Buy Property One Block North of Bad
John spent Tuesday morning poring over the financials of his business. He had never been stretched so tight. The answer was simple—sell some other properties to find the flexibility to buy the third and final chunk on South Lake Union.
In his mind, he saw the clean line of land following the curve of the water. It was a neat and tidy package of financial independence. He looked to his balance sheet, to the liabilities, and attempted to discern the expendable pieces of real estate. Although there were a few negligible pieces what sat glaring at him was the North Bend theater.
He frowned and wondered at his spontaneity. It had been a mistake to buy so impulsively. The impulse was threatening the completion of a well-thought-out plan. John wondered about selling, but knew buyers had been scarce.
How steep would he have to discount the price to move the property? How low could he go and still attain the needed financial leverage to make the final purchase on Lake Union?
John leaned back in his chair. How did Cle and CJ fit into this plan?
The phone rang. John checked the clock without thinking. Ten-twenty. It could be Tessa’s teacher, upset that Cheyenne attended detention. It could be the real estate agent, threatening to show the property to other more liquid buyers. It could be Susannah.
John picked up the phone.
“How’s the weather up there?” It was the agent, calling to spread around the baloney.
“Fine, fine. Roger, you know I need until Friday. We agreed.”
“Sure, but what do you think? Can you do it?” His tone tempted secrets.
“I know I want to try.” John maintained a measured tone.
“John, how long have we known each other? And you still won’t tell me a thing before you are ready? Why is that?” The agent tried to fume.
“Because I like you, Roger. And I want to keep working with you.” John schmoozed. “You’re good at finding property. I don’t want to have to work with anyone else.”
“Well phooey—for my own good, I suppose. Okay John. Have it your way.”
“Call me Friday.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
John hung up the phone. Roger was excellent at finding properties for sale almost before the owner made the decision, but his fifteen years in the used-car business still managed to seep through every now and then.
John’s hand was still on the receiver when it rang again. The teacher, he guessed. He picked it up.
Tessa would be in detention today.
Still, the phone didn’t stop there.
“Hey, John! It’s Steve! Hey man, I wanted to let you know I cut the weeds in the back lot. I was thinking—I know some guys. We could expand the parking lot, you know?”
John thought about the attendance. The existing parking lot was small, but set as the theater was at the edge of town, parking in the neighborhood was plentiful and the library was nearby. It could double as an extra lot.
“Thanks for cutting the grass,” John began. “Let me think about the extra lot.”
“Sure. It wouldn’t cost much. You know, a few thousand. Ten at tops.”
Ten thousand? Is he nuts? “Right. Thanks.”
“Sure. I have some other thoughts I’d like to throw out as well—”
“That’s great. I’d love to hear them but I need—” John glanced around the room, “to get to my daughter’s school. We can talk the next time I’m at the theater.”
“Sure or I could call you—”
“It would be better in person.” Then, over Steve’s protests, John ended the call with a firm goodbye.
Steve was an unfortunate addition to the theater project. John looked back at the spreadsheets. Beyond the financial strain it held over his liquidity, Steve added a new kind of liability. He should sell it. It was the cleanest solution and would divest him of several problems.
He picked up the phone and called Roger.
“You in?” Roger answered hopefully.
“Yes, start writing up the papers—and I’ll work on how to unload the theater.”
* * * * *
Saturday in autumn meant college football and in Seattle that meant the Huskies. John checked his tickets, then checked the weather—wet and cold. He pulled on his thermal long sleeve t-shirt and topped it with a Husky jersey.
Then, as he always did, he reached to the back of his closet to find his purple and gold jacket with Gore-Tex and Thermaloft. John paused to admire the golden W sewn to the back with neat stitches.
It had been Joni’s last gift to him.
The memory sucked John backward as he slid it on, tossing him into the past and diminishing his present world. That season she had been too sick to attend the games and they watched them together at home—or on the bad days, at the hospital.
John pushed his hands deep into the pockets and faced the mirror straight on, absorbing the powerful punch of a loving memory.
Carefully he took the coat off, hung it back up on the hanger and slipped it back into the dark depths of his closet.
