I cannot believe I am hearing this from the woman who said I needed to be married and provide her grandkids by last week. I can tell my mother feels unsure about the idea. However, I can’t tell if her uncertainty is being worried about what I think, or worrying that the living-in-sin police will come arrest her.
“Doesn’t he own a house too?” This is the real estate agent in me. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a listing out of my mom shacking up with this guy.
“Yes, but he wants to keep it. Rent it out maybe.”
Damn.
Besides my recent birthday, I just never go downtown. It really does seem like all the action happens here, but it’s the parking, the one-way streets, and the fact that I never have a reason to go that keeps me in my own neck of the woods. I see the place I am supposed to meet BR for coffee, but there is nowhere to park. I drive around the block and then see I can’t turn back on the street I need to be on. This is why I hate downtown.
Finally, I find a parking space. Of course it has a meter, and naturally, I have no idea if I have any change. I carefully pull up as close to the curb as I can manage, then start digging in my purse. I retrieve two quarters from the bottom on my bag and a Tic-Tac from last year. I glare at the thought of Tac and think of how much he is like a tic. I figure two quarters ought to be enough, so I scrape the gum off of them with my fingernail. Why does bottom-of-the-purse-change always have gum stuck to it? I grab my two offers, slide the quarters into the little slots and see I have all of 16 minutes to run across the street, go over these offers, get signatures, smile nicely and run back to my car.
Inside, I see no sign of Brad Ryan. Doesn’t he realize we are at the 14-minutes mark? I find a table for two among all the busy buzz of the downtown business folks. Everyone is in suits or high heels. Finally, I see Brad walk in the doors. He actually looks handsome today, in a suit. It’s so impressive, I accidentally blurt out something stupid.
“Wow, you look so professional.” It was a dumb thing to say, but Brad Ryan tries not to act like I am an imbecile.
“Got trial today.”
Ohhh.
I show him both offers. He’s reading them, sort of squinting as he breezes through the pages. I feel like I should be explaining something, but he’s got this lawyer authority thing going on, so I just sit there and wonder about my meter expiring.
“So this one is from your buddy, Tac?” he says, like he thinks it’s humorous.
“Well, he’s not actually my buddy, but yes, he’s from my office.”
I do not tell Brad Ryan that Tac was also in my bed once.
“Hmmm.” He looks at me and has that twinkle in his eye he had the last time in the doorway of his office. I swallow the little lump in my throat, wondering what in the heck he is thinking.
“So what do you think?” I ask him, “About the offer, I mean.”
I think he takes pleasure in the fact that I feel embarrassed at his stare, so I do my best to turn the tables around and say, “My meter...” And then I stop. That was so intelligent.
“How long you got?”
“Two minutes.”
He stands up, towering over me like a lanky willow tree and looks out the large plate-glass window.
“That you right there?” he asks, pointing at my car.
“Yes.”
Without saying a word, he walks toward the door, exits, and heads across the street to my car, pulling coins from his pocket and placing them into the meter.
I do not know if I am more impressed that Brad Ryan filled my meter, or that he carries clean quarters in his pocket. He comes back in and sits down.
“Okay, so looks like Tac wins the day,” he says.
I scowl inside at the thought that Tac has gotten one over on me, but then the good me, the spiritual blogging yogi me, reminds myself that I win, too. Brad Ryan signs his name “Bradley C. Ryan” on all the lines, and then does a fast, big “BR” in all the initial-here boxes. I feel a funny energy and wonder if it’s his aura. Maybe I can read auras after all?
Soon, my thoughts on aura reading are interrupted and I am snapped back into reality when he says, in his slow Southern twang,
“Time to find a place.”
He looks at me, but now there is no twinkle, just this serious guy in a suit whose house I’m selling, who happens to look and sound like Sam Elliott. Oh, and he gave me a cat once, too.
“Did you want to look at houses soon?” I ask, happy at how quickly the law of attraction comes around with all this real estate work.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve got Sunday open.”
