Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out (5 page)

“Nope.” Rosemary called out.  “I just sold that house, we left the sign for Prudential, they still have a house there.”

“Nope,
”
called out Katherine.  “I called on that sign a week ago, I thought it was already down.”

“I don’t have to ask you Allison
,
” Inez said as I rounded the corner.  “You don’t have a listing do you?”

“Only my own house.”  And I didn’t think even
a dozen arrow signs would help. I was pessimistic, saved being disappointed later.

To be fair,
Carrie had given me plenty of lead
-
time. She brought up the shower idea New Year’s
D
ay, right after one of the most elaborate and beautiful engagement parties I had ever
attended
. Which makes perfect sense, Patrick Sullivan is about as perfect a man as they come.  Except for Ben
.

“As the maid of honor
it’s your job to organize and host a Bridal shower for me.
And
just to warn you,
the Furies said it better be good.
”

She held up a Bride’s magazine the size of a phone book.  “It’s all right here.”

“That’s bigger than the September issue of Vogue.”

“No kidding. You should see what I’m
supposed
to have.  Suppose
d
to want.”  She ran her finger down the index and turned to the back of the magazine where the articles were hidden.

“It says right here that the maid of honor gives the shower.  And if you think the Furies don’t have a copy or two of this
respected tome
, you are sadly mistaken.”

“So
even if I don’t want to give you a shower, even if I’m tapped out from selling my house and decorating and repairing the new house, I still must throw you a party, as if you don’t have enough of those to attend.”

“Damn straight.” She flipped open her calendar. “Now, what is a good date for you?”

“No date.”

“Good, September 13 works for me too.  My colors are fuchsia and tangerine. You knew that.  You’ll want to use the same colors for the shower.  Invite whomever you want, but Patrick’s sisters will have a list
, and his mother promised me a list
as well
.”

“
And is
your
mother
on the list?
”
  It was a cheap shot, but the only ammunition I had left.

“When hell freezes over.” She said cheerfully.  “Do you want to invite the office?”

“No, do the Furies have friends?”
I used our nickname for Patrick’s sisters.
It was Carrie’s name
first,
I just use it in solidarity.

She paused and considered that question.  “I don’t know. I watched
Kathleen and Claire at the polo match the other weekend.  They seem to have acquaintances, but not really friends
,
not like us.”

“Do
J
unior
L
eague
rs
have friends?”

“They are
supposed
to be friends, yes.”  She was still thinking, which was good.  Was this really the lifestyle for her? Or will she help Patrick become real, like the Velveteen Rabbit (
n
ot my favorite story, but instructive as
an example
)
.

“Your job then is to
talk to them and see.”

As if
it
were that easy.
  I had been working on this damn shower for months but still did not have a handle on Carrie’s sisters
-
in
-
law to be.
  The Furies
seemed to be
fiercely protective of
the family in general and
Patrick in particular.  Patrick’s parents seemed nice enough, they did the charity rounds, ran the business, but they weren’t overt about it
,
they did not show off.  In fact
,
they
were more adept at staying out of the paper. Chris Conner
, Rivers
Bend’s versio
n of an investigative reporter,
had never been able to
dig up anything interesting or shocking about
Sullivan family
. The only time they were ever mentioned was in official capacities, direct from missives delivered by
the
Cooper Milk PR department.

By April, the phone calls from the Furies started, sometimes they texted,
sometimes they emailed. The delivery system d
idn’t matter,
what mattered is that one or the other had something to tell me almost
every day.  By September I was so exhausted
by their constant haranguing that I
began to
leave
my phone in the car or
abandon it
at the office or
forget it
at my grandmother’s, and consequently missed important calls.
From them.

The
conversations sounded like this:
 

“This is Kathleen Sullivan, is this Allison
Little
?”

“Speaking.” I automatically stood up straighter, expecting to
Kathleen
to know I was slouching. Not a good look for someone with breasts the size of hot air balloons.

“I’m calling about the shower.
I understand it’s on the 13th?  Are you
planning
on
holding it during
the afternoon
?”

“That’s the tradition.”

“Yes, perfect. We have a list of people we’d like to invite,
about
a hundred
guests.”

A hundred
guests, and me needing to tackle
and clean all
the
grout
in my bathroom before I could reasonably put the house on the market.
The
traditional
catered lunch
for the shower
would
cost, at the very minimum, twenty dollars a head, and I already knew
the cake
would cost
almost the same because the
San Francisco
bakery I was
asked to patronize
was hellishly expensive but
apparently
worth every crumb.  Not counting the wine and a festive but
lethal punch, I was in this for
thousands.

I
struggled to keep my voice bright and professional.  I had resolved to treat the Furies as professionally as I could, more like problem clients who wanted to buy
a house worth
millions of dollars and so
, worth the effort and strain.
  Sure, I wouldn’t really see them again after the wedding
(I fervently hoped not)
. But Carrie would, and
in this exchange, I could affect her future happiness in such a profound way it didn’t bear close examination.

This is why weddings
are
such a strain.

I gulped and answered.  “Sure, a
hundred is fine, will that be
your whole guest list or will there be more?”

“There may be more. You probably should rent a place or a restaurant to have it.  A hundred is probably too big for your house
,
yes?”

