A 380 Degree View
A
Real Estate Diva Mystery
Smashword Edition 2012
Catharine Bramkamp
A 380 Degree View
Smashwords Edition 2012 Catharine Bramkamp
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher and author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, some locations and incidents are products of the author’s fevered imagination or are used fictiously and are not be construed as real. Any resemblances to actual events, local organization or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. It’s not about you.
August 2011
Cover design by Stacey Meinzen
Acknowledgments
Thank you to photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice
who makes me look good.
Thank you to Stacey Meinzen for a killer book cover.
Richard Koelling, a sympathetic and helpful editor – the rest of the mistakes are mine.
Andrew Hutchins who is unfailingly supportive
and to you, dear reader, for taking a chance on a new book.
Other Books by Catharine Bramkamp
Death Revokes the Offer (A Real Estate Diva Mystery)
Time is of the Essence (A Real Estate Diva Mystery)
In Good Faith (A Real Estate Diva Mystery)
Woman on the Verge of Wyoming
Being Miss Behaved
Don’t Write Like You Talk: A Smart Girl’s Guide to Practical Writing and Editing.
Ammonia Sunrise (Poetry Collection)
The Cheap Retreat Workbook
Anthologies
Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul
Vintage Voices Anthology 2008
Vintage Voices Anthology 2009
Vintage Voices Anthology 2011
Pen house Ink
California Women Poets
To Andrew
Chapter One
The only phrase slightly less obnoxious than It's God will, is It was probably for the best. Platitudes do not make a person feel better, then again, this person in question didn't know what else would.
Ben Stone, my boyfriend and owner of Rock Solid Service, a handyman sole proprietorship, stayed by my side at the hospital the whole time. Carrie, my best friend, held my hand and whispered that I could try again. Patrick, her fiancée, sent me an extravagant bouquet of roses.
A girl couldn’t ask for more.
Or maybe a girl could. Perhaps a girl could ask for more sympathy from her favorite grandmother, Prue, who apparently was not as impressed by the whole experience as I was. She said a few nice things, but wasn’t really present, in the parlance of our modern therapy-speak. Since she wouldn't call me, I manifested my own outcomes, and called her.
“I hear gunshots.” I hoped she was watching TV, except my grandmother never watches TV.
“That’s just the shooting range”. My grandmother’s voice wavered a bit. “You know how sound echoes up here. It sounds closer since the fire.”
“That’s not comforting.” I pointed out. Could the guns be closer as well? No, that was ridiculous. The shooting range was only within walking distance if Prue cut through about a dozen privately owned back yards, but she would never cut through nor did she need to visit the gun club. No, she was safe.
“I don’t really hear it honey. Inside the house it’s not loud at all.” She sighed.
“Grandma what’s wrong?”
“Oh,” she said airily, as if it was nothing at all. “I broke my foot. You know how inconvenient that is.”
My stomach tightened and my own complaints died on my lips. “How did you break your foot?” When it came to my grandmother, Prue Singleton, there were too many options: she slipped in her greenhouse where she grew “medicinal” marijuana; she decided to repair the roof herself and slipped, falling two stories to the cement walkway below; she was shoveling her own sidewalk and twisted her ankle; she fell down two flights of stairs and had laid motionless for hours before one of her tenants wanted a martini and found her on the hardwood.
“Oh, it was silly, I just slipped. How are you feeling? All recovered?” She was actually interested in my answer, I could tell. Perhaps she hadn’t expressed much sympathy at the time, because I’m unusual. All Sullivan women get pregnant early and completely, there are no half measures. This genetic propensities explains why I have an older brother and a relatively young mother (do not confront her with the math) and why my grandmother is “more youthful” than people think she should be. I’m thirty-six, well past any expectation by the family that I will ever reproduce and certainly past the "mistake" phase. But couldn't I get at least some sympathy?
I could, if anyone knew. Announcing my current challenge (we don’t say the word problem in sales and marketing, we use words like challenge, opportunity and situation) wasn't really an option, or appropriate. Inez, my manager at New Century Realty, was not aware of my loss and thus was not cutting me any slack.
Inez had problems (challenges, opportunities, situations) of her own. The numbers for our office were not good, or even sustainable. It must be dire; I was forced to interrupt my Pirates of the Caribbean marathon to slouch down to the office for a special mandatory meeting with my manager.
“You’re not working as hard as you should.” Inez flicked her long red nails at me and then tapped on a stack of spreadsheets. I was one of her top producers, had been for a long time. I was not used to hearing that I was not working hard enough. My small hiatus in the last month or so was an exception, and as I stated before, I think I deserved it.
“Rosemary,” Inez pushed back her heavily styled hair, “has three listings, and Katherine has four, not great, but at least they are out hustling.” Inez patted her coif in place. She returned to the Excel spreadsheet on her desk. I shifted uncomfortably.
Rosemary and Katherine held the other two top producer monikers in our office; I’m usually a comfortable two or three escrows behind them. Was that now a problem?
“What have you been doing?” Inez pursed her lipsticked mouth and scanned the spreadsheet filled with escrows listed for this month. She didn’t need to look; I could have just told her my name was conspicuously absent from the list.
“Looking for houses,” For myself, not for clients. I didn’t say that out loud.
“Yeah, like Goldilocks.” Inez tugged at a heavy gold hoop and then took it off and tossed it into her IN box. “This one is too small, this one is too mid-century, this one is too much work. This one’s in a flood zone.”
“Not enough choices I suppose.” It was a lame excuse, for a month I had looked for a house with one set of features: a study, a guest room for grandmothers, walk to restaurants. Then abruptly I was searching for good schools, an enclosed yard and a separate master bedroom suit.
Three weeks later I was back to looking for studies and views. It was a merry-go-round of emotions that made me sicker than I had felt during the whole month of January. Inez did not know all this; I did not hold her ignorance against her.
