ever since they fixed this place up, I’m a sucker to drop fifty bucks just walking in.”
Ella could hardly contain herself, wanting to ask about Giselle Frackle, but before she could ask Mark handed her a small, chocolate candy. “Here, have a taste.”
She popped the whole thing in her mouth. “Umm,” she murmured, nodding.
“You might as well be eating an M&M for all the finesse and appreciation you put into it. That bite you just gulped cost fifteen bucks at Truffle Eiffel,” Mark said.
“I thought it was an M&M,” Ella said, peering into another of Mark’s shopping bags. “What do we have here?”
He quickly pulled it out of reach. “Excuse me, these are free range mushrooms from Champignon Sonoma. They’re grown by an old woman in the valley who’s been into the organic thing for eons. She produces only three pounds a year, they just came in this morning. The line went on for miles, not nearly enough for everyone.”
“And you got some?” Ella asked dubiously.
“Contacts. You of all people know how that works.”
“What you’re trying to say is then that you and the counter boy….”
Mark raised his eyebrows. “That’s enough, Mrs. Barker.”
“Let’s sit,” Ella said, getting down to business. They opened the double glass doors out to the bay front patio, taking seats at a café table. “Now, what’s this about Giselle Frackle listing her mansion?”
“Who said it was the mansion?” Mark’s said with teasing eyes. “I just said the ‘Frackle Listing.’ That could mean her Tahoe place, her Stinson beach house, her…”
“Come on, you wouldn’t be talking about anything else other than Sea Cliff. Those vacation places are chicken feed.”
“Ella, you’ve been in the business for twenty-five years. I’d have thought Giselle would be calling you herself, offering the listing to you on one of her many silver platters.”
“Anyone who can say they’ve been doing anything for 25 years is getting old.”
“You’re not even 50 yet, you look great.”
“That’s kind of you but maybe we should thank my Beverly Hills doctor.”
“I’ll be 75 soon myself.”
Ella looked up from her coffee. “You mean your 40th birthday?”
He fingered the dark hair near his forehead. “Do you think my hairline is receding?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“My dad is completely bald.”
“It comes from your mother’s side, so don’t worry. She’s not bald.”
Mark came from a mixed African American-Jewish marriage. He’d acquired the most attractive physical traits from each of his parents, a spin of the hereditary lottery not so generous with his siblings, according to photos Ella had seen.
Mark’s father loomed large in his life, and for this reason Ella suspected he’d worked especially hard to shine under the patriarchal shadow cast by Richard Allen, the California State Attorney General. The son oversaw an increasingly successful interior design business, seemingly the idealistic opposite from his macho, conservative father but recently an ironic and unexpected beneficiary.
In the previous election, Mark became known as Richard’s “San Francisco homosexual decorator son,” labeled as such by the liberal Democrat opponent during a debate. This comment, intended to alienate Richard’s conservative Christian support, instead backfired, creating a boon for Mark. Richard trounced his opponent, and many of Mark’s “debate clients” as he called them, hailed from the conservative reaches of the political spectrum.
But success in his professional life still didn’t save Mark from obsessing about his fading youth.
“Forty should be illegal.”
“You don’t know how young you are,” Ella said. “Anyway, I’ve met Giselle a couple of times. Just what did this maid have to say about her selling her house?”
“She said,” he replied lowering his voice, glancing around in an overly dramatic fashion, “that Giselle is making some kind of big change in her life, God only knows what. And that the time had come to sell the old Sea Cliff place.”
If Ella had been a younger woman, such thrilling talk would take her near the edge of sexual excitement. But sex had been off her radar since before the divorce, and she didn’t even know if her body could or would respond given the opportunity. And her solitary efforts to find out had been singularly unsuccessful.
“I haven’t heard a word about Giselle selling. It’s certainly not listed formally or I’d know about it.”
“That means it’s up for grabs,” Mark said.
