Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out (29 page)

Chapter
13

I held
my own
open
house on Sunday and reported every visitor to Marcia’s voice mail
, both
real and faux
.
“Just want to cover my client’s options
,
” I explained during the 2:00
PM
phone message
. 
“
How are the loan docs coming?  Do you need anything more from me?” I knew
the calls would drive Marcia crazy, that’s why I
made them
.
Since escrow
opened on my house
, no one had heard a peep from the
S
ign Nazis,
revealing that
their leader
was not only Marcia, but she was
currently
too distracted to worry about other Realtor’s business
.

It’s a service I was happy to offer
to my fellow agents
.

I stopped by the office Monday with the sole intention of begging off the morning meeting because I needed to travel back up to Claim Jump.  That I was meeting Ben up there was immaterial.

Every time I stopped by the New Century
o
ffice, I was treated to another installment of Rosemary and Katherine’s
adopt a family
project
.
So I was ready, for both the update and with the excuse that I couldn’t stay
.

Patricia slunk down and
diligently
searched
through
something on the web.
  She nodded to me as I passed by.

“And I love the little outfits you bought for them.” Katherine
’s
voice flowed from Rosemary’s office.

“And you, I love their new couch, where did you find that?”
Rosemary
complimented
Katherine
.

It was like the
s
cene in the
Adams Family
where Wednesday finally smiles and looks much creepier than she did when she frowned. 
Katherine and Rosemary were not built to be kind and cuddly.
I poked my head into the office just to be sure it was really
them
.

“
Oh hi, we were just discussing our family.” Rosemary greet
ed
me with a wave. 
Robert is applying for a job. We’re working to get him into Cooper milk.
”

“They give drug tests
,
” I pointed out.

“He’s not on drugs, he’s just poor.  Their
previous
landlord evicted them.”

“Why?” I asked
suspiciously
.

Rosemary shrugged
elaborately, her eyes twinkled
,  “Something about the dog. And they only had a month to month.”

“They have a dog?”

“A small one, no one will notice.”

“The
Christophers
have a whole family squatting in their REO, with a
dog and
no one has noticed yet?
”

Katherine glanced at
Patricia
and raised her
eyebrows
.

“I
d
on’t want to know.”  I raised my hands in
defeat;
I really did not want to know. I’d cope with them after the wedding. 

“
Know what?” Inez stalked from her office and bore down on us.
“How are your sales in Claim Jump going?”  She asked me point blank.

“I have one challenging listing, one
in
escrow and one
escrow that
just opened.”  I
suppressed
the urge to salute.

“There was a murder there wasn’t there?”  Rosemary asked archly.  There, she was
much more predictable when
she was being mean instead of delightful.

“Not a murder, an accidental death, it was ruled accidental.”  Thank you Tom Marten,
who was the first officer on that
scene and who was
inclined
to
accept
my side of the story
as the final word
without too many questions.  

“Shouldn’t you get up there?
That’s where you’re going right?
  How is your house coming?”  My house
represented
a much smaller commission
,
so she wasn’t as focused on the sale of that house.

“It’s in escrow.” 
I glanced at Patricia
,
she nodded in the affirmative
.  With all Marcia, Marcia, Marcia’s complaints
,
I wasn’t sure
at this point
if she wanted the
property
for her clients or not.

“Good, its about time, you need the numbers.” With that encouraging pep talk, Inez dismissed me and focused on Rosemary and Katherine, their congratulatory
expressions
deflated
by
the
sharp
puncture of Inez’s stare.

“I don’t see much activity from your end, what are you two doing?”

“I
have to
go
,
” I said.

“Bye
,
” Patricia said absently not looking up from her screen.
It was almost
October,
a month Patricia normally devoted to all things Halloween and black.  But her desk was
eerily
bare.  Not a single spider or pumpkin in sight.
I shrugged and escaped before Inez could
collar
me
for
a second opinion.  Katherine and Rosemary were on
their own
.  

It was a long drive up and
later back
down highway 80, but
it was
worth
it if only to snatch
twenty-four hours in Claim Jump
with Ben. We arrived in separate cars.

“Are you saying you a
re close to selling the house?”
He
jumped out of his truck.  It wasn’t
exactly the romantic opening line I had in mind. 
But at least he didn’t start
our romantic twenty
-
four hours with an update on poor
Cassandra.

