“You.”
Mouse whines and tugs on the leash, trying desperately to get to me. Round two is seconds away from happening. I walk up to Madeleine and extract the leash from her hand while she still tries to recover from shock. She probably thought she’d never see me again. I expected the same, but somehow this is better. I’ll get the last word, just the way I like it.
I hold Mouse’s collar close by my side and walk him into the first exam room. He tolerates having to heel, but I can tell his energy is simmering just below the surface. He’s spring-loaded, and if Madeleine isn’t careful, he’ll grow even more out of hand.
“You’re my vet?” Madeleine asks, trailing after me. “What happened to Katherine?”
“She moved.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispers under her breath.
“I take it you liked Katherine?”
“She was a few years above me in school. I’ve known her my whole life.” She shrugs and continues, “And she gave me a fat discount.”
I close the exam door behind us, but I don’t let go of Mouse’s leash. He’s lost roaming privileges.
“He’s a good dog once he settles down and gets to know you,” Madeleine says, trying to vouch for him.
“I’d say we were pretty well acquainted this morning.”
She crosses her arms and leans against the wall, nibbling on her lip nervously.
“How long have you had Mouse?” I ask, changing the subject. Although I could easily find the information in the chart, I want to learn it from her.
“A few weeks.”
I nod and force myself to look back at the chart.
“I got him from the shelter as a puppy. Well, more of a puppy than now.”
She says it like that will win her sympathy.
“What breed of dog did they tell you he was?”
“I believe the word they used was multinational. Something like that.”
I smile. “He’s a Bernese Mountain Dog.”
“No. They said he was a small lab mix.”
“And you trusted them,” I reply with a flat tone. “Now you’re the proud owner of an untrained dog that will weigh more than you. Your small lab mix is going to easily be 120 pounds by next month.”
“First of all, thank you for the compliment. Secondly, I don’t care what he’ll weigh—I just didn’t want him to get killed.” She pushes off the wall and yanks Mouse’s leash away from me. “I’m sorry, do you interrogate all of your patients? Or is this some kind of special treatment?”
I look down at Mouse, who’s staring up at me fondly. I like him much more than his owner. “You’re not my patient, he is.”
“Right, well, if you’re finished, he just needs his next round of shots.” She checks the watch on her slender wrist. “And I really need to get to work.”
An assistant comes into the room with Mouse’s shots, and it takes no time at all to administer them. He’s docile and sweet, especially when I hold a treat out for him while I stick him with the needle.
“There. All set.”
Madeleine is looking at her phone and shaking her head. “No. No. No.”
“What?”
“Are you 100% positive about his breed?”
I’m guessing she’s been doing some Googling.
Now, I have to laugh. “Yes. I’m positive. We can send off a DNA sample if you’d like.”
She turns her phone around and shows me a photo of an adult male Bernese Mountain Dog. “He’s going to be…well, a mountain!”
Though I shouldn’t seek retribution, seeing her shock slightly makes up for the ordeal this morning. I feel much better when I walk out of that exam room. I’m scanning the next chart when I let myself dwell on her for a second. Even with the annoying first impression, it’s obvious she’s beautiful. I studied her surreptitiously during the exam, mainly because she was being so quiet—I wanted to make sure she wasn’t doing anything nefarious. Still, it seemed like a waste not to take in the details. She was dressed for work in a cream sheath dress that was tight and cut perfectly for her long legs. Her hair was a rich brown, long, and curled softly down her back. The fact that she was in great shape probably has something to do with lugging Mouse around all day. Maybe on another day, I’d find her irresistible—but here, today, there are too many reasons to push her to the back of my mind and move on to the next customer.
And I do. I forget all about her.
Right up until I walk into my bedroom that evening and trip over my crumpled, dirty suit.
