Episode 11: Dovey Does Dallas
Welcome to MOONDAY CAFE a podcast that’s posted every month on the day of the full moon.
MOONDAY CAFE is devoted to the mind-expanding, mind-bending magical power of story.
After a walloping discovery of meeting a long-lost family, Dovey takes a job near the family she never met. The upscale world of Highland Park takes her deeper into her own discovery of heritage. But, it comes with some powerful costs.
Our guide is author, inspired performer, and barefoot cowgirl, Dovey Conlee.
Follow along for next month's episode: Be sure to subscribe here to the monthly emailer.
-
Episode 11: Dovey Does Dallas
The following day, just past sunrise, Dovey made a firm decision. She would not take the position as assistant to the television station manager. All the perks in the world wouldn’t be enough. She had met the enemy and it wouldn’t be a healthy choice to stay so close to that imposing energy, even if she had reluctantly agreed to meet with her mother’s wealthy sister.
Having that women indirectly involved with her job felt like a nightmare.
When the time came, she made the call to her agency and discussed her choice with them. Dovey asked to be considered for a similar position, but within the commercial real estate field that she was familiar with. After a considerable amount of conversation and attempts for her to reconsider the benefits of the position offered, the agency finally understood her concerns and acquiesced. They agreed to act on her behalf by rescinding her application to the television station and attempting to place her within the parameters of her familiar field of experience.
By noon that day, she had another appointment for an interview with a firm, surprisingly, out of California, starting a new venture in Texas just northwest of Dallas. She agreed to meet with the agent managing the very new office in the location near the then new DFW airport in a community known as Los Colinas.
When she arrived, the new mid-rise buildings in the area were beautiful, but very, very new and very, very vacant. Several insurance companies had invested in bricks and mortar betting on the rise in population that would eventually saturate the area with roof-tops AND commercial real estate occupants. This new company from California took a rather small office space in comparison to the size of the building, but the building was exceptionally beautiful.
She parked her car in a massive, but vacant, parking lot and sat very still for quite a while. The events of the previous evening were swimming in her mind. She knew very little about her mother. Meeting this beautiful woman that, clearly, was her mother’s sister had throttled her. The introduction was like being hit by a meteor of emotion.
Dovey did not know much about her biological mother’s family, but she did know some tales of the sister-rivalry that she had with this mythical woman that had just exposed herself to Dovey in such a shocking way, under such startling circumstances. More than that, she was shaming herself for agreeing to meet the woman for dinner later that week, but the curiosity and the undeniable, almost forensic, thirst for any crumb of knowledge about her mother was compelling. She could not NOT meet with her to depose this woman with her own sort of uncontrollable curiosity. She just couldn’t avoid it. Her soul demanded it.
After a few minutes and a quick prayer, then another touch of lipstick and a short internal pep-rally, she made her way to the sparkling building and into the office of the new real estate start up company. She was not startled to find that the office was not furnished. She had seen that in California and it made he smile to know that she might end up joining another firm that was just getting started. When she called out, ‘hello’ she heard a man’s voice as he was finishing a phone call in another room. After a few moments a young man, younger than Dovey, appeared from an adjacent doorway.
You must be Dovey, the man said as Dovey did an uncontrollable double-take at the sight of someone so very young. I was just speaking to our California office. I was telling the main broker there about you and that you were coming for an interview. Let me get you a chair.
And with that, the young realtor pulled up two folding chairs and they sat near the wall of windows that looked out over a stunning man-made lake that held a tall spurting fountain that sprayed in the wind. On the floor between them was a telephone and on the wall behind them was a map of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. That was it. No other furniture existed. As she walked to the chair, she passed the doorway of the room the man came from and it, too, only had a chair and a telephone on the floor.
This office must be so new, she thought, that the furniture hasn’t been delivered. She handed him a file from the agency and the interview began.
It turned out that the office was NOT that new at all. It was a sham. She had heard of firms that come to ‘land rush’ areas to tie up properties with contracts that don’t materialize, they just litigate and threaten and then settle, out of court, for cash and ‘damages,’ then when the wide path of destruction appears, they split and hit the next market.
