The Mill River Redemption (13 page)

“If you know the product you’re selling and can read people well enough to match them with the product they’ll buy, it doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to sell diamonds or real estate or anything else. You’ll be successful.”

“Hmm. Your résumé says you’re from New York. If you don’t mind my asking, what brought you to Vermont?”

“I have family in Mill River. I moved up here with my daughters two years ago, after my husband died.”

Ned stopped chewing. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Flustered, he paused for a moment, seeming to struggle with what to say next.

“Perhaps you could tell me a little about your agency?” Josie asked. “And also a little about what you’re looking for in a trainee? I’m scheduled to take the licensing exam in a few weeks.”

Ned jumped at the chance to change the subject. “Of course. Well, I’m a solo broker and have been since I opened Circle Realty about a decade ago. I grew up here in Rutland, in this neighborhood, actually. I’ve done all right, although the market is tough now with interest rates being what they are. To be completely honest, I wasn’t really looking to take on a new agent when I received your letter, but then Marsha quit—she was my secretary—and she really kept things organized. The fact that you’re aiming to get your license is a real plus.”

Ned took one last bite of pizza and dropped the crust in his wastepaper basket along with a few others. He looked at her with an innocent expression as he waited for her reply.

Josie blinked.
Had she heard this man correctly?
She swallowed, trying to phrase her next question as politely as she could.

“So, Ned, what you’re telling me is that you’re really looking for a … a new secretary?”

“Well,” Ned said slowly, “I was thinking that you could start as a secretary, since I’ve got a lot of things that need sorting and filing.” He motioned to the papers that were stacked and strewn about his office. “It’s the slow season, anyway, so you could study
for your exam once the place is tidied up. After you get your sales license, you could try showing a few houses. And, just to prove I’m a nice guy, I’ll even give you a listing to get you started. It’d be a good test to see what you can do. If you can find a buyer for it, well, I’d make you a permanent agent. If you can sell as well as you say, it would work out well for the both of us.”

After so much preparation to become a salesperson, Josie had half a mind to tell Ned where he could get off, but a very calm, practical thought emerged through her disgust. If she started as a secretary, she would not be expected to work on commission. Here was a chance at a small, but regular, paycheck, something that would help stretch her savings. She would be able to study for her exams at least part of the time she was at work, and she might be able to hit the ground running with a sale once she was licensed, if Ned really did give her a listing of her own.

“I have a few questions,” Josie began.

“Shoot.”

“I’d consider starting as a secretary, but my girls are still very young, in first grade and nursery school. Since I’m all they have, I need to be there for them when they’re home. Would you still be willing to hire me if I could work only part time for now, during the mornings, when both my girls are in school?”

Ned looked at her with his mouth scrunched up. Josie realized that she had made the right decision in revealing why she had come to Vermont. It was obvious that Ned was trying to balance his sympathy for her situation with the need to have a full-time employee to clean up his mess.

“I suppose that would be all right,” he said finally. “But at only part time, I couldn’t provide benefits. It would have to be a straight hourly position.”

“I understand,” Josie said.

Ned nodded and continued. “That’s not to say you couldn’t work more hours when you’re able to. I’m not so worried about
phone calls and such as I am getting files and paperwork in order. I trust that you’d be extremely efficient during the hours you’re here.”

“I assure you I would be,” Josie said. “And just so I understand you correctly, if I sell the listing you give me, I’d have a job as only a salesperson, and not a secretary?”

“My word is my bond. In fact, if you sell the listing, I’ll even let you keep a hundred percent of the commission from the sale. I’m a pretty nice guy, you know.”

Josie stared into Ned’s smarmy face and managed a small smile. “I could start as soon as this Friday, around nine o’clock?”

“Excellent,” Ned said. He flashed a toothy grin as his dark eyes lit up. “Between now and then I’ll get your tax paperwork ready and write out everything we talked about, and the commission structure, too, just so that there are no misunderstandings.”

