Ben thought about it for minute, then smiled.
“Go on, I’m a little dense this morning.” I gestured with the coffee urn and poured more coffee for me. I brought the pot over to Prue and topped off her mug.
“Once you sign on to work for Cooper Milk, you’re committed, there are a lot of forms and releases to sign. I guess over the years it developed that way. One of the forms states that if an employee fails the drug test, he or she cannot ever come within five hundred feet of any Cooper plant, office, or,” she paused dramatically, “event for five years.”
Oh, that wicked boy.
“They did not pass the drug screening.” I guessed.
“They did not pass the drug screening!” Carrie cried.
“That is genius.” Ben whistled appreciatively.
“Yes,” Carrie favored us with a huge grin. “Yes he is.”
Sarah spun around the open library floor.
“I used to come here every day after school.” She pointed in the general direction of the elementary school. “I loved it here.” She slid on the floor, something she could never do as a child; it wasn’t proper and it wasn’t quiet. “This was the children’s section. I read every book on the shelves, except for westerns and science stuff. It was like paradise.”
She gazed up at the painted ceiling. “Can you learn things just by reading books or do you need a class?”
Scott shoved his hands in his pockets. She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. “It used to be that people educated themselves just by reading books.”
She nodded. “Sure, I read about that. But to get a good job you have to have that degree. That’s what Suzanne says.”
“What if you don’t need to work?”
She stood. “Everyone needs to work; that’s what gives you purpose.”
“Is that what your grandparents said?”
She turned away from him. “I took care of them my whole life. That was purpose wasn’t it?”
He nodded and tentatively took a step closer. “Maybe the work doesn’t have to pay?”
“Excuse me?” The couple both stopped and looked down at a very small person climbing up the stairs. For a moment Scott was completely flummoxed, he didn’t have much experience with people who came in such tiny packages.
“Is this the library?” The little girl cleared the steps.
“It is, but we don’t have many books here anymore. The new library is out across the highway.” Sarah’s voice was kind, but the girl was clearly disappointed.
“I know, but it’s so far away. I can’t walk there. I can walk here after school.” The child pouted.
Scott looked at the child. “I do have some books.”
Sarah glanced at him, surprised.
“Friends of the Library. They store their sale books here in the basement. Wait here.”
He disappeared with a clatter of footsteps down to the lower level. Sarah watched him open-mouthed.
“Here.” Scott rushed up, books sliding off his arms and crashing to the floor.
The little girl’s face lit up at the sight.
He dumped the books on the only table left in the room. The girl pulled up on tiptoe to reach the books.
“We need a lower table.” Scott pushed the books towards the girl.
“Can I borrow this?” She had pulled down a Bernstein Bears book and a copy of Madeline.
Sarah gently took the book and glanced inside. The old fashion card pocket and the stamp - Claim Jump Library - were still in good shape.
“Yes.” Sarah said. “Bring them back when you’re done. You can take more when you return these.”
The girl nodded happily. “Is it okay to tell my friends?”
“Tell everyone. The Lewis Lending Library is open for business.”
Scott stood stunned at what just transpired. Was it that simple?
Sarah turned to him, her face alight. “It’s that simple!”
The dogwoods were finally able to fully express themselves in white and bright pink. The plum and cherry trees were covered in tentative pink, the snow was receding and revealing soft, fragile grass. Spring in the mountains is precarious, likely to end with a sudden snowfall that breaks off tree branches and smothers new flowers. Or spring can launch a surprise heat wave that just as effectively stunts new growth. I was prepared to appreciate the mild and uneventful weather. Today, Mother Nature was cooperating.
Pale sheets of snow in the shape of tree shadows hovered on the edges of Penny’s front lawn, but the daffodils glowed with bright yellow promise. All was good. I just had to let go of all the possibilities and conjecture that surrounded poor Penny. She was my biggest client. Biggest clients are never easy nor without controversy. I pushed everything aside to concentrate on saving my career.
