The Vanishing Half(89)

What Clients Value in a Real Estate Agent:

         Honesty



     Knowledge of the housing market



     Negotiation skills





She could learn most of this, she told herself, except for the first bullet point. She had been acting her entire life, which meant that she was the best liar that she knew. Well, second best.



* * *



—

IN HER FIRST YEAR at San Fernando Valley Real Estate, Kennedy sold seven houses. Her boss Robert told her that she had the Midas touch, but she privately called it the Charity Harris effect. She had the type of face that people vaguely remembered, even those who had never watched Pacific Cove. Everyone thought they knew her. And of course, the Pacific Cove fans always showed up to her open houses, long after the show had ended.

“I never thought it was right what happened to you,” one woman whispered to her once in a Tarzana model home. She’d smiled politely, guiding the woman through the hallway. She could be Charity if they needed her to be. She could be anyone, really.

Before each open house, she felt like she was back onstage again, waiting for the curtain to rise. She tweaked the decorations, swapping out framed photographs of stock families. A black family became a white one, a soccer beanbag chair became a basketball, a horn of plenty tucked inside a cabinet in exchange for a menorah. A model home was nothing but a set, if you thought about it, the open house a grand performance directed by her. Each time, she stood behind the door, bowing her head, as jittery as the first time she had ever taken the stage, knowing that her mother would be out there in the audience watching. Then she put on a big Charity Harris smile, opening the door. She would disappear inside herself, inside these empty homes where nobody actually lived. As the room filled with strangers, she always found her mark, guiding a couple through the kitchen, pointing out the light fixtures, backsplash, high ceilings.

“Imagine your life here,” she said. “Imagine who you could be.”





Part VI





PLACES


   (1986)





Sixteen


By 1981, Mallard no longer existed, or at least, it was no longer called Mallard.

The town had never actually been a town at all. State officials considered it a village but the United States Geological Survey referred to it only as a populated place. And although the residents may have created their own boundaries, a place has no legal borders. So after the 1980 Census, the parish redrew town lines and the residents of Mallard woke up one morning to learn that they had been allocated to Palmetto. By 1986, Mallard had been scrubbed off every transit map in the area. For most folks, the name change didn’t mean much. Mallard had always been more of an idea than a place, and an idea couldn’t be redefined by geographical terms. But the name change confused Stella Vignes, who stood in the Opelousas train station, staring at the map for ten minutes before she finally waved over a young black porter and asked the best way to get to Mallard. He laughed.

“Oh, you must be from them old days,” he said. “Ain’t called that no more.”

She flushed. “What’s it called, then?”

“Oh, lots of things, lots of things. Lebeau, Port Barre. Supposed to be Palmetto but some folks still call it Mallard. Folks stubborn like that.”

“I see,” she said. “I haven’t been back in a while.”

He smiled at her and she glanced away. She’d traveled as plainly as she could, afraid to draw attention to herself. One simple bag, her wedding ring tucked inside. Wore her cheapest slacks, pinned her hair back like she used to, although now it was beginning to streak with gray. So she’d touched it up with a rinse before leaving, embarrassed by her own vanity. But what if Desiree dyed hers? She couldn’t be the old twin. The thought terrified her, looking into Desiree’s face and not seeing her own.

Like leaving, the hardest part of returning was deciding to. For months, she’d tried to imagine any other way, but she was desperate. She hadn’t heard from her daughter since she’d visited from New York City with a photograph, and Stella found herself staring directly at her past. She didn’t remember taking a picture at her daddy’s funeral, but then again, she didn’t remember much of that day. That itchy black lace scraping against her legs. A pinch of pound cake, spongy and sweet. A closed casket. Desiree pressed into her side. Her sister, somehow knowing what she wanted to say even if she couldn’t.

In the backyard, staring down at that photograph, she fell just as silent. She knew, before she even opened her mouth, that she would lie, the way she’d always lied, but this time her daughter wouldn’t believe her.

“It’s like you’re incapable of telling the truth,” Kennedy said. “You don’t know how to do anything but lie.”

For months, she’d refused Stella’s phone calls. Stella left messages on the answering machine, humiliated by the thought of smug Frantz listening to her beg. She had even spoken to him once or twice; he always promised to pass along her messages, but she couldn’t tell if he was just pacifying her to free up the line. Then six months ago, Frantz told Stella that her daughter had moved out. “She’s gone,” he said, “and I don’t know where. She just left one morning. Didn’t even leave a forwarding address. There’s still boxes of her things and she won’t even tell me where to send them.” He seemed more inconvenienced by the junk he was storing than the fact that Kennedy had abandoned him. Stella panicked, naturally, but weeks later, Blake received a postcard from Rome, written in their daughter’s hasty scrawl.