The Cassie Chronicles - Episode 3

If pillow fluffing and exploding babies weren’t enough, Cassie’s got her hands full with unruly children and new projects from Skinny Bitch. What’s a girl to do?

Don’t Say No

Skinny Bitch wrapped up the Monday morning sales meeting by giving us our marching orders for the week. Another project.

“Because of recent robberies and for insurance purposes,” she said, “we need you to take pictures of everything in your model complex. The pictures should be arranged by model and room in a binder.” I felt the silent collective groan from my fellow sales counselors. We all wanted to scream in protest, but there’s no use in arguing with Skinny Bitch. Armed with our assignment, we left for our respective neighborhoods and the day’s adventures. I didn’t have to wait long for my excitement.

One of my recent buyers, Marcia Goodman, waited at the door with her three-year-old daughter, Morgan, a red-haired imp of a child who never failed to get into some kind of mischief. Marcia wanted to see paint samples, so I got out the swatches for her. Spreading them out on the credenza she studied each one, holding it up to the light, holding it down toward the floor, holding it straight out and cocking her head to get another angle on it, then putting it back in line with the other colors. She paid no attention to Morgan who had gotten bored and climbed up on the coffee table, jumping on it like a trampoline.

“No, no, Morgan,” I said, fearing the table’s imminent collapse.

Marcia glared at me. “We never say no to Morgan.”

“I’m afraid she’s going to get hurt,” I said. “How do you let her know not to do something dangerous?” Fueled by the attention, Morgan jumped higher and harder.

“Distraction,” Marcia said. “We emphasize the positive.”

“Okay,” I said. “Morgan, I positively want you to get down from the table.”

Morgan jumped again, giving me an evil grin. Marcia did nothing.

“Morgan,” I said in the happiest stern voice I could muster, “please get down now.”

Morgan started crying, but kept on jumping.

“Quit harassing my daughter,” Marcia said, just as the table cracked in two and Morgan crashed to the floor.

“Oh, my God,” Marcia screamed. “Look what you’ve done to my child. This place isn’t safe.”

Marcia scooped up her hysterical daughter and charged out the sales office door. But she had gone out the wrong door and was now trapped in the model complex by the wrought iron fencing. My own little evil grin surfaced as I watched Marcia realize her error. Too proud to come back through the office to access the parking lot, she tossed Morgan into the flowerbed on the other side of the fence and scrambled over it herself, legs flailing. Her designer tee shirt caught on the fence post. She tugged at the shirt and it tore free, leaving a remnant attached to the post. Brushing herself off, she picked her daughter up out of the begonias. Without glancing back at me, Marcia loaded Morgan into the black SUV, jumped into the driver’s seat and screeched out of the parking lot.

I had to think saying no would have been a whole lot easier on all of us, but who am I to judge? I have no kids of my own. In my job I am bound by the axiom that the customer is always right and should bite my tongue when I see kids misbehaving and parents doing nothing. I don’t always do what I should, though.

I set about picking up the pile of debris that used to be our coffee table. It was too far gone to salvage and would wind up in the dumpster. Guess I wouldn’t have to photograph that piece of furniture for Skinny Bitch. Score one for the bright side. On second thought, I got the camera and snapped a picture of the rubble for the record. You don’t say no to Skinny Bitch, after all.

Poetic Illusions

The following excerpt is from a screenplay Liz, Nancy, and I are collaborating on about three women in their late fifties and early sixties who experience some disastrous life changes that force them to re-evaluate their lives. The characters are Emma, Georgie, and Louise. This vignette is between Georgie and Louise and is told from Georgie's point of view. Georgie is a witty, spontaneous, adventurous, but reality-based woman who sometimes lets her worst instincts and impulsivity get the best of her. Louise, a spiritual nymphette and former hippie, lives life under a little pink cloud, hoping to change the world for the better with a variety of new-age theories and do-gooder projects. The person she admires most in the world is Julia Butterfly, the woman who lived in a tree for months and months to save it from being cut down.

I lie all the time, so it’s hard to remember the last lie I told. I lie for a lot of reasons.

I’m particularly good at lying to myself so I can do something I want to do but know I shouldn’t. Like yesterday morning, I told myself that eating chocolate cake for breakfast is just like having a donut. In fact, I told myself, a piece of chocolate cake with a glass of milk is much healthier than eggs, bacon, and toast or pancakes, because if I total the calories from the fat and the grease in those things, not to mention add in the time to cook it all and clean it up, I’m really much better off with a piece of cake and a glass of milk. Moreover, milk has all that bone boosting calcium and since milk only tastes good to me with chocolate cake, I wouldn’t have had the glass of milk unless I had the chocolate cake, so I’ve actually enhanced my nutritional intake. I’m really, really good at lies like that.

Like everyone, sometimes I lie to protect another’s feelings, like my lie to Louise last week. The Boardman’s daughter is getting married next month in the bluff-top park overlooking the river and they’ve asked Louise to recite a poem. Louise bought a new outfit for the occasion and wanted me to see it. I’m not terribly interested in clothes and particularly the clothes that Louise wears because she always looks either like an ethereal fairy with diaphanous fabrics that drift and float around her like pastel swirls of fog or like an over-the-hill Heidi in peasant dresses with puffy sleeves and dangling ribbons, the shepherdess look.

When I went to see her new outfit, she answered the door wearing what was a new fashion statement even for Louise. I was transfixed, or perhaps paralyzed is more accurate. She wore gray silk stockings underneath a skirt of pale green sheer fabric that drifted in clumps to the floor. It looked somewhat like mosquito netting. Her blouse was a shiny brown satin covered with overlapping layers of limp silk leaves in green, gold, and silver.

My God, I thought, she looks like a tree.

Imagine my surprise when she told me her inspiration was the weeping willows and towering oaks that dotted the park. She wanted to evoke a graceful arboresque image. Arboresque, she definitely was. I could only think she’d have to be careful or someone might plant her.

There was nothing to do but lie so I said, “Louise, you look positively pastoral.”

“Oh no,” she said and grimaced with dismay, “I’m not supposed to look like a pastor. I’m not performing the ceremony; I’m just reading a poem.”

"Louise,” I said, “I mean pastoral in the sense of arcadian, verdant, sylvan.”

“Wonderful,” she beamed. “Do I also look poetic?” She spun around on her toes, the flimsy leaves on her blouse flapping in the breeze, her skirt billowing and puddling around her feet.

Well, she certainly looked otherworldly, but I’m not sure that equates with poetic.

Nonetheless, I said, “Absolutely. You are a transcendental vision. Wordsworth himself might even say rhapsodic, bucolic, or idyllic. He’d adopt you as his muse in a minute.”

Louise wafted across the room to give me a hug. Unfortunately, wafting is tricky for even the most accomplished fairies, not to mention one with yards of gauze gathered around her ankles. So, it wasn’t a perfect waft—she stumbled once or twice but managed to give me a bear hug.

“I want to strike an image of natural wonder and incorporate the setting visually to enhance my reading. I’m glad you approve.”

“Oh, Louise,” I said, “Not to worry. The guests will most assuredly be stricken, if not simply overcome.”

She gave me an affectionate pat on the cheek and smiled with delight.

I’m very grateful I have a good vocabulary. It makes lying so much easier.

More Cassie Chronicles

In our last episode new home sales rep, Cassie Petersen, was fluffing pillows with her boss, Skinny Bitch. See what she's dealing with now!

Some People!

So you don’t get me wrong, I’ll say right up front that people are the best thing about my job. I meet lots of wonderful families. But dealing with people is really the worst part of my job, and even after twenty years I find myself shaking my head at some of the things that happen. I shouldn’t be surprised anymore by the things people do, but I am. And sometimes it’s the people I least expect who surprise me the most.

A few weeks ago, for instance, on a busy Sunday, a woman fainted in the parking lot and people just stepped over her body trying to get in and out of the office. No one helped her, not even the nurse who was inside waiting to buy a house. What’s the matter with people? I had Judy call 911 and Sarah got a blanket, while I eased one of the sofa pillows under the woman’s head and held her hand as she came to. The impatient nurse came out to tell me that if I didn’t come take his check right away, he wasn’t going to buy the house after all.

“Okay,” I said, glaring at him. He looked at me like I was the rude one and stormed off to his car. Good thing I remained professional and didn’t say what I really wanted to say.

After the paramedics took the woman to the hospital, I went back into the office to tend to the crowd. There was this fresh-faced couple with a baby who were especially impatient, a minister and his wife. The woman sat in one of our sky blue upholstered chairs with the baby, while I answered a million questions for her anxious husband. I was happy to answer his questions, but all the while I was thinking about how this man of God hadn’t bothered to come out to see if the woman prone on the asphalt needed any assistance. He hadn’t even offered a word of comfort. The wife fidgeted and the baby fussed, but the husband didn’t notice. Suddenly, the minister’s wife jumped up and ran out of the office with her baby. Unconcerned, the good reverend kept on asking his questions until he was satisfied, gathered his paperwork and left without a thank you.

As the door closed behind him, I caught a whiff of something nasty.

