I Still Dream About You

Charm used to be so important that they taught it, but now Maggie, who had made all A’s in the subject, found that even she was beginning to run out of charm. Real estate, as it was today, could kick the charm out of anybody.

She had personally been bitten by several mean cats, numerous dogs, a hamster, two parrots, and a ferret. She had opened attic doors and had bats fly up her dress and get caught in her hair, fallen down slippery basement stairs, and dropped Open House signs on her foot. And she had almost been terrified to death when a seller had failed to mention the eighteen-foot pet boa constrictor left in the upstairs bathroom tub. That, plus having to deal with lookie-loos, real estate hustlers, and hysterical clients all day, could go a long way toward helping you forget your manners.

Lately, she had found herself speaking to the television set and saying, “Oh, shut up!” to whoever was talking at the moment. At present, she only said “Shut up” in the privacy of her own home, but who knows when she might slip and tell someone in real life to shut up? She would hate to think all her years of being polite and pleasant would be wasted, but she felt she was in real danger of behaving badly in public. Something was bubbling up under the surface. There had been other little signs along the way. A few months ago, she had deliberately recommended the worst restaurant in Birmingham to that rude couple from Virginia, and only last week, something even more alarming had happened. She had been sitting in her car, waiting for the light to change, when Babs Bingington, the Beast of Birmingham herself, had walked across the street, right in front of her. Of course, she knew Babs didn’t like her, but she didn’t know why. She had never done a thing to her. But still, she didn’t hate Babs like Brenda and Ethel did. She just avoided her as best she could. However, that day, as she sat there, she suddenly remembered what Babs had done to Hazel, and for a split second, she actually entertained the idea of stepping on the gas and running her over. She not only had a motive, but opportunity as well.

Luckily, in the split second she was thinking about it, a jogger ran across the intersection, and the moment passed. It was probably the first time in her life when indecision had actually worked in her favor, but she knew if she didn’t do something soon, she just might suddenly go berserk and wind up on the television show Snapped, which featured stories about women who had suddenly flipped out. She could see the CNN headlines running under a newsreel of her now, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffed, being walked into the jail: “EX-MISS ALABAMA RUNS OVER RIVAL REAL ESTATE AGENT.” Of course, she might have gotten away with it. Brenda always said that if Babs was ever murdered, every realtor in Birmingham had a motive and had threatened to kill her at one time or another. But the fact that she, who had a hard time even killing a spider, had actually thought of running someone over in broad daylight made her realize it might be time to remove herself from society, sooner rather than later. Red Mountain Realty had enough problems right now, and they didn’t need one of their listing agents going to the chair. Or worse yet, going completely insane and winding up in some asylum like poor Olivia de Havilland in the movie The Snake Pit. She was already talking to the television set. It was clear to Maggie that she was getting out, not only at the right time, but just in time. She was obviously not coping.

Growing Up in Dreamland

THE TRUTH WAS, MAGGIE REALLY HAD SEEN TOO MANY MOVIES AS A child. Not surprising, considering where she had grown up. Her father had been the manager of the Dreamland, a small neighborhood movie theater, and they had lived upstairs in a one-bedroom apartment, right next door to the projection booth, until she was eight. Looking back now, she supposed it had been somewhat unusual to enter and exit your childhood home through a movie theater lobby, but at the time, it had seemed normal to her and, in fact, quite wonderful.

To reach the apartment, she had to walk through a narrow, dark, carpeted stairway that was always cluttered with a few old broken spotlights and signs that read COMING SOON or HELD OVER ANOTHER WEEK and cardboard boxes full of black plastic letters for the marquee. Inside, the bare concrete-block walls were painted a pale mint green, with dark brown speckled linoleum tile on the floor. The bathroom had a claw-foot tub and one hanging light bulb. The kitchen was only a counter with a hot plate and a small refrigerator under the sink. It was not much to look at in the daytime, but at night, everything changed. As soon as it got dark, everything in the entire apartment, including herself and her parents, would suddenly start to glow a beautiful pink color from the reflection of the big neon Dreamland Theatre sign outside the window. Everything looked so pretty and cheerful. It had been like living inside a cartoon. And in the small alcove where she slept, there was a porthole in the wall she could open to look down and see the big movie screen downstairs. Every night, Maggie would lie in bed, watching the movie, and eventually be lulled to sleep by the whir of the movie projector next door, the voices coming from the screen, and the sounds of soft laughter coming from the audience below. And on hot summer nights, when her parents left the apartment door open to get a little breeze, she would hear the big red popcorn machine popping downstairs and the cash register bell ringing at the candy counter, and if she was still awake after the last show, when they had closed the doors, the sound of wooden seats being slammed up row by row. Then later, the roar of the big vacuum cleaner sucking up leftover popcorn and an occasional candy wrapper. All her life, the smell of popcorn and candy could transport her right back to that little apartment like it was yesterday.

She had loved growing up in the theater, but Maggie now suspected it was the main reason she had always had such a hard time facing reality. She’d read somewhere that the ages of one to four were formative years, so it must have affected her.

She had been raised in the era of Glorious Technicolor, the time of all the great movie musicals filled with cheerful songs and pretty people, where in the end, the boy always got the girl. And even though she was the only child of older parents, she had never been lonely. Her friends and playmates had been the movie stars, and she had been perfectly happy. But then television became all the rage, and like so many other little theaters, the Dreamland closed down for good, and they had to move into a regular apartment. What a shock that had been.

Out in the real world, there was no background music playing, no popcorn and candy downstairs or pink glow at night. Or even a plot she could follow. Her father had managed to get another job, selling shoes, but money was always tight, and afterward, they had been forced to move from one gloomy, airless apartment to another, and Maggie began to feel lost and anxious. The world around her seemed so strange and unfamiliar. She didn’t say anything to her parents, but she had an uneasy feeling that somehow a mistake had been made, and she was not where she was supposed to be. She didn’t know where that place was until one hot muggy afternoon in August when she was ten. Her mother had just started working as a seamstress’s assistant to make a little extra money and had taken Maggie along to a dress fitting for a lady who lived in Mountain Brook. Maggie had never been to that part of town before, and when they drove up Red Mountain and she saw Crestview, the big, stately red brick Tudor mansion perched at the very top, the sight of it had taken her breath away. To Maggie, it looked like a castle in the sky, exactly like something right out of a movie. And as they descended down the other side of Red Mountain, into the cool, lush green world of Mountain Brook, with its leafy streets and ivy-covered brick and stone homes with long, rolling, graceful lawns, Maggie felt just like a kidnapped child who had been brought back home again. This was where she belonged, and she felt she could breathe again.

Of course, at the time, she was living across town in a dingy basement apartment with pipes on the ceiling, but even so, seeing Crestview had given her something to dream about. At night, she would lie on the lumpy pullout sofa and fantasize about the big house on the hill. She would imagine herself sitting on the side terrace, sipping tea, looking down on the city below. It had been a foolish childish dream, but it had soothed her during all those years of never being settled, of living in cramped, dark places. Over the years, Crestview became more than just a place to her; it became her ideal, something to strive for.

Many of the seamstress’s clients her mother worked for were women who lived “over the mountain,” and Maggie grew to love going along and seeing the beautifully appointed homes, the furniture, the art, the Oriental rugs, the long staircases leading up to large open and airy bedrooms with balconies overlooking the city. No one had minded her coming; she was always well behaved and quiet. All the ladies had been kind to her, but Maggie had fallen in love especially with Mrs. Roberts, at first sight. To Maggie, she was all elegance and grace. Mrs. Roberts had no daughters of her own, and she had taken a special interest in Maggie and, from time to time,