Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 02 - Time Is of the Essence

by Catharine Bramkamp

  If I arrived. Because at seven thirty, well past what I consider rush hour, I hit traffic. Stop, then start and go traffic. I crept along at ten miles per hour, and then stopped completely. It took twenty minutes for me to pass by Douglas Boulevard, the offending exit. (I am not unhealthily obsessed with traffic. I’m Californian; we’re all obsessed with traffic.) Once I inched past the Douglas Blvd. exit, the traffic cleared and I shot through to Auburn and turned off to highway 49. Named after the Gold Rush. The whole area is built around one single theme.

  In my memory, Highway 49 isn’t crowded. My mother, who grew up here, complained all the time that there wasn’t anything located in Claim Jump to merit any traffic. But as soon as I cleared Auburn and dipped down the first hill that heralded the real Foothill experience, I encountered traffic. It was like Real Bay Area traffic and it mimicked the slow-down in Sacramento. Except the cars backed up and down an ever-changing one lane to a an up-hill passing lane, back to a single lane.

  By the time I reached downtown Claim Jump the traffic had whittled down to a mere seven or eight cars exiting the freeway in a stately parade. I was one of half a dozen cars making my way up Marsh Avenue.

  Marsh Avenue is not an avenue at all. It’s a trough, lined by high walls of rough-edged granite rocks topped with crumbling cement sidewalks. It’s a ridiculously narrow road that barely accommodates two full size cars traveling in either direction. And it is the only street leading to my Grandmother’s and to the housing developments beyond. The high wall to my right always threatened to scrape the paint from my car, and on the other side, the sidewalk was the only thing keeping the cars from scraping off the front elevation of the bungalows that lined the street.

  Why were all these people headed through Claim Jump on a Thursday night?

  The line moved along, but the traffic made me feel out of sorts. There was something wrong.

  2,

  At 5:30 AM the very next morning I woke suddenly, completely disoriented and thinking

  “what the . . “

  Actually the full sentence was what the fuck, and maybe I said it out loud.

  I staggered from my single, mushy bed, feeling the inadequacies of the mattress even in the short walk to the bedroom window.

  I groaned, rubbed my back, considered taking up yoga, quickly dismissed the idea and opened the drapes. The sky was just beginning to brighten – unlike the coast, the sun had to climb over the steep hills of the Sierras before it could be seen so dawn was a bit later here. A line of headlights lined up down the street in front of Grandma’s house. It looked like a parking lot, or 101 on Monday morning. But, if I remembered correctly, this was not a highway, nor was it much in the way of a road, just a two-lane residential street.

  I sighed, slipped on my Chico State sweatshirt and sweat pants which made me look much softer and rounder than I really am, but hey, it’s my grandmother, and carefully made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. I could hear my grandmother already up and making the coffee. Thank goodness.

  I love my Grandma Prue best at times like this.

  “Does this happen every morning?” I demanded as a way of greeting.

  “The coffee? I hope so.” She ran her hands through her gray curls, and adjusted her Stanford University sweatshirt that had faded to pink.

  I get my humor from her but not the curly hair. Damn.

  “No, the traffic.” I complained, as if this inconvenienced me in some way, which it did not.

  She nodded. “I don’t think the council or the county considered the traffic when they approved the plans for Lucky’s latest development.”

  “Didn’t they do an EIR?” I took my mug of coffee and headed to the harvest gold refrigerator. Prue needs a new refrigerator. It sounds like a jet engine every time the compressors flip on, which is more often than not. But every time I bring it up, she finds something else she needs more. Like a trip to Africa or Afghanistan, Austria, an A word, anyway, something far more interesting to spend money on than a mere refrigeration unit.

  I opened the frig door and leaned down to hunt past a jar of bright red Cosmopolitan mix from Harry and David, a half glass of orange juice covered with saran wrap held in place with a red rubber band, and a brand new jar of pickles with the protective safety seal still in place and pulled out a pint of half and half. I poured in what I hope was unexpired liquid and started making a mental grocery list.