Chapter 3
Before even glimpsing the Open House sign, they saw the line stretching half a block long down 23rd Street in Noe Valley. Ella’s client, a Manhattan advertising executive, had flown out for the weekend in advance of a transfer to San Francisco. She needed to quickly find a home for herself and her two young children.
“Oh my god, look at that line, what’s that for?”
“That, my dear, is where we’re headed,” Ella replied.
“The Open House? This is insane.”
“Don’t worry, we don’t have to wait.”
The real estate boom created a new breed of open house entirely, turning the long standing tradition on its head, requiring security, crowd control and other ancillary measures. Lazier realtors claimed open houses didn’t result in sales, in order to avoid holding them, while more attentive agents insisted on any and all exposure.
As one of several innovations cementing Ella’s leadership position in the real estate community, she had pioneered online ticket sales in an effort to control the pandemonium that surrounded open house culture. Only the most egregiously overpriced or truly appalling abodes escaped the hot breath of the desperate rabble, so some kind of calculated access became a matter of necessity. Her office also turned out a highly respected daily report sent via text and email announcing the latest day over day price increases in San Francisco.
A competing brokerage held the listing for the house they’d come to see, so like everyone else Ella ordered her tickets online. But as the owner of her company she and her client didn’t have to pay, benefiting from professional courtesy. Most everybody else had to fork over ten dollars to gain entrance, the money going as a credit to the seller should the open house result in a signed sales contract that day, otherwise the income helped offset the listing broker’s marketing costs.
Ella parked in her usual manner, pulling headfirst into a neighbor’s driveway, the nose of her Mercedes blocking the sidewalk. A young couple pushing a baby carriage detoured out into the street to get around the S600. They glared as they passed but said nothing.
On open house days Ella always paid special attention to her appearance. Today she’d dressed in a knee length cashmere skirt and silk blouse that showed off her slender, trainer-toned figure to its greatest advantage. She’d pulled her expensively natural blonde hair back with a barrette, where it fell to just above her shoulders.
“Let’s go,” she said to her client.
The crush at open houses necessitated the controlled entry. Generally no more than 250 people were allowed in at any one time. Lesser brokers and agents than Ella had to endure the humiliation of standing in line, with wait times sometimes exceeding two hours. As Ella and her client crossed the street, an elderly man using a walker complained to the line monitor.
“Can’t you do something young man, it’s hot in this line, and I’m thirsty and feeling weak.”
“Just stay in line, sir,” he responded sternly. “No one skips ahead.”
Except Ella and her client, who marched straight to the front of the line and presented their entry passes to the burly guards at the front door. Before they stepped across the threshold, Ella caught a glimpse of Tiffany Reynolds, the newbie agent representing Delicia Cardosa, waiting in line with a dashing, investment banker type and his obviously irritated, yet pampered looking wife. Probably 2
0 minutes or so still yawned between them and the front door. Tiffany shot Ella a straight on, confident look, a direct challenge if Ella didn’t know better.
Ella smiled dismissively, turned and went in.
The open house was a restored Victorian three bedroom, two bath, and by the looks of things Ella expected more than a thousand people would go through before 4 p.m. Just inside the front door she picked up a glossy color flyer off a side table. It listed all the features and details of the house, though the price had changed since Ella looked at the Multiple Listing Service. A thick, black X slashed through the $2.6 million asking price, replaced with “$4.1 million” printed boldly to the side. Ella raised her eyebrows and passed the flyer to her client.
“Are we still in your league?
“I do need a place to live with my kids, don’t I?” replied the client, a rather severe looking woman.
Ella smiled, and shrugged. “Let’s take a look then.” Ella herself had two open houses running the same day, but eager, lesser agents in her office handled the crush at those locations.
