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“Mom, have you seen my history book?” Seth yelled.
“It was on the couch last night,” I called out. “Stevie, get down here this instant. The bus is due any second!”
It was a typical morning at my house, with the twins running late and causing their usual chaos as they tried to locate homework and clothes for the school day. Rusty and Dobby were begging at the table, and Grace was busy feeding them Cheerios while Greg tried to hide behind his newspaper.
A horn sounded from outside, and flashing red lights reflected off of the kitchen window. “Guys!” I shouted. “The bus is here. Move it!”
Seth rushed into the kitchen, his light brown hair sticking up at all ends, with his history book tucked safely under one arm. He grabbed his backpack from a chair and bolted out the kitchen door. “Later!” he yelled.
Greg looked up from the paper. “Stevie! The bus isn’t going to wait forever!”
“Rusty wants to go to school too, Daddy.” Grace giggled as the dog licked her hand, hoping for more Cheerios.
Greg kissed the top of her head. “The school’s got enough trouble with your brothers there, pumpkin.”
“This stupid thing won’t fit in my backpack,” Stevie grumbled as he came into the kitchen holding his backpack in one hand and a boy doll in the other. “Can’t I just dump it in the garbage?”
“Only if you want a failing grade,” I reminded him. “Your health teacher said that you have to take care of the baby for an entire week,” I said.
“I feel stupid,” Stevie complained.
Greg set his coffee mug down on the table. “What’s the big deal? Your other classmates have them too, Stevie.”
Stevie rolled his eyes in dramatic fashion. “Come on, Dad. I told you that I want to be called Steve. Stevie sounds like I’m a five-year-old dork.”
“Dork, dork!” Grace bounced up and down in her chair.
“You’re such a baby,” Stevie told her as he grabbed a piece of toast from the table. “A baby dork. Bye!” He ran out the door.
Grace looked at her father. “Am I a dork, Daddy?”
He tweaked her nose. “Nope. You’re Daddy’s princess.”
“Sweetheart, run upstairs and brush your teeth. And get your bookbag. We have to leave for school soon.” I sat down at the table next to Greg with my second cup of coffee.
“Okay!” Grace ran out of the room with the dogs at her heels.
Greg pushed back a curl behind my ear and leaned over for a kiss. “Darcy texted me a little while ago.”
“Is everything okay?” Even though Darcy had been living away from home for more than two years, I still worried about her, and knew that I probably always would. Her grades had slipped last year, and I was afraid that she might be spending too much time partying on the sunny beaches of Florida.
“She’s fine.” Greg opened his briefcase and added a manila folder to the contents. “She wanted to know if I could send her money a little earlier this month, that’s all.”
“What? She shouldn’t be through it already. What does that girl do with it?” We paid for her meals, incidentals, and her books, but last semester she’d asked for more money every month.
Greg shook his head at me. “Darcy needs to get a job on campus. I thought she was going to get one last semester?”
“She said she couldn’t find anything.” And Darcy had said the same thing the semester before. Her grades had to come first, but I wondered how truthful she’d been about the job situation. Even over the summer, she’d claimed she couldn’t find one and said she was too depressed over her breakup with Ryan. It had been wonderful to have her home and also convenient. Darcy had babysat for Grace several times without complaint.
“Not to excuse her behavior,” I said, “but Darcy’s been different since she broke it off with Ryan.”
Greg narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I know. The one guy she dated that I actually liked, and then she has to send him packing. Ryan’s starting medical school next year, for crying out loud. The kid’s got a great future ahead of him. He’ll be making the big bucks someday.”
“I don’t think she cared about the money Don’t you remember last winter when she came home? She said he was always too busy with his studies to see her. Maybe that’s the reason behind their breakup,” I said thoughtfully. “Darcy needs to learn patience and that life isn’t always going to be a bed of roses.”
“The money should be important to her.” Greg’s mouth set in a stubborn, hard line. “It’s hard for kids to find a good job right out of college these days. There’s so much competition. I don’t want our kids to struggle like we did.”
I placed my arms around his neck. “Oh, it wasn’t so bad.”
Greg ran his fingers through my hair. “Yeah, right. A two-room apartment and a baby that never stopped crying. Plus, the heat didn’t work half the time.”
“From what I recall, we made our own heat,” I teased.
His eyes twinkled at me. “We still do a pretty good job.”