Now his twinkle is kind of back, but he stands up as if he’s done with the conversation. I realize that he wasn’t even asking me about Sunday, but kind of commanding it. This irritates me because, well, I’m a busy woman with a full plate. I have transactions to work on, blogs to write, yoga to do, and cats to feed. People always think real estate agents are at their beckon call. It’s certainly not something I can tolerate. So I look up at him as I collect the folders from the table and say, “Is noon okay?”
I hate downtown.
I sigh in relief as I pull into the office parking lot. Maybe I am just not cut out for the metro lifestyle. My stomach growls as I swing open the double doors. Becky is not at her desk, but Tac is sitting with his face in his computer. I want to fling this folder at the back of his head more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything in my life. The good me says I can’t.
“So congratulations, your offer was accepted.” I do not say this like I am thrilled, and I suppose it’s this tone that has him looking at me suspiciously. Tac then does something he has never done at the office before. First, he looks up front to be sure Becky is not around. Actually, no one is around and I’m wondering if there was a fire alarm or something we missed. Tac lowers his voice.
“Listen, it’s fine if you want to date your clients, but you don’t need to be bitchy about it.”
Huh?
“First of all, I’m not being bitchy, and second of all, I’m not dating my clients.”
I think of terrorist Todd and shudder.
I find I am madder about him calling me “bitchy” than I am at the suggestion I am dating the Sam Elliott look-a-like. Then it occurs to me that Tac is jealous, but not jealous in the traditional heart-broken sense, rather jealous in the I-always-get-what-I-want sense. Big baby.
Becky walks into the office and yells hello to us. I go to make copies of the contract so I can give Big-Head his acceptance. This will be a rough two weeks. I know I can’t say anything about his love notes to Nala, and I can’t say anything about his romantic meet-up where Becky saw him, but I sure wish I could say something that let him know that I know what a cad he is. I’ve never called anyone a cad, but that’s just what he is. Cad Tac.
After I make copies, I toss his stack on his desk without even looking at him. I sit down to call escrow and see that Tac has sent me a text. I look up, and there he is, back to me, on his computer, acting like he didn’t just call me bitchy and accuse me of dating my client.
“If you’re not dating the cowboy, then who?”
Oh, I get it. He can’t stand that fact that he thinks I’m seeing someone else without him having whatever else he wanted from me. And then I laugh inside that he called Brad Ryan “Cowboy,” too. I guess that whole Sam Elliot thing is hard to miss. Well, he can think what he wants. The evil me is dancing to “Shake Your Bootie,” but the nice me who has to go home and write a spiritual blog is fighting the urge to toy with Tac...just a little.
Still starving when I get home, I automatically realize that I need to eat something before I have my 1.5 glasses of wine. However, nothing seems readily available, so I figure once I unwind I will fix myself a salad. This seems completely reasonable. I’ll have my wine first, and then have lemon water with my salad before I give myself a facial and a bubble bath while practicing my visualization and incantations.
Both cats are with me. Sam Elliott Jr. is fitting right in. While he
can’t quite jump up on the desk yet, he knows how to shimmy up my leg and find my lap, and then sort of stretch over to the desk. I think he may believe Herman is his mother, but I have no idea how Herman feels about this. He hasn’t said anything yet. I open my personal email and look for the last message from Tac. Taking a big gulp of wine with evil intent, I start to type.
“Hello Tac, do you practice yoga? I was thinking I may be able to catch a class downtown and thought it would be fun to meet you that way. Let me know. I was thinking about this coming weekend. Namaste, Nala.”
It may be small, but it makes me smile. Let him get all excited that he may finally meet his dream girl. More importantly, let him see how it feels to be all twisted like a pretzel in a yoga pose. Oh, how I miss my beginning days of yoga. I sigh and sip.