I pressed the doorbell.
“Exactly on time.” Despite the early hour, Penny was dressed to kill in high dangerous heels and a Chanel red wool suit. In comparison, and don’t think for a minute women didn’t immediately make comparisons, I was seriously frumpy in my now shabby chic funeral outfit. I hoped she had been so distracted by Ben she didn’t remember my ensemble the last three times she saw it.
“Hi, good morning. I have some forms for you on the house.”
“Oh.” She looked behind me, as if Ben were hiding in the shadows ready to jump out and surprise her.
“I’m alone, Ben isn’t here.” I hoped she would let me in anyway.
“Come up to the office.” She turned, assuming I’d follow and close the door behind me.
I walked two steps behind her through the living area with the soaring ceiling, down the hall lined with hanging quilts and up narrow stairs to her high tree house - like office. The stairs were covered with a thick shag carpet. I slipped off my own pumps before tackling the ascent. I tend to catch my heels on thick carpet and I didn’t want to fall backwards down the stairs because of my shoes. It was bad enough I was clothed in the same outfit I wore to her house tour, tumbling backwards down the stairs would be the final indignity.
Before me, Penny’s high heels dug efficiently into the carpet nap and she didn’t even wobble. She managed her Jimmy Choos well.
“Paperwork?” She retreated behind a broad mahogany desk that was grand enough to emphasize our roles: she the boss, I the employee. I had seen it done many times. She wanted me to feel small and intimidated. I may be a Little, but I’m not that easily intimidated.
“Yes, the Pest One and the general inspection. There’s a lot of suggested work. You may want to consider reducing the price, unless you want to pay for the repairs.”
“No, no, a price reduction will be fine. No buyers yet?”
“It’s only been two weeks.” I pointed out. Sellers in a hurry are not necessarily a good thing: they make mistakes, cut corners, lie.
“Are you doing everything you can?” She quizzed.
Instead of taking umbrage, I pulled out copies of the Sacramento Bee ads, the copy of the Craigslist ad, the printout of the MLS entry, a hard copy of the web site and glossy prints of the sale flyers. Sellers love to see as much paper as you can create.
She flipped through the piles in a desultory fashion. “I guess you’re trying.”
“Trying? I’m one of the best. A house like your father’s is unique and unique properties don’t sell in a week. Yell at me in six weeks, but not two.”
She eyed me. I stood my ground. Do not insult my professional integrity.
She took a breath, then eased up a bit. “I apologize, I understand from Ben that you are the best. I just want all this,” she glanced out the broad expanse of windows. “Done, I want it all done.”
“I can understand that.”
“No, you can’t, you don’t know what it’s like to lose what you love.” Penny narrowed her eyes at me. It was difficult to hold my ground against that. The whole scenario, the surprise pregnancy, searching for a house for three, then, just as abruptly, losing everything, possibly even Ben in one bloody twenty-four hours. The hollown
ess in my chest was big enough to have a name. I knew loss. I wanted to sit down. But I remained standing.
Penny stepped back, reading my expression.
“Okay, maybe you do know.” We stood together in that silence, a shared moment. Maybe Carrie was right - Penny was just a lost soul.
“ I lost my dad.” She finally said into the quiet.
“I lost my baby.” I said it out loud for the first time.
Penny did me a service and ignored my pain in favor of her own. It could have been my own admission, or not, but something broke in her and her story flowed out. I usually do get people to talk about themselves, ad nauseam, but this was different. She wasn’t looking at me; she was looking through me to her memories. I realized I may just be in the way, but it was too late, she started to talk.
“He tried to burn it. After everything he knew, he still tried to stuff it into the fireplace.” She studied the paneling in the study. What wasn’t covered in glass was lined in beautiful walnut. “I mean, look at all this wood. The house would have gone up in a second.”
Burn the quilt? Was he trying to get the quilts out of the house before her public tour? Was he trying to burn the place down? Have them both perish in the fire? That made no sense. Lucky was a survivor.