“All right.” Josie rose from her chair and extended her hand to Ned. When he clasped it, she noticed that his hand didn’t feel quite as greasy as it had earlier. “Thank you, Ned, for giving me this opportunity.”

“No thanks necessary, Josie. Hey, I’ll see you out.”

They exited Ned’s messy office and came back into the front room. Josie hesitated at the front door before stepping outside. “I just thought of one more thing,” she said.

“Yes?”

“The listing you said you’d give me … you already have one in mind?”

Ned smiled again, this time without showing his teeth. “Indeed I do.”

“Would you mind … well, to be honest, I’m curious. Would you mind if I drove past it to take a look?”

“Ah, no, not at all. Wait just a sec, and I’ll get the address for you.” He disappeared back through the door and returned quickly with a small piece of paper, which he handed to her. “It’s not far
from here, and I just put the sign up in the yard last week. Be warned, though, the place is by no means perfect.”

Josie looked down at the paper and back at him. “No house is perfect, Ned.”

“True, true. But, some are more perfect than others. I was being honest when I said this listing would test you. See you Friday morning.” He smirked a little before leaving her alone in the waiting area.

Josie looked at her watch and grabbed her coat. If she hurried, she could get a look at the property that was to be her first, very own listing before she had to pick up Emily.

Once back in her car, she found the street on Ivy’s map and started out. Reality was finally hitting her.
She had a job
. It wasn’t a great job, and her new boss was … well, she didn’t even want to start thinking of words to describe Ned lest she ruin her increasingly happy mood … but she had a job!

In a few minutes, Josie had driven back through the center of town. The address scribbled on the paper Ned had given her was for a house on Gleason Road, and that street was easy to find. She hadn’t gone very far down Gleason when she saw the Rutland City Landfill looming on the right side of the road. She passed City Dump Road, the street that served as the entrance to the landfill, and she slowed the car as a sinking realization developed in the pit of her stomach.

Just beyond the far corner of the boundary of the landfill stood a tiny ranch house with a Circle Realty sign in the yard. Quickly, she turned into the driveway and stared at the little house that faced her.

It was painted an old, dingy brown, and the shingles on the roof were streaked with mildew and tattered. The white Circle Realty sign gleamed by comparison, and Josie couldn’t believe that the house had been inhabited anytime recently. The driveway, or what she could see of it, was full of cracks, and a half-rotted wooden
fence ringed the yard. Josie got out of her car, but she was afraid to go peek into the darkened windows of the house because of what she might see.

The worst part about the property, though, wasn’t even on the property. Perhaps fifty yards and a thin row of trees separated the backyard from the chain-link-fenced perimeter of the Rutland City Landfill. Josie stood, fighting back tears, as she listened to the constant rumbling of trucks and bulldozers working the heaps of trash. A pile of scrap metal was visible in the distance through the leafless trees. When the wind shifted, it carried with it the pungent odor of garbage.

What had started as a day of promise and hope was ending in frustration and despair. Josie leaned against her car, trembling. As she often did when she was worried or upset, she reached up to touch the gold locket around her neck, the gift from Ivy that now held tiny pictures of Rose and Emily. She thought of Tony, too, wondering how she would be able to keep her promise to him. How would she ever manage to build a career and earn enough to support her girls when the first obstacle in her path was literally a mountain of trash?

As she stared at her first listing-to-be, Josie felt her despair turn to anger. She had come too far and had too much at stake to turn back now. She was shocked that Ned could be so cruel as to give her this listing, that he had the audacity to describe it as some sort of gift from “a nice guy.” Josie gritted her teeth.

For Rose, Emily, and Tony, she would go forward.

She would launch a successful career in real estate, even if she had to do it by finding a buyer for a dump of a house that also bordered on a dump.

And finally, she would show Ned Circle that he had vastly underestimated her.

O
N
T
HURSDAY MORNING, AS AGREED
, R
OSE KNOCKED ON
Emily’s front door. Several sheets of paper were folded in her hand. She gripped them tighter as she heard barking and then footsteps approaching.

