Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 03 - In Good Faith Page 2

  “I’m impressed.”

  “You are?” She relaxed, “I thought you’d start in on how I am violating my principles or something.”

  “No, I think Patrick is a worthwhile trade.”

  “He suggested I join this board for the Homeless Prevention League. It’s more important work, saving people instead of cats. And he promised they are pretty organized. We’re going to their annual dinner next week. Patrick is a donor, but he wants to see what I think before proposing my name.”

  What a luxury, to worry about weight loss and love. I will remember that.

  ***

  I was relieved that Ben answered his phone on the first ring, I hoped it was because he knew it was me, but since I never examined his phone to see if I have my own ring tone, or if my name or picture comes up with little heart icons, those last speculations were only that. Ben isn’t really the type to spend hours choosing exactly the right photos to delineate his callers.

  I felt pretty confident calling him. Two nights ago, we had taken the relationship to a new level, so I gained at least some parity. Some.

  To a Realtor, the house is the window to the soul. Since summer, it’s been about my windows and my soul. Ben has pawed through my bookshelves, riffled through my closets, and slept in my house, all the while protecting his space with disturbing efficiency. I didn’t even have his address, so I couldn’t look up his property and do a drive by, nor could I look up his records and learn what he owed on his mortgage. I was beginning to worry about what he was hiding: his grandmother, for one thing. The man lives with his grandmother.

  I know, loser. But he didn’t have any of the other hallmarks of a loser, so I was completely mystified. I was dying for an opportunity to gaze into Ben’s soul, at the very least, his bathroom cabinets.

  Ben, or rather his grandmother, lives in Dry Creek, a few miles west of Healdsburg. Even after I discovered his living situation, he still didn’t disclose his address. Okay, fine then.

  “Grandma bought dinner,” he announced when he picked me up in his truck the day after Thanksgiving.

  “Didn’t get enough to eat, yesterday?” I tossed my overnight bag – be prepared – into the back of the truck and climbed in.

  “We have no left-overs. Thanksgiving was at Mom’s. I drove Grandma down to the City, and we sat around the huge antique Queen Anne table in the formal Queen Anne dining room and made polite conversation about the weather. I think my mother may have brought up the Queen herself. What about you?”

  “I enjoyed three hours and seventeen minutes with my brothers and their lovely families,” I said. “We had dinner at the Club.”

  “That seems a little,” he trailed off.

  “Sterile? That’s how mom runs the holidays: organized, proper and color coordinated. The one bit of levity we are allowed is three minutes of clowning around right before the family holiday portrait. Three minutes. After that, we shape up, and smile fiercely, as if we mean it. Those who do not smile; do not get dessert, that’s another festive tradition.”

  “Sounds,” he couldn’t resist and I didn’t blame him. “Festive,” he finished.

  “About as festive as your holiday.”

  “Hey, we enjoyed a lively conversation about the Queen.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “Daughter-in-law problems.”

  I nodded. I hadn’t met his mother yet. I suspected she was the queen in her own world. I was not looking forward to that encounter, at all.

  “You shopped today?” He must have read my expression and changed the subject.

  “No,” I suppressed a sigh. I love Black Friday. I love shopping. But business comes first. “I had a client meeting. I’m listing a house in the Villas. Open House on Sunday.”

  “Wow, that’s fast.”

  I shrugged; I didn’t want to talk about my new, pushy client. I wanted to focus on Ben. We exited at the second Healdsburg exit. Ben turned left to Dry Creek and then right.

  When Ben admitted he lived with his grandmother, my first thought was, trailer park. Because, to be brutally honest, when a man his age (he’s fortyish) announces that he lives with his grandmother, my assumption is that that man is chronically unemployed, and his grandmother needs help using the toilet. I have visions of them living exclusively on her social security, just able to afford a single wide in a trailer park labeled Journey’s End, or End of the Rainbow, or something along those lines. Highly depressing.

  That was the mood I was in anyway. The onset of the holidays can do that to a girl.

