Clandestine Meetings - Part I

This is based on a true story. Names and some situations have been changed in order to protect the innocent from the guilty, as the guilty walk the streets.

She rolled into Smalltown, AZ like the sunshine that spilled over the desert floor in the morning, ready to conquer all she met. It was the height of 1976, when hair was big, skirts were short, and the parties didn’t end early. This was her time.

picture is from actual time from my personal archives

Her goals were pretty simple: find the most successful realtor, land a job, learn from the best and be rich. She may have had to live here because of her loser husband, but she had plans for him too. She would not let her circumstance impede her goals.

There was money to be made if one was willing to work for it. The land seemed infinite.

Jeanie Thomas walked into the most successful firm in town. She had an appointment to see the broker, Jo Blue, who was a successful, smart, ruthless woman, and willing to educate those willing to learn. Their meeting was a really a formality. Mrs. Blue gave anyone who walked through the doors a chance. If you couldn’t pass muster, you’d walk in one day to find your belongings in a box.

The office was brick and sheet rock – nothing impressive. There were 6 agents and two brokers. Jo Blue and Bobbi, a grandmotherly type, shared broker duties overseeing Cari Anne, Barbie, Ed, Robert, Zeke, and now Jeanie. Cari Anne and Barbie were cat fighters, always at each other’s throats fighting for the bigger listing. Ed was Jo Blue’s young son in law who looked between homeless and employed depending on the day. Robert and Zeke were old school – the anchors of the firm. They had old school connections and swag with the locals.

The meeting became a quick overview of the firm, the players, and what not to do. Jo Blue gave her an afternoon rotation on Friday, three days away. Any walk-in or phone call would be her listing/selling.

Last piece of advice:“Leave your home life at home. Don’t give those cats out there a reason or ammunition.”

Home life. What a joke that was! Married to a man she couldn’t shake. Any love she ever had for him had been long gone since the first time he’d hit her. With a family poor as dirt she had made up her mind to plot her departure. She wouldn’t leave poor.

Her husband’s job as a trucker kept him on the road more than he was home.

They had found a home in the newest subdivision, just five houses from Jo Blue herself.

Now it was time to enact her plan.