  The five o’clock cocktail group must be in a martini phase.

  “Of course they did, and the Environmental report passed, but the commute wasn’t taken into consideration.” She shook her head. “No one thought to ask where the residents of 500 homes would work. Or how they would get there.”

  Claim Jump is an adorable, picturesque tourist attraction, that is the point. Claim Jump is entertaining for a three-day weekend, but it is a little light on industry, R&D or even service jobs. Most people who grow up here, like my mom and uncles, leave. The businesses that are here are small and retail orientated. There seem to be no apparent career avenues to earn a decent living, retirement comes to mind, real estate and, apparently, construction.

  “Since that development was finished,” Grandma continued. “We’ve had these traffic jams at the bottom of the hill every day. There was even talk about suspending the requirement to stop at the new stop sign mid-hill, just so the morning traffic could flow better, but there were five accidents the first day. Apparently not everyone reads the local paper.”

  “Melissa Peterson spent a month standing outside her house holding a cardboard stop sign and yelling for everyone to slow down. She gave up in November, it got too cold.”

  “It looks like they are moving pretty slowly as it is,” I said.

  But Grandma was already warming up. She probably was at least a cup and half of coffee ahead of me. It was still freaking early.

  “No,” she shook her head, her gray curls bobbing with the effort. “The speed demons run down during the day. Some of these heavy cars get quite a bit of steam as they tear down the mountain, they barely make the stop sign. I’ll show you the skid marks later.”

  That would be my grandmother’s idea of an educational field trip; viewing skid marks. As a kid I took a tour of the new sewage system just installed by her friends Pat and Mike. Big hole. Underground pipes. Fascinating.

  “You remember when you were little we had all those lumber trucks tearing down from the mountain? That’s what its been like for the last three years. Lumber trucks again.”

  “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my eyes and stared into my coffee mug as if the cream laden brew carried the answer. The mug was free form, crafted to fit in my hand, probably a gift from a grateful boarder with a some talent and less cash.

  “I’ve been busy.” I admitted. I hadn’t paid much attention to the life and times of Claim Jump residents in the last few years. I had my hands full with the residents of Rivers Bend. And the beginning of September had not been a good time for me. It’s time consuming to sell home of a murdered client.

  Grandma snorted, but I knew, from the subtle tones of that snort, that she didn’t really mean it. She knew I had been busy. Mom had filled her in about the most obvious of my past adventure, the part that had to do with my mother. But you know? Everyone is busy, it’s a crappy excuse.

  Still clutching my hot mug of life-giving beverage I padded over the floor feeling the familiar dents and nicks in the ancient wood with my toes and balls of my feet.

  “So they kept the stop sign?” I asked.

  “City council voted to keep it in place. If I still had some influence,” she shook her head. “It’s been a long time since I’ve attended a council meeting. When your grandfather died,” her voice trailed off. “I just didn’t have the heart for it anymore.”

  Grandma and Grandpa were involved in city politics during the first building spree Lucky Masters inflicted on the county. When I was young, I remember that Grandma would walk downtown to help out at the city offices. She had organized the
minutes from the council, published them and made them available for the public. But that was a while ago, the eighties at least. I knew things must have changed. For instance, they may not be utilizing the talents of earnest volunteers to take care of city business anymore.

  “And the traffic is stopped all the way up here.” I slid into a chair at the massive kitchen table.

  “Cars are backed up another mile up Red Dog Road.” Grandma confirmed.

  Red Dog Road. Named because of the viral, ubiquitous red earth that covers the ground not protected by huge intractable boulders. A sister-in-law once asked Grandma how to get the red dirt stains out of the children’s shirts and socks. Grandma was very helpful, “you don’t,” she had explained. My sisters-in-law don’t visit very often.

  “Every morning?” I yawned.

  “Since the last house was sold this winter.” Prue said. “And there is another development being reviewed right now.”

