Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 05 - A 380 Degree View (20 page)

“Are you sure you want to sell your grandparents house?”  I asked Sarah again. 

“Yes, I’d like to start over, with my own place, or with Scott.”  She glanced at the boy, who put his arm protectively around her shoulders. It should be as simple for Ben and me. I envied them.

I was back on top, I was in the game. I had listings! I was too busy to call Rosemary and gloat. I had a listing on Grove. I had the Lucky listing on Main and I had a buyer, now two buyers but together, which of course is more annoying than both listings combined, but that cannot be helped. And Penny kept calling and leaving messages about Lucky’s other properties. I promised to work out of the New Century office up here and ordered signs with a local phone number that would roll over to my cell.

Lucky owned many properties, but Penny directly inherited her home and three more: the Main Street home, Lucky’s office building and a rental on the other side of town.

I visited Penny at her house and immediately suggested she keep the rental to earn easy, passive income. “I noticed they are long time tenants, it seems a shame to move them.”

“I don’t give a damn about the tenants. I want the money from the sale.” She narrowed her eyes and glared at me. “Do you have any idea how annoying tenants are?  Always calling about problems you have to fix, always demanding things, as if you owe them a living space.”

“They can be a hassle, true. But monthly rent is great steady income.”

And she may want that steady income. I had no idea what would happen if the class action lawsuit went through. Ben’s broker was busy selling and re-investing Sarah’s stock as we spoke. We did not want to take any chances with her future. But what about the other stockholders? Even if the plaintiffs just got a little bit each, the lawyers would take the rest, and no matter how the money would be distributed, Penny would be left with nothing.

As if reading my mind, Penny replied, “the lawsuit will take forever, and I want the money now. Mattie Timmons had no idea what to do and that Debbie Smith has even less savvy, Dad told me so.” 

“They could have help.” I pointed out, usually the barest rustling of a class action suit alerts dozens of gun toting attorneys who are perpetually loaded and ready to fire. 

“From whom?” Penny sneered. “No one touches Lucky Masters, just ask him.”

I ducked my head so not to really gaze directly at her.

“Oh,” she turned and rearranged a collection of little glass ornaments on the table. “I forget. You forget a loved one is dead, don’t you?”

I don’t forget.  I remembered the death I’d have seen in person and I work hard to push away the images and the horror. I would love to forget, but I can’t. I’m not cut out to be first on a scene.  I’m a fragile delicate flower, ask anyone.

“Do you want to sell that rental or not?” She demanded.

“I’ll sell it.” I assured her.

Chapter Nineteen

“I’m pleased you have some listings,” Rosemary called.

“And buyers.” I pointed out, just to make me sound busy.

“Oh, buyers.” She uttered the word with the same tone as if she were describing dog turds in a backyard.

“So, things are interesting up there?” Rosemary couched.

“Tell Inez I am not moving out of my New Century office and I’m most assurdedy not switching offices with you.”

“How did you know that’s what I was asking?”  Rosemary demanded.

“You should have burned more incense to cloud my perceptions or something.” I suggested.

“Humph.”  Rosemary hung up with no good bye.

Penny and I agreed that a full week would be enough time for her to clean out Lucky’s house. To help move the project along, I contacted Summer and suggested she could borrow some of Lucky’s furniture for the next theater production (besides the furniture that had already mysterious appeared in the theater). Summer took immediate action and asked if we could meet at the house in five minutes. I countered with ten. Summer had an unfair advantage she was across the street and I had to drive all the way down two hills.

“I’m monitoring the tryouts for
You Can’t Take it With You.
”
 
Summer announced before I could even exit my car.

I slammed the car door and locked it out of habit.
“And is the irrepressible Sarah Miller slated to play the ingénue? Who is the ingénue in that play?”

Pat pulled up behind me in his white Mercedes and helped Mike from the car. “The daughter of slightly insane parents.”

“Sarah is not at the theater.” Summer swept into the house and the rest of us followed. The three immediately scattered as if on a scavenger hunt and only had five minutes to gather everything they needed on their list.

“
Are you taking this breakfront?”  Summer called from the dining room.

“Not the breakfront, but you can have the sideboard.”  Mike dashed off to prevent Summer from putting a particularly good piece in the spotlight of Act II.

“Hideous piece.” Pat clattered down the stairs to check on the sideboard, gestured his blessing, then ducked back upstairs.

Pat and Summer carried the sideboard out the front door and across the street. At least it wasn’t raining, which is why they all came so quickly as soon as I called.

