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Maggie was voting for. She herself hadn’t liked anybody since Harry Truman. In fact, she hadn’t liked much of anything since 1948 and was quick to tell you about it. Ethel could be a little blunt at times. She was quite a bit older than she cared to admit (eighty-eight last May), was deaf in one ear, and had terrible arthritis in both knees, but regardless of her age, she never missed a day of work at Red Mountain Realty. She liked work. It kept her heart going. She supposed some people looked forward to retiring and traveling, but not her. There was a time when people traveled for pleasure, but as far as Ethel was concerned, there was nothing pleasurable about it anymore.
    She used to like to take the train, but since the government tookthat over, what was once gracious dining with white linen tablecloths and fine silver was now just a snack bar full of people in flip-flops eating bad microwaved sandwiches, drinking beer and Diet Snapple. And forget flying. Standing in those long lines, being prodded and poked to a fare-thee-well, treated like a criminal. Hell, she didn’t want to take her shoes off in front of strangers and stick them in some dirty plastic tub. Years ago, when you took a plane, you were served a fully cooked hot meal: roast beef and gravy or lobster with a nice wine and a dessert. Now it was just water and a bag of peanuts. And even if your plane was on time, there were no more redcaps to help you with your luggage anymore. At the end of her last flight, when she’d tried to grab her bag, she had been dragged halfway around the carousel, and if that man hadn’t caught her, there was no telling where she would have ended up. And then it hadn’t even been
her
suitcase. They had lost hers. How a bag clearly marked Birmingham, Alabama, could wind up in Butte, Montana, on an entirely different airline was beyond her. And God knows you couldn’t drive anywhere with all of the big eighteen-wheeler trucks running up your behind, blowing their horns, and scaring you half to death. And even if you did make it to where you were going without having been squashed along the side of the road, it wasn’t the same. Years ago, when you checked into your hotel, they used to be happy to see you and say, “Welcome!” Now it was just some kid behind a desk who didn’t even look at you. No hello, just “Do you have a reservation?” So, she was staying home.
    Besides, she couldn’t go anywhere anyway. As long as Maggie and Brenda were willing to hang in and keep Red Mountain Realty going, she would hang in there with them. And with Babs (the Beast of Birmingham) Bingington circling around their office like a big shark, Ethel needed to be on guard twenty-four hours a day. She already suspected a few things, and she’d be damned if she’d let Babs pull the same dirty rotten tricks on Maggie as she had on Hazel.
    Ethel was a Christian and all that, but she still couldn’t forgive Babs for what she had done to Hazel. She was working on it, but so far, no luck.

The Beast

    B ABS (THE BEAST OF BIRMINGHAM) HAD BLOWN INTO TOWN YEARS ago from New Jersey and by her second year there, was already a member of the Diamond Club and had been the city’s top producer of sales for six years in a row. A dynamo in business, yes, but it would be more than generous to say that Babs wasn’t a nice person. She didn’t even have the courtesy to fake being nice—unless, of course, she was with a client. Babs not only had two faces, she had two voices as well. When dealing with her employees or with other agents, she snapped orders in a loud, nasal tone that could crack ice, but with clients, she always used some fake oozy, syrupy voice, her attempt at a southern drawl that Brenda said was enough to gag a maggot. They say that eventually, everyone gets the face they deserve, and in her case, it was true. Someone (Ethel) once said that Babs looked exactly like a well-dressed wharf rat, a terribly cruel thing to say, but accurate.