I Still Dream About You

The Perfect Plan

MAGGIE KNEW SHE HAD A FEW MORE DAYS TO GET READY, BUT before she did anything else this morning, she thought she would just go ahead and run out to Walmart and pick up the last of her supplies and get it over with, so she wouldn’t have to think about it the rest of the week.

Twenty minutes later, Maggie walked into Walmart at the big mall and headed back to Aisle 10. Luckily, she knew exactly what color and what size she wanted, and she paid in cash. It was part of her plan to leave absolutely no clues as to her whereabouts, and having a record of the purchase of a rubber raft show up on her credit card bill so close to her departure might tip someone off. After all the planning, she certainly didn’t want to make a mistake at the very end. She had assumed that making the decision to do it would be the hard part, but coming up with a viable and working plan for just how she would do it had not been as easy as one might think.

Pills were never a sure thing. A gun would be much too violent (and oh, didn’t the press just love to portray all southerners as gun-happy?), and her being a former Miss Alabama? They would just have a field day with that. So no, a gun was definitely out. Sticking her head in an oven had never been an option; all the kitchen appliances at Avon Terrace were electric, and it certainly wasn’t anything you would ever do in someone else’s kitchen, or at least she wouldn’t. Her car was a company leased car, so driving off a cliff was out as well. No matter what method she had come up with, she’d found there was just no surefire way to do it and remain attractive, and no matter how shallow it may seem to some, she felt she had a responsibility to always try to look her best, no matter what.

It had taken quite a while to figure out something that would meet all her specific requirements, but six months before, she had been at the gym working out with wraparound ankle weights in her Stretch, Flex, and Strengthen class, when she had come up with the perfect plan. On the designated day, now November 3, she would go down to the Warrior River, get in the rubber raft, row all the way out to the middle where it was very deep and very calm, wrap two ten-pound weights around her ankles plus two ten-pound weights around her wrists, then jump in.

She had some concerns that the Velcro that held the weights together might come undone underwater, but the man at Big B Sports had assured her that the Velcro they used was completely waterproof. However, just to be on the safe side, she had gone to the As Seen on TV store and bought a tube of fast-drying 100 percent waterproof glue, guaranteed to last a lifetime. So, on the third, when she got to the middle of the river, she would apply the glue, wait the necessary twenty minutes for it to dry, then jump. It was a perfect plan. It was so perfect that it really was a shame she couldn’t tell anybody about it.

When she got back home, she still had a few hours before she had to meet Brenda at the open house, and that was good. She could use the time to start culling through a few more boxes. Maggie had just reached for another cup of coffee when something suddenly occurred to her. Oh, my God! Today was Tuesday, and she had a nine-thirty hair appointment with Glen, but with so much on her mind, she had completely forgotten about it. How could she have been so stupid? Oh no, with all she had to do, she didn’t want to waste two hours getting her hair done. Oh Lord. Why hadn’t she thought about it yesterday? She could call and say she was sick, but then she would have to stay home and not be seen for a day at least, and she couldn’t do that.

The shop had a twenty-four-hour cancellation policy and if she didn’t show up, she would be charged anyway, and she couldn’t just drive over and pay him without letting him fix her hair. Of course, she could always mail him a check. But knowing Glen, if he received something from her in the mail after she was gone, he would just freak out, and the last thing in the world she wanted was to upset anyone, especially Glen. His partner of twelve years had just run off with an ice skater, and he was already on the edge. She looked up at the clock, wondering what to do. After thinking it over, she supposed the best thing was to just go and finish with the boxes tonight.

At 9:42, Maggie was sitting in Glen’s chair, and he was busy wrapping streaks of her hair with tin foil and telling her all the latest about his ex. Other than the fact that she felt rushed, it was really very pleasant at the shop this morning. As usual, a lot of the ladies from St. Martin’s in the Pines were there having their hair done, happily chattering away.

