If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails (12 page)

Two summers earlier, Elaine had joined our company and quickly become our single best lister. She was French, quiet, and spent most of her time outside our office, rarely sharing a word with her associates. When she was in the office, her only activity was opening her

middle drawer, exchanging papers from her brown leather briefcase, and scurrying out, her eyes darting from side to side.

Over the past month. Elaine's listing numbers had dwindled and in the last week, she had not added a single new listing to the company files. Paranoia was creeping into our happy group, and the warm "Hello I had extended to Elaine that morning had been returned with a quick dart of her blue-eve-linered eves to the left. I had had enough.

"Good morning, everyone! I began as usual.

"Good morning. Barbara.'' the salespeople replied.

"Today Id like to start our meeting by reviewing our listing policy. I said. 'One of the differences between our firm and the others is that we share and share alike. We work hard and we play fair. Id like to reiterate our policy that all new listings must be posted for evervone within one hour of getting the property. I want to remind everyone again that 'pocket listings' won't be tolerated. Does anyone have anv new listings they want to put in the listing card files today r

Thev shook their heads no, including Elaine.

"How about you. Elaine?' 1 1 asked as I walked over to her desk. "Would vou have any listings to add to our company file today?

"Non, " she replied.

"Okay," I said. "Would you mind opening your second drawer?"

"Nothing ees in dey're," she protested. "Juste old papers.

"You'll have to excuse me then, Elaine, while I look at your old files,*' I said, opening her drawer and removing the rubber-banded pile of papers, chock-full of listing information. I pulled out the top paper from the rest and read it aloud to the room: "Could anyone tell me if we have Apartment 4B at 60 Sutton Place South listed for $340,000?" Everyone shook their heads a tense, slow no. "It sounds nice." I continued, it's a two-bedroom, two-bath with a terrace!

"How about Apartment 12D at 1065 Park?" Again they signaled no. I quickly flipped through the thirty or so sheets, each with a different address. Then I confronted Elaine's bright eve-linered

eyes and asked, "Elaine, is there any reason you haven't put these listings in our company files?"

Her lips quietly mouthed "Non. "

"Pack your things," I leaned down and whispered into her ear. "And if you don't mind, I'll keep these."

We all watched as Elaine quickly shoved her desk accoutrements into her brown briefcase and huffed out of the office door.

The moment the door closed, the whole office erupted in cross-chatter, a mix of astonishment and relief. I took the pile of Elaine's papers and dealt them out like a blackjack dealer.

I had caught Elaine with her pants down and in the process charted a moral course for our company's future.

MOM'S LESSON #12: When the clubhouse is quiet, they're probably not making spaghetti.

4fe

THE LESSON LEARNED ABOUT SMELLING TROUBLE

My police action with Elaine that morning became folklore, and in the years that followed every new salesperson heard "The Tale of the Pocket Listing Lady."

When someone is uncharacteristically quiet you can be sure they are up to no good. They're either stirring up trouble, picking your pocket, or packing their bags. A manager's job is to speak up, shake up, and bring a troublemaker out of hiding. He'll manage to pull up his pants, if you knock on his door.

Donald Trump, who built a billion-dollar real estate empire with shameless self-promotion and sheer chutzpah, was the best-known businessman in the city and his name was synonymous with everything people both loved and hated about New York. Mr. Trump's latest enterprise was a sixty-eight-story black glass condominium next door to Tiffany's on the corner of Fifty-seventh and Fifth, where the old Bonwit Teller used to stand. He was billing his new "Trump Tower" as "The Most Expensive Address in the World." Only in New York could "most expensive" be a badge of honor, and The Donald wore it with pride. I wanted the "Corcoran Group" name to scream New York real estate as loudly as "Trump" did. And I had a plan.

Our Top 10 Condo Report didn't list Trump's trophy property in first place, second, or even third. The sales data I had collected relegated his highest-priced sale to fourth position behind Museum Tower, Olympic Tower, and The Galleria, Trump's main rivals in town.

Though I'd never met Mr. Trump, I knew my latest report would sizzle in his hands. Within an hour, he called me.

Cheerleading tryouts. High school.