  Maybe some new shoes will make me feel better. The stores were still advertising sales.

  Ben pulled into a circular drive and parked. I peered out at the façade of a huge two-story building. It looked like a high end winery, one where the affordable bottle cost $60.00. Were we stopping at a winery? If so, why hadn’t I heard about it? I thought I knew all the wineries in this valley.

  A tall, willowy woman the same vintage as my own grandmother, Prue, slowly pushed open huge double stable-like doors and gestured to us to come in.

  The woman wore her hair natural white, and swept off her forehead in an expensive flip. She was dressed in the same casual outfit my mother favored; matched cashmere sweater set and pressed slacks, flat shoes decorated with bows hugged her feet.

  I blew out a breath at the sight of her. I wish it had been a winery featuring expensive wine. At least there, I wouldn’t have to buy. This was all buy-in. I knew immediately that Ben’s grandmother was formidable. She knew it too.

  Ben, apparently, was clueless.

  “This is my grandmother, Emily.” He pulled out my bag from the truck and gestured to his grandmother.

  Emily stood in the enormous open doorway and nodded in my direction. God, the overnight bad was glaringly obvious, but it was too late to snatch it back, Ben swung it back and forth as he approached the front door.

  “It’s a pleasure.” Emily said, calmly.

  I reached out to take her hand in what turned out to be a firm handshake.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.” I echoed.

  “Come on in.” Ben gestured with his head and gently pushed his grandmother to one side. I waited for her to precede me. I stepped into the courtyard and took a deep breath.

  When I’m wrong. I am spectacularly wrong. Colossally wrong. This was not the trailer I had been imaging for the last few months.

  It is difficult to impress me, okay, almost impossible. See enough homes and the mansions in the Villas start to resemble the trailers in Journey’s End. The only difference is the homes in the Villas are bigger than the trailers in Journey’s End, but not necessarily more pleasant.

  This home was more than a string of big rooms. So you can compare, Emily’s home was built on the same pattern as Michel Schlumberger Winery which is also located in Dry Creek. Visit the winery, tour around, and you’ll have an idea of what kind of house the taciturn Mr. Stone lives in.

  His grandmother led us through the huge doors and through a breezeway running the perimeter of the house, enclosing the open courtyard on four sides.

  “So, Allison, you are from around here, correct?” she said. Her voice was well modulated, the product of education, fine living, class.

  I nodded, mostly because my own voice is not well modulated. It’s naturally loud.

  A second story with deep porches hovered to my right; to my left the house was a single story.

  “Sorry, yes, I live in Rivers Bend,” I tried to keep my voice low, but it spiked in pitch at the word bend, and sounded like a question. I clamped my lips together.

  “Lovely town.” She said smoothly. Great, she was a practiced socialite as well.

  “You were the one who rescued Ben from the fire.” She stopped half way across the patio. She was tall, about five foot nine with the same dark blue eyes as Ben. Or rather, he inherited her eyes and height. She had that effortless patrician air my mother works so hard to emulate. Emily carried herself as if she was born
to money.

  I glanced at the home – if she was born into money, she must have squandered it all on this house.

  Lights from the breezeway illuminated the patio area. A fountain played in the center of the courtyard casting water shadows on the second floor. It was very Spanish, very California, quite enviable.

  Ben almost lost his life in a forest fire because of me, so I didn’t really want to dwell on his “rescue.” Since we met, he has been put in the path of questionable situations twice, so I wasn’t feeling all that great about my influence. Apparently, she didn’t feel I had a terribly salubrious effect on her grandson either.

  She regarded me. I stopped gazing around like gaping tourist at the Fairmont and paused to look at her.

  “Yes,” I hedged, “in a manner of speaking.”

  When Ben and I were up in Claim Jump last September, he was not only kidnapped, but was almost burned to death in a forest fire. It does not bear thinking about. I certainly didn’t want to discuss it.

  She nodded. “I thought we’d eat in the kitchen. Ben told me you don’t mind being casual.”