CHAPTER THREE
MADELEINE
Today, I think I finally see why my mother adoringly refers to me as her “lost cause”. For years I fought the nickname, arguing that my generation actually tries hard to cultivate the hipster image of not having one’s life together. But my ruse falls apart when I line up next to my older brother. He’s a doctor. Married. Good hair. You know the type. The fact that he’s a wonderful big brother only makes matters worse. He’s never missed a birthday. He always makes a point to call me at least once a week, even now that he’s back in Hamilton, though I mostly ignore these phone calls because he’s married to my best friend, Daisy. I don’t have time to talk to them both, and anything I tell her, she can pass along to him.
Not to mention, lately I feel like he’s been operating as a spy for our mom during these weekly chats. He can’t help but ask about my job, my future, my investment holdings, my love life—can’t we just argue politics or religion like a normal dysfunctional family?
Even now, there’s a voicemail from him waiting for me on my cell phone, telling me about a housewarming party, but I have no time to call him back because I’m currently circling the toilet bowl of life. I’m late for work again, and I’m tripping into my heels as I rush out the door. My coffee is in one hand. My keys and cell phone balance precariously in the other. A banana is wedged in my mouth and a granola bar tucks into the front of my bra. I bolt out of my apartment, lock up, and turn just in time to find my landlord, Mr. Hall, pruning his herb garden across the covered pathway. He looks so innocent with those tiny shears, but I know better. Those damn herbs have already been trimmed to perfection. He’s outside, pretending to garden for another reason.
“Ah, Madeleine, there you are,” he says, removing his protective eyewear. As if stray rosemary clippings are the most underreported causes of gardening death in America.
I rush past him, waving as I go. After all, with my banana in place, I can hardly carry on a conversation.
“I need to talk to you about rent!” he shouts after me.
I wave again and then add a thumbs up just for good measure. I hold out hope that he means Rent the musical, but I’m reasonably sure it’s about money. I’m not sure why he bothers. Mr. Hall and I have a very healthy arrangement going where he asks for rent on the first of the month and I pay him piecewise on the subsequent days of the month. But what I lack in timely payment, I make up for in baked goods. Mr. Hall hasn’t wanted for banana bread in the three years I’ve lived here. Muffins, cookies, and cakes have rained down on him like some sort of delicious plague from the Book of Revelations.
I do recognize, however, that I’m pushing it more than normal this month. I’m majorly overdue, but I have every intention of paying him—just as soon as I make it to work and earn a commission. That’s just what I intend to do, if only my car would start. It likes to pretend it’s going to fail on me once or twice a month. I slide onto the faded seat and twist the key, and it putters morosely.
“Come onnnnn,” I groan, twisting the key again.
There’s a low clicking noise, like it wants to start as desperately as I want it to.
I mimic the people in movies and TV, pumping the lifeless gas pedal before twisting the key once more, nearly hard enough to break it in two. The starter clicks pathetically and then, by some miracle, my car sputters to life.
“YES. THANK YOU!” I shout to myself, banging my hands against the steering wheel.
I do not have time for car issues this morning. I look at the bright red clock on my dashboard; I’m already five minutes late for our staff meeting. By the time I pull into the last available spot at the agency, I’m nearing the dreaded ten-minute mark. By that point, I should just feign illness and go home. But, as it is now, I skate into the room by the skin of my teeth and a half-dozen pairs of eyes snap up to look at me.
My boss, Helen, sits at the head of the conference table wearing an ill-fitting chartreuse dress. The rest of planet Earth has agreed to stop making chartreuse happen, but Helen isn’t quite ready to give up. The color makes her look ill, but I would never tell her that. Fanned out on either side of her are my fellow real estate agents, all women, all carbon copies of one another. There’s a leader, of course—Lori Gleland. She’s positioned on Helen’s right side and she watches me enter the room with a thin, arched brow carefully raised.
“Is this your third late arrival this quarter?” Lori asks, feigning concern. “I do hope everything is going okay for you at home.”
I want to take Mr. Hall’s pruning sheers to Lori’s face, but instead I am a picture of stoic professionalism as I pull out the very last chair at the conference table: my reserved spot. So what if it also happens to be the spot meant for the lowest agent on the totem pole.
