The Rumor, page 6
The important thing is, Alfie will be thrilled when I tell him.
11
“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT,” DAVE says by way of greeting. “Mrs. Marchant’s accepted an offer from Anne Wilson and Jeremy Sanders.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really? I thought she’d hold out for the full asking price.”
“So did I,” he says. “And it was a ballsy offer, in my opinion. Thirty K below.” He sifts through a pile of papers on his desk. “They’re cash buyers. Did I tell you?”
“No. It doesn’t surprise me, though. They don’t exactly look hard up.”
Dave grins. “I reckon she’s had a bit of Botox, don’t you?”
I laugh. “And the rest.”
“I did suggest to Mrs. Marchant that it was probably just an opening bid and that they might very well up the offer if she didn’t bite.” He sighs. “She didn’t even need to turn them down, she could have just waited and they’d have come back with something else, but she wasn’t interested. Obviously wants a quick sale, and that’s that.”
The morning passes in a blur. After three quiet weeks we’re suddenly inundated with inquiries: people popping in off the street and asking about something they’ve seen on Zillow, five people registering with us as potential buyers, and three appraisal requests. Not to mention the usual phone calls from frustrated clients fretting about exchanging contracts and closing dates.
And in between all this I’ve been trying to update the Pegton’s Twitter account—a job Dave is more than happy for me to manage. I can’t resist having a quick scroll through my own Twitter feed while I’m at it, so I don’t notice Kay at first. People are always standing outside peering at the photos in the window. I tend to ignore them unless they actually come in, and in my experience most people who scrutinize real estate agents’ windows have no intention of coming inside. They’re either visitors curious to check out house prices in the area, or nosy neighbors trying to see what the house at the end of their block is going for and speculating on what their own might be worth.
Then I see something move out of the corner of my eye and realize it’s her, waving at me through the glass. I wave back and she comes in.
“Hello, dear,” she says. “I didn’t realize you worked in here.” She flops down on the chair opposite my desk and gives me a sheepish look. “To be honest, I was about to pop in and see if you wanted anyone part-time. I’m looking for a little job, you see. I can type forty words a minute and answer the phone, and I’m terrific with people.” She leans forward. “I also watch every episode of Property Brothers and Love It or List It and anything else that’s remotely related to buying and selling houses. I’m completely addicted.”
Dave’s mouthing no at me over her shoulder. I don’t know whether Kay’s just noticed my eyes flick toward him or whether she’d have done this anyway, but she turns around in her chair to face him. “I make delicious coffee as well,” she says. She’s got some nerve, I’ll say that for her.
Dave does his awkward laugh. He hates it when this sort of thing happens, and it quite often does. I did it myself, although I was a bit more subtle about it. Let it slip when he was showing me around a property that I’d worked in real estate and was about to start job hunting.
“I’m really sorry,” he says. “But we don’t have any openings right now.”
“You can leave us your contact information, though,” I quickly suggest. Dave nods vigorously. He always forgets to say that. “And if ever we do need some extra help, we’ll be in touch.”
Kay nods and gets to her feet. She looks tired all of a sudden, and a bit embarrassed. I glance at my watch and catch Dave’s eye. “It’s almost time for my lunch break. I’ll go now, if you don’t mind, Dave. Then I can have a chat with Kay.”
Kay brightens at this.
“Tell you what,” I say. “Why don’t we go for a quick coffee? My treat.”
Five minutes later, we’re sitting in the Shrieking Kettle, each nursing a giant cup of cappuccino.
“I’ve tried everywhere,” Kay says. “I’ve even asked in here and at the Fisherman’s Shack, but no one’s hiring.”
I blow on my coffee and distort the chocolate-powder shape on top of the foam. “I’m sure you’ll find something soon.”
“I know,” she says. “And if I don’t, I can always go back to cleaning.” She grimaces. “Look, I’m just feeling a bit sorry for myself at the moment. It’s always the same at this time of year. You know, the months running up to Christmas. I miss Gillian and the babies so much.”
“How often do you get to see them?”
She opens a second packet of sugar and stirs it into her coffee. “I haven’t. Not since they left. It’s the expense.” She stares into the middle distance. “That’s why I need to get another job, so I can save up for the fare.”
“Another job?”
“Yes,” she says. “I do a few alterations for the dry cleaner. It’s not very well paid, but I can do it from home. That’s why I like it.”
“How often does your daughter come back to visit?”
Kay screws her nose up. “They try and make it back every eighteen months or so, but…” She dabs at her eyes with a paper napkin. “It’s such a long while to wait, and the kids change so much in that time.”
“What made them move?”
Kay hesitates, then shrugs. “The usual, I suppose. Better standard of living. Better weather. Barbies on the beach,” she says, in the worst Australian accent I’ve ever heard.
A couple of people look our way and we fold over our coffees in laughter. When we’ve recovered, Kay wrestles her complimentary cookie from its packet and shakes the now broken pieces into her hand.
“So what brought you to Flinstead, then, Joanna?” she says. I look out of the window. While we’ve been sitting here, the sun has vanished and it’s started to drizzle. “Not the weather, that’s for sure.”
