Dallas Summer Reading Series: Land Play

My aunt, Dimple Snodgrass, is a actual estate agent. She drives a cream-coloured Lexus—the hybrid product since we all have to do our section. 

She’s a actual go-getter, the leading producer in her place of work. Her motto: “Keep It Very simple With Dimple!” 

The Lexus glides into an empty location on top of a two-tale parking garage. The garage is in Preston Center, an oasis of places of work and shops in North Dallas surrounded by high priced households, many of which have offered since of Dimple’s efficient advertising and marketing strategies and her willingness to stab a colleague in the back again.

She exits the auto in a haze of White Shoulders perfume, her platinum hair teased up superior and large.

“Hello, Charlie,” she says. “How long has it been?”

“Howdy, Aunt Dimple.” I force a smile on my face. She’s family members and all, but I don’t a lot treatment for her.

“Been this means to have you around for meal,” she suggests. “Work’s been ridiculous. I’m bouncing about like popcorn in a very hot skillet.”

Aunt Dimple has in no way had me in excess of for evening meal. She only phone calls when she desires my exclusive skills. 

I guess you could call me a clairvoyant. Every single now and then, if the conditions are correct, I sense items that other people can’t. Supposedly my grandfather, who died right before I was born, experienced the very same problem. No 1 else in the family members does. It’s possible it skips a era, though I had an uncle who at the time claimed he observed into the long run soon after listening to a Ray Wylie Hubbard CD while tripping on peyote.

In some cases it’s just a coloration, like what the psychics call an aura. Other occasions it’s an graphic that could or might not make sense. Ideal right before she broke up with me, my last girlfriend looked like a pair of Florsheim sneakers, black wingtips polished to a higher gloss. 

You may well assume the Florsheims had anything to do with whoever she was leaving me for. But just after she dumped me, she swore off passionate entanglements and was killed three days later by a drunk soccer mother in an Escalade. The soccer mother was carrying Manolo Blahniks.

Aunt Dimple points to a row of dingy one-tale structures subsequent to the parking garage. “Look out there, Charlie. What do you see?”

I can see a sandwich store and a nail salon that advertises 50 %-rate pedicures on Tuesdays. I’m not a businessperson, but I’m very absolutely sure that is not what she’s conversing about. 

“What am I supposed to see?” I talk to.

“Opportunity, Charlie. A land participate in. All those structures require to be torn down for new development.”

Keep It Very simple, With Dimple!

I try out to get a examine on Aunt Dimple. Absolutely nothing arrives by means of besides the shade yellow, which may well be associated to the St. John knit accommodate she’s putting on.

“Problem is, the person in the center.” She jabs a finger toward a slender storefront. “If he will not promote, that screws up this complete deal I’ve place collectively.”

The storefront is little, more mature than the some others, barely as large as Aunt Dimple’s Lexus.

A indicator on the door reads “Marco’s Shoe Repair—Your Quality Cobbler Since 1971.”

“Marco is Albanian,” she states, “so he does not want to market.”

“What does staying Albanian have to do with not seeking to market?”

“They are a hardheaded people, Charlie.” She appears testy. “Look it up someday.”

In my intellect, Aunt Dimple now seems like a hammer, which would seem fairly self-explanatory.

“I want you to get a browse on Marco,” she says. “Find out what buttons to press. I got to make this deal materialize.”

Marco is in his 80s. He’s also lifeless, lying on his back again powering the counter, arms clutching his upper body.

The room, which smells of leather and neatsfoot oil, feels tranquil. In my thoughts, I see tranquility. A freshly mown garden, a stack of textbooks, blue clouds. Marco was a very good gentleman.

I textual content Aunt Dimple the news.

Then I see the papers on the counter, a contract of sale. I flip by means of the webpages to the final one particular where by Marco has signed his identify next to Aunt Dimple’s. Without recognizing why, I things the contract in my pocket.

20 seconds later she barges in. She sees the human body, and the tranquility disappears, changed by a possum with pink eyes. 

“Tootie-fruity!” She stamps her foot. “This effs up everything.”

“It’s just money, Aunt Dimple.”

“Just. Funds.” She glares at me.

“Don’t you have plenty of by now?”

“It ain’t about the revenue, you freak. It’s about winni—” She sniffs the air. Baffled. “What is that?”

I really don’t reply, anxious all of a unexpected.

She stares at me. “When I was a kid, I used to have the very same present as you. It went away … mainly.”

The agreement in my pocket feels hot.

She friends at Marco’s corpse. “That Albanian so-and-so lied to me. He was gonna promote to someone else.”

The scent of leather-based turns into overpowering.

“What do you believe, Charlie?”

I nod, and just like that I can’t smell something anymore, not even neatsfoot oil. I come to feel relieved, peaceful practically.

“Let’s depart,” she claims. “We will need to call 9-1-1.”

I observe her outdoors.

“Soon as things settle down, you’re coming around for dinner.” She pulls out her mobile phone.

“That’d be good.” I touch my pocket where the contract is, but it’s gone. I question if it was at any time there.