“I grabbed it. I’m stronger and younger of course. I won.”
I envisioned a grim game of tug of war with a thick unwieldy quilt between them, dangerously close to a burning hearth. Penny was stronger, but maybe Lucky was more determined. Did he intend to create an accident? If the walls of this house were filled with the same material, it would indeed have consumed more than the down town fire department could forestall.
“He fell.” Penny voice was toneless. “Hit his head on the fireplace.” She shrugged, “I thought he was already dead.”
“No, you didn’t.” I looked her in the eye. She looked away first.
“Doesn’t matter, it’s done isn’t it?” Her shoulders sagged in defeate. I did not know what to do, what to say. Did it matter? Was there enough money for Penny’s defence?
“It’s all done, Mattie is gone, Raul is gone, no one will know.”
I shifted, clutching the long carpet nap with my bare toes.
“And you won’t be telling tales either.” From behind the papers she pulled out a handgun. A nice, shiny, new handgun.
I stepped quickly back. “But I just listed your house! Houses!”
Her mouth quirked to almost a smile. “I had a moment of weakness. You can always fix those moments of weakness, that’s what Dad taught me.”
It was a beautiful day, the clear blue sky arched from mountaintop to mountaintop. Fluffy clouds, dry air, the works.
“Beautiful view.”
Her hand, unfortunately, did not waver.
“Yes, my dad loved this view. He originally created it for my mother, but when she died, he left me here and moved to town. He said he wanted to be close to the action.
“He could have been lonely out here.” I offered the idea to, you know, humanize the situation.
“No, he just wanted everyone to see his coming and going, he wanted the attention.”
“We all want attention.”
Penny turned the gun in her hands round and round, I couldn’t tell if, (what is it called?) the safety was on or off. Does that mean the damn thing could accidentally go off? How would it feel to be accidentally shot? I swallowed and watched the gun move around, the metal flashing between her fingers.
“He drove my mother crazy, really crazy, for real. He was always looking for the advantage. Everything we owned was a fucking bargain, something he got for a song, or for nothing. And he didn’t do anything that didn’t directly benefit him, you know? All that crap about helping the community, nonsense, it was all about helping Lucky Masters do what he wanted.”
The gun paused in her restless hands as she gazed out one of the windows: her unparalleled view. “She was right you know, that widow woman?”
“Mattie Timmons?” I supplied helpfully. I kept my eyes rigidly on Penny and on her twisting turning gun. She fondled it like worry beads.
“The spray foam was toxic and flammable. I suppose if the fire hadn’t killed the residents, the long term exposure might.” She shrugged.
“There was no proof of that.”
“None, I remember when the manufacturer pulled the material. Dad was really mad since the next cheapest thing cost twice as much. You should have heard him, it was as if they stole money from him. It was all about the money. See this?” She gestured at her office with the gun. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the weapon.
“This was to show off to the community that Lucky could build what he wanted, where he wanted, all it took was money.”
I said carefully. “That is often right.”
She shook her head. “There ought to be something to stand for besides money. I never found it,” she said mournfully. “You people never liked me.”
Well, she wasn’t exactly likable. I suddenly remembered a story that circulated when I was still a teenager. Every Fourth of July, one of the teenage girls is voted Liberty Queen and rides in the Claim Jump parade. Penny was Liberty Queen three years in a row because Lucky bought hundreds of her raffle tickets and influenced the judeges. She didn’t have to work for her win.
I would love the easy win, even just once. Except that today was not an easy win day, it was very likely a difficult lose day. I have faced guns before, but the last time I had, Ben had come charging in to save me. I didn’t think that would be the case today. There was no reason for him to follow me. Everything was fine, and we were all happy and safe in our little bubble of goodwill. It suddenly occurred to me that routinely checking in with a loved one might not be the paranoid and subservient activity I had previously thought.