Instead she said, “You need to focus on your work. Mary at the head office is only focused on escrow’s closed, not effort.” She dragged out the word. “And I don’t have to tell you, your name is not on this list,” she rattled the spreadsheet. “We might have to stop carrying you.”
“Carrying me? I’m one of your top sellers!” My confidence that my past history would do exactly that, carry me through the present, quickly eroded. “But I’m one of your stars! Carrying me?”
“And what are you doing right now?” her voice rose. “I’ll tell you what you should be doing right now: contacting all your old clients for referrals, sending out direct mail pieces, renewing your directorship in the local MLS. You should be on the phone at least five hours a day.”
She chanted it out like a mantra with magic properties: pick up the phone, sell a house, repeat. Dialing for dollars.
“I know.” But I couldn’t bear to pick up a phone. How exactly could I answer the question, “What have you been up to lately?”
“Allison, I just need to let you know. We can’t afford to keep any agent who isn’t contributing.”
I must have looked pretty startled. Inez reached over her desk and grabbed my hand. Her manicure was freshly done, my nails looked ragged and pathetic in contrast. I couldn’t pull my focus away from that trivial comparison.
“Please,” her voice was low and pleading, as if the economy was in my control and I just chose to create the worst real estate market since the Great Depression. “You are one of my stars, but New Century National is on a rampage to cut out all un-producing agents, and they aren’t looking that deeply into history. You need to do something.”
I need to do something.
So when my grandmother, Prue Sullivan, told me about her injury, I wasn’t in a particularly stable mood.
“Well, honey it’s difficult right now.” My grandmother unconsciously mimicked the very words I used in my conversation with Inez. It was hard to think I was only as good as my last escrow. Times were tough, it’s just business, relationships don’t matter.
“But how are you doing?” I asked. I grabbed the opportunity to distract myself from my own increasing spiral of doom, despair and misery.
I heard and could almost feel another heavy sigh over the phone.
“Oh, you know, friends drive me. The members of the Brotherhood leave food on the porch for me, I have to walk to get it, but,” she countered quickly, “I have a walking cast and so it’s not too hard, and the boys have been great. Pat and Mike are excellent but don’t want to stay in the house. Brick and Raul are lovely but Brick is a disaster in the kitchen and I have to clean up the whole kitchen including the floor every time he warms up the soup that the ladies leave, and all Raul wants to do is film me and ask me questions about how I’m feeling.” She paused giving me time to imagine some other issues she did not mention: help with bath, getting dressed in the morning, getting her coffee.
“I have a funeral tomorrow and no one can drive me, it’s down in Auburn.”
“You didn’t mention one of your friends was sick.”
“It was sudden,” she said.
I heard another volley of gunshots in the background.
“I’ll be right up.”
I had to explain to Inez that I had an emergency and tried not to keep the relief out of my voice when I did.
“My grandmother needs me.”
“Why doesn’t she need your mother?”
It was a most reasonable question. My mother won’t step foot in Claim Jump for her own personal and historical reasons. She also will most certainly not attract the kind of help and aid my poor, seventy-year-old grandmother requires.
Inez rattled the paper with our escrows.
“Don’t take too much time, that doesn’t look good either. I told you, Mary, the western vice president is calling every day for an update on our progress.”
“As if a day makes a difference,” I retorted.
Inez just looked at me.
“I’ll be making calls while I’m up there,” I promised.
“Good, at least get some listings down, that will work. And who’s taking your floor?”
“I’ll only be gone over the weekend,” I was quite certain of my self-imposed time line.
My nascent plan was to drive up to Claim Jump that afternoon, comfort my grandmother, hire better help, chastise Raul and Brick for not doing a better job helping. They live on the property for heaven’s sake, how hard can it be to help grandma? And yes, make a few phone calls and be back down in time for the Monday meeting.
“We’ll be working on phone calls and role playing.” Inez arched a thin eyebrow in my direction. “I think you all could use a refresher course. You know Rosemary claims she’s never employed any of the techniques I mentioned.”
“Well, maybe she’s just good.” I countered. Rosemary has a deep abiding faith in New Age solutions for every problem. Inez was right; it was highly probable that Rosemary never employed any suggestion made by either National or Inez. My guess is that Rosemary clutches her crystals, adjusts her magnets and watches a tidal wave of good energy engulf her problems and toss up a few new clients on the shore just when she needs the business.
“Maybe she’s just lucky.” Inez pointed to the paper. “See you Monday.”
I nodded. But I wasn’t as worried about Monday as I was about Prue. I didn’t like the sound of guns; I didn’t like the sound of her voice. I didn’t like it at all.
What was going on up there?
Mine was not a clean escape. Just as I opened the door to the River’s Bend New Century office, Rosemary and Katherine bustled out of their respective offices (at opposite ends of the building) and bore down on me like the Queen Mary and QEII.
“Listen,” Rosemary huffed. Rosemary is a substantial woman who out weighed me by at least seventy-five pounds. She backed me up against the high counter in the front lobby. I did not try to get away, especially since Katherine was docked by the front door, her arms crossed, ready to steam into the fray should Rosemary require help. Patricia, our Goth inspired receptionist, just smirked and focused on her latest Internet search. She was no help at all.
“We all go through hard times,” Rosemary lectured. “Look at the eighties, interest rates were up to 18 percent, you don’t think that was difficult?”
“This is different.” Neither Rosemary nor her doppelganger, Katherine, were aware of my most recent challenge, problem, opportunity. I did not want to indulge in full disclosure, nor did I wish to invite a chalk circle surrounding my hospital bed and crystals dangling from the ceiling coupled with five hours of motivational videos (and there would be a quiz to make sure I had watched each one). I had enough to cope with.
I focused on the argument at hand. Interest rates were one thing, cajoling banks and mortgage companies to accept Short Sales or offers on REOs was another thing entirely, and I said so.
“Ha! Just something else to negotiate,” Rosemary snorted. “You have talent, stick it out, the market will pick up, it always does.”