I finished the Holy Rosary School in Edgewater as a charity "D" student. After my special reading class with Sister Stella Marie in second grade, school only got worse. After graduation from eighth grade, the Catholic kids with the good grades went to the Catholic high schools, while everybody else bused two towns over to the public school in Leonia.

I was shocked when an acceptance letter from St. Cecilia's Catholic High School arrived at the end of eighth grade. I thought they'd put the right slip in the wrong envelope. A chance at St. Cecilia's seemed like the first light at the end of a long, dark school tunnel. I promised my parents and myself that at my new school I would do a lot better.

On my first day at St. Cecilia's, the homeroom teacher asked me to be our student council representative. He picked me because

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Corcoran started with C. I sat in the second seat behind Maureen Beckman. whose name started with a B, but she had already left when the bell rang. He handed me a list of questions to poll and collect the opinions of the other homeroom kids. The survey gave me the opening I needed to befriend my new classmates.

I was well on the road to popularity at St. Cecilia's when I flunked algebra, history 7 , and Latin, and just as Dad warned, I was taking the bus up the hill for my sophomore year at the public high school in Leonia. I had blown my one chance to be somebody.

I looked up at the notice posted on the big bulletin board hanging outside the Leonia High School gym:

£HeeF4-e/u>ep. tfyouts

? to 5 P.M. IN TH6 &YM

It was obvious in my first two weeks at my new school that the popular girls were all from Leonia, not from Edgewater. And the really popular ones were the cheerleaders. They were pretty, they had nice clothes, and they were always surrounded by guys. They were everything I was not and wanted to be.

That's it! I said to myself looking at the poster. Vm taking the fast road to popularity! I printed my name on the sign-up sheet in the 4:45 Thursday spot.

I pushed open the heavy metal door of the large gym and realized it didn't look any bigger than the gym at St. Cecilia's. A cafeteria table was set up at the far end below the basketball hoop, and I

noted the backboard above it said "away." I thought it might be a bad sign.

Three women sat behind the table. I figured they were the judges. I recognized one as the gym teacher and guessed the other two women were probably teachers, too. Six cheerleaders were huddled in a sideline giggle, looking like burgundy-and-gold best friends. I clicked my way across the polished floor to center court. When the cheerleaders built a perfect pyramid, I panicked, wondering if I was expected to know how to build a pyramid, too.

"Name please," the gym teacher asked.

"Hi, I'm Barbara." I waved. "And I have an appointment for a four forty-five tryout."

"Yes, Miss Corcoran," the woman said, checking her clipboard. "Please remove your shoes." I took off my loafers, set them next to me, and faced the panel of judges in my stocking feet. I wished I had brought my sneakers.

Everyone turned their attention to me, including the pyramid, which quickly toppled and formed a perfect line to watch.

"Okay, then," the gym teacher said.

"Okay, what?" I asked.

"Let's see your cheer."

"What cheer?"

"Whichever cheer you choose."

That's when I realized I wasn't prepared. Not only did I not know a cheer, I hadn't ever even seen a Leonia cheer. I had to think fast. I figured the name they probably liked best was "Leonia." It was also the safest word for me to spell. So I spread my legs in an official cheerleader-type stance, puffed out my chest, shoved my fists into my hips, and began:

"Give me an LF I shouted.

Silence.

"L/" I shouted back to myself, throwing my right arm and leg out to the side.

"Give me an /..'

*Et* I answered. Not knowing what part to use, I swung my arm and leg like a windmill in the other direction.

When 1 finally made it to the "And what does it spell?" part, even I didn't answer.

I dropped my arms, smiled my best cheerleader-type smile, raising my lower lip to cover my overbite, and felt the red blotches begin to form on my chest.

'Thank you," the teacher said, as she drew a line on her clipboard.

I felt like an absolute idiot\ I wished the floor could have swallowed me up! I gave a quick nod to the cheerleading squad and finally moved my legs and walked out of the gym.

Sitting in the back of the late-afternoon bus, I tried to engrave the faces of the six cheerleaders in my mind. I felt really bad about hating them, but knew I'd spend the next three years avoiding them between classes. The bus dropped me off on top of Hilliard Avenue, and I found Mom outside on the Roanes' landing, hanging diapers out to dry. She pinned the corners two at a time and listened to my tale of woe.

