I Still Dream About You: A Novel (9 page)

As usual, Maggie had been concerned over nothing, but at least now she knew and she wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. It was so irritating. All her life, she had wasted so many hours, days, years even, worrying about this and that. It was a serious character flaw. Why couldn’t she have been more like Hazel? Hazel never worried. Even when they lost the big new insurance account to Babs Bingington: everybody at the office had been devastated, but when Hazel came in, she just brushed it off and then turned to an agent and said, “Hey, Maxine, ask me why the woman shot her husband with a bow and arrow.” As upset as she was, Maxine tried to smile and asked and Hazel said, “Because she didn’t want to wake up the children.” That afternoon, Hazel had sent them a dozen roses with a card: “Remember, girls, it’s always the darkest right before the glorious dawn.” Hazel had always been so optimistic about the future; unfortunately, Maggie wasn’t Hazel. But then, who was?

Brenda’s first meeting with Hazel, like most people’s, had been memorable. Brenda had just moved back home from Chicago to be closer to her family and had seen an ad in the paper that interested her. Red Mountain Realty was looking for people to train as real estate agents, and Brenda had called and spoken directly with the owner and set up a meeting.

When she walked into Hazel’s office, a tiny little woman, no bigger than a child, jumped down from her chair, walked over, reached up and shook her hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Hazel! Do you know any good jokes?” And the next thing Brenda knew, she was hired. A few minutes later, when Brenda came out, she was still in a little bit of shock and walked over to Ethel, who was typing up her papers, and said, “Excuse me … is that lady in there really the owner?” “She sure is,” said Ethel, pushing her purple glasses up on her nose. “Oh … well … does she know she’s a midget?” “Why, no,” said Ethel, never looking up. “But I’m sure if you want to go back in and tell her, she’ll be delighted to know why she’s so short.” “Oh no … I didn’t mean it that way … What I meant was that she acts just like a real person … Oh … I’m not saying she’s not a real person. It’s just … well … she didn’t sound like a midget on the phone.”

“Oh, really.”

“I thought they all had funny little voices like the Munchkins in
The Wizard of Oz
or something. Well, anyhow, I’ll see you Monday morning … I guess,” Brenda said as she tripped all over herself trying to get out the door before she made more of a fool of herself. Ethel, unfazed, went back to her typing. She was used to people’s first reactions. She had been with Hazel from the very beginning and seen it over and over, but after the initial shock, people quickly forgot Hazel’s height, mostly because Hazel didn’t make a big deal out of it herself. She had certain limitations, but she either overlooked them or worked around them. Hazel always carried a small stepladder in her car to help her if necessary and a magician’s extending wand in her purse, in case she was in an elevator alone and needed to punch the button for a higher floor, but other than that, she managed very well.

Of course, she sometimes needed assistance reaching things when she was grocery shopping, and getting on and off buses, but it had never been a problem. As she once said to Ethel, “I’ve had to depend on people my whole life, and they haven’t let me down yet.”

In 1982, Hazel was listed in the
Guinness Book of World Records
as “The Biggest Little Real Estate Woman in the World.” And it had tickled her to death.

M
AGGIE KNEW SHE HAD A FEW MORE DAYS TO GET READY, BUT
before she did anything else this morning, she thought she would just go ahead and run out to Walmart and pick up the last of her supplies and get it over with, so she wouldn’t have to think about it the rest of the week.

Twenty minutes later, Maggie walked into Walmart at the big mall and headed back to Aisle 10. Luckily, she knew exactly what color and what size she wanted, and she paid in cash. It was part of her plan to leave absolutely no clues as to her whereabouts, and having a record of the purchase of a rubber raft show up on her credit card bill so close to her departure might tip someone off. After all the planning, she certainly didn’t want to make a mistake at the very end. She had assumed that making the decision to do it would be the hard part, but coming up with a viable and working plan for just
how
she would do it had not been as easy as one might think.

Pills were never a sure thing. A gun would be much too violent (and oh, didn’t the press just love to portray all southerners as gun-happy?), and her being a former Miss Alabama? They would just have a field day with that. So no, a gun was definitely out. Sticking her head in an oven had never been an option; all the kitchen appliances
at Avon Terrace were electric, and it certainly wasn’t anything you would ever do in someone else’s kitchen, or at least she wouldn’t. Her car was a company leased car, so driving off a cliff was out as well. No matter what method she had come up with, she’d found there was just no surefire way to do it and remain attractive, and no matter how shallow it may seem to some, she felt she had a responsibility to always try to look her best, no matter what.

It had taken quite a while to figure out something that would meet all her specific requirements, but six months before, she had been at the gym working out with wraparound ankle weights in her Stretch, Flex, and Strengthen class, when she had come up with the perfect plan. On the designated day, now November 3, she would go down to the Warrior River, get in the rubber raft, row all the way out to the middle where it was very deep and very calm, wrap two ten-pound weights around her ankles plus two ten-pound weights around her wrists, then jump in.

She had some concerns that the Velcro that held the weights together might come undone underwater, but the man at Big B Sports had assured her that the Velcro they used was completely waterproof. However, just to be on the safe side, she had gone to the As Seen on TV store and bought a tube of fast-drying 100 percent waterproof glue, guaranteed to last a lifetime. So, on the third, when she got to the middle of the river, she would apply the glue, wait the necessary twenty minutes for it to dry, then jump. It was a perfect plan. It was so perfect that it really was a shame she couldn’t tell anybody about it.