When the interview ‘flipped’ and Dovey started asking the hard questions, the young man waffled. The difference in their ages was not that vast, but her wisdom confounded him. In a matter of minutes, she knew that the outrageous salary, payable only by the month, was a sham, too. She stood up, smoothed her skirt, shook his awfully soft hand and thanked him for his time, then made her own way to the door and through the lobby to the parking lot.
Unbelievable, she thought to herself. Absolutely unbelievable.
She drove straight to the agency.
When she arrived, the receptionist was a bit startled, thinking she had been placed with the television station, but agreed to get her placement agent on the phone immediately. Within a moment, she was ushered back into the small conference room where she had been a few days prior.
The real estate firm in Los Colinas? It’s a bait and switch sham, Dovey told the woman, who was clearly in awe of the assessment. As she listened to Dovey explain the concept of this type of dangerous shenanigans, the agent fell back in her chair and tried to take it all in.
Dovey compassionately asked why the agents in this placement firm hadn’t vetted this company and on top of that, it was a precarious situation to meet someone that was posing as an office manager in a vacant office space in a vacant office building. She wasn’t as angry as she was firm, but it ended up working in her favor.
First, the agent, who was a principal in this well respected firm, instantly offered Dovey a job as a placement agent! Certainly, it was a salary based on commission and a modest base pay, but it would offer her the ‘keys to the city’ since they were a highly sought after placement center. She would have access to every job, every salary option, every detail about positions and placements in the top tier firms operating in the finest parts of the city.
The agent reached for the phone and spoke through the intercom and in moments a staff member arrived with a coffee tray and a printed copy of the current list of jobs available through the firm. As the agent poured the coffee, she handed Dovey the list of every position that was offered to the agency, allowing her to see for herself just how much demand there was for quality placements.
This is not heard of in this line of work. A candidate does not get to see all of the jobs that are open. A candidate is evaluated by the agent and the agent makes the decision regarding the interview. Dovey tried not to be alarmed or disingenuous, but she held eye contact with the woman that just placed her future into her hands. This was huge. This was a quantum leap.
While Dovey looked at the 5 page list, the woman excused herself and exited the room. While sipping coffee, Dovey read from the top of the list. The salaries were listed in descending order, starting with the highest pay. The top of the list of high-paying jobs started with the medical field. The list was a quick read through the top highest paying jobs to get to nicely paying jobs that were offered in the real estate field. She scanned the offers and found two that caught her eye. When the woman re-entered the room, Dovey asked first about a prominent firm that was headquartered downtown. The offer for that job was as an assistant building manager for a 12 story building in the Turtle Creek area, a small, but prominently ritzy blend of commercial and residential property that bordered a graceful and well mannered creek that wound it’s way through a park-like world of wealth.
Tell me about this position, Dovey asked. And, with that, the agent knew she had to send her on the interview, but before she would agree to that, she beseeched Dovey to consider working for the agency. After listening to Dovey’s heart-felt appreciation for the offer and her heart-felt, heart-hardy decline to work as an employment agent, the woman agreed to set up an appointment for her interview.
————
The interview with the main HR woman in the large firm went very well, but the real interview would be with the building manager himself and that would be at the prestigious, all white marbled building known as Turtle Creek Tower that overlooked the creek and the bursting skyline of downtown Dallas. An hour later, Dovey was sitting in front of the desk of the building manager and within minutes, they totally hit it off. He was a very tall, strikingly handsome gay man from San Angelo, Texas and he knew the cattle business well, especially within his own family’s connections. Her Texana style felt right for him and both of them agreed to meet again the next morning to re-connect and hatch a possible plan. He was an impeccable man with a quick wit and strong countenance. Dovey could certainly see how they might work beautifully as a team.
As he walked her to the elevator, she asked if he knew where the French restaurant Toulouse was located and it turned out that it was very close by, near La Mansion on Turtle Creek.
Are you headed there now?, the realtor asked. It’s very nice.
Dovey paused a moment, then reconsidered her response. Actually, yes. I have been invited to an interesting dinner with a woman that tells me she is my aunt. And on his puzzled look, she adds It’s a very long and complicated story. I’ll let you know how it goes when we catch up tomorrow.
They agreed to a time for the follow up, shook hands and Dovey took the elevator to the parking garage. This new office was already beginning to feel like home.
Want to come along? Where to listen:
