took two hours because everybody wanted to know what happened to Gerri. A story I’d refuse to tell a million times.
Since Gerri wasn’t going to be around for a while, I referred clients to other co-strugglers. Went over Multiple List Services. Contracts. Files in escrow. Office manuals. Information on my primary farm area. Names. Addresses. Asked who wanted to buy my Thomas Guide, the book that diagramed all the streets and addresses in Los Angeles. Areas I’d grown to know like the back of my hand.
My Thomas Guide. A miracle book. From here to Palm Springs to San Francisco to San Diego, I could find any address I needed to find.
That was when I realized how much I knew about Los Angeles, how much I had learned about real estate and its hustle, how proficient I had become.
I went to ask a superior how I would set up a payment plan for what I still owed ReMax in desk fees.
She pushed a button on her computer, said, “Let’s see. Your balance is . . . well, your desk fees balance is zero.”
I repeated, “Zero?”
“Now leave before I change my mind.”
I went into my office, pulled my bill from the IRS out of my purse, and closed the door.
I opened the letter from the IRS. A sigh later I picked up the phone and called the Uncle Sambo office in Fresno to have a chit-chat about my delinquent taxes. After dealing with recording after recording, a real person picked up. I went through my hard-luck story, wanted to know if I could reduce my payment plan on my delinquent taxes.
The rep said that wouldn’t be necessary.
My balance was zero.
I hung up before Sambo changed his mind.
A couple of hours later, I hooked up with Rosa Lee at the Vegetarian Affair. I’d promised her when she had me trapped on the phone, no way I could flake out. The schoolteacher looked like fine and sophistication in her copper-colored slacks, reddish brown blouse, open toe pumps, and big, curly hair that was always stylish on her little bitty head. There was a brief smile as I came in the door, but then the expression on Rosa Lee’s face became all business.
I told her, “No way you have four kids.”
“I tucked my uterus back in. Damn thing started hanging.”
We laughed.
I copped a squat on a bar stool that faced Santa Rosalia Avenue. Ten-foot wrought iron bars went around the mall’s perimeter. Five minutes later, I was wolfing down a barbecue sandwich made from soybeans. Waiting to see what type of conversation I was going to be having. In my mind, I was on the 10 heading east, leaving all the palm trees and dry air behind.
I said, “I’m surprised.”
“At what?”
“You’re the first person who hasn’t asked me what happened.”
“You want to talk it, you’ll talk about it.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Me either. That’s not the conversation I want to have with you.” She chewed her bite of tofu sandwich at least twenty times before she swallowed. “We haven’t had that much time to get together, which I really hate, so I wanted to steal a moment. After you head back to the Big Apple, never know if we’ll ever see each other again.”
“True. But the world ain’t as big as it seems. People always run into each other again.”
“That’s the truth.”
“How are things with you and Womack?”
“What do you mean?”
“Vince said that, well, that things were rough and, other things.”
“I guess that means you’re talking about when Womack told Vince that he thought I was having an affair?”
“Yeah.”
Rosa Lee laughed.
I didn’t. “Rosa Lee, what’s funny?”
“We’ve had our ups and downs, like everybody else. Yes, some days are better than others. An affair? Get real.”
She told me about the night she went to Lucy Florence.
“I saw him behind me. Can’t hide a head shaped like his.”
Some more chuckles.
“Dana, this brother, this actor on one of those silly WB shows was all over me before I could get in the building. ‘Damn, my sister, lookin’ good. I can get you in to see a taping of my show.’ The whole spiel.”
“What you do?”
“Told him his show was filled with trite buffoonery, programs like his were a disgrace to all people, hoped he had a day job, something better than the Amos and Andy role he played, and kept moving. Dana, that fool stared me down the rest of the night. If Vince wasn’t there, I would’ve been scared.”
I chewed and swallowed. Listened.
She told me that Vince had sold