Karin spent the next two days showing the apartments on
North Madison, getting them rented and introducing herself to all of the
tenants there. She composed and mailed formal introduction letters as well.
She
added a copy of this letter to each units file for her records.
She signed a contract with Lutheran Life Villages and made
arrangements to move her mother to her new room there. The moving part was
easy, the hospital handled the actual transfer and Karin only had to move her
few personal possessions, primarily the clothing that she had brought over for
her earlier in the week.
“I don’t like it here,” Virginia said as soon as the nurse
left. She started opening the dresser drawers and closet and looking under the
bed.
“What are you trying to find?” Karin asked, but she was
pretty sure she knew that her mother was searching for the liquor bottles that
she’d had hidden in her apartment.
“They steal my stuff. I don’t like it here.”
“No one stole anything from you, Mom. This is a nice place
for you to stay.” Karin said. She walked over to the window and opened the
curtain. “Look, you can see the gardens from your room.”
“Horse manure!” Virginia said angrily and then sat down on
the bed and pouted. Karin tried to talk to her for few more minutes, but it was
no use. When the nurse came back to the room, Karin said goodbye and left.
The precious time that was left over after these tasks, she
devoted to physical labor hours at the First Street house. All the stress and
anger and anxiety poured out of her body and into her arms and hands. They flew
across the walls in a cleaning frenzy. In just two days, the walls were all
scrubbed down, the carpets were all removed and disposed of, and the electrician
had given the wiring his seal of approval.
The expenses were rapidly increasing, but the workers were
efficient and making quick work of the project and the sooner the unit was
rented, the less the insurance company would have to pay in lost rent.
As the filth was removed from the apartment inch by inch,
Karin began to feel better. She even began to look forward to picking out the
new color scheme when she went to Dunewood Floors and More. And as the work
progressed, she looked forward to her Friday night dinner with Jay.
Every day, she worked from dawn to dusk, and then finished
her office work in the late evenings with a tasty cocktail to help her fall asleep,
sometimes two.
Late Thursday night, she was still at her desk, enjoying her
third drink and not really getting any more work done, when Michelle came to
the front door.
“I saw your light on” Michelle said. “You’re burning the
candle at both ends I see.”
“Yeah, I’m really trying to get this First Street house
done.” Karin said.
“You need to get some sleep.”
“Just finishing this drink and then I’m off to bed.”
“You look different… thinner even, but I just saw you a week
ago.” Michelle looked at Karin with concern.
“You need to eat.” She picked up
Karin’s glass and took it to the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Karin asked following her friend to
the kitchen.
“Sending you to bed,” she answered as she dumped the
contents of the glass into the sink.
“Um, that’s expensive.”
“I know. I’ll buy you a new bottle later, but right now, you’re
going to bed.” Michelle said and forcefully pointed to the bedroom. “I’ll lock
up on my way out.” Karin knew Michelle was right. She’d been working too many
hours and she needed to get a decent nights’ sleep for her interview the next
day. She nodded and walked to her bedroom where she was asleep the moment her
head hit the pillow.
By Friday morning, she sat at her desk quietly going over
all the possible scenarios for her interview that afternoon. As she paced the
floor, she carried the portfolio that she had mailed to them, having reviewed
it so many times, it was practically memorized. Karin tried to think of things
she could add to the portfolio, more that she could offer them, but in the end,
she had to admit that all she had to offer was already laid out in the
documents she’d sent them.
Michelle showed up at her door early that morning.
“I didn’t think you ever got up this early,” Karin said,
surprised to see her friend.
“I do when it’s this important.” Michelle held out a McDonald’s
take out bag.
“What’s this?” Karin asked taking the bag.
“Lots of calories. Delicious, potentially nutritious,
calories.” Karin had to laugh. It was true that she had hardly eaten anything
all week. Once she got the go ahead to work on the First Street house, it took
priority in her mind and except for the bare necessities required to keep her
business running and the other apartments maintained, she devoted all of her
time to working there. Eating had simply slipped her mind.
“You are a good friend.”
“I know.”
“Well, you might as well come in and have a cup of coffee,
unless you don’t want to watch me eat.” Karin said ushering Michelle to the
kitchen.
“Oh, I’ll stay and watch. I know if I leave you, you’ll
probably get distracted by work and forget I was even here and all this food
will go to waste.” Michelle said. “I got plenty for both of us, so pick out
what you want and I’ll eat the rest.” Karin chose a sausage and cheese
McGriddle and a hashbrown and let Michelle eat the breakfast burritos. Then,
they split an order of hotcakes and scrambled eggs.
“Okay, I have to stop or I’m going to be sick.” Karin said.
“Well, I say you already look healthier. Food is good for
you, even junk food is better than no food.”
Michelle said.
“Thanks for making me get some food and rest.” Karin said as
she cleaned off the table.
“Anytime you need a junk food breakfast, just holler. I
usually eat plain oatmeal every morning, so this was a special treat for me
too.” Michelle said.
“Okay, I’ll try to remember to let you know the next time I
have a project so all encompassing that I forget to eat.” Karin said.
“I guess I’ll just have to come by every few day and check
up on you then.”
“Don’t you already do that?”
“Oh, yeah, because I’m the greatest friend there ever was.”
Michelle said pretending to give herself points in the air. “But, now, the
friendship duty is done and I have to get to work.”
