Clean Sweep Read online

  “Yeah, what else?”

  “I’m buying my gasoline at the self-serve pumps now, and I’m doing my own nails.”

  “No shit,” said Julia.

  “And I let my housekeeper go.”

  “How do you expect to sell your house if you don’t keep it clean?” Julia asked, exasperated.

  “Who said it won’t be clean? I’ve been cleaning it myself.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “It’s true. Keeping a house clean is something I actually know how to do. I was raised by a mother who was so compulsive about neatness that whenever she made a sandwich, she cut the lettuce leaves with a scissor so they fit perfectly inside the bread.”

  “So your mother didn’t have a cleaning lady?” Julia asked.

  “Oh, sure she did—and does.” My mother had hired and fired dozens of cleaning ladies over the years. She kept help the way George Steinbrenner kept managers. “But she made me clean the house on their days off.”

  “Okay. So you’re going to save money by cleaning your big house yourself. The next question is, how are you going to earn more money and be able to support yourself for a change?”

  “Good question. I don’t have a clue.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Koff. You’re good with celebrity interviews. Why the hell don’t you get a job with one of those national magazines, like People?”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Just do it,” said no-nonsense Julia. “You know how to talk to people. If you can write for our little paper, why can’t you do it for big-time publications?”

  Julia was right. Why couldn’t I? I’d interviewed more than just local businessmen and fading actresses for the Community Times; I’d talked to major-league baseball players and Oscar-winning movie actors and bestselling novelists. Maybe I was ready to hit the big time. I sure could use some big-time money.

  “You have options, Koff. But until things improve, why don’t you get your mother to help out with the bills?”

  “No way,” I said, knocking over my glass and spilling what was left of my wine. “My mother makes me feel like a complete failure because I haven’t been able to sustain a marriage. I’m going to pull myself out of this mess without her, I promise you.”

  “Are there any men on the horizon?” Julia asked, arching an eyebrow. “You’re not the type to go cold turkey. You’ve got some guy waiting in the wings, don’t you, Koff?”

  “I wish. I’m so out of practice I wouldn’t know how to find a man, let alone flirt with one.”

  “Well, when you’re ready, there are plenty of them around.”

  “How do you know? You haven’t had a date since your divorce two years ago.”

  “I’m telling you. They’re around.” Julia was being mysterious, but I decided not to press her. If she had a secret lover, good for her. “What you need, Koff, is a guy who’ll introduce you to reality in these tough economic times.”

  “You don’t think I’m in touch with reality?” I asked, a little wounded.

  “Do you?” Julia said, motioning for the waiter to bring the check.

  I considered the question, then became distracted when the waiter arrived. “Let’s just split it,” I said, as Julia grabbed the check and started to verify its accuracy.

  “Fine with me. With tip and tax, your share comes to $52.50.”

  “Are you sure?” I said, not believing that a piece of fish could cost so much.

  “What did you expect? That they’d throw in the wine for free? The Beaujolais was your idea, remember?”

  “But I can’t keep spending money like this,” I wailed. “I just don’t have it to spend anymore.”

  “Welcome to reality, Koff. It’s all the rage and everybody’s doing it.”

  That night, I took a long, painful look at my finances. I really was in deep shit. I didn’t have enough money to keep the lights on at Maplebark Manor, let alone the heat. Fortunately, it was still August, and I wouldn’t be needing the heat for a couple of months. What I needed in the meantime was some quick cash. But from where?

  I sat down on my bed, flipped on the TV, and what did I see? A commercial for the Ritz Thrift Shop on Fifty-seventh Street in Manhattan, where they sold used fur coats at bargain prices. That was it! I’d take my fur coats down to the Ritz Thrift Shop and pawn them. Well, maybe just the raccoon and the Persian lamb. I’d keep the mink for old times’ sake. After all, Sandy bought me the coat for our first anniversary. On second thought, I’d sell the mink too. Fuck old times’ sake.