“Is Penny too busy to be here?”  Mike stepped around the front parlor.  He carried a pad of yellow sticky notes.

“Everything we want, we’ll mark.” He slapped a sticky on a cane back rocking chair. “The movers will come tomorrow.”

“I can handle furniture. It’s not the most odious thing I’ve ever done for a client.” My tone was mild.

Mike pulled out a stool, climbed up and attached a sticky to the chandelier.

“Can we keep that for now?”

He glanced down at me, arm still raised, barely reaching the lowest glass pendant.  “Only because it’s you.”

“Thank you.”
              Summer and Pat reappeared.  “I need a bed.” Summer announced.

“The guest room.” I directed her upstairs.

“Not the master, choose anything else.” Pat called up.

Pat looked around, rubbing his hands as he considered the furnishings.  “I can’t believe Penny is not here. She should be here, haggling over every cent. Getting the maximum value for every stick of furniture in the place.”

They nodded solemnly and said together, “That’s what Lucky would have done.”

“Do you guys rehearse this stuff?”

“We’ve been together forever.” Pat explained briskly.  “That’s what happens.  It’s like when you end up looking like your dog.”

“Not a good analogy.” Mike staged whispered. “We want her to marry the man remember?”

“I can hear you.” 

“Sorry, we want the breakfronts for sure, but not the crap inside. Help us empty them out.”

For the next hour the two experts trolled briskly through the house. Every once in a while they obligingly helped Summer drag a chair, a desk and the guest room bed across the street, apparently abandoning the furniture in the lobby.

The boys tagged what they wanted with yellow sticky notes.

“Anything you want?”  Mike asked me at one point.

“No, I’m more of a Danish modern kind of girl.”  I have no interest in any furniture built before the Arts and Crafts movement. I’ve been known to pick up chairs at the Laz-Z-Boy furniture store.  I am a big fan of comfort.

Pat and Mike however, are all about style and high value, which is great for them. But I may not ask them to decorate my next house. 

“When’s the open house?”  Mike brushed his hands with satisfaction.

“Sunday, in two days.”

“We didn’t see it in the paper.”

“That’s because I didn’t list it in this paper.” I explained.  “I bought the
Chronicle
and the
Bee
. Locals already know about this house and have made up their minds, I want a minimum of looky loos.”

“You’ll get them anyway, at least everyone who wasn’t invited to the post-funeral party.”

I nodded. “Summer will hang out in the front yard distributing flyers for
You Can’t Take it With You
.”

“The movers will be here tomorrow. Let Penny know.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want any of these?”  I gathered up as many breakable, sharp edged, crystal, porcelain, figurine stuff I could, and only then did I glance around for a place to stash them.

“No, the markets are crammed with that stuff.  Maybe Hospice?”  Pat suggested.

“I need a few boxes.”  I took the offending items to the kitchen and carefully placed them in a jumble on the kitchen table.

The boys did not take any furniture from the great room. I had forgotten to turn on the heat but at least the west facing kitchen felt a few degrees warmer. It must get pretty hot during the summer months. I stepped outside to check for, and found a retractable awning.  Good Realtors notice those details. I didn’t recall if there had been more personal things around the back room or not, we hadn’t been allowed to linger here. Certainly the flat panel TV screen spoke to a more modern life than the museum quality front rooms. 

              “But that piece would be perfect, you can’t take it.”  Summer protested. Her voice became stronger the closer she came to the back of the house.

“Oh grow up, Penny gets 30% of the sale. What are you giving her?”  I heard Mike demand. 

I decided to meet Summer halfway. I rounded the corner to the hallway.  Summer glared at Pat and Pat glared back at her.  Debbie now appeared on the scene, now that all the heavy lifting was finished.  She stood two steps behind Summer.

I didn’t think Debbie was the best kind of friend for Summer. I come to this opinion honestly; I quizzed my grandmother.  She told me Debbie is about fifty years old. And fifty does not look good on her. Coco Chanel said that by fifty, you get the face you deserve. If that is true, Debbie had been a very bad girl indeed.  

 
              “Debbie used to live on Gold Way.” Prue commented.  “There was a fire.”

“Did Lucky own the building?”

“It was a house.” Prue had corrected. “There are no buildings on Gold Way.” 

I kept quiet and let her continue.

“I don’t know why she came up here, following up on something she had going in Sacramento I suppose.”

“Was she working for Lucky?”  It was a good guess, so many people were.

              “I don’t know. Raul?”