I forgot about Darcy, Pam, and everything else when Greg kissed me. For over twenty years my husband had been my rock, and he’d never let me down. And unlike Pam and Kevin’s situation, I knew that he never would.
Greg released me when Grace ran into the kitchen with her pink Barbie backpack. “I’ll transfer the money to her account as soon as I get to the office.” He picked Grace up in his strong arms and tickled her. “They grow up too fast.”
“You’re telling me.” I watched them with a smile, thinking back to the day I’d found out that I was expecting Grace. She’d been a surprise pregnancy when I was forty-four, and at the time I’d had no idea of how we would raise another child at this stage of our lives. But when I’d seen her face for the first time, the surprise and worry had turned into the blessed gift of a lifetime.
Greg bussed her cheek and then leaned over to give me another kiss. “Good-bye, beautiful ladies. Have a good day.”
“Bye, Daddy!” Grace waved happily at him as he shut the kitchen door. Five minutes later I was fastening Grace into her booster car seat when my cell buzzed. I pulled the phone out of my pants pocket and studied the screen. The number was local but unfamiliar, and I was about to let it go to voicemail when I remembered the message might be related to Pam’s house. The listing had gone live last night, so the house and me were both on the market, so to speak. I pressed Accept Call. “Cindy York.”
“Why hello, Cindy York,” A squeaky, feminine voice shrilled in my ear. “Guess who this is?”
My lips pursed together in distaste. I didn’t have to guess. That particular voice would stay locked in my memory forever. “Hello, Trish. What can I do for you?”
Tricia Hudson was the proverbial thorn in my real estate career. Like Jacques and Tony Romano, she was one of the top realtors in Upstate New York. She had also opened her own brokerage firm in the past year, Hudson Prime Properties. What rotten luck that she’d be the first agent to call about seeing Pam’s house.
“I hear that congratulations are in order. Welcome home. After all, we’re one big happy family, regardless of who we work for, right?”
She was piling it on a bit thick, even for her. Trish had never liked me, and the feeling was mutual. She was as phony as the pretend Rolex she wore and further aggravated me when she added, “Maybe this time you’ll actually sell something, huh?”
My stomach twisted. Who did she think she was kidding? “Trish, I’m a little busy at the moment. Is there a point to this call?”
“Of course.” Her voice turned sweeter than buttercream frosting. “I have a client who wants to see your listing at 24 Brook Manor tonight,” she said gleefully.
I rolled my eyes. “Trish, this isn’t the stone age anymore. You can set up your own showing on Forte Realty’s website, remember.”
Once upon a time, Trish had mown me over like an unwelcome bunch of weeds on her meticulous lawn. After a few years in the business, I’d discovered the hard way that I wasn’t going to get anywhere without a backbone. I’d also learned that the older I got, the freer I became with my speech.
“Well, really. I’m not an idiot,” she spat into the phone. “It happens that I have another commitment and can’t show the house to them. I figured that you wouldn’t mind doing so.”
If it were any other real estate agent, I would have said yes. “Perhaps you need to get your priorities straight, Trish.”
She huffed into the phone. “My priorities are straight, Cindy dear. I’m having a root canal late this afternoon, and I probably won’t be in any condition to talk. The Meyers are from out of town, and this is their only chance to see the place. They are very interested in the home.”
As her voice shrilled through the phone, I thought it was a shame that Trish wasn’t having a laryngectomy. “What time?”
“Five o’clock,” she said.
My brain clicked with a reminder. “Wait a second. Mr. Hilton is having a party for some of his coworkers tonight. They’ll be using the pool, so I don’t think it will be possible.”
“The Meyers are especially interested in seeing the pool.” Tricia rambled on, as if she hadn’t heard me. Their son and daughter are both on the swim team at school and—”
I gritted my teeth in annoyance. “Trish, perhaps you didn’t hear me. We’ll have to schedule it for another day. Or maybe earlier this afternoon?” Shoot. That wouldn’t work either. I’d need a babysitter for Grace if it were after one o’clock. The twins couldn’t be trusted to watch her. They couldn’t be trusted to watch themselves.
“There’s no other day available,” Tricia insisted. “You’ll simply have to figure out something.”
“What do you want me to do? Wave a magic wand? I can’t ask the owner to cancel his own party.”
“Mommy!” Grace was wriggling impatiently in her seat. “I wanna go to school!”