When she got back home, she still had a few hours before she had to meet Brenda at the open house, and that was good. She could use the time to start culling through a few more boxes. Maggie had just reached for another cup of coffee when something suddenly occurred to her. Oh, my God! Today was Tuesday, and she had a nine-thirty hair appointment with Glen, but with so much on her mind, she had completely forgotten about it. How could she have been so stupid? Oh no, with all she had to do, she didn’t want to waste two hours getting her hair done. Oh Lord. Why hadn’t she thought
about it yesterday? She could call and say she was sick, but then she would have to stay home and not be seen for a day at least, and she couldn’t do that.

The shop had a twenty-four-hour cancellation policy and if she didn’t show up, she would be charged anyway, and she couldn’t just drive over and pay him without letting him fix her hair. Of course, she could always mail him a check. But knowing Glen, if he received something from her in the mail after she was gone, he would just freak out, and the last thing in the world she wanted was to upset anyone, especially Glen. His partner of twelve years had just run off with an ice skater, and he was already on the edge. She looked up at the clock, wondering what to do. After thinking it over, she supposed the best thing was to just go and finish with the boxes tonight.

At 9:42, Maggie was sitting in Glen’s chair, and he was busy wrapping streaks of her hair with tin foil and telling her all the latest about his ex. Other than the fact that she felt rushed, it was really very pleasant at the shop this morning. As usual, a lot of the ladies from St. Martin’s in the Pines were there having their hair done, happily chattering away.

Maggie sat there thinking about how upset poor Glen would be if he knew that all of his hard work was for nothing when she heard Fairly Jenkins say to Virginia Schmitt, “Gin, I heard a rumor that Dee Dee Dalton might be thinking about selling her house.”

A couple of months ago, just hearing that someone might be thinking of selling, Maggie would have jumped up with her hair still wet and run out the door and tried to get the listing. Considering that she was leaving the real estate business in a few days, however, the fact that someone might be selling shouldn’t have meant a thing to her; but hearing
what
house might be for sale threw her for a complete loop.

Glen continued telling her all about his ex, but Maggie didn’t hear a word. Her mind was going a mile a minute. Everyone had always assumed that Mrs. Dalton would never sell Crestview in a million years. How could she even think about it? It had never been on the market before; why was she selling it now? Crestview wasn’t just any house. It was a landmark, and her favorite house in all of Birmingham. The
thought that it might be going on the market was very upsetting. The longer she sat there, the more agitated she became.

Oh, no. She knew the minute Glen finished blow-drying her hair and she paid her bill, she would have to fight off the urge to drive up the mountain and take a last look at it. But what would be the point? Why make herself miserable today, of all days? She was on a tight schedule as it was. She shouldn’t be concerned about anything else today, except making sure that everything was taken care of before Monday. She had a plan, so she should stick to it and just concentrate on that.

She paid her bill, went out, got in the car, and headed straight up the mountain. It was stupid and childish, she knew, but she couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d tried. She parked in front of Crestview and began to get more upset by the minute. There it stood, like it always had, so stately and proud, overlooking the city. To Maggie, it was the perfect house, perfectly proportioned, elegant, and understated. Of course, she had never been inside, but Mrs. Roberts, who had been a friend of Mrs. Dalton’s, had said that it had lovely wood-paneled walls in every room and the most beautiful set of white marble stairs she had ever seen. When Maggie was growing up, she had dreamed about those white marble stairs.

In the past, she had watched helplessly as Babs Bingington had sold off so many of the beautiful old homes over the mountain and, one by one, they had been torn down. Seeing those lovely old homes go and all the ugly new ones overbuilt on the lots had been a bitter pill to swallow. But if Babs got this listing, it would be a disaster. Babs Bingington had single-handedly been responsible for tearing down blocks and blocks of charming little thirties bungalow homes on the south side and developing new cheap four-story fake Swiss château swinging-singles apartments with a bad pool in the middle. The more she thought about it, the more agitated she became. Babs really had no business selling Crestview. She would run in, slap it on the market, and treat it just like any other property. She had no sense of the history and what it had meant to the people in Birmingham. She would view it with her cold fish eye and be willing to sell it to the highest bidder.

The thought of Babs Bingington marching through Crestview, like Sherman through Atlanta, gave Maggie a sick feeling. Babs had no loyalties to the town or the neighborhood. In the past, there had always been an unwritten law among real estate agents about selling homes on the mountain; even if it meant taking a cut out of your own commission, you did not sell those houses to people you knew would not take care of them or appreciate them. But not Babs. She was only interested in the sale. And who knows what could happen? Some young dot-com millionaire could buy it and put a basketball court in the living room. Or worse yet, it might be sold to a developer. If someone tore Crestview down, the entire skyline of Birmingham would change; it would be like looking at a beautiful woman with her front tooth missing. Or even worse, if one of Babs’s developer cronies got a hold of it, a beautiful woman with a big bright orange tooth. Thanks to Babs, there were some streets Maggie couldn’t even drive down anymore.

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.