A Woman's Makeup

A glimpse of the strange world of being a realtor

 

 

            Fanny remained in her car waiting. For a while, she occupied herself with talking to her husband on the phone. She told him what groceries to pick up and they discussed what they did that day. He was still a little protective since she was new to the job but she assured him that this last client would be harmless and brief, once he arrived that is. He was an old millionaire who liked fixing up hopeless properties, a sort of super hero in the real estate world.

            Finally Stanford pulled up in his old BMW that looked like it had recently been repainted. He exited the car with a cigarette in his mouth and a mobile phone in his hand. He had just been yelling at someone when he hung up on them. Fanny exited her car and pulled out the pieces of paper for her and Stanford; descriptions of the very old and very ugly property. Stanford’s face was always red but this time it was obvious that he had recently been upset. None the less, he brushed off his pinstripe suit and greeted Fanny with an apology for making her wait. She smiled and began describing the property for him but he didn’t listen. He was almost startled at how similar the house was to the house he grew up in as a child. Stanford told her this and they both laughed a little because the property was very ugly. Everything was brown inside and out, the designers had very poor taste indeed. Not to mention that almost everything about the house was still original; the floors, the colors, wallpaper, everything. It wasn’t hard to imagine that this house would bring up some memories for some older clients. So far, no one was remotely interested. The house needed tens of thousands in repairs and had been on the market for almost a year. None the less Stanford insisted on seeing the property so Fanny obliged him.

            They entered the house and began walking around it silently. Normally, Fanny would comment on every perceivable advantage to the house but with this one she couldn’t muster up anything to say. She almost felt embarrassed. But for such a serious man as Stanford, it almost appeared like he was smiling and laughing about every terrible detail. He lit another cigarette and pointed at the powder-blue kitchen cabinets.

            “That’s an ugly color, isn’t it?” He said. And she agreed. He smacked his thigh, “It’s so ugly.” And they walked away laughing.

            Together they moved down the hallway to go see the master bedroom. When Fanny opened the door she gasped in horror, the damage caught them both by surprise. Someone had broken into the home and written terrible curse words all over the walls. Also there was a dirty old, uncovered mattress that had been brought in. The room was littered with empty and half-empty beer bottles, cigarette butts and other debris.

            “It was probably teenagers,” she said at first, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t as if the integrity of the room had been destroyed but it just didn’t look good to clients. “This must have been very recent,” Fanny said, obviously embarrassed.

            “Yea probably was. Dumb selfish b******s the lot of them,” Stanford said with a boisterous laugh. He put his cigarette in one of the beer bottles and then lit another one. He offered Fanny a cigarette and she nodded and accepted one quietly. Stanford lit it for her and examined her collar bone which he always thought was lovely.

            “I’m going to have to call my boss and tell him this.” She said with a frown; a natural frown like she is used to this sort of thing happening. Stanford’s smile subsided when he saw how unhappy Fanny really was, she was near tears.

            “Oh it is okay Fanny. I’m going to buy this piece of crap. Don’t worry about the damn teenagers.”

            “It’s not that Stan,” Fanny said with a weird sort of hesitation as if she realized their names rhymed. “It is that mattress there. It’s so sad.”

            “I’ve always thought uncovered mattresses are sad.” He said. They both took a few drags off their cigarettes.

            “It’s like a mattress always must be covered, it’s something of shame, or something.”

            “Like a woman’s face without makeup,” he said. They both looked at each other. Her mouth closed.