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The sellers were Marty and Rebecca Dyer. They were in their early 30s and had been married for more than ten years.
But it was hard to imagine them spending more than a single loving second together.
I had momentarily distracted Marty from his soon-to-be ex-wife by throwing gobs of cookie dough onto a baking sheet.
“The smell,” I said. “Research shows that there’s no smell that people associate more with home than fresh-baked cookies.”
“They don’t have an aerosol for that?” he asked. “Or a candle?”
“What are you giving her a hard time for?” Rebecca asked. “Leave her alone. Let her do her job.”
“Her job is to sell the house, not bake cookies,” he said. “It is nice thatsomeoneis finally using the kitchen, though.”
Oh, good lord, I thought.
“You want me to plop frozen cookie dough onto a sheet and put it in the oven for ten minutes?” Rebecca asked. “That would have kept you from cheating on me with the housekeeper you dingus?”
“She’s so dramatic,” Marty said, as if he thought I would take his side. “I never had sex with the housekeeper.”
“Ha!” Rebecca said. “Youtriedto. You would have if she hadn’t rejected you over and over again.”
“It’s not cheating if we didn’t have sex,” he said. “That’s what my lawyer told me.”
“Marty, Rebecca!” I said. “Let’s try to focus. You may not like each other, but we’re all on the same page here. All three of us want the house to sell.”
And from the sound of things, all three of us really wanted the divorce, too.
I took each of their hands in mine and turned on my sunshine and rainbow voice.
“So, let’s put our differences aside and focus on the task at hand,” I said. “Selling the house as quickly as possible for as much as we can!”
I looked at the clock, we still had another fifteen minutes before the open house technically began.
“Can we agree to that? Just for the next few hours?”
I looked at both of them, back and forth. They didn’t respond. They just stared at each other, like Clint Eastwood in a Spaghetti Western, as if allowing any kind of temporary truce would be considered a sign of weakness.
“Great!” Silence was as close to an affirmative as I was likely to get. I dropped their hands and went back to work pulling informational flyers out of my bag and putting them on the counter. “You both can even go home. It’s somewhat unconventional for the sellers to be here during the open house.”
That was me being kind. There was no good reason for the sellers to be at the open house so long as there was a realtor.
“So why don’t you both head out and go home and relax and let ol’ Sloaney here take care of everything for you?” I never was a cheerleader back in high school — nor did I even try out — but I think I had the energy for it. At least for short periods, I was able to get as rah-rah as necessary to motivate whatever group I was a part of.
Naturally, I had a tendency to crash from time to time, but it was a small price to pay for having the ability. I didn’t take it for granted, either. Not just anybody could do what I could do. Wesley, for instance, couldn’t even bring himself to smile or offer the least bit of enthusiasm when he called me into his office. What a prick.
And yet, he effused a kind of sex appeal that made it feel like there were cheerleaders doing a routine in my underwear. Being alone with him and having his undivided attention on me sent me right into those nervous hiccups. It was outright embarrassing, though his calm demeanor kept me from feeling judged. As much as I liked being able to embrace that ball of energy that I had brewing inside me, there must have been something nice about the stability that he maintained. Still, it seemed pretty boring, and it sucked that he forced everyone in the office to be as boring as he was. I don’t even think he cared about the content of the story I told — I think what he was upset about was that people were actually laughing and having a good time during company hours. God forbid! What a dingus.
“I’d rather stay,” Rebecca said. “In case any of the buyers has a question. But you can go home, Marty.”
He looked at her as if she had just suggested he drink a gallon of cement covered in dog hair.
“I’d also rather stay,” he said. “We bought this house together. We’re going to sell it together, too.”
I forced my smile from falling into a grimace. They were actively making my job harder, but I couldn’t tell them that. The customer was always right, right? But it’s like they always said, if you can’t have what you want, then try to want what you have.
I let the inner cheerleader do her work.
“That’s the spirit!” I said. “We’re a team. And we’re going to sell the heck out of this house, aren’t we?”
