Best Friends Forever

“Oh, absolutely!” I laugh. “I can show you this Zephyr, and then we can look at the Tradewind model in Phase 4. We might even run into Wanda. That will put you on opposite ends of the development. Far enough?”

“Perfect!” She rolls her eyes. “I love my job, but my boss loves her job. Like in a gross way. If her bedroom window faced my bedroom window, she would throw pebbles at mine first thing in the morning to wake me up.”

“Wow, that’s dedication. Let me to show you around here,” I suggest, gesturing toward the front entrance of our largest, most impressive model. “There are only three of these in the development, meant to be sort of the flagships. Not everyone really needs a five-bedroom house, and studies have shown that scaling developments more toward the average family size saves on building materials.”

“Oh, this is nice,” she coos as she marches up the reclaimed brick entry. “Sophia will love this. She has great taste.”

“I’m glad!” I smile as I open the front door, pointing out that it was repurposed from a commercial space built in 1963. “Reclaiming materials not only saves on building costs, it also reduces the carbon footprint of the development by not diverting our construction to the production of new materials. A lot of these things were just going to end up in a landfill if we didn’t repurpose them.”

“I can tell you really have a lot of vision,” she murmurs as she strolls through the kitchen, tipping her head back to check out the high ceilings and barn wood paneling. “You should have your own development.”

“I don’t know. I kind of feel like I had a lot of input here,” I answer, aware that I sound defensive.

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that,” she apologizes. “It’s just that you would be good at it, I think. I can sense that about you.”

“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to get testy with you. I actually tried to bid on this development, but couldn’t quite pay the premium. Still, I’m really glad I’m involved. It’s been a great experience.”

She winks at me again, apparently kind of a personal brand thing. As she swishes through the room with her hands in the pockets of her skirt, I’m all over her suggestion. I guess I still have some feelings about not winning that auction. I thought I was over it, but the knot in my stomach says differently.

“Yeah, Sophia’s gonna love this,” she finally announces, poking her head in the master bathroom and admiring the pebbled shower floor.

“Great! I can have Clay send a contract or…”

“No, can we do it today? Like I said, I have her power of attorney, so I was hoping we could just get this all locked up today. This and the commercial spaces.”

My eyebrows go up. “Which commercial spaces were those?”

Her eyebrows also go up. “The ones Clay sent over?”

“Um… you don’t mean…”

She nods emphatically. “All of them, right. All the commercial, this Zephyr model, and you say there’s a Tradewind with my name on it?”

I smile tensely and hang on to the railing while my stomach does backflips. Mentally I go into automatic calculations, adding up my commission and… holy cow.

This will double my savings. This would be enough to keep going to maybe even try again at another auction. There’s one on Sunday, I heard.

Taking a deep breath, I gesture back toward the front door. I don’t want to come off sounding like a bubbly schoolgirl but… yippee!

I have to tell myself over and over again to take it slow, take it easy, and not babble as we meander through the subdivision sidewalks. I point out the prairie plants and our small water filtration system. Elise gives me encouragement and definitely seems intrigued, but that might just be her personality. Maybe she’s just extremely nice. Some people are like that, I hear.

“It really is gorgeous,” she sighs as we stroll. “Surrounded by farmla

nd, right? With just that small patch of forest right there?”

“Well, there is a single unimproved lot at the back, and I am trying to petition Ron to put in a fruit tree park instead of more houses. It could even be organic! Everybody would be able to share the apples and cherries and whatnot, and the association fees would go in part toward hiring a full-time gardener and arborist.”

“Okay, now you’re just showing off!” Elise chuckles. “That’s amazing! There is nothing like this around here. It’s really one-of-a-kind.”

I beam proudly, unable to formulate a response.

“Seriously,” she continues, “you should have your own development company. You really shouldn’t be giving your ideas away for free to Ron, don’t you think?”

Helplessly, I gesture at the home in front of us, trying to keep a straight face. Even with the commission, I’m looking at starting small. Maybe something half this size? Maybe even finding homes in neighborhoods to just rehabilitate one by one? She’s talking about a giant investment, way beyond what I could accomplish at this point.

“Like, maybe you should be pitching for partners?” she continues energetically, galloping way ahead of me mentally. “With three or four investors, and at least half a dozen abandoned developments more or less just like this one, you could be looking at something really big. Like really transformative in this area.”

“Wait, half a dozen abandoned developments? Is that for real?”