Maggie sat there thinking about how upset poor Glen would be if he knew that all of his hard work was for nothing when she heard Fairly Jenkins say to Virginia Schmitt, “Gin, I heard a rumor that Dee Dee Dalton might be thinking about selling her house.”

A couple of months ago, just hearing that someone might be thinking of selling, Maggie would have jumped up with her hair still wet and run out the door and tried to get the listing. Considering that she was leaving the real estate business in a few days, however, the fact that someone might be selling shouldn’t have meant a thing to her; but hearing what house might be for sale threw her for a complete loop.

Glen continued telling her all about his ex, but Maggie didn’t hear a word. Her mind was going a mile a minute. Everyone had always assumed that Mrs. Dalton would never sell Crestview in a million years. How could she even think about it? It had never been on the market before; why was she selling it now? Crestview wasn’t just any house. It was a landmark, and her favorite house in all of Birmingham. The thought that it might be going on the market was very upsetting. The longer she sat there, the more agitated she became.

Oh, no. She knew the minute Glen finished blow-drying her hair and she paid her bill, she would have to fight off the urge to drive up the mountain and take a last look at it. But what would be the point? Why make herself miserable today, of all days? She was on a tight schedule as it was. She shouldn’t be concerned about anything else today, except making sure that everything was taken care of before Monday. She had a plan, so she should stick to it and just concentrate on that.

She paid her bill, went out, got in the car, and headed straight up the mountain. It was stupid and childish, she knew, but she couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d tried. She parked in front of Crestview and began to get more upset by the minute. There it stood, like it always had, so stately and proud, overlooking the city. To Maggie, it was the perfect house, perfectly proportioned, elegant, and understated. Of course, she had never been inside, but Mrs. Roberts, who had been a friend of Mrs. Dalton’s, had said that it had lovely wood-paneled walls in every room and the most beautiful set of white marble stairs she had ever seen. When Maggie was growing up, she had dreamed about those white marble stairs.

In the past, she had watched helplessly as Babs Bingington had sold off so many of the beautiful old homes over the mountain and, one by one, they had been torn down. Seeing those lovely old homes go and all the ugly new ones overbuilt on the lots had been a bitter pill to swallow. But if Babs got this listing, it would be a disaster. Babs Bingington had single-handedly been responsible for tearing down blocks and blocks of charming little thirties bungalow homes on the south side and developing new cheap four-story fake Swiss chateau swinging- singles apartments with a bad pool in the middle. The more she thought about it, the more agitated she became. Babs really had no business selling Crestview. She would run in, slap it on the market, and treat it just like any other property. She had no sense of the history and what it had meant to the people in Birmingham. She would view it with her cold fish eye and be willing to sell it to the highest bidder.

The thought of Babs Bingington marching through Crestview, like Sherman through Atlanta, gave Maggie a sick feeling. Babs had no loyalties to the town or the neighborhood. In the past, there had always been an unwritten law among real estate agents about selling homes on the mountain; even if it meant taking a cut out of your own commission, you did not sell those houses to people you knew would not take care of them or appreciate them. But not Babs. She was only interested in the sale. And who knows what could happen? Some young dot-com millionaire could buy it and put a basketball court in the living room. Or worse yet, it might be sold to a developer. If someone tore Crestview down, the entire skyline of Birmingham would change; it would be like looking at a beautiful woman with her front tooth missing. Or even worse, if one of Babs’s developer cronies got a hold of it, a beautiful woman with a big bright orange tooth. Thanks to Babs, there were some streets Maggie couldn’t even drive down anymore.

Oh no, here came that strange rage again. She could feel her cheeks starting to burn and her face turning beet red and her heart pounding a mile a minute. What was going on? She had never lost her temper in her life. This was twice in one month. It was either late menopause or some weird form of road rage-or, in this case, real estate rage. Whatever it was, she realized she’d better calm down. She didn’t want to have a stroke