People pushed past them in both directions, making no effort whatsoever to walk on the clear plastic runners lining the hallways and rooms. Ella recognized her friend Mark’s staging abilities right away. She understood the concept of staging well, but did not altogether agree with it. To get top dollar and generate the greatest amount of buyer hysteria, sellers had to erase all signs of personal existence from their homes, often moving out altogether during the sales process. No photographs of cute kids or smiling groups on ski trips. Diplomas were stripped from the walls and toaster ovens and coffee makers whisked off kitchen counters. Generally useless items replaced these everyday practicalities, usually artistic looking vases or tasteful, yet abstract wooden sculptures.
Everything ended up blandly attractive in the Pottery Barn mode. Dark woods and light pastels metastasized through every open house in the city, choking off creativity while creeping from one neighborhood to another like a predatory weed. An obligatory nursery turned up in every staged home, even in the gayest of neighborhoods. Ella found no originality in thought or practice.
For his part though, Mark accepted all this cheerfully and wholeheartedly. “Hey, I give ‘em what they want. If today’s buyer wants to pay more just so they can look like everyone else, I’m in.”
Mark specialized in softly colored polished rock door stops and framed prints featuring watercolor landscapes of early California. The prints hung on double wires dropping down from chic little iron ceiling rails. Quite a few buyers would insist on keeping the rented furnishings and artwork that Mark utilized in his staged houses, to which he readily agreed, buying it himself from the rental outfit then marking it up four or five hundred percent. Staging a house could run from $1,000 for a simple one day clean up and reorganization to tens of thousands of dollars for a complete, temporary re-do.
Once Ella and her client fought their way to the kitchen area, they heard confused murmurings among the throngs of lookers.
“Are the owners at home, trying to live through this madness?” a young man asked his female companion.
He was referring to a very pretty woman, about 30 or so, working in the kitchen. She wore a cook’s apron over stylish pants and sweater, while stirring a large 1940’s reproduction mixing bowl with a wooden spoon. A little girl about five stood at her side watching. The sweet, unmistakable aroma of chocolate chip cookies wafted from the oversized, restaurant grade oven.
“I’ve heard talk of this, but haven’t seen it yet,” Ella said to her client.
“Who are they?”
The little girl’s shrill voice interrupted their conversation. “Cheryl, I have to go pee.”
The woman looked askance at the crowd watching and replied in a stage whisper. “I’m supposed to be your mother, remember, call me Mommy.”
The little girl only repeated her demand even louder.
“Cheryl,” she whined even louder, “I have to make pee pee.”
Cheryl or Mommy, or whoever she was, abandoned the mixing bowl and took the little girl by the hand and led her out of the kitchen.
“They’re model residents,” Ella explained. “They’re hired by the listing agent to give the home a feel of people actually living here. A developer in the East Bay tried it first about a year ago. They populated their model homes with all these actors,” she said waving a hand at the mixing bowl and stove, “and buyers seemed to take to it.”
“Amazing,” replied Ella’s client. “I should recommend it to my friend Meryl in New York. She’s in real estate and very aggressive.”
Ella didn’t doubt this last remark. She’d met more than her share of New York City realtors at various conferences, and a little of the “aggressiveness” her client described went a very long way. Ella didn’t care for her Gotham counterparts in the least. Most of them had strong accents and would tell outlandish stories about selling apartments in Manhattan. “I tawled the cloiyent ‘The apahrtment gets so much siun I hiad to put moy sunglasses on when I wawlked in.’ The cloiyent put in a full prwice offa, and puwrhcased the cawndo sight unseen, based just on my woird.” Ella shuddered at the memory.
“She’d love this model idea, though one of her last open houses was a 300 square foot two bedroom off Madison in the sixties that drew hundreds in the first hour. I’m not sure there’d be enough room for the models.”
“Hmmm, I’m not sure either,” Ella said noncommittally.
“Still, it was a spacious and well laid out space.”