  “He’s right.” I followed her under the porch, through open French doors, into an enormous kitchen. The walls and back splash of the work area were covered with brilliant yellow and blue Spanish tiles. The floor was tiled with rose colored, terra cotta squares. A gleaming copper hood brooded over a five-burner Wolf Range. I don’t use stoves per se, but I’m great at identifying them. I always list name brand appliances on my home sale flyers.

  “Ben, you can help.” Emily strode to a huge pot on the stove and pulled out corn husk wrapped tamales and piled them onto a platter.

  The dinning table was built of wine cask staves. It would dwarf a normal size room but it barely made an impression in this cavernous kitchen.

  Ben carried the plate tamales along with a big bowl containing an avocado and pea salad to the table. He retrieved a bottle of wine from the refrigerator (Sub-Zero, did you have to ask?). The bottle was bare except for a white mailing label with Pinot Gris scrawled in ball point pen.

  Ben poured the wine into narrow white wine glasses. Huge, fat, burgundy glasses were already placed on the table for the main course.

  “Try this. Cassandra is experimenting with whites this year.”

  Most people are now familiar with Sonoma County wines. You remember California beat out France in 1976 in a blind tasting, you can name the varietals, you understand the difference between red and white. But for those of you who want to move up to the advance class, un-labeled bottles, shiners, are the next indicator of prestige. When you pour wine from a slightly dirty bottle marked with nothing more than a strip of duct tape and Pinot Gris, 2005, scrawled in permanent marker, you have achieved the inside track. That wine is likely to hail from a famous wine maker’s private reserve – a barrel of something he or she conjured up for fun and is only delivering to personal friends. Delicious, but not for sale. It’s all about who you know.

  “I understand you’re in real estate.” Emily took a small sip of her white and finally took a bite of her salad, signaling that I, too, could start in.

  I tried to eat slowly and daintily, but it was difficult. I don’t worry about how much I eat in front of Ben, Carrie’s admonishments aside. But here, with Ben’s grandmother a ringer for my own mother, God help me; all the rules and restrictions of my childhood rose to the surface. I knew I had to slow down, be good, use the right fork, act like a lady. Why did I agree to this dinner?

  “Yes that’s my career, even though it may sound like I get myself in awkward situations.” I thought I’d go for the jugular; why not say it right away? I have put her precious grandchild in risky situations.

  Emily banished her fork in my direction. “But I’m sure finding a dead body in an empty house can happen to anyone.”

  “Certainly, happens all the time,” I assured her. I sipped my wine. God, it was delicious. Where did this come from again?

  “I’m sure that kind of thing is all behind you,” Emily said. “You two certainly seem busy. I don’t see Ben as often as I want to.”

  Ben grunted and poured the red wine, a Preston Zin. You can buy Preston, I had a couple bottles in my cellar.

  She rested her fork on the edge of her plate and eyed me. “In fact, he hasn’t been here much since July.”

  Ben shifted and rose to serve the tamales. He picked up each one with his fingers and placed them neatly onto our dinner plates. Emily did not flinch over Ben’s methods.

  I met Emily’s gaze. “No, he hasn’t. He’s been with me.”

  She nodded.

  “Really?” Ben balanced a plate of food, three tamales on each, and slipped it towards me. One of the tamales was in danger of sliding off the plate. I caught it with my fork.

  “Yes, honey.” She turned to Ben and toasted him with the red wine. “I always said you should find a nice girl and settle down.”

  She glanced at me. I kept my expression neutral. This was between Ben and his grandmother. It was as if Ben was eighteen and arguing with a parent who didn’t want him to take off and join the Peace Corps, but stay in town and take over Dad’s dry goods business.

  Ben groaned. “Grandma.”

  “I’m being realistic. Ben, honey, three is too many; take one back.” She deftly removed the still husk-wrapped tamale and tossed it back into the center bowl.

  “Don’t you love the holiday tradition of serving tamales to guests?” She asked me. “I get these downtown, hand made, of course.”

  I nodded.