I fastened my seat belt, switched the call to my hands free, and backed out of the driveway. “We’re going, baby, don’t worry. Look, Trish, I’ll call the Hiltons and see if it’s doable, but that’s all I can promise.”
“Well, you’d better make sure it’s doable. The Meyers did not come all this way to—"
Annoyed, I clicked off while she was still chatting away in my ear. Yes, I’d missed real estate and the joy that went along with finding a client the perfect home, but agents like Trish brought back unpleasant memories for me. One time she’d been first in line to accuse me of murdering a coworker. That was when I had begun to toughen up. Life was too short to be used as a doormat.
Once Grace was settled in her room and I’d received my kiss good-bye, I returned to the car and dialed Pam’s number. She picked up on the third ring, sounding groggy and disoriented. “Lo?”
“Pam? It’s Cindy. Did I wake you?”
A crash similar to broken glass sounded in the background. “Pam? Hello? Are you okay?”
“Bottle fell,” Pam murmured. “What day is it? Never mind, I remember. It’s Sunday. I think.”
“Wednesday,” I corrected.
Her laugh was bitter and hollow. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been told to stay in my room. Isn’t that nice? Kevin’s treating me like a prisoner in my own home.”
It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning and Pam sounded like she’d been on an all-night drinking binge. “The reason I’m calling is to tell you that there are some people who’d like to see the house at five o’clock tonight. I’m sorry for the short notice, but today is the only day that they can make it.”
To my surprise, Pam started to laugh. “Why are you asking me? My opinion no longer matters. Check with his royal highness and don’t forget to tell the new owners that I come with the house, okay?”
Yikes. This showing was shaping up to be a disaster. If the potential buyers caught sight of Pam in her current state, they might run for the hills. “Would you like me to come over? My daughter is in preschool, and we could have a nice visit for a few hours and have drink some coffee.” Lots of black coffee to help sober her up.
“No,” she sighed. “I’m all right. I just need a nap.”
“Is Kevin home? I want to make sure the showing doesn’t interfere with his party. Unless you’d prefer to tell him.”
Pam began to cough—a sharp, hacking noise that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “He isn’t here. Try his cell phone. He never goes anywhere without it.” She laughed in between coughing fits. “When he dies, which will hopefully be soon, they’ll bury it with him.”
A chill ran down my spine. “Pam? Are you sure that you’re okay?”
Pam mumbled something that I couldn’t decipher, and then I heard a sharp click.
“Pam? Hello?” I was already talking to dead air, so I started the engine and drove home. As soon as I unlocked the door, I went through my notes and punched Kevin’s cell number into my phone.
He picked up instantly, his voice as crisp and cool as an autumn day in New York. “Kevin Hilton.”
“Hi, Kevin, it’s Cindy York.” I took a deep breath and decided to start with the good news. “We have our first showing scheduled.”
“Excellent,” he exclaimed. “This was sooner than I’d hoped for.”
Now for the bad news. “Yes, there’s many agents that scour the new listings on the MLS daily. As soon as they see one that fits their clients’ criteria, they call. Unfortunately, the couple would like to see it at five o’clock this afternoon. Pam mentioned yesterday that you were having a small get-together tonight, and I’m worried it will interfere.”
“Nonsense. That time will be fine. The party doesn’t start until seven. Pam will stay upstairs in her room. It’s best that she’s not around.” Kevin paused. “Actually, it’s probably best if she’s not there at all. Maybe Denise can take her shopping. I’ll make sure I’m the only one home when you arrive.”
Oh boy. “I know this is inconvenient, but it would be better if no one is at the house during the showing. This way the buyers won’t feel inhibited or rushed.”
Kevin was silent for several seconds. “Oh, gotcha. All right, I’ll take a ride over to—” He stopped in mid-sentence. “Never mind. I’ll walk around the block if necessary. If you can try to get them out of there by five thirty it would be much appreciated.”
Jeez, did he want to sell this house or not? “I’ll do my best, but like I said, I don’t want to rush them—”
Once again, the line went dead. Jeez, what was with this family? Grace had more patience than the Hiltons did.
A piteous whining noise sounded from behind me. Rusty was standing in the doorway of the pantry with a box of Mallomars in his mouth.
I took the box from him and stroked his head. “What a great idea. Not for you, but I need a chocolate fix. It’s going to be a long day.”