I Still Dream About You

would ask her mother, “May I take Maggie to tea?” or “May I take Maggie to Easter brunch at the club?”

Maggie had loved going to the Birmingham Country Club, with its big floral chintz chairs and sofas, and she had liked the people “over the mountain” right away: their manners, their clothes, the way they took such good care of everything. She had been fascinated seeing all the exotic foods they ate: Camembert cheese, artichokes, caviar, black olives, smoked salmon. So different from the Franco-American spaghetti from a can she was used to. When she was twelve, Mrs. Roberts had arranged a scholarship for her at Brook Hill, a private girls’ school. If it had not been for Mrs. Roberts taking her under her wing, Maggie could very well have wound up never knowing there was such beauty and grace in the world. Mrs. Roberts had taught her how to appreciate the finer things in life.

And even though she was one of the wealthiest ladies in Birmingham, there was nothing pretentious about her. When she donated money to support numerous causes around town, she did so anonymously. Never class- or race-conscious, she opened her home to all, and all were treated well.

Mrs. Roberts was everything that Maggie had aspired to be. She had spent the rest of her childhood looking in on the seemingly graceful lives of those who lived “over the mountain,” just waiting to grow up and move there. It never occurred to her that it wouldn’t happen. She had always just assumed that she would wind up there someday, living in a beautiful house, married to a wonderful man; but as with so many other things (Richard for one), she had been dead wrong.

Maggie wished she could have ended up like Mrs. Roberts and all the other “over the mountain” ladies. They had such a neat, orderly way of living she so admired. After their husbands died, they sold the big house and moved into a little garden home in English Village. Then, after a certain age, they went on out to St. Martin’s in the Pines, the lovely Episcopal retirement home they all favored, to spend the rest of their days with old friends, most of whom they had gone to grammar school with, playing bridge and being taken on the St. Martin’s bus to theater, museum, and flower show outings.

St. Martin’s was a three-part facility that made all the unpleasant things about the end of life so much easier. First the little cottage on the grounds, then as a resident’s health started to fail, they were moved to the assisted living section, and thereafter, on out to the family plot. A lovely, practical, and predictable ending, but unfortunately, Maggie didn’t have the money or the desire to wait that long. True, she wasn’t getting the Technicolor ending she had expected, but she couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful beginning.

Another New Day

AFTER MAGGIE HAD FINALLY GONE BACK TO SLEEP, SHE DREAMED IT was a warm summer night and she was young again, dressed in a white evening gown and dancing under a thousand stars on a terrace overlooking the city. Was it Charles she was dancing with? She couldn’t quite tell, but it was such a vivid and beautiful dream that when she first woke up, she still felt so warm and happy-until a few seconds later, when that same old familiar wave of cold gray dread washed over her, and the warm glow faded into the harsh reality of the present. It was seven A.M., and once again, she had to summon the strength to get up and face yet another day. She wished she wouldn’t have those dreams; it just made it harder. She felt the hot tears running down her face and reached over and grabbed a Kleenex. Oh Lord, now she would have swollen eyes, and she was showing a house later on this morning. That’s all her client needed was some weepy real estate agent moping around.

After a moment, she got up and went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror and, just as she’d suspected, her eyes did look swollen and puffy. Now she was going to have to put tea bags on them. She would have loved to just go back to bed, but she couldn’t. She had a lot to do today, and she wanted to get an early start. She was meeting Brenda at noon, and it was her turn to buy the wine and cheese for the realtors’ open house, and also, she wanted to call Cathy Gilmore at the Arts and Lecture office and find out about the Whirling Dervishes’ hotel situation.

As she sat there with the tea bags on her eyes, she realized that at this point, it was completely idiotic that she should even care where a group of perfect strangers she certainly would never see again stayed, but she did care. At exactly one minute after eight, Maggie dialed Cathy at her office. She hoped to reach her before she got on the phone with someone else. They didn’t call her Chatty Cathy for nothing. Fortunately, Cathy picked up right away.

Twenty minutes later, when she was able to gracefully slip in the question about where they were putting the Dervishes, Cathy told her that they were arriving the afternoon of the performance and leaving for Atlanta right after the show that night. They weren’t even going to spend the night in Birmingham.

As usual, Maggie had been concerned over nothing, but at least now she knew and she wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. It was so irritating. All her life, she had wasted so many hours, days, years even, worrying about this and that. It was a serious character flaw. Why couldn’t she have been more like Hazel? Hazel never worried. Even when they lost the big new insurance account to Babs Bingington: everybody at the office had been devastated, but when Hazel came in, she just brushed it off and then turned to an agent and said, “Hey, Maxine, ask me why the woman shot her husband with a bow and arrow.” As upset as she was, Maxine tried to smile and asked and Hazel said, “Because she didn’t want to wake up the children.” That afternoon, Hazel had sent them a dozen roses with a card: “Remember, girls, it’s always the darkest right before the glorious dawn.” Hazel had always been so optimistic about the future; unfortunately, Maggie wasn’t Hazel. But then, who was?

Brenda’s first meeting with Hazel, like most people’s, had been memorable. Brenda had just moved back home from Chicago to be closer to her family and had seen an ad in the paper that interested her. Red Mountain Realty was looking for people to train as real estate agents, and Brenda had called and spoken directly with the owner and set up a meeting.

When she walked into Hazel’s office, a tiny little woman, no bigger than a child, jumped down from her chair, walked over, reached up and shook her hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Hazel! Do you know any good jokes?” And the next thing Brenda knew, she was hired. A few minutes later, when Brenda came out, she was still in a little bit of shock and walked over to Ethel, who was typing up her papers, and said, “Excuse me… is that lady in there really the owner?” “She sure is,” said Ethel, pushing her purple glasses up on her nose. “Oh… well… does she know she’s a midget?” “Why, no,” said Ethel, never looking up. “But I’m sure if you want to go back in and tell her, she’ll be delighted to know why she’s so short.” “Oh no… I didn’t mean it that way… What I meant was that she acts just like a real person… Oh… I’m not saying she’s not a real person. It’s just… well… she didn’t sound like a midget on the phone.”

“Oh, really.”

“I thought they all had funny little voices like the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz or something. Well, anyhow, I’ll see you Monday morning… I guess,” Brenda said as she tripped all over herself trying to get out the door before she made more of a fool of herself. Ethel, unfazed, went back to her typing. She was used to people’s first reactions. She had been with Hazel from the very beginning and seen it over and over, but after the initial shock, people quickly forgot Hazel’s height, mostly because Hazel didn’t make a big deal out of it herself. She had certain limitations, but she either overlooked them or worked around them. Hazel always carried a small stepladder in her car to help her if necessary and a magician’s extending wand in her purse, in case she was in an elevator alone and needed to punch the button for a higher floor, but other than that, she managed very well.

Of course, she sometimes needed assistance reaching things when she was grocery shopping, and getting on and off buses, but it had never been a problem. As she once said to Ethel, “I’ve had to depend on people my whole life, and they haven’t let me down yet.”

In 1982, Hazel was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as “The Biggest Little Real Estate Woman in the World.” And it had tickled her to death.