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"I was thinking, we should email Dr. Hilton and tell her that if the dingonek or cherufe shed their scales, we'd like to have one to display at the museum," I said.
"Great idea. You want to handle that one?" Chance asked.
We were sitting in our office looking over proposed displays for the cryptid museum when my phone rang. I picked it up, "Hi, Krista. How are things in Georgia?"
"Boring as ever." Krista was my BFF when I lived in Georgia, and we remained friends even though I moved to Idaho to run Hairy's Cryptid Cafe. Chance and I had been trying to convince her to come to work for us in Wilkins' Gap. "Were you serious about the job offer?"
"Definitely. Why?" I asked. "Are you really considering it?"
"Better. I'm accepting it. How soon can I start?"
Once we made the decision to start a cryptid research foundation in conjunction with the museum, we realized that we needed someone to handle the financial parts of the organization. Krista was a CPA and someone I trusted completely. She was a perfect fit, but we weren't sure she'd be willing to move to Wilkins' Gap. It's a really small, remote town, so it's a big change from living in the city.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Can you find me someplace to live?"
"We'll find you a place, just pack up your car and head north," I said.
After I hung up from the call, I went over and gave Chance a hug. "It's all working out really well," I said. "I can't believe Krista's moving here. Do you think she and Tom might actually hit it off?"
"You seemed to think he was a pretty good option, before you realized I was the best choice," Chance said.
"That's true. The easiest thing would be to rent her the apartment over Hairy's." The apartment had been vacant since I moved in with Chance. I planned to rent it but hadn't been able to decide whether or not to update the kitchen and bathroom first. "Let's go to Hairy's for breakfast tomorrow. We can check it out and make a decision on the updates. If we're going to make changes, we should do it before she gets here."
XXX
The next morning after we ate, we went upstairs and walked through the apartment. I'd cleaned and repainted when I moved in, but I hadn't done any major remodeling because I wasn't sure I was going to stay. "Will it be weird for us to rent this to Krista? She's going to be our employee, and she's still my friend," I said. "I don't want things to be weird because our lives are too intertwined."
"Not much of any way to avoid that in a small town," Chance said. "Everyone's lives are intertwined here. That's the good and the bad of small town life"
"I've got Rick looking for a contractor to build out the Cryptid Coffee Corner in the cafe. Maybe we should just make it a package deal and update the bathroom and kitchen up here too."
"Makes sense."
It was odd being back in the apartment. I'd been so excited to get it cleared out and painted so it felt like home. That lasted maybe a couple of weeks. Things happened and before I realized it, I was living at Chance's.
After we left the apartment, we headed to the museum space downtown. I felt like we were finally making progress on the plans for the museum and the research foundation too. It seemed like an impossibly big undertaking to me, but Chance was convinced we could make all these inter-related businesses work and have fun running them.
We walked around the space dreaming of what it would look like when it was finished and talking about the grand opening celebration we wanted to have. We were really hoping the museum and research center would provide an identity for Wilkins' Gap to help draw tourists to the town.
"Maybe we can use the same contractor here," Chance said. "We'll need to update the bathrooms and build out the displays."
We filled a pad with ideas and questions and things we needed to investigate or consider.