  The next morning I stuffed the coats into garment bags, packed them into the tiny trunk of my Porsche, and drove down to Manhattan. I had considered wearing a disguise: what if someone from Layton saw me pawning my fur coats? What if someone found out that I, Alison Waxman Koff of Maplebark Manor, couldn’t pay my utility bills? Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. Why would you see anyone you know at the Ritz Thrift Shop?

  I found a garage on Fifty-sixth Street, parked the car, and carried the bundle of coats one block to the store.

  “May I help you, madam?” said a middle-aged man with pasty white skin and hair that had been dyed shoe-polish brown.

  “Yes. I understand that you buy used furs.”

  “Right you are, madam. Are those the furs in question?” he said, pointing to the garment bags in my arms. I nodded. “Very good. Let’s have a look at them.”

  He pointed to a nearby rack. I was about to unpack the coats and hang them on the rack when he excused himself, saying he had to finish up with another client and would be back to me shortly.

  I shook out the coats, fluffed the skins, and hung them on the rack. Goodbye, raccoon. Goodbye, lamb. Goodbye—gulp—mink. Goodbye, old life.

  “Thank you so much for your patronage, madam,” I heard the salesman say to his client as she walked past me to get to the door. What was this “madam” shit? This was the Ritz Thrift Shop, not Bergdorf Goodman.

  “Alison? Is that you?”

  I spun around to face the woman who’d just finished her transaction and was on her way out of the store, and who should it be but Robin Greene, the wife of Sandy’s divorce lawyer! I’d been caught! Now everyone in town would know I was poor and desperate—so poor and desperate I was forced to sell my furs! I was tongue-tied. “Robin!” I finally managed.

  “Are you here buying or selling?” she asked.

  I didn’t know which was the right answer. “Selling,” I admitted.

  “Me, too. Terrible isn’t it?”

  “Robin, don’t tell me you have to sell your coats too?” She nodded. “But I don’t understand. You and Adam have Belvedere, plus your dude ranch in Wyoming, your ski lodge in Aspen, and your beach condo in Boca Raton. Why would someone like you have to sell her fur coats?”

  “Same reason you do, honey. Times are tough. Between the stock market crash, the real estate slump, and the fact that we’re in debt up to our ears, money’s real tight. We’ve got all our houses on the market and can’t unload any of ’em. The banks are about to take everything.”

  I was shocked. I thought I was the only one in Layton in financial trouble. “What are you and Adam going to do?” I asked Robin.

  “Probably move our primary residence to Florida. They call it ‘the debtor’s state’ down there. You put all your assets in Florida and your creditors can’t touch ’em.”

  “Wow. How did you find out about that?”

  “I’m married to a lawyer, remember? He knows lots of creative ways to dodge the banks. Guess what we’re doin’ next weekend?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Goin’ to Atlantic City. Adam says another way to hide your assets is to go to Atlantic City or Vegas, buy a bunch of chips, do a little gambling, bring the rest of the chips home, and keep ’em in the house. How’s the bank gonna grab your assets when they’re all in gambling chips?”

  “Really? How ingenious,” I said. Yeah, ingenious and illegal. I decided I’d stick with my own plan to get out of
my financial mess: sell my house and get a better-paying job.

  “Sorry about your trouble, Alison. I hear Sandy’s gone back to Soozie and you’re trying to unload Maplebark Manor. Lotsaluck.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  Luck. That’s what I needed. As the weeks went by, things got worse, not better. For starters, I hardly got any assignments from the newspaper anymore. Advertising was way down and so were the number of pages in each issue, and the first section to be shrunk was the Arts & Features section—my section.

  For another thing, Sandy and I had hammered out a separation agreement and would be divorced any day. I felt panicky and alone. I missed his companionship. I missed hearing his footsteps as he entered the house at the end of the workday. There was no longer a structure to my days. They just melted, one into the other. I was depressed, in a rut.