I didn’t want to say I was tired of waiting for the market to pick up. I was tired of the stubborn banks, the idiot lending companies, the cranky buyers and tearful sellers. When did this business become more depressing than social work?
“You make your own life,” Katherine intoned with all the solidity and confidence of a pagan priestess.
“We ride these markets out.” Katherine stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder next to Rosemary. The one time they stood together in solidarity, it had to be against me. Great, my failure finally united them with a common platform.
“It will pick up, I promise, it always does,” Katherine announced with complete confidence.
“People always need new houses,” Rosemary agreed.
“They marry, they have children,” Katherine continued. I felt I was watching a coordinated vaudeville act. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
“And most important, they divorce,” Rosemary pointed out with relish. “A lot of divorce.”
“And die. REO and Short Sales, those are still available,” Katherine offered. “You could be like the Christophers and just work with foreclosures.”
“I like first-time home buyers,” I ventured. I did not want to say that I really hated foreclosures. I did not want to specialize in pain and suffering. I already had dinner with my mother once a week that was enough pain for the month.
No, I take that back, they were not a vaudeville act; they were more like two thirds of Team Witch from Macbeth. For the first time in human memory, Katherine and Rosemary, who were always in competition for most escrows, best commissions and most listing, and sometimes in dire times, weight-loss competitions, were standing united again me, their sometimes protégé.
“There are lots of homes, what about that one on Shiloh?” Katherine switched tactics from the general to the specific. What they did know, what everyone knew, was that I was searching for a house Ben and I could purchase together. They also knew that nothing had satisfied me. Certainly not a single house had caught Ben’s attention.
“I know that one, they’re asking 2.4 million.” I tried to forestall any more information. I wanted to leave right now, I was anxious to check on my grandmother, I was even more anxious to escape town.
“So
you want something cheaper? Can’t he afford it?"
“It’s
not what Ben can afford, it's what works for both of us,” I pointed
out patiently.
“Anything listed for 2.4 million will work,” Rosemary said with confidence. “What are you waiting for?”
“CPS may have a pocket listing up on the avenues if you want to be more downtown.” Katherine offered. “I think it’s about a million, totally worth it.”
“Okay, sure, ask, I’d love to see it. I'll call them Monday when I get back.” They were right; money was not the problem.
“You’re leaving?” They chorused together.
“You can’t leave at a time like this. You can take one of my open houses this Sunday,” Katherine generously offered.
But I didn’t want to take anyone’s open house, not even mine, even if I had one. I was tired of wasting a perfectly good Sunday afternoon trapped for four lonely hours in an empty house. I could practically hear Patricia roll her eyes behind me, but she cleverly did not get involved.
“I am scheduled to take floor on Monday. Just in case I don’t make it back, can I call one of you?” I asked as sweetly as I could.
They both shrugged, again with the synchronized movements. It worried me. They were far too formidable as a united pair, better to divide and conquer, except I was not in the conquering mood.
“Great,” I said brightly. “I’ll be in touch.”
Normally I’d explain about my grandmother’s foot, how I was worried, how I took my inability to find the perfect house as an ominous sign, how I felt after the dressing down by Inez, but not today. Today I did not wish to discuss any of it.
“Thank you,” I patted Rosemary’s arm because she was the closest. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Better be,” they chorused after me.
I arrived in good time that Thursday afternoon, I didn’t feel like dealing with the commute traffic so I left right after my meeting with Inez (and Rosemary and Katherine). Inez made it sound like I was little better than this girl we hired last fall who was such an idiot she couldn’t find her way to the office without a map. She was “carried” for three months before Inez booted her out. I closed two escrows in December, it was only March, and January is typically quite slow -- for everyone. What did they want from me?
I spent the three-hour drive to Claim Jump indulging in whiny, obnoxious thoughts, plus a milk shake at Carl’s Junior, then a burrito at Jimmy’s Tacos. I hadn’t eaten much in January; I needed to make up for lost calories.
March in the Foothills was capricious; it often snowed, so I prepared. I carried chains in the back and cute boots in my suitcase. I was not sure if Prue was ready for anything. How was she managing the back stairs to the garage? Was she able to drive? Even if she was not able to drive, was she driving anyway? How many other times had she slipped and neglected to tell me?
We’ve all heard the stories of the sincere, yet befuddled, elderly driver who mistakes the gas pedal for the brake and pins a hapless pedestrian against a wall - mailbox - traffic cone. That would be Prue, and she hits the gas hard. It was only a matter of time and opportunity.
The back yard was dark when I arrived. I parked to the side of the drive behind the house and made my way to the kitchen door, tossing the remains of my cranky culinary indulgences into the garbage as I picked my way over the broken cement pavers.
The cement steps to the kitchen seemed narrower, the stair pitch more precarious than I remembered. I glanced at the greenhouse; a corner was just visible from the kitchen door. It glowed with the white grow lights. The greenhouse had attractive nuisance written all over it, I'm surprised there isn't a directional sign - trouble here. So my first guess was she tripped in the greenhouse.
“Have you been smoking your own product?” I greeted Prue as she opened the door to me. We are so careless with those we love the best.
“Things have been a little stressful around here,” she widened her big blue eyes. Now, I’m not a mother (we went over that), but my friend Carrie pulls that kind of face when she wants something, and Carrie always gets what she wants.
Prue must have read my expression. I’m excellent at negotiations in business, but in my personal life, I just blurt out how I feel, or worse, my open expression completely and accurately reflects how I feel. Ben claims he can read me like a book, which is why some distance from Ben was important right now. I did not want him reading into my expressions, or making assumptions or suggestions. Oh, we’re discussing my grandmother.
Prue pulled herself up to her full height, which used to be five foot six. “I can do what I want young lady.”
“I’m not mom, it’s okay,” I reassured her.
