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With her tight little beady eyes, tight little face, and long sharp nose, there was definitely a rodent vibe going on somewhere. Once, at a Women in Real Estate cocktail party, when Babs had been across the room nibbling on a piece of cheese, Ethel had poked Brenda and said, “See, I told you she was a rat.” But Brenda said she thought Babs looked more like a whippet wearing a pair of bad earrings.
    And it wasn’t just her looks that Ethel objected to: it was the harsh way she conducted business and her loud and crass advertising style. Babs’s company used ads written in big bold headlines that screamed at you:
    HURRY! HURRY! HURRY!
    WON’T LAST LONG!
    RUN, DON’T WALK!
    BRING YOUR TOOTHBRUSH!
    Whereas Maggie’s ads used more subtle terms like “Prepare to fall in love,” “Elegance of the past,” “A house to build a dream on,” or “Your lovely new home awaits you.” When Maggie wrote ads for less expensive homes, she said, “A rare opportunity for the discriminating buyer,” “Adorable and affordable,” or “Perfect for the first-time buyer and those wishing to scale down.” Babs’s ads for the same homes screamed at you:
    CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP!
    A REAL STEAL!
    GRAB IT WHILE YOU CAN!
    A LOT OF BANG FOR YOUR BUCK!
    Maggie’s ads for the high-end, upper-market, “over the mountain” homes and estates were especially discreet and simply stated, “Price upon request.” Babs’s idea of selling an expensive home was:
    IF YOU HAVE TO ASK, YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT!
    If Maggie’s ad said, “A large spacious home, perfect for the collector and gracious entertaining,” Babs’s said:
    GOT ART? WALLS GALORE!
    PLENTY OF ROOM TO PARTY!
    Ethel said Babs was about as subtle and discreet as a Mack truck, but as the years went by and Babs Bingington’s office started outsellingRed Mountain Realty’s office three to one, it was obvious that much of the public was responding, and it made Ethel so mad she could spit bullets.
    By now, everybody in the business knew that Babs was taking kickbacks from some of the new real estate developers in town. When they saw a house on a lot they liked, usually one of the beautiful older homes, Babs would approach the owners and talk them into selling to the nice young couple she hired to pretend to be the buyers. And then, after it was sold and escrow closed, the next day, the developers would move in and bulldoze the existing house down to the ground and, almost overnight, throw up a cheaply built, brand-new six- or seven-thousand-square-foot, bright orange, fake Mediterranean-style mega-mansion that looked to Maggie like a giant Taco Bell. And, as Ethel often said, “What the hell does Mediterranean style have to do with Birmingham anyway?”

Sleepless in Mountain Brook

    M AGGIE TRIED TO SLEEP, BUT SHE KEPT THINKING ABOUT ALL THE things she had to do to get ready to leave on the third. She had already decided she would donate all her clothes and jewelry to the little community theater around the corner. Her neighbor Boots volunteered in the costume department and said they were always in need of clothes. Everything else—sheets, blankets, towels, dishes, pots and pans—would go to the Salvation Army, but she was still unsure about what to do with her Miss Alabama trophy and her sash and crown. And what about all her family photographs and newspaper clippings? She didn’t know anyone who would want them, but she didn’t want them to wind up at some garage sale either. She supposed she should probably take them down to the office and put them in the big paper shredder in the back room, if she could figure out how to work the thing. The last time she had tried, it had shredded one of her good scarves into a hundred pieces.
    After Maggie tossed and turned for another half hour, she finally gave up and went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea and started her “Things to Do Before I Go” list:
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