An hour later, John dropped Tessa off at his parents’ and picked up Susannah. They met Mike and Katherine at the seats halfway up the riser on the twenty-yard line. They were just outside the protection of the huge overhanging roof.
The clouds settled down low, heavy with rain. Drinking cups of hot chocolate with mittened hands, they burrowed deeper into their parkas when the rain began to splatter them with huge wet drops. No one mentioned leaving. The Huskies were winning.
For four quarters they yelled and screamed, cursed and cheered. The people around them became their new best friends as the crowd came together to support the home team.
Water dripped off their hoods as John bent impulsively to kiss Susannah. She leaned into him and when he lifted his head all he could see was the love that melted her brown eyes into a dark caramel.
He felt it again. The moment’s perfection that became a destination to which he had arrived, making all the twists and turns of his life necessary, important but diminutive when set next to this one moment of grace.
It was as if it were a package, a gift set before him, waiting for him to embrace it, unwrap it, begin to live it. All of the wonder that Susannah’s love could bring.
But it wasn’t just a gift. It was an unknown. He couldn’t just accept it. He needed to be careful. A few steps needed to be taken.
One test needed to be completed.
John took a deep breath and turned back to the game. Life was showing him more surprises than he could absorb. A few precautions would hardly diminish its magic. That’s what John believed.
Jubilant with a hometown win, the foursome decided to ditch their cars and walk to the University district for pizza.
“I hate this tradition,” Mike whispered as they perused the menu.
“Quinoa crust with organic tomatoes and mozzarella imbued with pressed basil,” Susannah read from the menu. “Gluten-free.”
“The quinoa is also free,” John pointed to the asterisk.
“Quinoa can’t be free.” Susannah objected.
“Really? That’s your objection?” Mike asked. “Where’s the pepperoni? That’s what I’d like to know.”
The waitress appeared silently due to the soft soles of her Birkenstocks. “Would you like to start with our house beer? It’s infused with chai and lavender.”
“Ha!” Susannah laughed, and then ducked her head.
“Bring it on!” Katherine enthused. “I love this place!”
“One Coors Light. Is that asking too much?” Mike whined piteously.
“So this is a tradition?” Susannah asked.
“Ever since we were poor college students trying to impress ourselves with our enlightenedness. It really hasn’t changed.”
“Yep, this and the combo Chinese place across the street. Too bad that wasn’t our football-game tradition,” Mike grumbled.
“It was cheaper than eating at the dorms,” John remembered.
“These prices don’t look so cheap—” Susannah offered.
“Figures they’d change the prices.” From Mike.
“I meant the Chinese place,” explained John.
“It was Joni’s idea,” came Katherine’s quiet voice.
For a moment, the three friends exchanged glances.
“Aw well,” John said to no one. Susannah leaned against him.
Mike cleared his throat. “How’s the theater coming?”
John frowned but didn’t answer as the waitress padded over to set down their beers.
Susannah sniffed hers. “Wow, I do smell lavender.”
Mike rolled his eyes but they all took a sip. And then another.
“That’s not bad,” Susannah said in wonder.
Mike took another sip. “Guess that’s another reason why this is a tradition.”
“Thank you,” the waitress sniffed. “Have you decided on your order?”
“Yes,” Katherine didn’t hesitate, ordering two large pizzas with a variety of goat cheeses and purple vegetables.
“Excellent choices,” the waitress approved as she collected the menus and headed for the kitchen to place the order.
“Hey, were you able to find a used projector?” Mike asked.
John took long draught. “Nah. I…I’m selling the property.”
“What?” The chorus was deafening.
“Man, that place was golden!” Mike objected.
“What about The Sound of Music marathon?” Katherine frowned.
John smiled awkwardly. “I liked it too, but another piece came up on Lake Union and that would give me three in a row.”
“Yeah man and then you’re out.”
John glared at Mike. “Excuse me?”
Mike sent a glance to Katherine, who tipped her head with a slight nod. Silence filled the table.
“I’m just saying, man, maybe it’s time—you know, to sell.”
More silence. Susannah sipped her beer. It was strangely refreshing.