“Right.” She turned away and gave me room to negotiate my bags into the kitchen. She hobbled slowly to the kitchen table, a sturdy affair made by hand during my grandfather’s craftsman furniture-making phase. He had mastered the techniques, created the table, then turned to other projects. This was his only piece of furniture. Probably for the best.
“Okay, you’re right. Thank you for coming here so quickly. I need you to take me to the funeral tomorrow morning.” I noticed she did not answer my question. I let it drop.
“Who died?” I suppressed the “this time.” At Prue’s age, attending a funeral was just as much as social event as Empire Club or the bi-weekly meeting of the Brotherhood of Cornish Men. Jolly occasions all.
“Elizabeth Stetton. You knew her; she’s a member of the Brotherhood, a good one. She took over from the Sisleys as secretary. She kept really good notes through all this sale stuff.”
“What sale stuff?”
“Oh, you know, the library is for sale.” Prue moved some magazines aside, they were fashion magazines that she didn’t read but saved for her friend Mary Beth who used them for collages for the children’s hour at the new library. But if there was no more library, why were we saving five hundred pounds of magazines?
I would not bring that up right now. I noticed that not much had made it to the garage where I had set up bins for all her savables: Children’s Festival, Brotherhood Christmas Bash, Empire Club, Fourth of July, parties, Children’s Hour at the Library.
I calculated the geographic layers of junk. “How long have you been laid up?”
“A couple of weeks.”
She was lying; there was more than a couple weeks worth of stuff-that-still-had-some-good-left-in-it lying in stacks up against the kitchen walls.
“Okay, a couple of weeks,” I agreed, cooperating with the illusion. I leaned over and gathered up dozens of slippery periodicals and hefted the load into my arms.
“Those are for. . .” Prue took a breath ready to launch into a long dissertation on the library, the project, who was running the project and how they felt about it, how their children felt about it, how . . .
“The library,” I stopped the flow of information hoping to get at least this stack to the barn before sun set. “ I’ll be back.”
By the time I finished with clearing the kitchen. Prue had composed herself and created an adequate story for me concerning her current situation that was so innocuous and patently false that even my mother would believe it.
Friday morning I woke to the sound of gunshots. The sound was too distant to make me feel we were in immediate danger, but the staccato sound echoed around the street and through the house. I buried my head under the rumpled covers. Great, now my safe haven has the sound track from the Wild Wild West.
I pulled on my Chico State sweatshirt and sweat pants and padded barefoot downstairs, computer tucked under my arm.
The kitchen was a hive of activity. Raul, a small man who reminded me of Toulouse Lautrec, was hovering over the coffee maker. Prue was already up and dressed in one of her more eclectic black ensembles. I couldn’t tell what was more disturbing, her huge black foot brace or her contrasting red rubber garden clog gracing her good foot. She had tossed a bright knitted scarf in yellow and red alternate stripes over the whole affair.
Often my grandmother is mistaken for a bag lady, and this would be one of those times. Need I mention that my mother, she of only-pressed-cashmere-twin–sets-are-appropriate –to-wear-to-the-club set finds my grandmother’s lack of sartorial focus infuriating?
“You look, um, awake,” I offered.
Raul jumped when the coffee maker beeped.
“All I Son!” He loved to draw out my name in his indistinguishable accent that he claims is Russian, but I’m not convinced.
“Allison, here is coffee for you too! Yes, so good to see you.”
He gave me a big hug and nestled his face in my breasts.
“Ahh, you are so lovely.” His voice was muffled.
“Thank you, you made the coffee.” I disengaged him from my bosom and reached for the coffee mugs. “What else have you and Brick been doing to help Prue?”
Raul and Brick have been living, for free, in my grandmother’s guesthouse since I was a teenager. I don’t even remember exactly when they moved in and I’m sketchy about their reasons. I'm even less certain as to why they continue to stay-- probably because my grandmother’s guest-house is a low cost housing solution for the two of them. Prue finds their company amusing and that's often enough for her to forego bringing up monthly payments.
Raul stepped back and put his hand to his heart, or the general area where his heart was likely to be.
“Allison. We have helped, have we not?” He glanced over at Prue, but she studied her cup and did not look up.
“I even installed a webcam in the bathroom so we could be sure Prue did not slip.”
I dragged my hand over my face. I carefully set down the computer and opened the refrigerator for the milk. It was too old to use.
I took a deep draught of the black coffee and waited for the caffeine to take some effect. “Take it out,”
“But it is to help Prue!” Raul protested.
“Take it out now!” I wouldn’t mind so much if it were Prue’s best friends, Pat and Mike, but Raul? I am not sure on which side Raul stands, and I’m not good at detecting these things in the first place. But, just to be sure. I glared at him. He delivered a comical wiggle of his thick eyebrows. He is round and short but those realities did not stop him from being a tremendous flit.
“And you can take out the cam in my bathroom while you’re at it.”
“Oh, Allison I would never. . .”
I looked at him; he looked at me as guilelessly as possible and then caved. “I will take it down.”
“Thank you.” I took another sip of the mild coffee. I would need a Starbucks run before we headed down to a funeral.
Raul scrambled for the kitchen door.
“No,” I grabbed his arm and easily hauled him back into the kitchen. “Now.”
I did not shower and change until Raul removed the tiny cam from just above the shower head, all the while muttering about paid websites and the size of my breasts.
I don’t blame him for making the attempt. But if someone makes money on my breasts, it better be me.
Chapter Two
I didn’t realize it at the time, but this would be the first of a number of funerals I would attend in the weeks to come. I convinced myself through various methods of justification that I was only staying the weekend and only helping for this one funeral event. As as result, I was not attuned to dire portends of the future. Besides, in the grimmer (or realistic) portions of real estate training, funerals, wakes, memorial services, etc, are actually hotbeds of potential clients. I felt downright virtuous driving Prue down to Auburn for the nine o’clock funeral, I could claim that it was in the service of client solicitation, should Inez call and ask.
