Green Light

She wasn’t flashy, not like the other realtors in town.

Diane always told herself she wasn’t the jealous type.

She wasn’t flashy, not like the other realtors in town who wore bright colors and louder smiles. Her clothes were simple, her car practical, her smile polite. She sold houses the way she lived her life; quietly, efficiently, without calling attention to herself.

That worked fine, until Vanessa Hale arrived.

Vanessa was everything Diane wasn’t. Young, tall, and perfectly confident in that careless way that only people who’d never failed could be. She’d joined the firm last spring, walking in with her perfect posture and coral lipstick, talking about “vision boards” and “manifesting clients.” Diane had rolled her eyes at first. But then Vanessa started closing deals, big ones.

By June, Vanessa’s face was on the billboard off Route 22, right where Diane’s had been for the last three years.

The first time Diane saw it, she nearly missed her exit. She drove past it three times that week, telling herself she was just “checking the ad rotation.” But the truth was, she couldn’t stop looking. Vanessa’s smile beamed down from the sign, sunlight flashing off her hair like it was made of gold. The tagline read “Your Home, Your Future, with Vanessa Hale.”

It made Diane’s stomach turn every time she saw it.

She told herself it wasn’t envy. it was business. It was competition. Still, she started watching Vanessa more closely at the office. Every phone call Vanessa made, every laugh that echoed through the hallway.

By August, Diane had memorized Vanessa’s listing schedule.

At first, she just wanted to “understand her strategy.” She’d show up at the same open houses, pretending to have paperwork to drop off. She’d linger near the sign in table, watching how Vanessa greeted clients. Vanessa had this way of touching people’s arms when she talked to them, leaning in slightly, smiling like they were the only person in the room.

It worked.

Even Diane’s longtime clients, the Parkers, had switched to Vanessa last month.

That was when the anger really started.

She stopped answering Vanessa’s friendly hellos in the morning. When Vanessa brought donuts to the office, Diane took one without saying thank you, then threw it away in the kitchen.

One Thursday afternoon, Diane overheard Vanessa telling someone she’d just landed a new property on Briar Ridge, the biggest home in town, worth nearly two million. It was supposed to be Diane’s. She’d shown the owners listings for years.

That night, Diane couldn’t sleep.

She stared at her ceiling fan turning slowly, round and round, until her thoughts started to match its motion, dark and endless. She could almost see Vanessa’s face above her, smiling that billboard smile.

And then an idea took shape.

The next morning, Diane stopped by Briar Ridge before the open house started. She knew Vanessa had scheduled it for noon. The driveway was empty when she arrived, so she parked around the corner and walked up the hill.

The front door key was still in the lockbox, just where it always was. Diane knew the code. It hadn’t changed in years.

Inside, the house smelled like new paint and expensive furniture polish. She slipped off her shoes, not wanting to leave a trace, and walked through the echoing rooms.

The plan wasn’t fully formed. Not yet. She told herself she just wanted to look. To see what Vanessa was showing off.

But in the kitchen, she found a stack of printed brochures on the counter, all with Vanessa’s smiling face on them. “Exclusive Listing Agent: Vanessa Hale.”

Her jaw clenched. She picked one up, smoothed it between her fingers, then tore it neatly in half. Then another. And another.

When she was done, the counter was covered in torn paper.

She stood there, breathing hard, her pulse hammering in her ears.

It felt good.

Too good.

She glanced around the kitchen again. Her eyes landed on a vase of white lilies on the island, their petals still damp from misting. She remembered Vanessa mentioning in a meeting that she always brought fresh flowers to her listings. “For that homey touch.”

Diane picked up the vase.

By the time Vanessa arrived an hour later, Diane was already gone.

No one could prove anything, but word spread quickly that the open house had been “a disaster.”

Someone had “accidentally” spilled water on the brochures, soaked the flowers, and left muddy shoeprints across the foyer. The owners were furious. The deal fell through.