“It was mainly for Alfie,” I say. “I felt like I was never fully there for him. Do you know what I mean?”
Kay nods. “I do, hon. They’re only young once.”
“I wanted Alfie to grow up in a safe place, and to be by the water. I loved living here when I was a child. And I wanted to be near Mom. Alfie gets to see her all the time now. She’s on her own, too, so it’s been lovely for all of us.”
Kay shifts in her seat. Oh God. After everything she’s just been saying about missing her grandchildren. How insensitive can I be? But before I have a chance to apologize, she’s speaking again.
“You’re a single mother, then?”
“Yes, well, kind of.”
“Sorry, tell me to mind my own business.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just that…most people find it a little odd that Alfie’s dad and I are so close but not actually together.” I take a sip of coffee. “Like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre,” I say, observing her reaction over the top of my cup.
Kay gives me a blank look. I thought she would. Liz Blackthorne would get the reference immediately. Which reminds me, I must give her a call and see if she’s all right. I hope she doesn’t think less of me for passing on the rumor about Sally McGowan. What if she was deliberately ignoring me when I saw her this morning?
“Okay. Try Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton? Except, no, they’ve split up now, haven’t they? And they lived next door to each other, whereas Michael lives in the city.”
“I don’t think it’s strange at all, dear. Makes a lot of sense to me. You’re never going to get fed up with each other if you have your own space. Maybe Larry and I should have tried that. Might not have ended up in divorce court.”
“Has there been anyone else, since Larry?”
Kay looks horrified. “God, no.”
I laugh. “You sound like my mom. The trouble is, it’s given her a skewed view of all men, including Michael. I keep telling her he’s nothing like Dad, but…”
Kay pats my hand. “As long as you and Michael care about each other, and about Alfie, and as long as it’s what you both want, then that’s all that matters in the long run.”
“Yes,” I agree. “It is.”
I eat the last fragment of my cookie. Mom said something similar once, when she’d finally wrapped her brain around the peculiar parameters of our relationship, except she made a point of putting the emphasis on the word both—“as long as it’s what you both want”—which made me feel like I was the one making all the compromises. The injured party.
“I’d better get moving,” Kay says, twisting around for her coat. “Tell you what, why don’t you drop by sometime and I’ll show you photos of my Gillian and the grandchildren? There’s a long weekend next week, isn’t there? Bring Alfie with you. I have a tropical-fish tank he’ll enjoy looking at. Ketifa loves them. She’s named them all after characters in Finding Nemo.”
I smile. Kay’s lonely. That much is obvious.
“Thank you. I will,” I say. “Alfie loves Finding Nemo.”
12
ON MY WAY BACK TO Pegton’s, I notice a small gathering at the end of the block. Something unusual is happening outside the hardware store.
My first thought is that someone has fallen and hurt themselves. One of Flinstead’s frail retirees has tripped over a wonky paving slab. Or a mobility scooter has toppled in the wind that shoots up the road from the beach. Once, I saw a helicopter land outside the Chinese takeout and a heart-attack victim was stretchered inside and flown away.
But as I get closer I realize they’re standing outside Stones and Crones and nobody is lying on the sidewalk injured. People are pressing up against the plate-glass window, pointing and exclaiming. Snippets of conversation reach my ears:
“Looks just like her, you’ve got to admit.”
“Some kind of sick joke.”
“Who did this?”
“Maybe there’s something in it.”
Reluctantly, I move toward the window. I’ve got a horrible feeling about this. And there it is. Someone’s stuck an enlarged photocopy of that photo of Sally McGowan, the famous one of her at ten years old, looking directly at the camera with those unnerving eyes, and right next to it is a picture of Sonia Martins, the shopkeeper. An old one that’s been cut out of the Flinstead Shopper—a promotional feature from when the shop first opened.
The shop is empty and the CLOSED sign hangs at the door. She always closes on Wednesdays. She’s one of the few shopkeepers around here who do. Most can’t afford to lose out on a day’s business. So whoever’s stuck these pictures up has chosen the day on purpose, to get maximum exposure. Whether it’s true or not, the damage will be done.
“Never liked this place much anyway,” says a woman to my right. “My friend June says she sells a lot of that Wiccan stuff.”
“That’s witchcraft, isn’t it?” says someone else, and an uneasy murmur ripples through the crowd of onlookers.
A horrible thought pops into my mind. What if Maddie did this? She wouldn’t, surely. She’s not that kind of person, and yet, when I think of how she cornered me that time at the playground, how convinced she was…
Oh God. If this is Maddie’s doing, then I’m partly responsible. Maddie doesn’t mix much with the other mothers. If it weren’t for me blabbing about it at book club, she might never have heard the rumor. But surely she wouldn’t have done something like this. It’s a horrible, spiteful thing to do. And based on what kind of evidence? A weekend trawling the internet? No, I can’t believe she’d stoop this low. And yet, how well do I really know her?
“I think we should take them down,” I say. “It’s someone’s idea of a nasty joke.”