The members of the Brotherhood of Cornish Men a group that claims to be 150 years old with their clear ancedent in their title, filled the church basement. The ladies seemed to be the principal mourners as well. I recognized many of the members, most widowed, most active and most ready for any action that came their way, even though most of their activities seem to be limited to attending each other’s funeral services.
Suzanne Chatterhill stalked over to us the minute I helped Prue clear the basement steps and the tricky threshhold.
“Allison, how nice to see you. Come up to take care of your grandmother?” Suzanne does not have an indoor voice, and her tone implied “it's about time”, inspring many people turned to stare at us. I waved my hand to them in greeting and focused on Suzanne losing my grip on my grandmother in the process.
Mrs. Chatterhill is the president of the Brotherhood of Cornish Men and has been since her husband passed away. Suzanne was not especially big, but her bosom was. It overpowered every other body part and my eyes were reluctantly drawn to her chest and her single strand of swinging pearls. She carried herself with the aplomb of a prizefighter ready for his next round. I lumped Chatterhill in the same scary category as a local philanthropist in River’s Bend, Martha Anderson. Both women were formidable and both women were intent on doing good no matter who gets hurt. Suzanne and Martha give me a creepy feeling that if I don’t watch myself, I’ll grow up to be just like them. I shuddered at the thought and greeted Suzanne as cordially as I could.
“Suzanne,” Prue, the one I was so well taking care of, stumbled and clutched at my arm. “Did Louise have a stroke?”
I
steadied her while keeping my eyes on Suzanne.
“No, they think
she died of smoke inhalation. The fire took half the house with her
in it.” Suzanne shook her head; her tightly permed white curls
bobbed with the effort, the pearls flapped back and forth. “I told
her time and time again to stop smoking, and it happened just as I
said.”
“Then it really is tragic.” Prue looked around the basement. “Is this a dry reception?” I took the cue and propped Prue against a bland beige wall and hustled off to retrieve, yes, non-alcohlic punch.
When I returned Prue and Suzanne were still discussing the situation. “I feel so badly about Elizabeth, where is her daughter?” Prue said.
Suzanne gestured to a woman who was about 46 years old. I consider that a very young age to lose your mother. Prue made a move and I grabbed her arm to help her negotiate through the three clusters of Brotherhood members.
“But you better catch her quick,” Suzanne counseled as she followed in our wake. “She says she has to go back to work.”
The comment caught me off guard. Work is good. Now a day’s, work is everything.
I glanced at Suzanne, clearly puzzled. “Of course she has to work. What else is she suppose to do?”
“Investigate the accident, greet all her mother's friends. Honestly, she can’t take one day off to devote to her mother’s memory?” Suzanne put her hands on her ample hips and glared at me, daring me to defend working a mere job against this primitive set of social obligations that were written in stone and stored somewhere mysterious because I’ve never read the rules. Next she’ll be instructing me on how long the poor woman will have to wear black.
Suzanne glanced back at Elizabeth’s daughter, then abruptly dismissed the situation. “We’re all going out,” she said in a low voice, “to that new restaurant the Monkey Cat. You’re welcome to bring Prue,” she nodded to Prue. “Since she doesn’t drive.”
This was the kind of help that made a person feel more depressed than bolstered. It was the kind of intention that paved the road to hell. No wonder Prue called me in.
“I have to get back home and do some work of my own.” I said quickly, before my grandmother had a chance to respond. “You know, we are a terrible generation, have no idea how to do the right thing, right?” I nodded to Elizabeth’s wayward daughter, who, to her credit, looked exhausted. Done-in is a phrase my grandfather would have employed.
Suzanne reeled back at the word work. I smiled. “But I’ll take good care of Prue. I’ll be up here for a while.” I lied.
“Of course.”
I leaned over and touched Suzanne’s arm. “I knew you’d understand.”
I offered my arm to Grandma who got the hint and exaggerated her limp as we made our way over to the daughter to express out condolences, which, I believe, is the right thing to do, written in stone or not.
Prue sank into the leather seat of my car and I switched on the heat.
“Thank you for driving, I just didn’t want any more of the Brotherhood today. Suzanne’s been holding extra meetings to discuss the sale of the library and who will take the archives and all that, plus this accident with Elizabeth has put us all on edge, can you imagine dying in your bed?"
“I thought that was the goal.” I couldn't resist.
“Peacefully Allison, peacefully in our own beds, not go up like a premature pyre.”
“Okay, that is not a good way to go. It was an accident wasn't it?”
“It all just makes me tired. The pain medicine makes me tired.” She gazed out the window at the green, waterlogged, view. “This whole thing is making me feel very old.”
There is nothing to say when a seventy-year-old plays the age card. She wins. I shut up.
The phone buzzed. I glanced at Prue who was concentrating out the window and picked it up.
“Allison!”
It was Patrick, who never calls me except when he can’t find his fiance and my best friend, Carrie. If she’s not with him, she is usually with me.
“Is Carrie with you?” His voice sounded ragged.
“No, I’m up in Claim Jump. Carrie is with you.”
“No, she’s not. She’s not picking up her phone, she not answering my voice mail, e-mail. She’s not at her place, I just called there.”
You may think this is a bit hysterical, even for the CEO of the largest milk production company in Sonoma County, but Carrie has a tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The last time Patrick and I couldn’t get hold of her, she almost died. Patrick has some justification for panic.
“She may be in West County and out of cell range,” I suggested.
He knows that, he contracts with dairies out in that part of the county.
“Oh.”
“Look, it’s early, as soon as I hear from her, I’ll call.”
He paused.
“And you call me,” I added.
“Oh, yes, certainly I’ll call you. Where could she be?”
“For once, I don’t know.”
I hung up the phone and passed a slow lumber truck.
“Carrie okay?” Prue asked.
“I’m pretty sure,” I replied. “She’s under some pressure from the engagement and the wedding of course, but it’s everything she wanted in life.”