“I’m guessing you don’t mean the theater.”
Mike hesitated. “It’s just that—I don’t know. I mean, look at this place. Do you remember back then? Do you remember what you liked to do back then?”
John shrugged. “We studied a lot.”
“Well, yeah, but remember that job you had?”
“As a grocery store clerk?”
“Hardly just a clerk. You were the youngest manager. You loved that job, remember? Buying the stock? Dealing with the customers? With the staff?”
“I remember the hassles, the low salary, the long hours,” John scoffed.
Mike studied his oldest friend for a long moment. “Well yes. I suppose those things are true too.”
Katherine leaned forward, briefly squeezing John’s hand with her own. “All Mike is saying is that we’ve been seeing some of that old vitality lately when you talk about the theater that isn’t there when you talk about the Lake Union project. It seemed to us that you were finding your way back.”
John stared at them mutely.
Mike agreed. “Yeah, we thought maybe you were getting ready to let it go.”
“Let it go?” John echoed.
“Yeah, let the…property go.” Mike let his words peter out.
A loud silence caged the four.
“It’s about financial security. How can that be a bad thing?” John’s wounded reply came at last.
“For what, man?” Mike asked softly.
“What?”
“Financial security for what?” Mike answered. “That’s all we’re saying. For what?” Then he leaned back and slapped the table with a quick snap. “Isn’t this the place with the awesome breadsticks? Can we get some of those?” He craned his neck around for the waitress.
* * * * *
Susannah could sense the silent argument going on inside John on the drive home. His expression of stubbornness and hurt gave it all away. She let her fingertips touch his shoulder.
He shrugged, then clipped her with a look.
“Want to talk about it?” she offered.
“Nah.” Then, “They just don’t understand. This is what I do. I buy property and sell it. The Lake Union plan—it’s been an area that has been stagnating. Many of the properties there have been allowed to fall into disrepair. Not bad, not horribly, just enough. Just enough to have potential.”
His voice slowed but then he resumed his tirade with renewed energy. “That’s the way I’ve always run my business. I find the area just outside the poorer areas—hell, even one block. One block north of the bad. That’s it.” He looked over at her as if it was a worthy admission. “That’s my entire property-tycoon philosophy.” He set his mouth in a firm line.
Susannah watched as one mile marker passed, then a second. “I doubt it’s your business philosophy that worries your friends.”
“Of course it is. They think poor and happy should be good enough for everyone—just because it’s good enough for them.”
Susannah studied him. “You sure aren’t poor.”
“Please. I want a little more than ‘not poor’ for my child and me.”
“Tell me more about the properties. You said you had three?”
“Two. I’m negotiating for the third right now.”
“And you bought the second just recently.”
“A few months ago.”
“And the first?”
John stared at the road ahead, curving into the darkness. “It was Joni’s. She had a flower shop. Her parents bought her the property when they realized she could never be the ballerina her mother was.”
Susannah looked out into the oncoming night, waiting for John to continue.
“It was a great location,” he allowed reluctantly. “On the way to work or the way home. Her business was solid.”
More space.
“I inherited it, of course, when she died.”
End of story.
They rode the rest of the way without talking, the passenger space heavy with thoughts. John drove the car up Susannah’s dirt road, cut the engine and took the key out of the ignition.
“Mike and Katherine think I’m holding on to the past.” He looked over at Susannah. The shadows on his face intensified the loneliness of his words. “Like a mother holds on to the Legos even after the son moves out.”
Susannah watched him struggle, his shoulders rounded as he looked down at the keys still in his hands.
He looked back at her, his eyes dark and desperate. “But they have each other, don’t they? They have those four boys. What do they know about death?”
Susannah felt his pain rise up in her. She felt it spill over as tears from her eyes, even as she herself didn’t understand the corner in which he chose to remain. It was so different from her choices.
She spoke quietly. “I don’t know how anyone can really tell anyone else about loss. Or judge them for their reaction to it. It just is. And then we continue.”
She brushed away the tears and sniffed. “Seems to me I’ve been on the losing end most all of my life. And that’s what I’ve learned. It just is.”
