Three Little Words

“Got it,” he said. Then he rubbed his jaw in thought. “We won’t have a lot of initial expenses with her job, but we won’t have a huge profit potential either. Last year was a fluke, I know, but still…”

“I’m sure Susan would pay good money for our time and effort, but…

yeah. She’s a businesswoman too, so she won’t want to pay more than she has to.”

“No kidding.” He thought about it some more. “Lemme run some

numbers when I get the chance. Call and talk to Susan and see if she’s still interested. I’ll do some cost estimates based on what you told me needs to be done. I’ll build in a reasonable profit margin, but not so much that she’ll think we’re fleecing her. Sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

“In the meantime, how much do you have left in savings?” I told him that too, and he nodded confidently. “You should be fine for a bunch more ski trips. And don’t worry about the money if it doesn’t work out with Susan and we need to buy a couple of houses. I’ll loan you anything you need, and you can pay me back from the profit when we sell. I’ll only charge you a few points above Prime.”

I goggled.

“I’m kidding!” he said. “I won’t charge you interest and you know it. But call Susan and let me know. I… kinda want to make it work with her job. No offense, but Christy’s really cute. And if she’s as wild as Wren says…”

“Dude, you have no idea. I don’t think I have any idea yet.”

I called Susan a couple of days later, and we talked for almost an hour. I mostly told her about how things were going with Christy. I’d had to make a lot of adjustments with Miss Chaos in my life, but they were all worth it. A small part of me missed my clean bedroom floor and tidy dresser top, but not enough to go back to life without her.

We also talked about Susan’s love life. Her special friend’s wife had passed away, and she’d been spending more time with him. The wife had been ill for nearly two years—cancer—which was why she’d encouraged her husband to spend the night with Susan from time to time. She still wouldn’t tell me who the man was, though. He had a certain standing in town, she said, and it was no one’s business what he did with the “local Jezebel.”

“Are you serious? Do they actually call you that?”

“Some do. I’m… notorious. This is the Bible Belt,” she explained calmly,

“and the Moral Majority is popular around here.”

“Still, I’d like to teach them a thing or two about ‘love thy neighbor.’”

Susan laughed, wry and entirely unconcerned. “I can fight my own battles, but thank you. It doesn’t hurt that I own half the county. Money

opens a lot of doors that bigotry might otherwise close.”

I blinked at the profoundness of that.

“I don’t like to use it as a blunt instrument,” she added, “but I’m not about to let a tool sit on the shelf when I can do some good with it. Some of the more… shall we say, ‘pious’ members of the community might not like me, bless their hearts, but I fund several free daycares and pay for job training programs and do things to improve women’s lives in rural South Carolina. So the holier-than-thou folks can suck eggs, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You tell ’em!” I whooped.

Christy stuck her head in. “Who’re you talking to?” She looked at her watch, which was her way of telling me that she wanted to call her parents and probably Marianne.

“Susan,” I told her. “I know, I’ve been on the phone for an hour.”

“No, that’s okay,” she said. “I was just curious. Tell her hello.”

“Christy says hello.” I listened for a moment and returned the greeting.

“We’re just about done,” I told her. “I’ll let you know when I’m off.”

She nodded and blew me a kiss.

“Okay,” I said to Susan once again, “let’s talk business for a moment.”

“Ah, the real reason you called.”

“No. I wanted to tell you about my life and see how you’re doing too.”

“Mmm hmm. And I’ll choose to believe that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why can’t I ever get away with anything with you?”

“I’ve known you a long time,” she said fondly. “And you’re just like your mother.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”

“It’s a very good thing,” she laughed. “But I know how she is. How you are too.”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” I grumbled.

“No, it doesn’t. So, what’d you want to talk about? Modernizing the camp, I hope.”

“Yep. Trip and I were talking, and…”

We spent another twenty minutes discussing what she wanted done. Trip and I could do most of the work ourselves, although some of it would take a crew. Trip and I could manage the work, but not over the summer, so Susan agreed to an off-season renovation as well.

“I’ll give my notes to Trip,” I said. “He’ll run all the numbers and we’ll

get you a preliminary estimate. We’ll probably fly over when it gets a bit warmer. We need to take a look for ourselves so we’ll be able to give you a final quote.”

“I miss Jeremiah,” she said. “Especially at times like this.”

“Yeah, I know. I miss him too.”

“But… life goes on.”

“Exactly. And on that note, I’d better let you go. We’ve been talking for an hour and a half, and Christy calls her parents on Sunday, so…”