I cleared the truck and scrolled down on my phone to find Carrie’s number.
“Sometimes getting everything you want in life can be just as stressful as not getting everything you want,” Prue commented.
“Did you read that on an embroidered pillow?” I asked. I hit call and listened to the ringing.
“Not everything I say is a platitude you know,” she shot back. “Speaking of platitudes, you looked a little wane in the Town and County photos of Carrie’s engagement party.”
I was dumped into voice mail.
“You don’t read Town and Country.” I pointed out.
“Pat and Mike bring me their copy when they are finished. You looked a bit pale.”
I left a quick message for Carrie to call because Patrick was annoying me and hung up.
“It was New Years,” I countered, “my Christmas had not been that restful.”
“Oh, you think?” She retorted.
While I keep a few things from my immediate family, I don’t keep that much from my grandmother. She was conversant with the details of my last adventure that included a dismembered client, a turkey used as a blunt instrument and a face to face with a murderer. Not necessarily in that order. Christmas had been more difficult than usual and I wasn’t sure I had recovered. I couldn’t get over that I almost lost Carrie as well (between the dismemberment and the turkey), and clearly neither does her fiancé. He had convinced Carrie to quit her job at the Senior Center and now she was casting around for something meaningful to do with her time.
I knew how she felt.
But I worked hard to not burden her, she had the wedding to plan and issues of her own to scrupulously avoid. She didn't have the energy to help me avoid my own problems.
“And how is Ben?” Prue broke into my thoughts. She leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, but she was listening. The gesture was worrisome. Had she always been this tired? I glanced at my dashboard; it was going on noon, hardly nap-time.
I sped up, anxious to get her home and more comfortable.
By the time I cleaned Prue’s refrigerator, threw out the suspicious milk, flat soda water and liquefied lettuce and shopped for replacement milk, soda and tonic, ground two weeks of coffee and shoved in and extracted five loads of laundry, the afternoon was almost finished.
I felt good, despite the fact that I hadn’t called a single old prospect; I hadn’t even e-mailed old friends to shake them down for real estate prospects. I also had not indulged in doing anything for myself. I virtuously worked for my grandmother. It felt good and bad simultaneously. I knew I should be working, even if it was really just for show. Some of what is necessary for work, is just show, career theater. I knew Inez had not been kidding, I may be asked to leave and that did not bode well for my prospects at other offices in Sonoma County. I’ve never been out of work. But I just couldn't get motivated to do anything about it. So I did laundry.
I hefted up the last load of clean clothes to Prue’s room and put away the thick sensible socks and heavy sensible cotton panties. I couldn’t do this forever.
Damn, I was stuck.
I trailed down stairs where I had left Prue with her foot up and any stray marijuana out of reach. She could take Aleve and Advil like the rest of us.
“Thank you Allison, now we can go to the play.” Prue announced as I rounded the door from the hallway.
“What play?” I knew it was a rather silly question. There was always a play or event in Claim Jump, not usually in the early, early spring. Or like today, at 40 degrees, what served for the dead of winter.
“Summer Theater is putting on the Wizard of Oz and we are all supporting Sarah Miller. We made her an honorary member of the Brotherhood, you know."
I nodded as if I knew Sarah Miller. I have found, over the years, it’s easier to nod and simply allow the person in question to unfold before me like a well-written novel. I had little doubt that this Sarah Miller would be revealed to me in the course of the evening and it is easier to learn the players in order of appearance than to ask the question and thus submit to a full biography delivered in one breathless recitation.
“Good, I don’t know how well Sarah is doing with the part. Summer seems to think she’s just fine.” Prue struggled with her walking cast cover. It was like watching a toddler. I helped her re-attach the Velcro straps.
Summer Johnson is the theater director and calls it, tongue in cheek, Summer Theater. The actors perform year round if they can. Since Summer is on the City Council and currently acting as mayor (the position rotates around council members; you are only mayor for one year), I supposed she could do what she pleased. Summer and I used to run into each other at the river. Summer dyes her hair, mine is naturally blond. We know this little detail about each other.
I closed my eyes. “So we’re off to see the Wizard?”
“Don’t look so disgusted,” Prue chided me. “Besides, Brick, Raul, Pat and Mike are coming too.”
All the boys. My grandmother is a card-carrying fag hag. I should find one (a card, she has enough gay men in her life) and laminate it for her, if she thought that would be funny. I think she would.
There really wasn’t more discussion than that. I helped Prue clean up and change into fresh black slacks and a yellow tunic. She slipped on a yellow gardening clog that wasn't too disreputable, once I hosed it off outside.
At the appointed time (early, since parking is always a problem, according to Prue), we all bundled up in our warm (and unfashionable, it’s difficult to dress simultaneously warmly and elegantly unless you wear fur and I was not going to do that with this group). After coats, gloves and scarves were found the theater-goers, now warm, piled into my Lexus SUV.
Brick and Raul attend all the performances of Summer Theater. Brick is a retired high school PE teacher and always seems to know at least half the cast. Raul is a wizard himself, of the web variety. He had rigged up a half dozen web cams in the theater with Summer’s blessing. He runs the plays on his web site in real time. Wasn't Summer concerned about losing audience share to the web?
“Oh no, the theater is a live art form, we are just advertising the product. Do you not agree Allison?” Raul happily snuggled against Brick in the back of the car.
Mike and Pat greeted us at the theater door. They distributed the tickets and we turned and gave them up to the young man standing directly behind Mike. It seemed a redundant gesture, but maybe there were official theater rules.
“Allison
darling,” Mike and Pat kissed and hugged and kissed and hugged
again. “Darling so what are you running away from now?” Mike
asked.
“I’m not running away, Prue asked me to help her.”
“Of course you are,” Pat said.