  “Another one? How could that be?” I glanced down the hall, I could just make out the car lights through the windows on either side of the front door. I could, if I wanted, gain a better view by hauling myself up to the third floor, pulling down the ladder leading to the widow’s walk perched on the roof like an after thought. But I didn’t have the energy so early in the morning.

  Stuck in traffic.

  What a way to live. What a way to die.

  But I was here to relax, not get a jump on the day at such a horrible hour. I raked my hands through my hair, tied it back with a Scrunchie and took to prowling around the house. This was my territory, and I wanted to make sure there had been no changes since – well, a little while ago.

  My Grandmother Prue has a lot of house in which to wander. It’s a 7 and 5 with a remodeled kitchen and half basement: dining, living, parlor, banister.

  I ran my hand down the smooth banister. There was an uncharacteristic absence of a newel post at the end of the stairs, making it irresistible. My brothers used to screamed down from the third floor shoot off into the foyer, often just missing the pedestal table to the right. But I always got stuck on the turns.

  I looked up the staircase. Maybe with some finesse, I could do it now. No, I was a round child then and a shapely adult now. Besides, between my mass and the slickness of the banister, the velocity build up from three floors may just shoot me though the front door. Embarrassing. But still, tempting.

  The starting point for the banister is roughly in front of my room. I stay on the third floor. My brothers had to share a room on the second, and that’s their room to this day. Mine is above theirs, because I’m the superior being. Uncle Steve’s room is next to mine. His room has three big stained glass pieces hanging in each window. I always thought all that blue glass made his room look like an underwater cavern.

  My room overlooks the vast front yard and the traffic choked road. I have one of two connected bathrooms. My bathroom is a converted bedroom remodeled by two or three temporarily residents who exchanged housing for home improvements in the early 1960’s. The tub is enormous, the shower is tiny and you have to jiggle the toilet lever, but it’s all mine and no one else can share.

  I remember one family Christmas here. My parents tried to recreate once of those big, sentimental holiday experiences we watched every year on TV. The event turned out to be less Wonderful Life and more National Lampoon, as these attempts often do. My nieces and nephews didn’t like the old fashion bathrooms, and their parents weren’t crazy about the kids staying in the apartment above the barn, or even in the guest-house, an option I considered after just one night in the same house with my nieces and nephews. Plus, my mother didn’t like the idea of children camping out in the living room or under the piano – it wouldn’t look good, or at least it wouldn’t look like a television special.

  Also, by then the guest-house had been turned into a permanent residence more or less. Which meant I couldn’t hide there and “forget” to attend the family breakfasts and events along those lines.

  Now our family just meets for Christmas lunch at the Club with my mother presiding. Grandma doesn’t attend. Her excuse is that she doesn’t drive in the winter. Which is a bunch of bull, but I don’t call her on it, and she in turn, doesn’t rat me out for the stuff I do up here.

  I probably should move to a room that overlooks the back yard and the greenhouse and the mountains, but I love my room with its attached bath. As a little girl I thought I had an elegant suite.

  I guess in a way, I did.

  Despite Grandma and Grandpa’s propensity of allowing over-night guests to morph into adopted foster children with proclivities towards lengthy, year long visits, they never let anyone stay in my room. The second floor of the house sports five bedrooms including the master and two bathrooms. On the third floor there is a bathroom at the far end of the hall that has a toilet with the tank well above the toilet – gravity flushing. It’s considered novel and designer-like today. When I was young, my brothers told me the thing would fall on me when I pulled the chain. To this day I get myself as far out of the bathroom as I can and still reach the chain. Just in case.

  Of course there was never not a guest at Prue’s. In fact many of her friends, me included, have wondered out loud why she doesn’t just give it up and announce that she owns a Bed and Breakfast and collect the income. But her guests pay never pay money; they just do favors, donating in-kind labor towards various and sometimes unnecessary projects – with mixed results. And the neighborhood isn’t zoned for commercial endeavors.