Vanessa didn’t say a word to Diane about it, but the energy in the office shifted. Vanessa’s cheerfulness dimmed. Her desk grew neater, quieter.

For a few days, Diane felt lighter.

She even smiled again. Real smiles this time, ones that came without effort.

But then the guilt started to creep in.

It hit her one evening when she was alone in the office, finishing paperwork. She looked over at Vanessa’s desk. Empty, clean, untouched and saw a small framed photo sitting by the monitor.

It was Vanessa and her mother, both smiling, holding coffee mugs that said #1 Realtor and #1 Mom.

Diane felt something twist inside her.

She hadn’t thought of Vanessa as a person until that moment. Just an obstacle. A rival.

And now she couldn’t stop seeing the photo in her mind.

A week later, Vanessa quit.

She said she wanted to “pursue new opportunities,” but everyone knew she’d been embarrassed by what happened at Briar Ridge. The whispers had grown too loud.

The billboard came down the next month. Diane’s face went back up.

Her boss congratulated her. The company threw her a small celebration. Someone even brought cupcakes.

But when Diane looked up at her smiling photo on the wall again, something inside her felt hollow.

The victory she’d wanted for months now looked cheap.

She drove home in silence, her headlights slicing through the fog. When she reached her street, she parked in the driveway and just sat there, engine humming, hands gripping the wheel.

She could almost hear Vanessa’s laugh again.

The envy that had burned so hot for so long now felt like ash; cold, dry, and impossible to shake off.

Two months later, Diane got a call from the firm’s new receptionist.

“There’s someone here asking for you,” the girl said. “She said you were her mom’s old coworker.”

Diane frowned. “Who is it?”

“She said her name’s Emily Hale.”

Vanessa’s last name.

Her stomach dropped.

When she walked into the lobby, a teenage girl stood near the window, holding a box wrapped in brown paper. She looked nothing like Vanessa except for the eyes. They were bright, steady, impossible to look away from.

“Hi,” the girl said softly. “You’re Diane, right? My mom wanted me to give you this.”

Diane took the box with trembling hands. “Your mother?”

“She passed away last month,” the girl said. “Car accident. I found this in her desk. She said if anything ever happened to her, I should bring it to you.”

Diane’s heart froze.

When the girl left, she carried the box into her office and closed the door. She sat for a long time before opening it.

Inside was a small photo album. On the first page was a picture of Vanessa and Diane together at a company picnic, both smiling, arms around each other. Diane didn’t even remember that day.

On the next page, Vanessa had written:

“You taught me more than anyone else here. I know you probably don’t realize it, but I always admired how calm and steady you were. You made me want to be better. Not just at work, but as a person. Thank you for being an example.”

Diane pressed her hand against the page, tears spilling down her cheeks.

The guilt came back full force, sharper than before.

That night, Diane couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. She sat at her kitchen table, the photo album open in front of her, her phone buzzing with unanswered messages from coworkers sending condolences.

She picked up her keys around midnight and drove without thinking.

The fog was heavy again, thick enough to blur the streetlights into pale orbs. She turned down Route 22, past the empty billboard frame where Vanessa’s face used to be.

She pulled over and parked beneath it.

Getting out of the car, she stood on the shoulder, looking up at the dark rectangle of steel.

She thought about all the hours she’d wasted wishing she were someone else; someone younger, prettier, more successful. Someone like Vanessa.

But Vanessa had seen something in her that she never saw in herself.

And now, it was too late to say thank you.

Diane wiped her eyes and looked out at the quiet road stretching ahead. The night air was cold, and for once, she let herself feel it fully.

She took a deep breath, the first honest one she’d had in months.

Then she got back in the car and drove home.

In the morning, she called the office and asked them to take her billboard down again.

When her boss asked why, she just said, “It’s time someone else had a turn.”

She didn’t explain further.

That afternoon, she drove to the florist on Main Street and ordered a dozen white lilies. She wrote a note and asked the clerk to deliver them to the Hale family.

The note said only:

She was everything I wanted to be.