Next, I do a property search to see what I can show Brad Ryan on Sunday. There are several houses that seem to fit his criteria, so I email them over to him. I am just noticing how the wine has made me a little light-headed when I see BR has emailed me back in something like four minutes. He tells me he likes the first, fourth, and sixth one. Okay. Feeling a little silly, I email him back and tell him I will make appointments and that I hope he has an excellent evening. I end it with a smiley face. Brad Ryan is not a smiley face kind of guy.
Tac emails Nala back. What, is this guy just waiting for me/her/us to contact him?
“Nala! Awesome to hear from you! Not sure about the yoga thing, as I’m a bit rusty, but how about coffee or wine afterward? You name the day and I’ll be there. Warmly, Tac.”
I think for a minute about how fun it would be to stand him up again, but then I realize I’m being mean and need to stop. This has nothing to do with me feeling at all sorry for Tac, either. In fact, the only reason I am backing off is because I am totally convinced this law of attraction stuff works. I was just reading this morning that no matter what, every thought and deed we send out into the Universe comes back to us, one way or another. I, for one, have thrown out a lot of thoughts, and even some deeds, that I really don’t want coming back to me, and I guess this was one of them. However, I’m committed to not be nasty. I feel bad I wrote the email to begin with so I write another and tell Tac that I’m sorry but I just found out I (Nala) will still be out of town this weekend. There. Now I feel redeemed. I corrected my almost-evil deed and now I can eat. I think wine makes me mean.
The rest of the week went without a hitch and now my big weekend is Saturday spa day, and Sunday house hunting day. I am thrilled about the spa and a bit nervous about Sunday.
The spa is amazing. The lights are low and candles are burning everywhere. I suddenly feel twice as spiritual and really rich. Or Asian. Water fountains and soft chanting music fill the hallway as I am given a lovely white robe to change into. The nice girl told me to change my clothes and then go sit in the little room for a foot bath.
A foot bath?
I am not sure if I am supposed to take off my underwear. I look around for some kind of instructions. Hmmm. I suppose when one gets a massage, one gets buck-naked, but imagine my embarrassment if I am wrong. I leave my panties on and tie the robe tight, tossing my sweats into the little square locker.
The massage room is even more amazing than the rest of the place. There is this warm cozy bed that the tall woman named Susan has me climb in to.
“The blankets are heated,” she tells me.
Heated blankets?
Sure enough, I’ve climbed into a hot bed that feels just like an overcooked cloud. I am in heaven and she hasn’t even started my massage yet. Within moments I am snoring. I only wake up when Susan asks me to turn over. She rubs warm lavender-scented oil on my left arm, and then eventually leaves it lying like a wet noodle in the warm bed. By the time she is done with both legs, I find I am genuinely sorry that I have no more limbs for her to work on. I try to stay awake so I can cherish the moment, but it’s simply too relaxing. I breathe deeply and drift asleep. I wake up to Susan saying to me,
“Are you ready for your body scrub?”
I imagine that all my old karma is being scrubbed off my aura. This makes me smile. I imagine she is scrubbing the memory of Ron leaving me, Tac using me and even Odd Todd threatening to blow up my escrow officer, right off every inch of my skin. I also imagine she is shining my chakras while she’s at it. I mean, why not? Auras and chakras are invisible to the naked eye, but I may as well have clean ones.
At the end of this scrumptious day, I am actually feeling very grateful to my mother for the spa gift. I am so giddy and joyous that I am reduced to calling her. Caution to the wind I say; the woman deserves a proper thank you.
“So it was wonderful?” she squeals into my ear.
“Beyond wonderful. I haven’t felt like this since my first day at yoga, but I smell way better.”
“So tell me what they did?”
“Well, they rubbed, scrubbed, peeled and softened,” I tell her, feeling very Sex-in-the-City right about now.
“That’s great honey! And you feel good?”
“Yes, oh, and they gave me cucumber water to drink. I guess when they massage you, it gets toxins out and so she told me to drink plenty of water today.”
I say that to my mother as I take a sip of chilled vodka and tonic. I mean, clear is clear, right?
“I’m very happy you enjoyed it. I wanted you to have something special for your big birthday. You’re not getting any younger, so you should enjoy yourself.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say, emptying the rest of my glass.