John stared at her, her words pinning him down, tying him forever to his nightmare.
Susannah swallowed before dealing her final blow. “And the thing is—it will happen again.”
* * * * *
The winds swept through Susannah with a brutal and chilling force that night. Weakness overcame her. In the darkness of early morning, her body trembled underneath the covers. Her words earlier that evening reverberated in her head—living on the losing end of life.
Her parents passing while she was so young, the kind man who became her grandpa, all the people she loved, those who circulated into and then out of her life. She looked down at her body, at the small disruption it caused under the covers—hardly any at all. What held her in this life? Why did she remain even after so many left? What was her anchor?
Susannah remembered how the candle flame wavered then extinguished. She thought about the missing tiles and the washer.
How could a person prove an item existed? When one identical item could easily be another? And no one really noticed?
But a person? How could a person slip away? How tiny must their footprint be for it to be expunged from the fabric of life and leave not even one imperfection?
Susannah thought about her tiny cabin, the tiny rooms. Her truck was huge. Family and friends seemed to her a menagerie of blurry memories and broken connections.
All temporary. Finite.
What was there that lasted beyond us all? That remained out of our grasp, unable to destroy and change?
From the depths of Susannah’s mind, came the answer. It filled her with relief. With hope. With life.
“The sky,” she whispered. “The stars.”
Slipping out of bed, she pulled on her robe and slipped into flip-flops, opening the door of the trailer and letting herself out into the night.
With Kitna at her heel, Susannah stood underneath the cold and starry sky.
It was there—her incomplete consolation. It remained, in process, with bright-blue lights, blinking down at her just like it did yesterday and the day before. It was, as it had been all her life.
Susannah took in a deep drink of the chilly autumn night air and closed her eyes. “Thank you. Thank you.”
She took one more deep breath and then called to Kitna, “Come on, sweet boy, you can sleep on my bed tonight.”
Together, they walked back to the trailer.
* * * * *
John carried a sleepy Tessa from the car to her bedroom. He watched her snuggle into the covers, then leaned down to give her one more goodnight kiss.
His mind was full as he walked into the hallway and absent-mindedly, he reached up to touch the framed Rockwell print. But this time he stopped.
It was a picture of a planting shed, a huge bouquet set on a worktable, a robin just outside the open door. Spring beckoned beyond, fresh and new. John’s fingers skimmed the bouquet, the hat with the long lavender ribbons.
It was a perfect portrait of Joni, down to the grass-stained blue sneakers haphazard in the corner—so beautiful and fresh and young with a trusting belief that the day held the promise of good things.
“How damaged am I?” he wondered out loud. “Or am I living out the lessons learned?” He thought about Mike’s words and his first job as a grocery clerk. It was fun but he wasn’t a kid anymore. Kids don’t seek security. Adults do.
The property on Lake Union was about security, motivated by a lesson learned from Joni’s sickness. Mike was mistakenly mixing the two because the property, which housed Joni’s floral shop, was part of the plan. Mike was mistaken. But he, John, was acting quite rationally even in the face of grief.
John’s sigh was ragged. Mike and Katherine didn’t understand how devastating it is to lose someone.
And Susannah? He shivered as her words echoed. “It just is.”
Perhaps her opinion was simply another example of why theirs might not be a lasting match.
* * * * *
“Cough, cough. I think I’m sick,” Tessa announced Monday morning as they drove to school.
“You already had your sick day.” John looked at his young daughter. “Besides, you completed your detention. You won’t have to stay late.”
Tessa considered this by raising her eyebrows.
“How’s Cheyenne behaving these days?” John asked casually.
“She’s very quiet. But recess is fun.”
John considered this. “Has she met other friends?”
“Not really. We like to play in the woods. A lot of kids are scared of them.”
“The woods? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they think the woods are part of the Fangorn Forest.”
This time John raised his brow. “No kidding.”
“Yes.”
“This wasn’t your suggestion, was it?”
“It makes the game funner, that way.” Tessa screwed her face up and made her arms crooked, closing together in a sudden clasp of terror.