“I understand you had a bad Christmas.” Both men, forever friends of my grandmother, gazed at me in honest sympathy. Even if Prue had not told them everything, and I know she does, my Christmas activities were gruesome enough to be quite a sensation on the Internet. Patricia, the receptionist for New Century, had created a blog devoted to describing the serial murders, how the victims were cut into pieces, and my involvement with the whole situation. I refused her offer to link to my real estate website.
The men nodded. It was not my favorite subject, since I narrowly missed making the news myself as one of the victims. I was all done, no more murder for Allison.
“Allison and Ben are moving in together,” Prue announced.
“Ah, that fabulous Ben Stone.” Raul crooned. “He looks so lovely on camera, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I frowned. Where had Raul seen Ben on camera? Was there a cam in my bedroom? Were there cameras placed around the guest apartment over the garage? Were there cameras in the guest bathroom? Shit, I’d have to do a sweep when I returned to Prue’s.
The old theater in Claim Jump is marvelous. It was not the oldest theater in the state, it was the second oldest, but it did have the requisite leaky roof and bad plumbing to give the whole place historic credibility.
Summer was in the lobby to greet her audience.
Summer looked more like winter had blown in. Her solid blue-black hair was strident, cut into a perfect symmetrical bob. She favored dark eyeliner extended a half-inch from the corners of her gray eyes. She wore high-heeled boots, which helped make her taller than me. A fake fox stole was carefully “tossed” over her navy suit and gave her a contradictory air, garden club Goth. She could be the elder twin of Patricia, our Goth office manager. I always felt that after a certain age, a look as extreme as Goth was rather unsustainable. Apparently not. In Claim Jump, it does not matter what decade you choose to honor, no one cares, few actually acknowledge that fashion changes from one decade to the next.
“Dorothy better make it to Oz before 9:00 PM.” Mike greeted Summer with an air kiss in the general direction of both her cheeks. She didn’t look particularly happy but she put up with all four men. Donors, all of them.
“Don’t worry, you know we always take the needs of our audience into consideration when we stage the plays.” Summer worked with the neighboring restaurants. If she released her audience by 9:00, they agreed to take dinner orders until 9:30. Her voice was smooth and modulated, practiced. Summer had trod the boards in an earlier life. She looked like she could make a convincing Wicked Witch, but clearly, she was not playing that part tonight.
“Hello
Summer, how are the permits going?” Prue took Summer’s hand, but
the other woman didn’t really acknowledge Prue.
“Fine,”
she said absently, she focused on the front doors, eyeing the
audience members, clearly disappointed with what she saw or didn't
see.
“Looking for someone more important?” Prue asked caustically.
“Lucky was supposed to come tonight." Summer answered without rancor. "You know he told me he created a CRT with the theater as the recipient. Which is just wonderful!” she trailed off. “I just wanted to confirm . . . excuse me.”
She left us standing in the center of the lobby, not feeling as important as when we entered.
“I suppose to get more attention I’ll have to increase my donation level.” Mike complained.
“I thought you were a symphony man,” Prue pointed out. Need I say it? In the summer there is county-wide music festival.
“Symphony, theater, ballet so many arts, so little funding.” Mike said with a wave of his hand. “I suppose to get attention now, I’ll have to name the theater in my will like Lucky apparently did. Come on, I understand the beleaguered Sarah Miller is starring as Dorothy.”
“She was terrible in Music Man,” Prue commented.
Then why are we here? I did not say that out loud, but followed the crowd like a good girl.
“Where else can Summer find a bona fined ingénue in this town who isn’t in school full time? And doesn’t look,” he paused searching for the word. “Shopworn?”
“True, and Sarah has been a trooper for years.” Mike held Prue’s arm as we filed into our designated seats.
“And an ingénue for longer than that.”
“Any day now she’ll have to take the part of the mother.” Prue settled down on the aisle seat and gingerly extended her leg.
“Or the wicked witch,” Raul wiggled his eye brows. “Excuse, I must check the cameras.”
I love the Claim Jump Theater. When I was a kid, Prue signed me up for summer drama classes. I loved those classes, I loved showing off and I loved escaping my older brothers and parents. In my eyes, nostalgia and affection trumps any realistic depiction of the small theater house. The seats are very old; the original red velvet has worn to a threadbare pink. The house only seats about two hundred audience members, which contributes to Summer's claim that her performances sell out every night.
But a theater does not make the rent on ticket sales. There was a good reason Summer was searching for Lucky Masters.
I glanced up as a woman dressed in a costume straight from the summer of love galumphed down the aisle barely missing Prue’s casted foot.
“That’s Debbie Smith,” Mike whispered.
“Local?” I asked.
Pat shook his head. “She’s only been here a few years.”
“Debbie needs to update her look,” Mike, to my left, mused.
“I lost to her,” Prue commented.
“Her? I thought you lost to a high powered attorney from the city.”
Prue and Mike nodded simultaneously.
If Debbie Smith was a high-powered attorney, I was a runway model. Ms Smith was not built for speed, she was low to the ground, full figured and possibly quite buoyant in water. She was dressed in a long oversized blazer that was fashionable in the late ‘80s but not beyond. Under the blazer she sported a bright orange and yellow tie-dyed tee. The fashion magazines would say that the shirt “popped”, as in a pop of color. But this pop was more of the illegal BB gun pop than a moment of true fashion savvy.
“She wants to do everything by the book.” Prue complained.
“Has anyone in Claim Jump found the book?” I was accustomed to Claim Jump residents doing what they wanted, when they wanted, with small regard to permits, EPA, even water restrictions, and so were most of the older residents. I was surprised anyone cared about doing it by the book at this late date.
“She actually wants to prosecute Lucky for violating about 30 years of EPA restrictions. She even wants Hank to fix his sidewalk.”
“Hank’s sidewalk has always been like that,” I commented. Hank's Roadhouse was a fixture on Main Street, as was the rather large bump in the sidewalk right in front of his entrance. Tourists hit the bump and it magically sends them careening through the doors of the roadhouse. At night, patrons staggered and hit the bump on the way out. If they fell down, the police chief Tom Marten was justified in asking for a sobriety test. Denizens of Hank’s learned to be light on their feet.