“What’s that smell?” I asked Judy. I saw her stricken look and followed her outstretched arm and pointing finger to the blue chair. There, where the minister’s wife and baby had perched, was a swath of yellow-brown baby poop. The woman had bolted out the door, leaving the mess behind. No apology. No offer to clean up. People!

I donned my HAZMAT suit – surgical gloves and a smock that I keep on hand for these occasions – and grabbed my bucket of cleaning products. No sales office should be without these items, by the way. I cleaned the cushion pretty well, but the memory has lingered.

We call it the Poopy Chair now, and we don’t allow anyone we like to sit there. The construction guys avoid it at our weekly meeting. If that’s the only empty chair, they sit cross-legged on the floor. Big strapping men in work boots will not sit in the Poopy Chair.

Besides the exploding baby, in the past few weeks someone stole the sweet pink bunny sheets, comforter and curtains from the Plan 3 little girl’s room. A buyer’s son pulled down his pants and peed in the bushes right outside our front door, and someone threw up in the Plan 1 kitchen sink. Some people can turn your world upside down.

And it’s not just the customers. Skinny Bitch has had us taking inventory of every piece of electronic equipment and photographing every room in our models. There’s a spreadsheet to be filled out for each model. I’ve been busy with Phase 4 escrow closings, so mine’s not done yet and I’m in trouble with Skinny Bitch.

That’s why I wasn’t too surprised to see her stroll into the office this afternoon - after my spreadsheet, no doubt. Since I was on the phone, she motioned to me that she’d wait out in the lobby. I hung up, sucked in my breath and went out to face her.

For the first time in weeks joy filled my heart, when I saw Skinny Bitch lounging comfortably in the Poopy Chair. In that moment, from the most unexpected source, all was right with my world.

Copyright 2009 by Liz Zuercher

Tea With The Ladies

by Susan Cameron

Jennifer and her husband Sam strolled hand-in-hand down the gently curving streets of Bath. At first, she had the odd sensation of walking through a movie set. It was classic Georgian England as seen in movies and TV shows: tall rows of dignified homes, as genteel and quiet as elderly ladies lined up in church pews, half-dozing through the sermon. And like church ladies, the congregation of houses all looked much the same: pale weathered stone faces in calm repose; all windows identical, neatly aligned, tastefully covered; a perfectly centered front door with polished brass fittings; and spiked black iron fencing emphatically separating all of them from the pavement just a few feet away.

Jennifer and Sam had wandered all afternoon along these old streets, admiring the impressive sweep of the Royal Crescent and the lovely park at Queen Square. As they strolled, Jennifer noticed an odd thing she wouldn’t have seen from a car; every house sat in a one-story-deep hole. Behind its iron fence, every house had a narrow staircase down into a hole almost a full story below street grade that led to another beautiful door. Some of the entries were like claustrophobic little patios, with colorful shade plants in pots and climbing vines stretching toward the light, but what a peculiar way to build houses, she thought.

“Honey, why did all these people put beautiful windows and a door in their basement?” she asked Sam, her authority on all things English. He laughed and squeezed her hand.

“No, my love, that’s not a basement. That’s the ground floor, at street level -- at least it was street level back when these houses were built. You’ve got to remember how long ago that was. When the original road deteriorated, the people just laid another layer over it. They built roads by hand in those days -- too hard to tear up the old road and begin fresh. They kept adding layer after layer to the road over the centuries. So the owners had to build steps to get down to their old front doors, and they had to put new front doors where first-floor windows once were.”

Jennifer leaned on the iron fence and craned her neck, trying to see down in the hole. Would the wall facing the door have layers, like an archeological dig? Could the residents see rock and cobblestone, brick and macadam, like the different-patterned stripes of a Fair Isle sweater?

She imagined these genteel houses over the centuries, watching the street rising just a meter or two away, an eight-foot slow-motion landslide engulfing them to their knees.

“Oh, dear,” murmured one of them as the cobblestones rose above her threshold. “I don’t like this a-tall.”

“Mustn’t grumble, dear,” another chided gently as brick paving reached doorknob-high. “We can’t stop progress.”

“I say,” whispered the first. “I can’t see out my ground-floor windows any longer. There’s no air, there’s no light.”

“It’s the smell of this awful new stuff that bothers me,” sniffed another. “I believe they refer to it as asphalt.”

“Mustn’t fuss,” another sighed. “I’ve a lovely pot of tea and chocolate hobnobs in the withdrawing room. Stiff upper lip, girls.”

Jennifer felt so foreign, so American.

Susan Cameron, copyright 2009