  Dinner went well, I think. Once we moved past the conversation about Ben, and his lack of relationships, the flow of talk was easier for me.

  To distract his grandmother, Ben talked about the Pinot Gris girl.

  “Cassandra flew home from Adelaide a couple of weeks ago. She is starting up her own winery here, in Dry Creek.”

  “There’s room here?” Emily asked.

  “She has about ten acres she inherited from her parents, she’s building a small winery where that storage barn used to be.”

  “You’re helping her, aren’t you?” Emily said it more as fact than a real question. This was interesting.

  “Yeah,” Ben admitted, immediately. “I’m a partner in the winery.”

  Emily rolled her eyes and looked at me, then looked at Ben. “You aren’t in need of a partner for any new venture are you?” She addressed me.

  “Not that I’m aware of.” I said piously.

  “Self actualized woman?” Emily said.

  “Come on,” Ben protested. “I’ve always been there for Cassandra. What else was I supposed to do? We’ve been friends since the third grade, and when she inherited the vineyards, I suggested Australia for her MS,” he explained to me.

  “You help a lot.” I said.

  “Sometimes, it gets him in trouble.” Emily sipped her wine.

  “Yes, it does.” I felt, of course, that there was more to the Cassandra story, but it probably didn’t bear discussion over the dinner table in front of his grandmother. I’d find out more, later. This woman mattered. Whether this Cassandra mattered more than me was something I’d have to explore - very carefully.

  Was he caring for his grandmother? Probably. I knew people who shared their homes with a parent, and it often worked well. It was not something that would work for me. My sister-in-law, Mary, once commented that my mother was always welcome in their house. I’m taking Mary at her word. I even wrote it down. I’m thinking of asking Mary to sign it. I may even have the papers notarized.

  Even through the house was magnificent and the location divine, why was the man living with his grandmother? Come on, in every Glamour magazine article you’ve ever read, the number one don’t sign, the worst thing a boy can do, is still live with his parents – eewww – very failure to launch.

  So, as we wished Emily good night and crossed the courtyard to Ben’s “apartment”, I asked the question, why live with Grandma?

  “I haven’t foun
d a relationship I want to ruin by building a new house,” was his answer.

  “Dude, you’re over forty.” I couldn’t help it. It popped out.

  I have no discretion when it comes to my personal life. I demonstrate great self-control and tact in business, which makes me think that we must only get a certain finite allotment of tact and diplomacy, and I use mine up selling homes.

  He gave me an odd look that I couldn’t read at all. “That may change.”

  “Being over forty?”

  “No, you smart ass,” he said with somewhat more affection. “Living with Grandma.”

  “Keep in touch on that.”

  Calling Ben’s quarters an apartment was about the same level of misnomer as calling his grandmother’s gracious family compound a mere house.

  Ben lived on the first and second floor directly across the courtyard from the kitchen and, he assured me, his grandmother’s rooms.

  “We live more separately than it looks.” He explained.

  “I didn’t say anything.” We walked through French doors to his living room a huge library with scattered upholstered furniture. I stood at the shelves and squinted at all the hardback books. The room was filled, floor to ceiling with books. It felt like that scene when Belle is given the Beast’s library. How marvelous.

  “Yes, the pages are all cut.” He commented.

  I glanced over at him. “You still surprise me.”

  “I hope to always surprise you.”

  His bedroom was large enough to easily accommodate a king size bed topped by a massive mission style headboard that could have been a carriage house door in a previous life. There was room for a stacked Japanese Tansu chest, two easy chairs, and an occasional table. His bathroom was equally muscular with a walk in shower recently updated in glass tiles in clear green and blue. I could pretend I was underwater. I could hardly wait to try it out.

  In his bed, the sex was as good, maybe better, than at my house since there was more room in the bed. But I’m not quite ready to concede that point. I’m very happy with my own, cozy, queen size mattress.

  ***

  Thus, based on that rather idyllic fifteen hours, I felt I could call him up on his only day off and ask for help. If he helped people the way his grandmother claimed, I was in good hands.