“Even so, we all know to step over the hump, but she sees lawsuit everywhere she looks.”
A hammer thinks every problem is a nail. Wow, I can come up with my own pillow worthy clichés. Prue must be rubbing off on me.
“So what’s the solution?”
“The problem was almost solved when she first moved here, her rental house caught fire.” Pat leaned over Mike to whisper, more or less, in my ear.
“What is it with you guys and fire?”
Prue shrugged. “Old houses, old wiring, we all know fire is a danger.”
And don't smoke in bed. I kept that option to myself.
It probably was a pretty prevalent problem. For too many years remodels were executed without the help of any professionals whatsoever. Homeowners armed with their Time-Life series of do-it-yourself books, did the job themselves. No one bothered with codes and permits. Locals considered the lack of surety part of the price paid for independence. No one complained, but new homes not up to code could be a different matter entirely. It's one thing to hang the drywall in your own house; it's another to unintentionally buy substandard housing. How ironic for a lawyer from the City to be caught up in the problem.
I watched the apparently odious Debbie Smith pause and exchange a couple words with Summer who, for her part, was still looking for someone else. Debbie shook her head and Summer clutched her arm momentarily, and then quickly released it.
Could the exchange between Debbie and Summer be more than business? The councilwoman and the mayor? There were too many possibilities. Maybe it was as simple as love. Would they hyphenate and be Summer-Debbie? I suspected there was far more drama out in the lobby than would appear on the stage all evening.
My evil thoughts were interrupted by the recorded overture.
There is no need to describe the play, the plot or anything else. Sarah Miller was pretty, engaging and a terrible vocalist. I cringed when she reached vainly for the high notes in Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
The munchkins were played by local children who either enjoyed too little rehearsal time, or never listened to direction in the first place (I played a child in Music Man, so I know). The munchkins milled around on stage, looking like a crowd with no one to lynch. It worked fine, cute can still carry a scene. Dorothy was game and focused, but it seemed Sarah was losing her edge. She looked weary, as if she had already spent too much time on a farm in Kansas.
I snuck a peek at my phone in case Carrie had called back. No messages unless you count the four from the office. I ignored those.
As soon as the curtain fell on the first act, a young man, (young by Claim Jump standards) stood and applauded. The rest of the audience murmured and cautiously scooted to the lobby. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road played softly in the background as we all regrouped for a short intermission.
“That’s him,” Prue whispered.
“What’s him?”
“That’s the boy who just put in a bid to buy the Library.”
“He can’t do that,” I said automatically. “It’s state owned.”
“No, no, the old library.”
“My library!”
Prue rolled her eyes. “Yes, your library. Anyway there he is.”
“Very cute,” Raul observed. “Should we call on him?” He glanced at Brick who studiously looked through the advertising in the program; he showed great interest in a picture of lawn furniture.
“You could,” Prue encouraged. “So far he only has met the members of the Brotherhood of Cornish Men.”
“Mores the pity, that’s a formidable group, I’m surprised they didn’t frighten the poor boy away.”
“They tried, no luck. They, I mean we, are not happy with having to put the building on sale, if that’s what you mean. Lucky put in the competing bid, the state can’t support it anymore.”
I did not ask how my grandmother knew who put in a sealed bid for a former state-owned property. She herself was a member of the Brotherhood of Cornish Men, and they knew everything there was to know in Claim Jump.
The young man in question was attractive in a rakish, irresponsible way. He gave the impression he never really held a job. I automatically compared him to Mr. Ben Stone (Rock Solid Service), no comparison.
I did know Sarah Miller after all. Just as I thought, once I saw her, I remembered more about her. Sarah is a player in the long narrative that is Claim Jump. Sarah was born here and never left. Her mother left both Claim Jump and baby Sarah and moved to the Ridge in a haze of pot smoke and acromony. The grandparents, being most excellent Christians, took in the baby even while they disowned their own daughter.
Prue shook her head. “ I don’t know what will happen to her when her grandparents die. She has no job, fewer prospects.”
That’s Prue, always looking on the bright side.
Summer was back. She clutched a plastic glass of Charles Shaw red and stalked around the lobby. She periodically dashed out to the sidewalk, checked, then returned with a dejected expression on her face.
The theater lobby is small and hot. Winter or summer, the audience spills out the entrance doors to the sidewalk. Some patrons wander all the way down the sidewalk to the Mine Shaft bar and never return. One year, during a particularly painful interpretation of Fiddler on the Roof, a majority, enough to be noticeable, never returned for the second act. Summer actually walked down to the bar and rounded up a good dozen members of her audience and forced marched them back to the theater. We all knew then how the residents of Anatevka must have felt.
I usually don’t dress to attend any event or program in Claim Jump; it’s just not necessary. No one wears makeup around here, not even the women who own retail businesses and should know better. No one worries about the latest fashion because up until about five minutes ago, there weren’t any stores that carried interesting, fashionable clothing. The stores now have upgraded their merchandise, but the women in town still ignore every opportunity to look better, fashionable and uncomfortable. Even I admit that comfort can be rather compelling. Debbie on the other hand, had elevated comfort to an extreme sport.
She slid up next to be and started to talk, no introduction, no hello, no “how are you” or “how do you like the play?”
“The theater needs to be retrofitted,” she announced into my ear.
“Retrofitted?” I glanced around. Sure, one little 4.6 tremor and this place would crumble down to a pile of rubble. If we were cataloging the dangers of Summer Theater, it was also a fire trap, the chairs were so full of dust I sneezed for days after just one evening here, and there was a real risk of helplessly witnessing a truly painful performance of a Broadway show that used to be a favorite but now was forever ruined. And who knew if the water heater was secured? But that was part of the performance art: the disrepair of it, the bold embrace of the mediocre. It all served to enhance the veneer of old time charm.