“Car trouble,” I offer lamely when it’s clear Helen isn’t going to continue until I speak up.
The agent beside me, Sandra, leans closer and whispers so everyone in the room can hear, “I think you have something stuck in your bra, sweetie. It looks really…lumpy.”
“Ah, of course.”
I unsheathe the forgotten granola bar from my bra with grace and dignity then tear it open. I’m still hungry, after all.
Sandra rolls her eyes and I smile warmly. Sandra is Lori’s minion. What Lori does, Sandra mimics, down to the chunky brown and blonde highlights streaked through short bobs. I take such delight in those chunky highlights. They are the visual manifestation of a request to speak with a manager at Applebee’s.
“All right, that’s enough of a distraction,” Helen cuts in. “Madeleine, I’d like you to stay after the meeting so we can chat.”
The room might as well break out in a chorus of um-mum-mums because Helen has never once asked me to stay after a meeting. Fortunately, Helen pulls the attention away from me a moment later by announcing with a sing-songy voice that “Lori was our top-selling agent last month!”
Sandra breaks out in staccato solo applause, but it fades slowly as no one moves to join her. “What is that, the fifth month in a row?”
Lori bats away Sandra’s compliment. “Six, actually—but who’s counting?”
Everyone titters at her terrible joke, and then Helen plays right into her ego by asking Lori to define her selling technique for the rest of us. If there’s one thing Lori doesn’t need, it’s an audience. I predict her selling technique has something to do with showing the most cleavage possible, considering we’re all a millimeter away from an eyeful of areola in that tank top of hers. Instead, she unveils what she calls The Five Ss.
“Smile, Suck Up, and Sell! Sell! Sell!”
Groundbreaking stuff here.
“Copyright Lori Gleland, all rights reserved,” she adds with a laugh. “No, but really,” she says, her tone turning deathly serious. “I am thinking about copyrighting that phrase.”
“You would trademark it.”
All eyes jump to me. I hardly ever speak up in meetings.
“What?” Lori asks.
I sit up a little straighter, already regretting my choice to leap into the conversation.
“You don’t copyright a phrase, you trademark it, and that’s the worst phrase I’ve ever heard, so there’s no point in trademarking it.”
I leave off the second half of my advice since I’d prefer to leave this conference room with my eyes still inside my skull.
Lori laughs awkwardly. “Right, well, the point is, selling real estate is about more than just a pretty face, Madeleine.”
I want to ask her why she’s taken an hour to pile on so much makeup then, and bright blue eye shadow no less. What a treat.
“I think the esses sound great!” Sandra adds, trying to loop the conversation back to focus on her master’s brilliance.
“The Five Ss,” Lori corrects, adding air quotes this time. She really does intend on trademarking the thing.
The meeting is wrapped up shortly after that and I linger behind as I’ve been instructed. It’s painful to know that five pairs of eyes are watching me as the rest of the agents leave the conference room, but I pretend to be enthralled by my notes from the meeting and act like I don’t see them staring at me.
My notes read as follows:
- Take Mouse on a walk
- Let him loose so he’s someone else’s problem
- Maybe feed him double dinner and he won’t wake you up at 4:30 AM whining??
- Buy snorkel, steal coins from fountain at the mall to pay rent
- Avoid Mr. Hall, but stealthily deliver double baked goods to his doorstep
“Madeleine.” I jump when Helen says my name. “Did you find that meeting informative?”
I move to cover my notes, though she’s still sitting at the head of the conference table so she can’t see them anyway. I smile and nod, even tacking on a rambling compliment about how well she runs her meetings. I know she doesn’t believe me because when she smiles, it doesn’t meet her eyes.
She stands up out of her chair and walks closer to me. I slide my notes onto my lap and she perches on the table right beside me. At this distance, her acrid yellow dress makes my eyes water, so I focus instead on her face—her sad, pitying face.
“Do you like working in real estate, Madeleine?”
“Of course!” I reply quickly.
