by R.S. Grey
“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 on
ly 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 sell 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 tiny 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.”
Just as the voicemail cuts off, Lori’s bell chimes again, announcing another sale.
“I guess I’m just on fire today!” she exclaims.
“You’re all that and a bag of chips!” someone shouts.
Though it’s tempting, I don’t skewer my eye with the nearest pen. Instead, I get to work.
Chapter 4
Madeleine
I didn’t plan to be this dysfunctional at 27, but dysfunctionality has a way of creeping up on you. One second, you’re 22, wrapping up your undergraduate degree from a top business school, and then suddenly, you’re sitting alone in your car at 27, wondering how five years slipped through your fingers without so much as a blink.
There are the obvious struggles—my bills are piling up, my rent is late, and my car is a clunker—but it’s the other, more personal aspects of my life that keep me up at night. The fact that I am currently (and probably forever) single is a much harder pill to swallow than my overdue rent. Dealing with car troubles isn’t so bad if you have someone there to commiserate with.
Worse, my single status is not from a lack of trying. I am signed up and active on no less than four dating apps. I’ve attended multiple Hamilton Singles events, and I’m never one to shy away from a blind date.
My mother has been relentless about it too. Just last week on the phone she babbled on about how when she was my age, she already had two kids. I told her I have Mouse, who is pound for pound worth about five kids, but she didn’t seem to think that compared. Whatever. There’s nothing more I can do. I want to be madly in love as much as she wants me to be, but unless she can wave a wand and magically produce Mr. Tall Dark & Handsome for me, I’m kind of screwed.
See, my lack of a love life doesn’t really have anything to do with me. I mean, sure, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I’m kind of sarcastic and crass at times, but Daisy assures me guys don’t care about that because of my other more prominent features. I think her exact words were, “You’re hot, you’re in shape, and you’ve got nice boobs. I don’t see the problem.”
She might be lying to me to keep me from throwing myself off the nearest cliff, but I’ve lived in my body long enough to know it’s not the problem.
Hamilton is the problem.
This town is small.
Most dating apps show you eligible men within a certain number of miles. I’ve widened my parameters to encompass the entire county, but the prospects are still abysmal. I scroll through Tinder now as I sit outside of Daisy’s house, wondering if I’ll see a new face pop up. I don’t know why I bother; there are never new faces. I scroll past Jimmy, who was my boyfriend in elementary school for a week and a half. There’s Martin, who is about a foot shorter than me on a good day, and Cale, the cowboy who lives on the outskirts of town who isn’t half bad-looking once you’ve had three or four beers. Oh and look, it’s Jared, the guy who owns Hamilton’s only gym and who routinely updates his dating profile to include even more overly tanned, overly muscled bathroom mirror selfies. I swear if you ran a finger down his arm, you’d come away with spray tan goop.
I have zero new matches on all five of my dating apps, and though I’m tempted to let it get to me, I don’t. This is nothing new. Hamilton is Hamilton, and unless I’m willing to pack up and move to a bigger city, I’ll have to make the best of it—and I do. Right before I head inside, I RSVP to a Hamilton Singles event in two weeks. I haven’t been to one in a month, and I’m optimistic that this one will be worth my time. See Mother?! Contrary to what you think, I don’t just sit at home wallowing in self-pity. I put myself out there.
Daisy opens her front door when I’m not even a quarter of the way up her front path. She must have been parked at the window, waiting for me.
“Hey stalker.”
She ignores me, rushes forward, and grabs my
arm.
“I don’t want you to get excited, but there’s someone here I really think you should meet. Wait…” She scans the ground around my feet. “Where’s Mouse?”
“At home. He got really dirty after I took him to the park and I didn’t want him ruining your stuff.”
She groans. “That’s precisely what I want him to do. Your brother is so stubborn about hanging on to things. That rug in the family room is hideous, but he doesn’t seem to think we need a new one unless the current one is ruined.”
I laugh. “I’ll try my best to spill my wine tonight.”
“Thank you. Now, hurry, there’s a new guy here that I’ve never met before and I think he’s single!”
Though she seems excited, I’m not. Daisy only moved back to Hamilton two years ago, and she’s routinely confused by who’s an actual newcomer and who just decided to grow a beard.
“If it’s Kyle Parker again, I’ll punch you. He’s lived here his whole life Daisy—he just has a man bun now and I swear it confuses you every time.”
She rolls her eyes and keeps dragging me after her, which is no simple feat considering the footwear she’s decided on tonight. Her whole outfit is spot on and trendy: a simple red dress with nude pumps. Her blonde hair is loosely braided down her back, probably left over from work, and her makeup is just enough to make her already beautiful features stand out even more. I now regret changing into jeans, even if I did put on the pair that makes my ass look, in Daisy’s words, “killer”.
“Should I change into something of yours?” I ask as we pass through the foyer. “You’re a lot fancier than I am.”
She turns and gives me a onceover, breaking out in a slow smile. “No, you look hot. That shirt is just tight enough to show off your figure without being indecent, and I like when you wear your hair down like that. It drives guys insane.”
