The Last Village
“So what are you going to do?” the senior manager Harry said. The real estate office was beginning to warm up with three bodies defying the air conditioning.
I gazed around and looked at all the awards, neatly framed in teak diploma-sized frames arranged in rows along the walls.
“I must get some of those, they look really good in an office or library, because no one actually reads the print, they just look for a stamp and big signature”, I thought to myself.
He also had some very nice engraved plates declaring him Sales Person of the Year, but now he was really earning his money.
Gone was the pretty blonde who had helped us in the beginning; we have barely seen even a glimpse of her these days. She had handed us over to her boss and I didn’t blame her; it showed excellent judgment.
Tim had deposited five different checks on five different houses simultaneously, all being held on deposit for seven days each, and all the checks were returnable.
I wanted all five houses, starting with the most expensive one.
By now every person in the club had shown us their houses, introduced their neighbors, given us details on what extras they had negotiated with the builder and told us the best price to pay.
I smiled to give encouragement when the conversation went from money back to kitchen worktops again.
“I told you, this is the best surface they do. Marble will cost you more and give you the same look,” Harry’s hairspray was going limp, the room heated up again, and he deeply wished he now sold anything other than real estate.
Looking for the ladies’ room, I got up and wandered over to the architect’s scale model in the center of the sales office.
Another new couple walked in and was guided over to the model with its impressive layout of houses and gorgeous golf course.
As they were left for a few minutes to look at it, dreams took over their heads, dreams that bonded them, and dreams that separated them.
She compared houses from left to right, judging the neighbors, then passed by the one million dollar villages, and went over to the cheaper ones.
He lingered at the golf course, and inspected and traced his route along wavy little paths in his imaginary golf cart back onto the fairway.
He probably booked an early tee-off time, and didn’t rush home too soon, while she met up with the girls to get her nails painted again.
They met again around the other side of the table and simultaneously noticed me, no doubt trying to place me in a particular village with young children and bicycles.
A mental note flushed across their eyes; avoid villages with young children, as this was their dream retirement home and a promised heaven.
I went back inside the sales office where blue prints were everywhere, and they were now looking at empty plots of land.
“This is the last house, and it’s reasonably priced for a quick sale so we can move onto our next project a couple of miles away,” Harry was holding in there and I admired his tenacity.
“So, why can’t we look at that?” Tim did not want to move into a new project, as he knew it would be a building site for three years or more.
“We’ve not broken ground, and believe me, it’s not you’re thing,” the manager replied and I agreed as I couldn’t take anymore.
“Okay, show me so I can be certain,” Tim had a way of keeping people on a path they wanted to jump from. He understood the power of a financial incentive and must have sold carrots to donkey merchants in a past life. I just wanted to see if anyone actually got to nibble on his carrots.
Harry had all those lovely plates and certificates, and he was going the extra mile and I admired him for it, so I tried to take his mind off the fact it was late Friday afternoon, the traffic was bad, and his wife had called a couple of times.
We drove up to the Northern gate and I thought after traipsing every inch of this club I was able to do sales myself.
Stopping at three show houses facing west the newly planted gardens looked like transplant victims waiting to heal.
Harry struggled with several sets of keys and we went inside.
Straight through the house windows at the far end opened onto gleaming lime-green grass in the last of the sun’s rays. Green was for go, and it beckoned me forward.
The end wall was all glass, and I stood at the fence doors looking out as a flame-red ball of a molten gold sun dropped reluctantly over the horizon.
It was if it had been waiting for us, or me at least.
I could hear men’s footsteps in other rooms figuring out which bedroom was which, and where the dressing rooms and bathrooms would be.
The patio had hexagonal tiles around a long pool only thirty feet from the kitchen doors.
Just after the pool were railings onto the golf course and a small lake that looked no more than three feet deep. It was perfectly still with a pure white, tall, willowy egret preening itself at the water’s edge.
In the sunset, simplicity and tranquility had a stillness twinned with silence.
The black reflection of distant trees shone on the water, and the whole area was devoid of life, save the colonial egret and I.
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