I Still Dream About You

Something to Look Forward To

BRENDA WAS SO HAPPY ABOUT SEEING THE WHIRLING DERVISHES, she almost did a little dance in her kitchen. Now they had something fun and interesting to look forward to, and God knows they deserved it. She was under a lot of stress. Real estate was going to hell in a handbasket, and they were predicting that prices hadn’t hit bottom yet. It seemed all they did every weekend was hold open houses on every midlist tired old dog on the market and watch the really good high-end “over the mountain” listings, properties that even had a chance of selling, get snatched up by their main competitor, Babs Bingington. (Not her real name, as Brenda was quick to point out to anyone who didn’t know.) Babs had only made it up because it sounded good in her slogan, “For the best in Birmingham, call Babs Bingington Realty”-a slogan that, along with her photograph, Babs had plastered on every shopping cart, billboard, and bus stop bench in town. But in local real estate circles, Babs was known as the Beast of Birmingham.

By now, everyone knew just how ruthless she was. She would stop at nothing to steal a client. It was said she had married and divorced two of them just to get their listings. Ethel Clipp, their office manager, often said that Hazel Whisenknott, the beloved founder of their company, would just be turning over in her grave if she knew the lack of real estate ethics going on in town today. Hazel had built Red Mountain Realty’s reputation on a code of honesty and ethics; Hazel had even been one of the founders of the Better Business Bureau of Birmingham, for God’s sake! But ethics weren’t helping them much in today’s market. In the past six months, they hadn’t had enough sales to cover their advertising, much less make a profit or pay the office rent. How Maggie managed to remain so cool, calm, and collected was a wonder to Brenda, but most things about Maggie were. With all the mean backbiting and cutthroat tactics going on all around her, Maggie never got ruffled or said an unkind word about anybody. Brenda guessed it just must be easier for someone like Maggie not to let anything bother her. But then again, why should she? Maggie was tall, thin, and beautiful, with those perfect teeth and that thick straight hair she could just whip up in a ponytail and still look like a million dollars. And Maggie didn’t have a single living relative pulling on her night and day. Brenda had so many brothers, sisters, and nieces and nephews always wanting money for this and that nonsense that she could hardly save a dime, much less buy that fifty-inch high-definition television set out at Costco she had her eye on. Sometimes, she had to laugh when she thought about Maggie, always so perfectly groomed, never a hair out of place, always so pleasant, just floating along through life on a pink cloud. She didn’t know how lucky she was, and you couldn’t explain it to her if you tried; she had the world by the tail. Brenda just wished she could be more like her.

AFTER MAGGIE HUNG up with Brenda, she opened the desk drawer and found a small bottle of Wite-Out and changed the date on her letter to November 3 and continued writing the letter where she had left off.

… have been depressed for quite some time, I was always so proud of being from Alabama and extremely grateful to have been given the honor and the privilege of representing my state in the Miss America Pageant.

Sincerely,

Margaret Anne Fortenberry

She usually added a little smiley face to her signature, but she didn’t think it would be appropriate here, so she just left it plain. She then looked it over for any spelling mistakes, because you couldn’t be sure where it might eventually end up. After rereading it a few more times, she felt she had made her points; she had offered some information, but not too much. It wasn’t her intention to be mysterious, but in her case, some things were best left unsaid. She was sorry the letter had to be so generic and impersonal, but she couldn’t address it to either Brenda or Ethel and tell them not to open it until a certain date without having them become suspicious. And she certainly couldn’t trust Brenda not to open it. Her sister Robbie said that last year, Brenda had opened all her Christmas presents even before Robbie had a chance to wrap them. Also, Maggie knew that if, for any reason, they found out what she was planning, they would try to talk her out of it. It was sweet of them, of course, but often, well-meaning friends try to stop people from doing things that in the long run are really best for everyone.

Although she wasn’t particularly pleased with all the wording, she did feel the overall message was clear. “I’m leaving. I have my reasons. Don’t look for me.” But she wasn’t a fool. She knew, no matter how hard she tried to make it easy on everybody, some people were still going to be shocked. They would wonder, “Why? When she seemed so happy?” Which was true. She had always tried to appear happy. Some might ask, “Why? When she could have had any man she wanted?” Not quite true. And besides, after Richard, she didn’t want anyone else. Or “Why? When she was so pretty?” And no question about it, being pretty is grand while it lasts, but good looks alone don’t bring you happiness; an awful lot of perks, yes, but not a good enough reason to go on. And some would be disappointed that she hadn’t gone into greater detail about her reasons, but she had them. Just last week, she had jotted down sixteen perfectly good reasons, and she was sure there were many more she hadn’t thought of yet.

Still, she hated leaving people up in the air. But what could she possibly have said? She couldn’t tell them the truth. So, it was best to just bow out gracefully and be grateful she had at least accomplished a few of her goals. She had never smoked, cursed, raised her voice in public, or received a traffic citation or a parking ticket-no mean feat, considering she still couldn’t parallel park after years of trying. But now, at age sixty, too young to retire and not smart enough to learn a new profession, what was the point? It was obvious that the best of her life was behind her. So, why continue to struggle? Toward what?

Without Hazel, life had become as hard as trying to balance a stick on her nose and juggle six rings in the air while standing on one leg on a big rubber ball. There were times she just wanted to go stark raving mad and run down the street naked, screaming at the top of her lungs, but of course, she couldn’t do that. Not in this day and age, when everybody and his brother had a camera on his phone. There was no privacy left in the world anymore. Somebody was sure to get a photograph of her and put it on YouTube, and something like that could wind up on the Internet for years.

Brenda was lucky. She still had a lot of goals left. Just last week, she announced she wanted to run for mayor of Birmingham and fire the entire city council. Brenda had ambition and a family who cared about her. Even Ethel Clipp, who they said was at least eighty (nobody knew for sure), had her handbell choir and her two white Persian cats, Eva and Zsa Zsa, that she adored. Brenda and Ethel wanted to keep going and, evidently, so did the world, but she didn’t. So really, it was best that she just step aside and let them go on their merry way.

She was simply, quietly and discreetly, and with as little fanfare as possible, leaving life a little earlier than expected, that’s all. An extreme avoidance tactic (perhaps), an inability to face reality (of course), a preemptive blow against old age (most certainly). But on the positive side, by leaving now, she would be saving the government an awful lot of Social Security money down the line; making much less of a carbon footprint; using less oxygen, gas, water, food, plastics, and paper goods; and there would be fewer used coffee grounds in the garbage. Al Gore should certainly appreciate it.

She put the letter in the envelope and placed it in the drawer, underneath the stack of old telephone bills, and was reminded that she had to make sure the rest of her bills and credit cards were paid off before she left. She never wanted to give anyone the chance to say that a former Miss Alabama was a deadbeat. She sat up and glanced around the room. Although none of the furniture was hers, she still had a few little personal items to get rid of, but that was about it.

Dear God, from where she had started out, after all she had aspired to be, where she had actually ended up had come to Maggie as a complete surprise. It was clear now that she had seen far too many movies as a child… and had just naturally expected a happy ending.