“I wouldn’t get involved, if I were you,” a voice from the crowd warns. “It’s her store, let her deal with it.”
I turn and see a woman in a gray sweat suit with greasy hair swept off her face in a tight ponytail. “But she can’t, can she? She’s not here.”
She gives me a sullen look. “What if it’s true, though? Do you really want someone like that living and working here? Someone who murdered a little kid?”
As fast as people drift away, more gather on the sidewalk to take their place. Barbara from book club appears. She stands right next to me, screwing up her eyes to read the small print. She’s so close I can smell her face powder.
“Joanna, isn’t this what you were talking about at book club?” she says, in that annoyingly loud, high-class voice of hers.
Heat floods into my face. I give her a withering frown. Is she stupid or something? Doesn’t she realize how that might sound?
“Sorry. I wasn’t implying it had anything to do with you. I was just…” She flounders for something to say, something to salvage the situation, but there’s nothing she can say. She’s just making it worse. She makes a face and mouths sorry at me. I want to tell her what an idiot she is, but all I do is sigh and give a little shake of my head.
“I can’t believe someone would do this,” I say, in the loudest, most indignant tone I can muster. “It’s not right to make accusations about someone, especially when they’re not here to defend themselves.”
The man from the hardware store comes out to see what’s going on. He takes one look at the pictures then silently peels them off the glass and takes them into his store. It’s what I should have done. It’s what I would have done if I weren’t so worried about Barbara and her big mouth. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I hurry back to work.
* * *
—
ANNE WILSON IS sitting at my desk drinking a glass of water when I get back.
“Ah, here she is now,” Dave says. “I’m sure Jo will work it all out for you.” He’s wearing his usual professional mask, but there’s a slight wariness in his eyes as he looks at me.
Anne puts her glass down and gets to her feet, extending one well-manicured hand toward me. “Joanna, how nice to see you again. I’m making a nuisance of myself, I’m afraid.”
I smile and try to put the last few minutes out of my mind. For the moment, at least.
“How can I help you?”
Anne sits down again and crosses her legs. She’s wearing a very short skirt with sheer black tights. “I want to have a third showing of the Maple Drive property.”
I glance at Dave, who’s trying not to look at her legs. “Oh, I thought you’d already made an offer.”
“Yes, I have. But I’d like to bring a contractor in to have a look at a few things. It’s all right,” she says, leaning forward. “I’m not going to change my mind. The house is perfect. Well, it will be, when I’ve completely changed it.” She laughs then. A high, tinkly noise that’s as false as her eyelashes. “It’s just that I’m rather impatient and I’d like to get someone lined up for the job right away. You know what contractors are like. All the good ones are booked up for months, and since we’re cash buyers and Mrs. Marchant isn’t looking to synchronize the sale with a new purchase, I’m sure we can sign the contract and close at virtually the same time.”
Dave sucks his cheeks in and I have to look away.
“Well, that does occasionally happen,” I say. “But you never know how long these things are going to take, and we’d always recommend—”
“I’ve got a very good lawyer,” Anne says, as if that’s all it takes to cut through the bureaucracy of buying a house. I’m starting to dislike this woman. What I’d previously interpreted as confidence now has a whiff of arrogance about it. That sense of entitlement some people have. Especially those with money. First impressions aren’t always to be trusted.
“The thing is…” she says. “I was rather hoping it could happen without…” She hesitates and glances at Dave. He already knows what’s coming. That’s why he said, I’m sure Jo will work it all out for you, and gave me that funny look when I came in. “…without the owner being present,” she says, and lets the words settle in the air before continuing.
“The changes I have in mind are fairly—how shall I put it?—radical. And she’s hardly the friendliest of people, is she? I’m afraid she might be offended and put the property back on the market.” She gives me a conspiratorial glance. “She certainly looks the type.”
I keep my face as still as possible. However rude or ill-mannered our clients, and Mrs. Marchant certainly isn’t the friendliest, we never, ever, badmouth them to buyers. In a town this size, it would be professional suicide. A fleeting twitch of the mouth is the furthest I’ve ever gone to indicate my agreement with someone, and now that I’ve cast Susan Marchant in the role of aggrieved ex-wife, coerced into relinquishing her lovely house, I’m not even sure whether I do agree with Anne Wilson’s damning character analysis. There must be a reason why Susan Marchant is so unsociable. Perhaps she’s depressed.
“I can’t promise anything,” I say. “Mrs. Marchant has always wanted to be present during showings, so it may be a little awkward.” I clear my throat. “I can’t really ask her not to be there.”
Something flickers over Anne Wilson’s face, something akin to annoyance, but it’s immediately replaced by one of her effusive smiles, which I see now are not warm and generous at all but manipulative and insincere.
“But you could suggest that she might prefer not to be,” she says. She stands up then and, once again, holds out her hand. Reluctantly, I shake it.
“I’m sure you’ll find a way,” she says, her voice a curious blend of honey and steel.
As the door clicks shut behind her, Dave lets out a long sigh.
