from The End at River’s Bend

Houses are like people. Either you fall in love with them or you don’t, and no amount of match making, stalking or pleading will make it happen if it’s not meant to be.

As a successful realtor, even at the tender age of twenty-eight, I had learned this little gem early on. Houses also have personalities and characters. This might sound a bit New Age-ish, but it’s true. Clients have to feel a comfortable vibe when they walk into a house - and it’s a lot like going on a blind date. If the spark isn’t there, forget it.

And if the spark is there, they’ll overlook the shabby yard, the peeling paint, the avocado-colored refrigerator and sheet vinyl floor in the kitchen. Mad love will even overlook wooden paneling and a serious lack of closet space.

Today I had a good matchmaker’s premonition sizzling through my veins as I banged on the front door of the house I was showing. My buyers moved restlessly behind me, murmuring softly to each other like a pair of mourning doves.

My breath actually made clouds in the frigid air as I stomped up and down to keep my feet warm in my high heeled pumps. I peered through the glass panes on either side of the door, searching for any sign of movement.

It was an imposing door. An eight-paneled affair, gleaming with numerous layers of ebony paint and a giant lion’s head for a knocker. The elegant neighborhood of VillenCrest, an upscale development of brick mansions with black shutters in Western Pennsylvania, was quiet on this chilly afternoon. A hint of wood smoke from a far-off fireplace was the only sign of activity in the area.

#

I sighed. The light was starting to dim outside. Now what? I wasn’t anxious to get home either - well, to my aunt’s house - which was my home for the time being.

I would have to face Bryan.

On top of everything else, I was stuck with a ratty old parrot.

“Hellooo!”

Lillian Flint was the owner of the herbal remedy and health food shop in Possum Hollow. She had bright ginger hair piled up like a bird’s nest, spindly legs clad in thick black stockings, and wore a tweed skirt, no matter what the weather.

I groaned and tried to duck into the library, but she had already spotted me and was hurrying over, her scarlet overly made-up lips broken wide into a smile.

“How is Bryan doing?”

“Fine.”

Actually I was planning to get rid of the mangy thing as soon as I left for New York. It shrieked its head off day and night, which had to disturb the neighbors, and certainly aggravated me. More than one night found me yelling down the stairs at it to pipe down. After a few weeks of this, I was exhausted, which was part of my need for excessive amounts of caffeine.

She cocked her head to one side, like a bird would do, and waited.

I sighed again. It was getting to be a habit. “Um. Well, actually he’s not eating much, and lately he’s plucking his feathers out. I guess he misses my aunt.”

“He is depressed,” she said in clipped tone. “That is why he is plucking his feathers. African greys need constant companionship.”

I so did not need this right now, but I didn’t want her to report me to the National Society for the Protection of Parrots, or whatever they called themselves, if there even was such an organization. Realtors had to project a good civic image.

“Are you giving him enough attention, young woman?” She fixed me with a bright stare. Was it my fevered imagination or was she looking more and more like a bird before my eyes?

“You need to spend time with him. Bond with him,” she said sternly. “Try talking to him.”

“About what?”

“Anything you wish. Read the paper to him. Ask him questions. You may be surprised at his responses. He’s quite intelligent.”

“Does he really talk?” I asked, my interest piqued slightly. “He hasn’t said a word yet.”

“He used to. When your aunt was alive. Some birds have vocabularies of hundreds of words.”

#

As I was slowly shrugging myself out of my coat, the phone rang.

The parrot instantly started squawking.

Holy crap.

Summoning up the dregs of my energy, I stumbled over to its cage near the window and yanked the cover off. “For the love of God, be quiet!” My voice cracked on the last word, but it seemed to work, at least temporarily, as the bird subsided into silence.

I gave it a feral glare for good measure, and walked backwards, tossing my coat onto the well worn leather armchair. I kept firm eye contact as I lifted the receiver from the phone on the wall next to the wide archway into the dining room.

“Hello?”

“Did you sell it yet? When are you coming back? What the hell is taking so long?”

I exhaled deeply, my hand over the mouth piece, before I answered. “Hi, Dad. I’m fine. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Fine. Never mind all that nonsense. Now what is going on?”

I fiddled with the bedraggled phone cord that trailed to the ground, untangling a knot through my fingers. “It’s taking a bit longer than I thought. I’m still going through Aunt’s things. And there’s still some settlements - some unfinished business - may as well close them,” I mumbled.

“When are you coming back? How hard can it be to sell a few houses?”

Ha! If he only knew.

I paced through the living room; the phone cord like a lifeline in my fingers. The over the top emotional homebuyers; the dramatic fights between husbands and wives; the tantrums when either side, buyer or seller, tried to negotiate the price; the crazed agents who got as wrapped up in it and as nuts as their clients. I had thought commercial real estate was tough, but residential was positively brutal.

Everyone was hysterical. Even nice, normal people lost it in the end. And now, today, there was a dead body on the couch.

I stopped pacing and stood directly in front of the parrot’s cage. “When I finish up here.”

“Get it done, Maddie. Get it done.” His favorite catch phrase. I admired my father, but he was relentless. In his eyes you were only as good as your last deal.

And the trouble was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get it done. The truth was I was tired. Bone tired. It wasn’t only the parrot keeping me awake at night. I had been pushing hard for a long time before I ever came to Possum Hollow, and the latest redevelopment deal I was working on had almost gone south due to a detail in the anchor’s lease that had been overlooked. By me. I managed to salvage it in time, and without my father finding out, but I never, ever, screwed up, and the fact that I nearly had scared the hell out of me.

I wanted to stay here. At least for a while. In spite of the lack of amenities, I sort of liked it. A couple more weeks in the country sounded like the perfect break.

#

Heartsick, racked with guilt, I laid my head on my arms and the tears finally came. A hurricane of grief that washed over me.

I sobbed onto the sleeves of my white silk shirt, making tire tracks of mascara that would probably never come out at the dry cleaners, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop.

After the storm abated somewhat, I lifted my head slightly to peer at the bird.

“Bet you’re enjoying this aren’t you?” I snuffled.

It stared at me for a moment and swallowed three or four times, its throat puffing up as it did so.

“Give us a kiss, then.” The words were rough, but decipherable.

I sat up, laughter bursting out of me in spite of my tears. “So you can talk! Say something else.” I held my breath and wiped at my eyes.

Maybe it was just my imagination. Maybe it was a flash in the pan. Maybe I was drunk on cooking sherry.

The parrot stared at me with his cold, yellow eyes for a moment.

“Show us yer tits.” His voice was a deep, suggestive rasp.

#