Raul shook his head, his eyes glued to his computer.  “After the fire she claimed she was almost was run off the road.” He flapped his hand in the general direction of down hill.  “On the way to the river.  No one believed.”  He paused and hit a few keys.  “Her,” he finished his thought.

“Locals pass on that road all the time, then run out of room.” I mused. “It could have been local versus flatlander.”

“That’s what we all said.  But she claimed that someone was after her.”

“I’m certain she is not that important.” I retorted. 

Raul snorted.  See?  Even the funny man with thousands of hours of video
in his library agreed with me.

“Tom Marten said she was just paranoid.”  Prue said.

“She’s seems healthy enough.” I said innocently.

              “I offered to set up cameras and video tape, but she refused.” He said sadly.

At least the woman had some common sense.

“It was so popular for a time, people watched the lives of other people.” Raul was lost for a moment in the hazy nostalgia of three years ago.

“Why would anyone do that?” I asked.

“Because it was new.” Raul looked as severe as someone who resembles a cartoon character can look.

“When she won the council seat this fall, she seemed to calm down a bit, then again I wouldn’t really know, I tend to avoid her, she’s rather intense.”  Raul brooded over the screen. “I recognized her when she first came. But now, now I’m not sure.”

“Recognized her from where?”

He shrugged. “Where else? The City. You know what happens in the Castro, stays in the Castro.”

“That’s Las Vegas.”

“The eighties were very interesting,” was his cryptic rejoinder.

Since I’m not conversant with the ways of gay men in the Castro specifically, nor the eighties in general, I did not particularly have any reference point nor did I want to know more about what or why Debbie was hanging out in the Castro, shopping? The restaurants?  I am more hopelessly bourgeois than I thought. I dropped it.  I did wonder who bankrolled her sudden and wildly successful campaign against a local woman who knows where all the bodies are buried, so to speak.

“If Lucky was bankrolling her campaign,” Prue read my mind.  “He got a rude surprise, Debbie has been battling him ever since. She’s belligerent about everything just like that last lawyer the city hired, he was bad news.”  Prue shook her head, dismissing all lawyers, as she tends to do. 

I knew more than I should about that last scenario and wasn’t interested in a replay of those painful events.

“Oh, all right.” Summer glared at Pat.  “I’ll find something else. Honestly, you people.   Come on Debbie.”  She stomped into the dining room.  “Can I have this hutch?”

“Be our guest.”  Pat called back.

Normally I would hire a Stager to take care of my listing. My favorite stager owns a warehouse filled with appropriate furniture guaranteed to make the house look desirable.  But one seller didn’t have extra funds for such things and the other seller didn’t give a damn. There would probably be just enough original furniture left to make the house appear slightly a little less cavernous.  I could imagine the front rooms decorated with my own furniture, mentally eliminating the heavy, gloomy Victorian original furniture and just seeing the big bay windows and high ceilings, but few buyers could visualize their life and their belongings in an empty house. A few chairs and tables scattered about help immensely. 

Once Summer took her stage props, she optimistically labeled another half dozen pieces with her own orange sticky notes, to be picked up later, and she and Debbie were ready to go.

“We’ll come tomorrow to get the rest of the furniture.” She called over her shoulder, halfway across the street.  I waved from the front door like June Cleaver and disappeared inside.

Once the troops retreated, I was left to execute Plan B: the un-glamorous job of clearing out the closets. Penny instructed me to throw out anything that didn’t move, and if anything did move, call the exterminators. I had no problem tossing unwanted items, but I was careful about disturbing any small, animated residents.

By the time I moved upstairs to the bedroom
closets it was starting to get dark: five o’clock. I dragged a big garbage bag into the guest bedroom and began emptying out the tiny closet.  I piled discarded clothes, blankets and quilts into the garbage bags: most was destined for Hospice, I would relinquish very little to the garbage.  As Prue would say, there was still some good left in the stuff.

I found a stash of five more of Penny’s beautiful quilts and immediately called Summer.

She crossed the street seconds after I hung up.

“You found more? Oh my God, those are exquisite, just look at her workmanship.”

Summer put her hands on hips and shook her head. “I can’t believe he just hid them here, they should be appreciated, they should be used.”

I folded them carefully, they were stiff and a bit awkward but that was due to the batting and all those stitches. Penny sewed the quilts by hand; Carrie showed me the tiny, more uneven, stitches.  The batting was so thick it must have been a tremendous project to make so many tiny stitches on such a big quilt.

“There are already a couple on the upstairs guests beds. Why don’t you take these for more fundraising or decoration?”              I handed the heavy pile to Summer who almost dropped them.