“I have no idea, I’m just waiting on the loan docs
,
you
know how long those take
.  I called Marcia every hour
to check on the progress
, I think that helps enormously don’t you?”

“Isn’t she that agent from Prudential who
’s
the bull dog?”

“God, you’ve heard of her?”  I lugged my two overnight bags up to the bedroom, only briefly admiring the
re-stained floor sections at
the bottom of the stairs.

“You all talk.” He
followed me with a case of books
. “I hear her name a lot when I’m out on jobs, what do you guy
s
call her?”

“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.” I admitted
.

He followed me into the bedroom roaring with “That’s her
!  Imagine
my
surprise
when Marcia Brady
’s
doppelganger turn
ed
out to be a short Jewish woman from New York with a heavy accent.  Not a blond
e
from
Riverside
”

“Well, it’s the attitude.” I defended my mean girls.

“Come on, we talk best in restaurants.”  Ben took my hand. 

“What should we talk about?”

“Do I take your name?  Do we try for children again? Do we vacation in Tuscany or would we be bored
?
Do you like sushi and can we make a living up here full time?”

He picked up a couple more shingles and eyed the roof.  “I thought they were finished.”

He set them with the growing pile on the porch.   “Okay, don’t take my name, that’s silly.  I don’t think right now is a good time to discuss children, we can always get a dog if we find our lives aren’t complicated enough, Tuscany is beautiful but I’m afraid, boring. I love sushi and you are already doing well up here in
r
eal
e
state, I think you should stay with it.”

I agreed, but was distracted by
a
car slow
ly
making its way up the street. 
There is something about Claim Jump that makes you want to return. Even Raul and Brick
,
former illegal tenants
of
my Grandmother’s
,
return occasionally just to say hello to Grandma and absorb some of the heat
radiating off the
Yuba River rocks.
And here they were.  Brick
pulled
their cute M
ini-
C
ooper
festooned with
red and white stripes
, to the curb
. The back of the tiny car was
loaded with two grocery bags filled with beer, beach towels and
monster
sandwiches.
I’d have to ask where they found those.
 

“Allison!”  Raul, my little miniature French
friend
with a Russian-like accent, is sometimes a villain, always a nuisance and conveniently an all
-
around computer and video genius.  “You do not believe how cold is the City!  All summer the fog!  The wind!”

“We’re up here to dry out.”  Brick, a former PE teacher, and still able to climb ropes suspended from the
g
ym ceiling
and execute
those
one-armed
push
-
ups (an important skill on other planets) agreed.  “We’re here to relax.”

“Staying in Grandma
’
s house, again?”

“The main house
,
” Raul explained.   “It is so odd not to be in our little cabin. But that nice girl
will care for it. Have you seen her?”

Raul is a master at revisionist history. He and his unsung partner Brick had been permanent guests in my grandmother’s little
guesthouse
for years, much longer than was prudent. Debbie Smith, Girl Attorney at Large, for instance, was beginning to nose around making noises that sounded alarmingly like zoning
and ordinances
.  The boys
abandoned their semi-permanent home just in time.  As a lovely parting gift, Raul left all the video camera
installed throughout the main house
, barn and as a
precaution (or so he claimed)
, the
guesthouse
.  I did not categoriz
e his installation as  “help.”
I leaned on the window of the car.  Raul
focused on my breasts, one of his may hobbies.

“Can you look at a web site for me?”  I wrote down the URL on the back of my card and handed it to Raul.  “I’m trying to figure out who is in the background of
the
video.”

“For you, Allison, sure.”  He tucked the card in his stripped shirt pocket without losing eye contact with the girls.  Brick rolled his eyes, down
shifted and
the two continued on their way to an afternoon at the river. I would have loved to go with them
.
 

“Come on, I have to be back this afternoon, let’s eat.”  Ben pulled me down the street to a
new
Mexican place.  We felt it was our job to sample every new restaurant in town, just to be informed.

I admit, my biggest fear, the
only possible
turn off when I first met Ben
,
was that
it did not look as if he had a viable future – or in straight girl terms – a plan.
All I saw was a
handyman who worked only when he wanted, and only because he needed to meet the rent on his
single
-
wide
trailer. 
Ben
has since surprised me. 
For example,
Ben bought our new house,
with cash.  And
Ben will write the check for the furniture.  It turns out that
instead of keeping him,
he is keeping me.