  Then there was Maplebark Manor, the house I could no longer afford. The money I made from the sale of my fur coats only went so far toward maintaining the house. Eventually, I had to sell more of my possessions—the Wedgewood china my mother had given me, the big diamond engagement ring from my first husband, Roger, the even bigger diamond ring from Sandy. The only thing I absolutely refused to pawn was the gold locket my father gave me on my sixth birthday. It was all I had of him, and I vowed not to surrender it, even in the face of the scary letters I kept getting from the Layton Bank & Trust Company, which threatened to foreclose on Maplebark Manor if we missed one more month of mortgage payments. In a weak moment, I called Sandy at the store to ask him what we should do.

  “Mr. Koff’s office. This is Michelle speaking.”

  “Is he there?” I asked Michelle, who was new.

  “And you are…?”

  “Alison.”

  “From…?”

  “A past life.”

  “That’s the name of your company?”

  “No, that’s not the name of my company. I’m Alison Koff, Sandy’s about-to-be-ex-wife.”

  “Will Mr. Koff know what this is in reference to?”

  “Yes. Well, not exactly.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Would you like to buy my house?” I said, my patience wearing thin.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Would you like to buy my house?”

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. Koff. I already own a condo.”

  “Then there’s nothing you can help me with,” I told Michelle. “Please get Mr. Koff on the line.”

  “I’ll see if he’s available,” she said, putting me on hold and forcing me to listen to “Feelings” as performed by the AT&T orchestra.

  “Alison?” Sandy said finally.

  “The bank is starting foreclosure proceedings,” I snapped. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know what you’re going to do, Alison, but I’m not going to do anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s nothing I can do. I can’t make the mortgage payments anymore. Can you?”

  “Of course not. But we can’t just sit back and watch them take Maplebark Manor.”

  “We’re not sitting back. We’re trying to sell the house, aren’t we?”

  “I guess so.” Janet Claiborne still hadn’t produced a buyer, and she’d had the listing for months.

  “Maybe you should think about getting a real job,” Sandy said.

  “What kind of a job?”

  “I don’t know. Be a salesgirl or something.”

  A salesgirl, he said. Not a salesperson. Not a saleswoman. A salesgirl. And I was married to this man?

  “I’ll be just fine,” I told Sandy. “It’s not your problem anymore.”

  “Remember one thing, Allergy. Life is about allowing yourself to feel fear…about taking risks and risking change and changing gears. It’s about growing and stretching and having the courage to—”

  Click. Yes, I hung up on Sandy. It was either that or go mad.

  Sandy and I were divorced on November fourth. Whoop-peedo. Julia and I celebrated with burgers and fries at McGavin’s, the local hangout for Layton Community Times staffers. She paid.

  The next day I decided it was time to snap out of my doldrums. I had unloaded Sandy; the next order of business was unloading Maplebark Manor. The problem was that no one wanted to buy it.

  “The market is slow,” Janet Claiborne explained when I asked why she hadn’t shown the house once since we’d listed it back in August. And when I asked why she hadn’t sent a photographer to shoot the house for the brochure and why she hadn’t run a single ad, her response was: “I’m waiting for the trees and flowers to bloom.” “But that won’t be till spring,” I said. “Yes, but leave it to me, dear. I know my business,” she said.

  I would have loved to leave it to Janet to sell my house but she never seemed to have the time. A week later she called to tell me she finally had a customer but was too busy to bring the couple over. “I have a veddy important appointment with my masseur that I can’t possibly break,” she said, then asked if I wouldn’t mind showing Maplebark Manor to a Mr. and Mrs. Fink from Manhattan. “No problem,” I told her. I was beginning to understand why the real estate market was in the toilet.

  The showing was scheduled for three-thirty the next afternoon. It was snowing and I worried that the Finks might not be able to make it up from the city. But they arrived on time in their fire-engine red Range Rover which, they later explained, was their “country car.”

  “Hello. Come right in,” I said cordially, opening my front door to people who might very well buy my house and save my financial life but also force me to confront my future as a thirty-nine-year-old, two-time divorcée who had a better chance of getting killed by a terrorist than of marrying again.

  “Hi. I’m Ira Fink,” said the man, extending his hand. He was short, fat, and fifty-something, and wore Guess jeans that were so tight they pushed his love handles up to his ears, which, by the way, were both pierced.