“You can be honest with me. If this isn’t the job you imagined it would be, I’d rather you tell me now than—”
“Helen, I really enjoy my job.” It’s the truth. “The days where I’m meeting with clients and showing them listings are my favorite. I enjoy the thrill of the chase, I just haven’t found my stride yet.”
“You’ve worked here for a year this month, Madeleine, and you’ve only closed on one listing.”
She’s merciful in leaving out the fact that the one listing I managed to close on was for my brother and Daisy’s house. That was six months ago, and I’ve had no solid leads since.
“Because of that, I think it would be best if for the next two months, I put you on a probationary period.”
“What?”
She holds up her hand to silence me. “Nothing too serious. I won’t be breathing down your neck every second, but I think you need a bit more motivation.”
“Don’t you think the problem is with Hamilton? This town is growing, but not that quickly. There are just not enough people looking to buy property!”
She leans back and shakes her head. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Hamilton is flourishing, and if you really put your nose to the grindstone, I know you could be one of my top sellers.”
She really thinks it’s possible for me to turn my embarrassing sales numbers (or complete lack thereof) around, and when I leave the conference room in a daze, I’m not sure if I’m upset that I’m on probation or inspired by her mini pep talk there at the end. I settle somewhere in the middle at neutral, glazed over. All the other agents are already in their cubicles, placing phone calls and returning emails. Lori has a full headset in place as I pass by her, a blue stress ball throbbing in her left hand. Her face resembles a trader on the stock-market floor as she jots down notes with her free hand.
“That house will set fast, Barney. The lot is oversized and it’s only a block over from Main Street. Every client I’ve been in talks with has wanted to look at that house…” Her voice fades as I continue walking and then it explodes again out of nowhere. “Yes!” she shouts to the whole office. “I just sold Walnut Street!” Then she proceeds to ring the ti
ny bell that hangs on the corner of each of our cubicles. Helen wants us to ring them every time one of our clients buys or sells a property. If she had it her way, the office would sound like a handbell choir on Easter Sunday.
My bell has been rung exactly once, although I have bumped into it accidentally a few times. Lori hates that the most. I swear I heard her whisper stolen valor the last time.
“Whoop, there it is!”
“Raise the roof, Lori!”
“YOU GO GIRL!”
The other agents hurry to congratulate her with dated catchphrases and I mumble along with them. It’s not fun being Bitter Betty. I’m not used to the role, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Eventually, I will have to leave the agency or learn to put up with Lori in a healthier manner…like killing her with kindness, or murdering her with smiles, or disemboweling her with compliments. That sort of thing.
I drop my coffee and notepad on my desk and take a deep breath. It’s time to get to work. My cubicle is clean, my inbox is empty, and I have one blinking red light on my office phone, indicating a voicemail. I smile as I take my seat, confident that it’s Mr. Boggs getting back to me about one or more of the houses I showed him yesterday. Mr. Boggs has been a client of mine for as long as I’ve been working at Hamilton Realty. While he was passed on to me because no other agent could stand working with him, I feel like he and I share a sort of kinship with one another. He’s old and grumpy and cynical, everything I aspire to be one day. Also, Helen makes us meet a weekly quota for showings, and I can always count on Mr. Boggs to fill up at least one of my days with aimless wanderings around Hamilton’s real estate market.
Too bad the voicemail isn’t from him.
It’s from Daisy.
“Hey, just wanted to remind you about the housewarming party tonight. Lucas has completely gone insane with inviting people. I don’t even know half the guests who are supposed to come, so if you don’t show up, I’ll kill you—before Mr. Boggs does.” Daisy has said from the beginning that at best, ol’ Boggsy is just wasting my time, and at worst, he’s planning on abducting me. I disagree. “Anyway, come early and bring Mouse if you want to. Last week he chewed off a chunk of our living room rug, and Lucas might let me order a new one if he chews off a little bit more of it. Okay, Beth’s calling my name about a patient, so I better go. Have fun dealing with Lore-the-Bore at work today and I’ll see you tonight.”