Too big for my house
:
not too big for Emily and Ben’s.  And it may be too far for some to drive
and so the number would decrease
. 
Perfect, I just had to convince the future hostess.

“No, I’m good on the place. Just send me your list and I’ll go from there.”

“Are you hiring someone to calligraphy the invitations?” 
Kathleen
asked.  “We know a great handwriting expert
in Sonoma
who can do that.”

I was going to send out these babies electronically th
r
ough eVite, but now
,
I guess
ed
not. 
I added paper i
nvitations and
the cost of
hand
writing the addresses
to my expenses.

“I
have someone for that too.”
  I assured her smoothly.  Like I organized these kinds of events every day.

I hired Patricia to write the
addresses out on the
invitations. 

Ben offered Cassandra’s wine for the party and we rented the tables and chairs.  Emily wouldn’t hea
r of any caterer working in her
house except
a dear friend of hers
, so that was taken care of for me. There was little I could do
except do as I was told. Doing what I’m told is not my best event.

Chapter
3

The trailing weekends of August have a sense of finality about them, the weather is finally warm, but the sun disappears just early enough to remind you that
it
is the end of summer songs and the coming of fall, and for us in Northern California, really hot weather.
  I was ready for that, selling a house in September brings different buyers, the family are all settled and ready for school, but my house would appeal to a different demographic. I just had to find them and reel them in.

Saturday morning
Ben
decided
to pull me
from what can only be charitably described as aimless fussing
around my house
and
loaded
me up
into
his truck
.

“You look like you need a break.”  He said kindly.

I slouched down in the
truck
seat and braced my bare feet on the dashboard.  I wiggled my toes and watched the brown hills pick up some green
coloring
as we neared the ocean.

“I had no idea I owned so much crap.”  I admitted.

He nodded.  “I may leave much of my stuff behind.  We can keep my place
at Emily’s
for wine tasting and visiting.”  He glanced at me.  But this time I didn’t start crying.

We drove
through west county to the coast
past Osmosis spa, they specialize in
hot sawdust
baths
, past tiny towns that were little more than a steak house with parking
lots
and past many, many happy cows
. We drove out to Hea
r
t’s Desire beach
.  Ben pulled out a big picnic basket and tossed a couple of beach towels to me.

The main beach was crowded, so we kept walking up the trail to
the second beach that wasn’t so
replete
with kids and dogs.

The tide was low, the water shimmering in the summer warmth
. The sea looked inviting,
but was really only up to 65 degrees
by
this time of
the
year.  I was satisfied with dabbing my toes in the water and just soaking in the sunshine.  The sounds of families and kids playing melded agreeably into
the
background.

Ben
unpacked pate
,
C
ow
G
irl
C
reamery triple
brie
,
fresh prosciutto,
Tomales Bakery
rosemary bread
, and a
small
quiche.  He also bought my favorite frosted cookies, not gourmet as the rest of the spread, but my favorite
nonetheless
.  He had chilled some Iron Horse Sparkling, the
brut
that I like, as well as a dry rose from Toad Hollow.

He pulled out flutes and we started with the
s
parkling.

“To us.”  He handed me a fluted champagne glass and we toasted. 

I felt the stem, “Why do you have a glass charm when it’s just us, it’s not like I haven’t already shared your c
ooties
.”

He grinned. “Look closer.”

I glanced down at my charm, and sucked in my breath.

Most women would have guessed sooner; the picnic, the beach, the sparkling, but not me, I was too worried about Carrie’s wedding to consider my own.

The ring was not as big as Carrie’s of course.
But
it was
far
above
adequate
, or even average
.

“A family stone.” Ben explained.  He detached it from the wine glass (the bottom snapped off) and slipped in onto my finger.  The
center diamond
was
about
three carats, a deep cut
that s
parkled in the
afternoon
light
,
Two
triangles of topaz emphasized the white of the diamond,
and
most important
;
it
fit perfectly.

“Here,”
he
produced
a handful of Naked Ladies; trumpet shaped dark pink flowers, each with it’s own clean stalk. “They only bloom in August,
”
he explained, “so
every August when you see them, you’ll think of us.” 

“I think of us all the time.”  I said
, I held the flowers in one hand and
I studied the ring, it wasn’t ginormous, but it was deeply cut
and multifaceted enough to
stand as a
metaphor of our love being multifaceted, deep, precious
–
expensive
. 

“This is amazing,
I can’t believe your mother let you have it.”

“She didn’t. I found it in Emily’s
safe deposit box,
she was holding it for a special occasion,
so
I rescued it.  Is it big enough?”

I tore my eyes away from the sparkling bauble.  “Big enough?”  The stones winked like sunlight.  “What is big enough? 
For my hand?
 
For our love?
For an ad hoc lighthouse?
For - ever?”

“That’s pretty sentimental.  Especially for you.”

I nodded.  “It is perfect, you had it made for me?”

“O
f
course, you are unique, your ring should be too.” He replied.

I dropped the flowers and lunged toward him, knocking him back
.  I straddled him and began kissing his face. 
I would have made love to him on the spot except the local boy scouts chose that moment to descend on the beach to earn their driftwood badge
.
I couldn’t wait to show the ring to everyone, maybe even my mother, who never did think I’d amount to much.  Now she’ll be happy. 
And I was happy, as long as I could keep my mother’s hands off this wedding.