  “And I’m Susan Franklin-Fink,” said the woman, who was a fraction of her husband’s size and age.

  “Welcome to Maplebark Manor,” I said to the couple standing in my foyer. For the next twenty-five minutes, I did my best imitation of a real estate broker. I guided the Franklin-Finks from room to room and pointed out things like crown moldings, air-conditioning ducts, and linen closets. I showed them Maplebark Manor’s seven bedrooms and baths, the laundry and sewing rooms, the living room, the library, the dining room, the kitchen, the butler’s pantry, the wine cellar, the billiard room, the music room, the solarium, the media room, the exercise room, and my office. Then I took them outside and showed them the swimming pool, the tennis court, the guest cottage, the party barn, and the staff apartment over the three-car garage. When we got back to the main house, we stood in the foyer and I asked them if they had any questions.

  “There’s no family room,” Mr. Fink said, looking genuinely pissed off.

  “No family room?” I said. “How large is your family?”

  “Right now, it’s just the two of us, but we’re planning to have children,” said Mrs. Franklin-Fink, who then confided that Mr. Fink was estranged from his five grown children from prior marriages but that he was looking forward to being a “quality father” this time around.

  “What exactly would you want from a family room?” I asked, trying to be as patient as I assumed Janet Claiborne would be if she were showing the house instead of having a massage.

  “You know—a family room,” said Mr. Fink, not believing my ignorance. “It’s a big room off the kitchen that has a fireplace. It’s where the whole family can watch TV together.”

  “Obviously, you don’t have children,” Mrs. Franklin-Fink said accusingly. “People with children have family rooms.”

  “And you couldn’t turn one of the other rooms into a family room?” I asked as politely as I could under the circumstances.

  “Mrs. Koff,” said Mr. Fink, “for the amount of money you’re asking for t
his house, I don’t think we should have to ‘turn’ any of the other rooms into anything.”

  At that very moment, the telephone rang. “Excuse me,” I said as I went to grab the phone in the kitchen. It was my mother. “I can’t talk now, Mom. There’s someone at the door.” It was the first time I’d said that to my mother without lying. I hurried back to the Franklin-Finks but they had already left without so much as a “Thanks for taking the time to show us your lovely home.” Some lovely home. It didn’t even have a family room.

  The next day Janet Claiborne called to say she was sending over another couple and hoped I wouldn’t mind showing the people around myself. Janet, it seemed, had a riding lesson she couldn’t cancel. Her cantering, she said, was in shambles.

  But it was my spirits that were in shambles a few hours after Janet’s “buyers” left; it seems they were more interested in taking than buying. While I led the woman on a tour of the second-floor bedrooms, the man, who had excused himself by saying he had to go out to his car to make a phone call, made off with all my silver! To think I spent forty-five minutes exposing my home and its contents to thieves!

  “Please get me some real customers,” I screamed at Janet Claiborne a day or two after I’d finished dealing with the police and the insurance company. “I don’t care if it’s winter. I don’t care if the trees and flowers aren’t in bloom. Just send the photographer.”

  “There’s no need to get upset, dear,” Janet said. “If you want the photographer, you’ll have the photographer. It is your house, after all.”

  My house. My beautiful house. My beautiful house that was fast becoming a symbol of my utter gluttony. Julia was right. Why did Sandy and I need a 7,200-square-foot house? So we’d never have to run into each other? So we could impress our friends? What friends? Where’d they all go? What ever happened to all those people who were only too happy to come for Super Bowl Sunday and Academy Award Night Monday and were similarly only too happy to invite us for Election Night Tuesday? Where were the couples who ate with us and traveled with us and complained with us about taxes, gasoline prices, and the dearth of good domestic help? Gone, that’s where. The minute Sandy lost his shirt in the stock market crash, they got “busy”—they stopped calling us, we stopped calling them. Then when Sandy and I split up, they got “blind”—I waved to them in the street, they pretended not to see me. And when word spread that Sandy and I were about to lose the house, they got Alzheimer’s—someone mentioned my name, they said, “Alison who?”