Karin said goodbye to her friend, put the portfolio into her
briefcase and put away the rest of her files, and then she drove to Dunewood
Floors and More with a clipboard full of measurements.
“What do you have that’s about to go in the clearance bin?”
she asked the owner when she got to the store.
They had a long standing
relationship and she often bought her supplies from him, including the remnants
that were otherwise difficult to sell. In exchange, he let her know ahead of
time when he was planning a good sale and also gave her special deals on
product that was about to go on sale or that was simply not very popular at the
time.
“How much do you need?” he asked. Karin held out her list to
him. He took the paper from her and started to show her samples of patterns he
had available in the sizes that she needed. She sketched a map of each
apartment and started filling in her choices as she made them. This allowed her
to see what colors were going into each room and make sure that she didn’t miss
anything.
“I really love this tile pattern,” Karin said over one of
the pieces. “Do you have more of it?”
“Just this remnant.” He answered. “It’s been discontinued,
which is really too bad because it is a popular pattern.”
“Okay, I’ll take what you have for the downstairs bathroom.”
She made a note on her clipboard. “I still need a fairly large piece of carpet
for the living room, something that will go nicely with that tile.” It took
over an hour to pick out everything that she would need.
“Where are we delivering this to?” he asked as he wrote up
her purchase order. She gave him the address and split the order into upstairs
and downstairs deliveries. Depending on who he sent to make the delivery, she might
end up with it all downstairs and then she would have to pay Roger’s guys to
move half of it up the stairs, but she thought it worth asking the guys at
Floors and More to do it for her.
“I’m going to take the tiles with me now though.” She said.
She really liked the tile pattern that she’d picked out for the downstairs bathroom
and she knew she couldn’t get more if anything happened to it, so she decided
to put it in her trunk and drive it to the apartment herself.
She finished up with the portion of her job that required
her to pretend she knew anything about interior decorating with plenty of time
to spare before her two o’clock appointment at the Piermont Complex. She drove
back to her office, checked her messages and then spent a few minutes in front
of the mirror. She was already dressed for the meeting, but she was testing out
her posture and facial expression.
“Should I look confident, or professional, or prestigious,
or ??” Karin talked to herself in front of the mirror for several minutes,
before finally putting her hair in a braid and adding a little lip gloss to her
face. “Good luck.” She said to the lady in the mirror.
Karin pulled her car into the parking lot of the complex.
Every parking spot had a designation. “Parking for Apartment 1B only” “Parking
for Head of Maintenance only” and so on. There was no parking available for
visitors or guests that she could see, so she pulled back out on to the road
and parked along the curb in front of the building. She walked in the front
door with her briefcase by her side.
The lobby was pristine and made her own office look shabby.
The white walls shone in the sunlight and were almost blinding. The neutral
brown and cream accents that adorned the trim work and the reception area were
much more inviting. As she stepped up to the reception desk, she wondered why
she’d never visited this building before. It was certainly part of her
competition, although the clients she currently had weren’t interested in working
with government subsidies, something the Piermont Complex dealt heavily in. Her
research had shown that at least eighty-five percent of their units were
subsidized. Her inexperience in that area was going to be her biggest obstacle,
so she thought.
“Hi, I have a two o’clock appointment.” Karin said to the
receptionist.
“For who?”
Karin was suddenly at a loss. She didn’t know who she was
supposed to ask for. She pulled out the paperwork from her briefcase, but all
it contained was her own portfolio. She didn’t have any of the company’s
information, not even the name of the person who had called her. The
receptionist continued to stare at her computer screen as she waited for Karin
to answer.
“I’m here about the management position,” she finally
managed to say. The receptionist looked up and scanned the lobby like she was
expecting someone else to be there.
“What’s your name?”
“Karin Anderson.”
“Company name?”
“Anderson Properties.”
“Have a seat.” Karin sat down in the lobby and waited. She
had her briefcase over her shoulder and her portfolio in her hand, and she felt
completely out of her league.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she thought to herself. “I’m going to
make a huge fool of myself.” Karin could feel her emotions rising up in her
throat. She thought her nervousness might overcome her and cause her to cry
right there in the lobby. She stood up, prepared to walk out the front door and
forget that she’d ever even considered trying to get this contract. Then, she
heard her name.
“Anderson. You can go in now.” Karin turned around to see
the door just beyond the reception desk was open. It was too late to walk away.
She bit down on the side of her tongue to try and keep herself focused on the
physical pain rather than the emotional trauma going on inside her head. She
held her head high and walked into the board room.
There was one empty seat right in front of her. She set her
portfolio down on the table and sat down in the chair. Only then, did she look
up and see the faces of all the board members. Not all of them were looking at
her. Opposite her at the end of the table, a man with sandy blonde hair looked
down at his notes.
“No,” she almost said out loud as he looked up from the
table and his bright green eyes met hers. Before she could even process what
she saw in front of her, the woman to her right began talking. She introduced
herself and then each of the other board members in turn. When she reached the
opposite end of the table, she said, “…and the CEO of our parent company, Jacob
Palmer…” Karin hardly heard the names of anyone else at the table, but he gave
no indication that he even knew her. The entire meeting went by in a blur. They
asked her questions and she answered them, but Karin barely remembered anything
that was said by the time it was over.
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