I Still Dream About You

before she had a chance to finish up all the loose ends she still had to deal with.

As she drove across town, she tried to calm herself. First of all, it really could just be a rumor that Crestview was coming up for sale. With the ladies from St. Martin’s, you could never be sure; being of a certain age, many of them were a little deaf and often got things mixed up. Maggie hoped and prayed that this was the case today. And it really made no sense. Why would Mrs. Dalton be selling? The Dalton family had owned Crestview for as long as she could remember, and they certainly didn’t need the money, so surely, Fairly Jenkins must be mistaken. Still, Maggie hated to have to spend the next six days wondering about it. But how could she find out? She couldn’t just call Mrs. Dalton and ask her outright; it would be far too rude and pushy. Oh Lord, why, of all the houses in the world, did it have to be Crestview? She should have canceled her hair appointment when she’d had the chance. Then she never would have even known about it. With all she had to do in the next few days, the last thing she needed was one more thing to have to worry about. And even if by the slightest chance it was true, and Mrs. Dalton was selling Crestview, there was not a thing in the world she could do about it now. Besides, she didn’t have time to think about anything but the task at hand. She would just have to try to put it entirely out of her mind and get on with her day. Dear God, what next? That was the point: she didn’t want to know what next. She didn’t need any more surprises. Life had surprised her enough.

Magic City

IF MAGGIE HAD LIVED MOST OF HER LIFE UNDER THE SPELL OF HER childhood, she wasn’t alone. A lot of people still had a few stars left in their eyes, and no wonder, growing up in a place called the Magic City, with all of its lofty aspirations and illusions of grandeur. You could see it everywhere you looked, from the towering smokestacks of the iron, coal, and steel mills to the grand mansions atop Red Mountain to the sparkle in the cement in the downtown sidewalks. The city was bustling and alive, with block after block of elegant stores, where mannequins stood in haughty poses, dressed in the latest fashions and furs from New York and Paris; blocks of showrooms filled with fine rugs, lamps, and furniture, displayed so beautifully you wanted to walk in and live there forever (or at least Maggie had). There had always been an excitement in the air. A feeling that Birmingham, the Fastest-Growing City in the South, was right on the verge of exploding into the biggest city in the world. Even the streets had been laid out extra wide and stood waiting, as if expecting a tremendous rush of traffic at any moment. From the beginning, Birmingham had been bursting with ambition and hated being second to Pittsburgh in steel production and having the second-largest city transit system in the country. Even the towering iron statue of Vulcan, the Greek god of fire and iron, that stood on the top of Red Mountain was only the second-largest iron statue in the country, and during the war, when headlines announced that Birmingham, Alabama, had been named the number two target city in America to be bombed by Germany and Japan, everybody was terribly disappointed; they would have loved to have been first! Their only consolation: they did have the largest electrical sign in the world, which greeted all visitors as they came out of the train station. It blazed with ten thousand golden light bulbs that spelled out WELCOME TO MAGIC CITY. Birmingham was a city with a pulse that you could hear beating, working, and sweating, striving to become number one. The giant iron and steel mills clanked and banged and spewed out pink steam and billowed thick smoke all hours of the day and night. Coal miners worked in shifts around the clock. Streetcars and buses ran twenty-four hours a day, packed full of people either going to or coming home from work.

In the afternoon, parents used to drive their children up the mountain to Vulcan Park to watch the sun set over the city, when the sky would come alive with layers of iridescent green, purple, aqua, red, and orange that streaked across the horizon as far as you could see. Everyone thought it was a special show the city put on just for them. It never occurred to them that the beautiful colors were caused by all the toxins and pollutants spewing out from all of the mills surrounding the city. They also never dreamed that one day, most of old downtown Birmingham, its magnificent movie palaces, restaurants, and department stores with the beautiful shiny brass doors and silver escalators, would all be shut down for good. But they were.

The Open House

MAGGIE CRAWLED ALONG THROUGH HEAVY TRAFFIC, AND A GOOD half hour later, she stopped at the Contri Brothers Gourmet Deli for cold cuts and then at Savage’s Bakery to pick up five dozen assorted cookies. Everyone said that Red Mountain put on the best realtors’ open houses in town. Even in the 1980s, she’d heard, when the market was hot and it had been hard getting agents to show up at all the newly listed houses, Hazel had never failed to draw a huge crowd and had always managed to come up with some attraction. She would send out announcements to “Come and meet Matilda, the World’s Oldest Chicken” or “Henry, the Cat with Fourteen Toes.” But all they could offer today was a free lunch. Maggie was still feeling thrown by what she had heard at the beauty shop, but she forced herself to just keep her mind focused on what she wanted to get done today. She thought that she probably should start dropping a few subtle hints to Brenda about her plans, but it would be tricky. She didn’t want to alarm her, but she did want to try to prepare her as best she could without tipping her hand. She loved Ethel, but of all the people in the world, she guessed she would miss Brenda the most.

Hazel had put Maggie and Brenda together from the very start. Maggie had the looks, the contacts, and certainly the charm to sell real estate, but she couldn’t do the paperwork if her life depended on it. The only reason she had gotten her real estate license in the first place was that Hazel sat on the real estate board. Maggie’s grades had not been quite high enough to pass, but Hazel had glanced over it, declared, “Close enough,” and pushed it through. Brenda, on the other hand, was a master at reading contracts, crunching numbers, obtaining mortgages, and closing a deal. Any information you needed she could bring up on her BlackBerry in seconds. She was a real treasure in every way: Brenda had been one of the first girls in the Birmingham school system to take Shop, instead of Home Economics, and could fix anything. She always had a large hammer, nails, a wrench, several screwdrivers, measuring tapes, light bulbs, extension cords, and a big flashlight in her purse; anything you could ever need, Brenda had it, including snacks of all kinds. Maggie told her that the boy in the frozen yogurt parking lot who had tried to snatch her purse probably couldn’t have lifted it anyway.

As far as Maggie was concerned the two of them were a perfect pair. Maggie always felt so safe with Brenda around. Just last month, when a creepy-looking man had shown up at an open house because he had liked Maggie’s photo in an ad, Brenda had picked him up and thrown him out the front door. Other than Hazel, Brenda was the most capable woman Maggie had ever known. She just hoped Brenda wouldn’t be too upset at her leaving her in the lurch at work, but it was really only a matter of time. Theirs was the last of the Red Mountain Realty offices that had not been shut down, and it was sure to be bought up by one of the larger companies any day now. Maggie wouldn’t be surprised if it was Babs Bingington’s company, and she was just as glad not to be around when that happened. The way Babs hated her, she was sure to be fired on the spot.

Of course, she should have quit real estate after Hazel died, but at the time, everybody on Team Hazel vowed to carry on out of loyalty; as the business got worse, however, people started to leave. Now there were only three of the original team left: Ethel, Brenda, and herself. Maggie figured that Brenda would be leaving real estate soon to run for mayor, but thank heavens, she hadn’t left yet. Brenda was the only person who could still make her laugh.

Last St. Patrick’s Day, Brenda had come into the office dressed entirely in green-green dress, green shoes, green wig-and had held out her arm to Maggie and asked, “What color would you say I was?”

Maggie looked at Brenda’s arm. “Oh, I don’t know, sort of brown?”

“I know that! What sort of brown?”

Maggie looked again. “Well, maybe reddish brown?”

Brenda was delighted with the answer. “That’s what I think! Reddish brown! Mother was more caramel, and Daddy was dark brown, but I’m more of a reddish color, aren’t I?”