"... And if that wasn't bad enough, Mom," I explained, blinking back the moisture in my eyes, "I left my loafers in center court and had to go back and walk in front of everyone to get them!

Mom clipped her last diaper to the line, gave me a wry smile, and said, "Well, Barbara Ann, next time you try out for cheerleading, you better know the cheers."

"Well, how obvious!" I snapped. "That's really, really helpful Mom!" and with a quick look of indignation, I stomped into the house and ran up to the new girls■ room on the third floor. The four girls had moved into the third floor of our house when Aunt Ethel and Uncle Herbie retired to Toms River and moved out.

I reached under my mattress to where I stashed mv new box of filtered Parliaments, and lit a cigarette.

Meeting the King. Trump Tower. 1985.

I knew I wouldn't compromise my Top 10 Condo Report by changing any facts. But I also knew Mr. Trump would be outraged by his lowly ranking, and I didn't want my report to alienate an industry figure as powerful as Mr. Trump. So I had spent the weekend working the numbers every which way, and had figured out a way to do both. Once I found a solution, I practiced a routine on how to deliver it at least a dozen times. I stood in the elevator of Trump Tower with my heart racing, but my confidence intact.

The elevator doors opened into a reception area bigger than The Corcoran Group s entire office and backdropped with floor-to-ceiling views of Central Park. I stood in my new red suit atop all of New York.

A drop-dead gorgeous receptionist sat at the far end at a burled-wood desk. She was answering the phone. "Good morning, the Trump Organization,'* she said in a continuous loop. She was saying it with a lot more importance than I had ever been able to muster up for "Good morning, Giffuni Brothers." I made my way over to her desk and stood waiting to say hello. She looked to me like a beauty pageant queen, the kind you see on TV.

"Hi," I finally interrupted, offering my hand across her desk. "I'm Barbara Corcoran and I have an appointment with Mr. Trump.*'

She didn't look up, but lilted into an intercom, 'Bahr-bruh Cohr-krun here to see Mr. Trump.'' Another beauty queen instantly appeared to escort me down a long wood-paneled hall. There yet another beauty queen asked that I follow her down another hall and passed me on to another woman who, unlike the others, looked like the kind of woman who could get some work done.

"Hello," she said with authority. "I'm Louise Sunshine. We spoke on the phone. If you'll wait here, I'll see if he's ready" She cracked a

se1 of gigantic doors, stepped inside, and closed the doors behind her.

I thought about my new Top 10 Condo Report. As it was customary in New York to refer to apartments based on their sales price, my report ranked the top-ten-selling condos from the highest to the lowest sale price. I had pulled the figures from the Yale Robbius Condo Report and had also cross-checked each sale against the city's transfer files to make sure my numbers were absolutely correct.

A few moments later, the doors opened. "Mr. Trump will see you now." the woman announced, as she opened the doors and invited me into an office the size of an aircraft carrier.

Mr. Trump was seated behind a landing strip of a desk flanked by a panoramic view T of Central Park. She gestured toward the two leather chairs positioned in front of his desk and announced, "Mr. Trump, this is Barbara Corcoran.''

I walked over and extended my hand. When Mr. Trump took my hand. I filed it in my memory as the wimpiest handshake of all time. "I really appreciate your coining over,'' he cordially said, sizing me up and whisking his puffed blond helmet to the side. "Have a seat.

Before I reached the seat, he began, "I got your report and I don't agree with it. Your information is totally incorrect because there's sales data on Trump Tower you don't have access to.

As prepared as I thought I was, I was startled by his opening move. I felt my palms getting sticky. "Oh, really," I said politely, "and just what information is that, Mr. Trump?"

He leaned forward into the intercom that sat on the left corner of his desk and barked. "Norma! Bring me those condominium numbers! " The giant doors opened and a June Cleaver look-alike floated in. plunked a thick folder on Mr. Trump's otherwise clean desk, and floated out. He puckered his lips, opened the file, and leaned back in his chair. "If you'll take the time to look at these recent numbers.'' he emphasized, "it will be obvious to you that Trump Tower belongs at the top of your list!" He pushed the file in my direction, just out of reach.