Mommy and her “daughter” returned from the bathroom break, and the little girl smiled now. A nice looking man about 35 or so politely weaved his way through the crowd into the kitchen. He looked adoringly at the woman and child, and leaned in to give his wife-for-a-day a peck on the cheek. The woman smiled back, then removed the latest batch of freshly baked cookies from the oven. The tumult of lookers crushed any remaining opportunity for improvised, familial dialogue. Using a spatula, Mommy put the cookies on a ceramic platter, and placed them on the counter for the cattle to feed.
“Please, help yourselves,” she said gracefully to the multitude. Greedy hands snatched the cookies up within 30 seconds.
Ella and client wound their way through the carefully staged two story house. In the second floor hallway a boy of about three scribbled with a black crayon on the freshly painted light peach wall, his arm making long, jagged movements. “Taylor,” a woman’s voice gently said, “that’s not how we behave in other people’s homes.” She tried to pull Taylor away from the wall, but he tugged and screamed at the top of his lungs. Wanting to escape, Ella directed her client into the master bedroom. Large and luxurious, expansive plate glass windows afforded a forested view to the professionally landscaped backyard and hot tub.
“Where’s the bathroom?” asked her client.
“It must be in here,” Ella said. “I don’t know why all the doors are closed.”
The sound of a toilet flushing echoed from behind one of the freshly painted doors, and a moment later it opened, disgorging a very large, sloppily dressed overweight man, about 6’5”. He closed a box of kitchen matches, and the smell of sulphur wafted in their direction. Ella looked at her client with a horrified expression and they fled the master bedroom.
Having reached the fresh air and relative space of the back yard, they both inhaled rather lustily. Ella’s client surveyed the scene. “The hot tub looks nice, especially with that couple in it. More models?”
“It looks like it. Either that or we’ve got some prospective buyers here having a heck of a party.”
A very attractive couple in their early 20’s lounged in the hot tub. Holding champagne glasses, laughing giddily and toasting each other, they appeared to be having quite a good time. Too good of a time, Ella thought. The girl, a voluptuous tanned brunette wearing a bright yellow bikini, set her champagne flute down and leaned over closer to the young god pressed next to her in churning, steaming water. While the f
ascinated crowd in the garden watched, she languidly pulled her hair up on top of her head, pinning it back with a gold clip. Then she lowered her face to his sculpted bronze chest and ran her tongue up between his pecs, cleanly licking up a fine line of sweat that dripped slowly down his smooth flesh. He groaned lightly, with obvious pleasure. She looked up at him and smiled lasciviously.
Though admittedly riveting, Ella glanced around to gauge the crowd reaction. All eyes were on the couple, and Ella noticed that even some of the neighbors in adjoining yards also took in the show, peering through windows and gathering eagerly onto their decks.
“Think this’ll sell the place?” a voice asked from behind.
Ella turned to see Gordon Elway, the listing agent on the property.
“Aren’t the models getting a little out of hand?”
“Oh no,” Gordon quickly answered. “They’re just doing their job. They’re porn actors.”
Now Ella had heard it all. Fortunately her client had wandered away to inspect the landscaping.
“I got ‘em for a discount on the weekend. I said, make it hot.”
“They seem to take their work seriously.”
Her client returned. “I think it’s been long enough and I’d like to go back upstairs and get a look at the master bathroom now.”
“Was there a problem?” Gordon asked.
“Nothing that a few minutes of fresh air won’t take care of, Gordon, don’t worry.” Ella turned to her client. “Let’s go back on up.”
“That’s OK, you stay here, I wanna look around on my own.”
“Sure, of course,” Ella said.
The black-clad Manhattanite wandered off through the clusters of people, looking out of place in the more brightly dressed San Francisco crowd.
“Do they still dress like that in New York?” Gordon asked. “It seems so 80s.”
“I don’t know, Gordon.”
The hot tub couple toned things down for the time being and people started to mill around again.
“You think she likes the place?” Gordon asked.
“Maybe, it’s a little early to tell.”
“She better make up her mind quick.”
“Gordon, what’s with the four percent commission on this house?”