The school came into view. John negotiated the car through the drop-off lane and paused alongside the curb.
“Have a good day, sweetie.” He leaned over to give her a hug.
“We will.” She scampered out as an over-caffeinated mom laid on the horn behind them.
John ignored the horn blast and waited to watch his daughter run into the school building. He wanted to give her so much and yet all he seemed able to do right was love her as she was.
Carefully, he maneuvered his car from the kid-rich parking lot and toward Susannah’s. He needed to apologize for his mood last night, and he felt it should be done in person.
His cell rang. It was Roger.
“Man, you’ve got to get down here. Things are exploding. Someone else has come in and this whole deal is about to go south.” Roger was desperate.
“Sure. How about we meet for lunch—” John really wanted to see Susannah first.
“You aren’t listening! You’ve got to get here right now,” Roger paused, “unless you aren’t serious about this purchase.”
John rolled his eyes. Roger tended to theatrics but this time his voice held a note of sincerity. “Okay, Roger. I can come right now. See you in twenty minutes.”
John clicked off and called Susannah instead. She picked up just before voice mail. “Hey, whatcha doing?”
“Thinking about electricity.”
“Excellent!” Half of his mind remained with Roger.
“Yes. Well, necessary anyway.”
“Hey, Susannah. I’m sorry about last night. I don’t usually get that, uh…morose.”
He was relieved when he heard her smile. “That’s okay. I understand.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say that. I’m really trying to put together a solid life for Tessa and me.”
“I can see that.”
“So then you can see why those tests are so important.”
Silence.
John rushed on. “Right? I can’t have loose cannons. It’s about stability. And security. Planning.”
“Right.” Her reply came at last.
John turned his car into the office park where the meeting would take place. “Hey, I gotta go. We can plan to go get the tests next week. Would that be okay?”
“Of course.”
“Excellent,” he repeated. “Well. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Susannah hung up the phone and poured herself a second cup of coffee. The cloudy-blue top of her small Formica table was already prepared, covered with books that held the knowledge of how to bring light to her cabin. Calling Kitna to her side, Susannah sat down and began to learn.
She pretended not to hear the dripping of the kitchen faucet.
* * * * *
John returned home just in time to meet Tessa. The negotiations had sucked the hours from the day and all that had been accomplished was that a bad decision had been averted.
While Tessa rummaged through the pantry for a snack, he headed for his office. Slumping in his chair, he logged onto his computer. He needed to unload that theater but really, who would buy it? He considered the spreadsheet and wondered if he could decrease his price even further.
Frustration nipped at his good sense. He was so close to the goal. Again, he cursed the day he conceded to impulse and purchased the theater. Without that impulsiveness the property on Lake Union would be his. No doubt.
The next few days consumed John with details and strategies as he battled to win the available property. On Thursday afternoon it was Roger who announced a truce, leaving John hanging in mid-sentence.
“It’s Halloween. Gotta take the munchkins around the block,” Roger mumbled.
“Geez, Roger, you have kids?” John was incredulous but the rest of the group agreed—it was time to go home to the families.
John was halfway home when he remembered Susannah.
“Has it really been three days?” he said as soon as she answered her cell.
“Ah, yeah.”
“Time flies. Let’s see. Wiring, right?”
“Yeah. Well. I’ve been reading about it anyway. Bought some supplies. Now I’m buying more.” Her voice echoed or so it seemed.
“Great. Why don’t you come over tonight? You can walk around with us while Tessa does the trick-or-treating thing.” Two obligations, one stone. John felt smug.
“I think I may stay home.”
John blinked. This was new. “Why?” First Roger has kids, now Susannah says “no”. What the hell is the world coming to?
There was no answer.
John felt the reprimand. He had to admit that he wasn’t acting like himself. Hell, Roger told him just yesterday to take it down a notch. What was that about? And if he were truly honest he would admit that he really hadn’t heard most of what Susannah was saying just now.
He heard a sob catch and the soft cry. “What is happening?”
“Susannah? Are you okay?”
The words crawled across the receiver. “Little…little rocks are falling on my car. Little, little rocks. Traffic is stopping. John, the sky is falling.”