  Speaking of permanent guests, Raul Ravelle approached while I was still contemplating the banister.

  “Allison Angel!” He opened his thick short arms and pressed as much of me to his cheek as he could manage. Raul is a small, spritely man. Since I, ahem, matured, his favorite hobby, besides making videos for his web site, is to find excuses to press my prodigious breasts against his enthusiastic head. He is harmless.

  “But you are here!” he yelled into my cleavage. “I think your Grandmamma said something just the other night, how fabulous! My how you’ve grown!” His eyes shifted, he struggled to focus back onto my face.

  “But we must talk, but I am losing light, I will see you later, yes?”

  He carried a small digital camera and a large bag of extra equipment. He hauled his bag onto his shoulder, winked at me and headed out the front door to the creeping line of vehicles just beyond.

  I’ve known Raul most of my life. He came to Grandma’s in 1984 to film a documentary about the current gold miners. That first year he spent weeks at a time down at the Yuba river, but in the preceding years, that project sort of tapered off. He has yet to finish the documentary. Many of his main characters have since passed away. Grandma put him into the guest-house and Raul never left. I do not know how he stays afloat, but he is always filming.

  A film on traffic?

  There was probably a market.

  I watched Raul cross the damp lawn, his camera bag thumping against his round thigh. He waved his arms, to either get the attention of one of the drivers or to someone on the other side of the street, I wasn’t sure. Didn’t matter. Grandma had mentioned something about web projects. Maybe he could post a web cam for those living at the very top of the mountain, so they know when they have a clear shot through town.

  “Hi Mike.” Grandma’s voice came from the back of the house.

  “What?” Grandma’s voice raised an octave.

  “Well that’s ridiculous. What do they mean? I’ve never taken a bribe in my life. And after all this time?”

  “Grandma?” I walked into the kitchen. But she ignored me and continued talking on the phone.

  “No, I don’t remember doing that, but you know, I don’t remember much about that year. They’ll just have to subpoena me.”

  She paused.

  “ I know you know that, I’m just restating the obvious. Thanks for telling me.”

  “Never mind honey.” She acknowledged me as she hung up the phone –an antique princess
phone, avocado green and attached to the wall. My niece managed to install DSL and then hooked it to an air station, so we all could use our lap-tops at Grandma’s, but she couldn’t sweet talk Grandma into giving up her beloved phone.

  I sighed. She had her own life. It wasn’t my job to interfere. Which is probably why she loves me best.

  I glanced at the corner of her kitchen table and was drawn to my own work. Old habits. The most auspicious place to get the limited wi-fi in Grandma’s house was from one corner of the kitchen table. I had already pushed aside heavy books, paints and colored pencils to make room for my computer.

  I poured more of Prue’s industrial strength coffee – she gets it straight from Costa Rica, shipped UPS, hooked up my computer and checked on my contracts for the Spring River property, soon to be the Brown’s new home, I could only hope.

  We were in day one of contract. In three days if the Reilly’s don’t sign off, the contract is void. It may not mean much to the Christophers but I did not want to spend another year looking for the perfect home for the Browns.

  There was nothing in my e-mail, no additions to the system. I tapped on the edge of the key board for about a second, then I called.

  “Hi Patricia, can you check the fax machine? I’m waiting for a signed offer to come in.”

  “Nothing came in,” she said.

  “You didn’t even leave your chair,” I accused.

  “I was just back there checking for Rosemary.”

  “How is Rosemary?”

  “You know she just came back from Japan, she can’t stop talking about these orange colored Torii”, (Patricia pronounced Torii, Tory, which even I knew wasn’t right, but I didn’t correct the go-to girl, I was going to need her during the week) gates.

  “They are apparently all over Japan and she wants to build some in her back yard. Do you know where to get 9 foot camphor wood posts?”

  “Nope. I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  “No problem. Oh you have some calls on your voice message.”