Emily opened the door and stared at her for a moment, restraining her large dog. She had a pair of safety goggles pushed up on her forehead, and her face was dripping with sweat.

“I brought my list,” Rose said, holding up the papers. “Shall we get it over with?”

Emily nodded. “Back up, Gus,” she said as she held the door open.

Rose stepped inside the house. It was a little larger than the one she and Alex were sharing, but more sparsely furnished and very tidy. “You’re unpacked already?” she asked. Emily’s dog came up and began sniffing at her, and she raised her hands to avoid coming into contact with his cold wet nose.

“I didn’t bring much,” Emily replied, “and there wasn’t a lot in here to begin with.” She grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled it toward the back of the house. Rose followed at a distance.

“What’s with the goggles?”

“I do stained glass,” Emily said, pointing into a room off to the side as they passed. “I was just cutting pieces for a new design.” Rose caught a glimpse of a large worktable covered in small tools and bits of glass in various sizes and shapes.

Emily picked up a small stack of papers in the kitchen and continued out the door onto a small deck. As Gus rushed past them, Emily took a seat at an old aluminum patio set and looked up expectantly.

“So … I didn’t find anything over here that jumped out at me,” Emily began after Rose had sat down. She spread the list out on the table. “I went through every room and even the garage, but nothing’s out of the ordinary. It’s all just basic house stuff—furniture, dishes, books, tools, and a few drawers and boxes of assorted junk.”

Rose nodded. “My house is the same way, although I got more of Mom’s old staging furniture than you did. There’s a bunch of boxes from Ivy’s, too.”

“Well, maybe that’s something important. You having more furniture, I mean. Maybe one of the clues is—”

“What, a chair? Or a lamp, maybe?” Rose interrupted. “No way. Mom would’ve picked clues that had some sort of special meaning for her and for us. I was trying to think of stuff that happened while we were growing up.”

“How about something having to do with the kitchen?” Emily said. “It’s where we all hung out most of the time. Mom loved to cook, even though she was usually too busy to do it. And, do you remember what happened that one time with the dishwasher?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. Despite her feeling so uncomfortable and awkward at having to interact with Emily, she felt the corners of her mouth curve up into a smile. She hadn’t thought about the dishwasher incident in years, but for one fleeting moment, her mind skipped over all of the guilt, the blurred hangovers, and the painful, gaping hole in her life that had been left when Emily cut off all communication with her. She was her nearly eleven-year-old self again, clutching her sister and squealing with laughter as they both tried to keep from falling on the slippery kitchen floor.

In that one instant, Rose had an overpowering urge to reach over and grab Emily’s hand. She would squeeze it and beg for forgiveness. Or maybe words would be unnecessary, and she would somehow convey through their connected hands the love that she tried to forget. Maybe, somehow, she could find a way to repair Emily’s heart and restore their relationship.

Then, just as quickly, the moment passed, and her usual guilt and shame returned.

Rose blinked hard and began sorting through her papers until she found a copy of the letter their mother had written to them. “We’re supposed to be looking for two different objects,” she said as she scanned it again. “I didn’t pay much attention to the plates and things in the cupboards, but maybe one of the clues is an old coffee mug or something?”

Emily sat very still, with a wistful expression. “It could be,” she said finally. “We should both go through our kitchens again. And I think we should look at the books in our houses, too. Mom almost always read to us at bedtime. And the letter says that one of the clues ‘will reveal the location of the key.’ It makes sense that that one would be a book. Something in it could reveal a location, right? So, how many books are on your list?” Emily peered over at her papers.

Rose sighed. “I didn’t actually count them or list them all out. There are tons of them everywhere, on shelves, in boxes. Some are so old they’re falling apart.” She was beginning to get a headache, and she could feel herself becoming irritable.

“Well, I’ve got lots, too, and I
did
list them individually,” Emily said. “You need to go back and write down all your titles so we can compare.”

Annoyed at her sister’s bossy tone, Rose rolled her eyes. “And then what? If she chose a book as a clue, how are we supposed to know? Especially if it’s one we haven’t read?”