I had things to do, people to marry. I edged around the circumference of the room; it felt round because of the large windows and low built-in shelves. The expansive view pulled the eye out and you missed the corners and angles in the inside. I turned and turned again. Penny followed me with the gun like an awful carnival game: shoot the Realtor.
“So, you’re a pretty good shot,” my voice wavered, damn.
“I’m a terrible shot. My father tried to teach me. Bought me my own gun for Christmas, that was just a swell gift, I wanted a new sewing machine. He wanted me to be the son he never had. I wasn’t good at it. I hated it. But it does the job, even if you aren’t that accurate.”
Oh good, I could just bleed to death from a stomach wound. Did that happen? I was behind on my television shows and mystery novels. I couldn’t remember the salient details and of course, my brain wasn’t exactly working at optimal levels. It was barely working at all.
I edged to the double French doors leading out to a small deck cantilevered over the valley below. It was quite a drop. How Lucky got THAT approved is mystery. No, I could solve at least that one, he probably just bribed the inspector. It’s done all the time.
I opened the door and stepped out, making her follow. I couldn’t reach the stairs and there wasn’t anywhere else to go inside, except round and round, outside there were more distractions, some dodging room. In the back of my imagination I figured I might as well die beautifully and dramatically in the open air. I gripped the railing that seemed stable enough, but it was too low, I remembered Ben said Lucky didn’t want to obstruct the view.
Penny followed me out. I miscalculated, there was less maneuvering room on the cantilevered deck than I imagined. The deck was not big enough for the two of us, the madwoman and her victim. She lunged at me, gun raised and aimed right at my stomach (the largest target on my body). I automatically deflected her hand and pushed her with my shoulder. I was barefoot and had better traction and grip on the damp deck wood. She teetered on her perfect high heel shoes. She wavered for a second, caught her balance and raised the gun again.
I dodged again, more from instinct than talent or training. The gun went off and the shot reverberated throu
gh the valley. Startled birds rushed from their perches and cried up to the sky. I imagined my soul was about to do the same.
I tried to grab the the gun, she shot again but the bullet just grazed me. The stab of pain cleared my head and banished the images conjured by my morbid imagination. I shot forward and grabbed the gun harder and tugged with all my might. She loosened her grip and I jerked the hot gun downward, desperately hoping I could avoid shooting myself in the foot.
She staggered and I pushed her again to gain more space between the two of us. Penny toppled back against the railing and it caught her just under her butt. She waved her hands to balance. I threw the gun behind me. It bounced on the wood deck once and then was silent. I was too distracted to care.
Her arms flailed, then pin wheeled, then suddenly stopped. She was over balanced, the edge of the railing that I had just found so comforting a few seconds ago was, as I said, too low. I lunged forward and tried to grab her with my right hand and pull her back. But her hand missed mine. She overturned. The momentum from my push, her overbalanced height and those treacherous shoes did the trick. In a blink she disappeared over the railing. It was like a magic trick, one second she was there, then nothing, my hand grasped empty air.
I did not hear a sound after that. The whole world was still, holding its breath. A second later the birds began singing an odd, off key song.
The breeze was cold. My feet were cold. I huddled against the too low railing and tried to catch my breath. I had go inside to call Tom on the phone line. I knew not to call 911, we didn’t want this in the paper. I could tell Tom any story I wanted, yet I would probably stick to the truth, it’s easier to remember in the long run. I had already learned that regardless of what the truth was, the survivors get to write the story.
The day ended with a promise of summer. Ben and I walked downtown hand in hand, except when the sidewalk was so narrow we had to walk single file. I only limped a little, the gun graze was only worth two SpongeBob Band-Aids.
We walked past the coffee shop and up to Lucky’s house. My sign waved cheerfully in the afternoon air.
“This won’t sell for a while. I’ll have to be up here a lot, and I’ll probably list poor Penny’s house as well. Do you mind? You can come with me, we can pretend we are away on an illicit getaway and stay in Prue’s apartment, that seemed to work for us.”
Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 05 - A 380 Degree View Page 26