I wake up feeling kind of tired. My plan was to go to yoga before the house-hunting escapade, but maybe all that detoxifying has caught up with me. I wonder if I should have added more tonic to my vodka last night? Anyway, I take a shower and put on something sort of cute, then change into something professional. Then I think because it’s Sunday, Brad Ryan will surely not be dressed professional, so I put nice sweats on. I look in the mirror and hate myself. Okay, just because he won’t be dressed professionally, he still is a professional and that’s what he’s hired me as—a professional who should not meet him at the first house dressed in baggy yoga pants. I finally settle for a long skirt and matching knit sweater. I throw a scarf around my neck, kind of giving me that, “I’ve been to New York look.” I have never been to New York. In fact, I have never been outside of California, except for Nevada. I grab my lockbox key and the print outs of the houses, and head out the door.
Fortunately, two of the houses we are looking at are vacant, so I only had to make an appointment for the third one. Not surprisingly, I am there and Brad Ryan is nowhere in sight. I get out of my car and open the lockbox. I think Brad Ryan will be impressed that I beat him here and am so well prepared. Of course, Brad Ryan walks through the gate from the backyard.
“It looked vacant, so I went ahead and took a look at the back.”
This guy is a loose cannon. Lawyers.
“Oh, well, I’ve got the key here, so let’s see the inside.”
“So how’s the cat?” he asks, following behind me. Quite frankly, I’m surprised he’s letting me lead, control freak that he is.
“He’s fine. Thank you again. That was very nice of you.”
I start to tell him how well he and Herman are getting along, but then I remember, Herman is supposed to be dead, so I just unlock the door. I open it wide and extend my arm to let him go ahead of me because that’s what we’re supposed to do.
“What’d you name him?” he asks, one long leg in the house.
“Sam Elliott Junior,” I say, instantly regretting it when I see the twinkle in his eyes.
I change the conversation quickly by asking where his car is, to which he points across the street to a big shiny pick-up truck.
Of course. That must have been what was covered up in the carport at his house. I thought it was a boat.
Conversation is scant, but surprisingly comfortable. He looks at all three houses without much small talk, and I am very glad he follows me in hi
s big truck. I’m afraid if he was in my car, I would get lost. I have done that before; driven someone to look at a house and because I’m so worried about making a good impression, I forget where I’m going. It’s most embarrassing, and with Brad Ryan, it would be lethal. At the very last house, we walk back toward our cars. Well, mine is a car. Brad rubs his hand over his face and under his chin like he’s thinking really hard. I try not to notice that he is handsome. Older than me, by at least three years I’d guess, but still not bad, if you like Sam Elliott, I mean.
“I think number two is the winner,” he says, locking eyes with mine.
“I like the second one,” I agree, knowing that he doesn’t give a crap about my opinion.
“It’s a little older, but the yard is big enough for Max, and the floor plan is right.”
I nod and wonder what I should say. Then I remember. “So shall we write an offer?”
“You got one with you?” he asks, all twinkly again.
“Actually, the way we do it is that I will call the listing agent, make sure it’s still available, and then if so I can whip up the contract and email it over. You can just read and click and then it comes right back to me.”
Brad Ryan doesn’t seem the least bit impressed that I use electronic signature software.
“Alright, you want to go ahead and check the comps, too?”
I am impressed that he thought of this, and my alter ego is kicking me for not saying it first. Missing yoga has really got me off my game.
“Yes, of course.” I smile and sigh, and head to my car.
“Melissa,” he yells out before I shut my door.
“Yes?”
“Tell Sam Elliott I said hello.”
What is it with me and men?
Once I get home I am pleased to learn that the house Brad Ryan likes is still available. The listing agent tells me I need to get our offer in by tomorrow since the seller will make a decision then, because there is more than one offer to review. Suddenly, the word “karma” comes to mind.
More Secrets of a Spiritual Guru: Love & More Lies Page 13
