“Help what?”
“Exactly. At some point you will want to sell, and I can give you a few tiny bits of advice that will make that process easier, even if,” she paused here for full effect, “you go with another broker.”
And I will, I promised myself.
“What kind of advice?” Alvin said.
She turned her blinding smile on him. “Staging a home can make the difference between a quick sale and the price you want and a protracted and miserable selling period.”
“Staging,” Alvin breathed. “I’ve heard about that. You mean someone would come in here and make things look like a model home? That would be great, wouldn’t it, Camilla? People do that for a living. I think I’d be good at that, myself. I’m an artist. I did these.” He pointed proudly to the nearest Tuscan murals.
“Oh,” she said glancing around and losing a bit of her bright colour, “did you? My.”
My, indeed.
“Let me get you some lemonade, Ms Jewell,” Alvin said, fluttering from the room like a lovesick moth. “I’d like to hear more about this.”
As he disappeared from view, she leaned toward me and said, “First, I’d recommend getting rid of the murals. Contemporary buyers want neutrals, harmony and simplicity.”
“Do they? Well contemporary buyers are just going to have to suck it up if they want this house. The murals stay.”
“Oh, certainly, just as long as you realize that it will limit the number of people who come through.”
“It will limit it to none, because if you recall, less than a minute ago, I said that I was not ready to sell.”
“Well, of course, you did. And I agree, but we’re just blue-sky thinking about the future. Anything I could do to help make the transition easier for you and...”
“Alvin,” I said.
Gussie yawned. The little calico cat got up and stretched.
“Your dog is quite, um…”
“Flatulent? Yes indeed, although I should point out that he’s not actually my dog although he is lying on my sofa. He belongs to Alvin’s brother, but for complicated reasons he’s been here for a while.”
“He seems to get along with your cat,” she said, a tiny frown line appearing between her eyebrows.
“Again, odd as it may seem, that is not my cat. She belongs to a friend, Mrs. Violet Parnell, who is actually in the Perley Rideau Hospital recovering from a broken hip.”
“Do I hear tweeting?”
“Lester and Pierre. Peach-faced lovebirds. Also visiting.”
“That’s a relief. Pets make it much harder to sell a place. So if these cute creatures could move on, things would go much more smoothly.”
Gussie had been in residence for more than four years, and Mrs. Parnell’s cat, for various reasons, had always more or less stayed at my place. The birds were just hanging around until Mrs. P. was discharged from hospital.
“Move on? That won’t be happening.”
“Well, fine, of course, it is your home. Keep in mind that a lot of buyers are afraid of dogs and others are allergic to cats. Birds make people nervous, but I’m sure we can work around that.”
Was she deranged? “I don’t actually have to work around anything, because I’ve decided I’ll be happy in this house forever.”
“Certainly, take your time and think it over. Do you mind if I look upstairs?”
“Yes,” I said, “I do mind. I’m not selling this house, and you can tell my sisters that from me. Now I’m extremely busy today, and you’ll just have to excuse me.”
“Absolutely,” she said, not moving.
I opened the front door, letting in a blast of hot humid air. I smiled and said, “Goodbye, Ms Jewell.”
To do her credit, she turned that right on its head. She glanced at her watch and raised her eyebrows. “I really have to go, but I’ll just leave this information package for you. I’m here to help. I can certainly facilitate your paper purge.”
“You don’t seem to understand—my files are highly confidential.”
“Confidentiality is one of our specialties. I’ll call you.”
As she minced toward her black Mercedes SUV, I lifted my middle finger. “Call this,” I muttered.
Alvin scowled at me. “She seemed very professional. Knows what she’s talking about. I bet she can sell anything.”
“Well, she’s not selling this house, Alvin. And I think we’ve seen the last of her.”
I took advantage of having the front door open to snatch the mail, which must have been still sitting there from the day before, the office assistant once again asleep at the wheel. The mail contained the usual slim bundle of pizza delivery ads, fitness centre come-ons and bills, which were no longer a big problem for me.
This time there was also a single white unstamped, unaddressed number ten envelope. Sealed. I opened it.
Alvin always hovers when I get the mail. He likes to be in charge of all that exiting stuff. “I must have forgotten to bring the mail in yesterday. I’ve been busy with my cooking project. There are thousands of recipes for oatcakes.” He frowned as I stared at the note.
I lowered my voice. “It says Rollie Thorsten.”
“I honestly thought it was your brother-in-law, Stan, sending those jokes.”
It would be just like Stan to try to creep me out by sending unfunny yet unsettling jokes in plain envelopes. This was the man who’d inserted whoopee cushions, fake dog turds and ice cubes with insects into every MacPhee family gathering that I could remember. I thought back to the stick-on cigarette burns on my sister’s custom upholstery, the piles of plastic vomit under the coffee table. And those were just the highlights. This envelope business was all very Stanlike. But Stan was on the Mediterranean cruise with my sisters and the other two brothers-in-law and my father.
Maybe he had an accomplice. But Stan was as cheap as he was cheerful. His money went on Buicks and joke novelties. I couldn’t see him paying anyone to do this. To the best of my knowledge, he had no cronies outside the family. My sister Edwina kept him on a short leash.
“Trust me, Stan isn’t killing people, Alvin. He didn’t even stay mad at me when I wrecked his Buick. Remember?”
“Who could be doing it?”
“I don’t know, Alvin. Some pathetic soul with an axe to grind. I still don’t believe it really has anything to do with me.”
“If you say so,” Alvin said.
He likes to have the last word.
“How crazy is that?” I said to the light of my life, Ray Deveau, doing my best to fill up the thirteen hundred minute block of telephone time we manage to talk every month. It’s a necessary part of our long distance relationship. “Not that there’s anything funny about the joke business.”
“Maybe, just a…”
“Okay, but you live in Cape Breton. Here in Ottawa, we’re more serious. All that Parliamentary protocol and everything.”
“Not while you have Alvin with you, you’re not serious.”
“That’s true.