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need you to take. He’s new to town, and you’re the only one I can trust him with.”
    I yawned. “Why don’t you take him?” Much as I could use a commission, I knew Julia was almost as hard up as I was, except she owned her fancy house free and clear. “I’m helping Miss Mamie scour the big house, top to toe.”
    â€œThis’ll help her even more, if everything works out,” she said cryptically.
    I moaned. The last thing I needed was to haul some transplant around, only to have him decide he’d like to see everything on the market from one end of Metro Atlanta to the other, then buy a foreclosure or a fisbo (for sale by owner) behind my back. Been there, done that.
    â€œI’m asking you as a special favor for me,” Julia said, reminding me that I owed her, bigtime, for a lot more than hiring me after my divorce. A PK (preacher’s kid), she’d been the total Goody Two-shoes of our graduating class, then gone off to college and turned into a flashy, anything-goes party girl. Three husbands later, she still was, dripping in real jewelry, without apology.
    Working at her brokerage for the past decade, I had learned that she wouldn’t let up till she got her way. “Oh, all right,” I relented. “When do I meet him, and what’s he looking for?”
    â€œDay after tomorra,” she all but crowed, “at nine in the morning, here at the office. And he’s looking for a three-two in really good shape, here in town, under one twenty-five.”
    Thanks to the recession, there were plenty I could show him, but most were old, in varying degrees of disrepair.
    â€œI’ve already pulled up what’s available in the listings,” Julia went on. “And by the time you take him around, I’ll have shaken loose a few more.”
    Julia could tell you the financial, political, and medical condition of everybody within the old city limits. Plus every single person in the whole county who was in arrears on property taxes.
    A lot of her deals were direct with sellers who needed to get rid of their houses, but didn’t realize it till Julia brought them a buyer and laid out the numbers.
    â€œOkay,” I relented. “I’ll come down tomorrow to get those listings and check them out.”
    â€œOh, goodie.” I could swear she was rubbing her hands together.
    I frowned. “Julia, what have you got up your sleeve?”
    â€œYou’ll see, day after tomorra,” she gloated, then hung up.
    I laid down my terrorist phone and sighed. Better get up and finish that FAFSA form, so I could go help Miss Mamie before I had to go back to work for this one, last customer.
    And what a customer he turned out to be.

 
    Eight
    I tried my best to weasel the truth out of Julia the next day when I went to get the listings, but she refused to budge. Just smirked all over me and insisted I leave to preview the houses.
    My completed FAFSA form and copies of my tax return and documents were in my car, to be dropped off at Ocee before I started checking out the listings. The transcripts were still pending.
    No matter how it turned out, I felt better trying, at least, to start something new.
    With that off my mind, I could concentrate on finding this customer a great house for the money. The first five listings I previewed were possibles, but the next four were too old and musty to snag even a male buyer. Of the remaining six, four had once been really nice, but abusive renters had seriously trashed them. Julia had said the customer wanted something move-in ready, so that eliminated a lot of the bargains in town.
    Hot and frustrated, I went back to the real estate office and tried to find some more.
    The problem living in town was, there were no guarantees about what you’d find next door. Tidy little bungalows with meticulous landscaping abutted rundown rentals or old-timer ramshackle places. Gracious homes of garden club