Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
“What do you usually get him for Christmas?”
“I do the same thing every year. I send him a bottle of his favorite whisky, direct from the distillery. I thought I’d try for something more personal this year, but I came up empty.”
“What does he usually give you?”
“He always does the same thing, too,” he said. “He sends me a fifty-dollar bill inside a Christmas card. It was great when I was eighteen and broke. Now it’s a bit odd, but I get it. He has no idea who I am or what I like, so the expectation is that I’ll go out and buy myself a present with the money.”
“What do you actually do with it?”
“I used to use it to get drunk. Now I buy a treat for the kids at the shelter. It seems less self-destructive.”
It really did. I gestured at the small bag on my desk and said, “You told me you were going to do some clothes shopping for dinner with your dad, but it doesn’t look like you succeeded.”
“Nope, I failed at that, too. I wanted to find a dress shirt and pants, but nothing fit right. I guess I’ll go with a sweater and my best pair of jeans, but I really wanted to do more than that.”
“You should borrow one of my suits. The moving company brought my wardrobe and the rest of my things here when I came to San Francisco. After I give you the tour I promised you, let’s go look through my stuff.”
“You’re bigger than me. I doubt your suits would fit.”
“We’re pretty damn close in size, so let’s just see.”
To begin the tour, we stepped out of the open doorway, and I held up my arms to indicate the two almost-walls squaring off the back corner of the building. Right now, they were just frameworks made of two-by-fours, so you could see right through them. “This is my office. I still need a desk. And everything else.”
As Tracy followed me around the ground floor, which was currently a construction site with nothing actually finished, I explained what each of the zones I indicated would hold. When we reached the location of the café, diagonally across from my office in the front corner of the building, my construction foreman joined us. “I’m heading out, boss,” he said. “The rest of the crew already took off, so I’ll lock up behind me.”
“Sounds good.” I turned to Tracy and asked, “Did you meet Steve?”
Tracy nodded. “He let me in and introduced himself when I arrived.”
After Steve took off, I described my plans for the café to Tracy, and he murmured, “It’s pretty incredible.”
“What is?”
“The scope of the project, for one thing. But also, your vision for this place, and your imagination. You have the ability to look around this empty building and see its potential, everything it’s going to become. It’s impressive.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
He followed me up a back staircase to the second floor, and I showed him where the locker rooms, sauna, and studios for fitness classes were going to be. Then we climbed one more flight of stairs to the top floor, and I explained, “The third floor will be employees-only. My staff will have a locker room and a nice lounge at the front of the building. Behind that is storage, and then my apartment is in the back.”
The apartment was the only part of the building with mostly completed walls and a door—though the door was lacking a handle, and the walls were unpainted drywall. It was coming together, though. “My crew was able to restore the original wood floor,” I pointed out, as we stepped into the apartment, “and I love the high ceilings in here.”
“All the windows are great, too,” Tracy said, as he indicated the back wall.
“Yeah, they’re also original. The view is of a brick wall, but there’s enough space between this building and the one behind it to let in a lot of natural light.” I indicated the right side of the space, where some cabinets had recently been installed. “That’s the kitchen, obviously, and this is the main living area. My bed is going to go over to the left, against the far wall.”
“So, the only interior walls are the ones around the bathroom?”
“That was the plan.” I turned to him and asked, “Do you totally hate this layout?”
“No. It’s just…”
“What?”
“It’s going to be beautiful. But all open like this, it’s just… not very cozy.”
“If you were designing it, what would you change?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
It did, though. I really wanted Tracy to be comfortable here. “Please tell me.”
He glanced at me before gesturing to the right. “If it was me, I’d separate the kitchen from the main living area with a half-wall, topped with a bar to give you a place to sit and have breakfast.” I followed him to the other end of the apartment as he continued, “I’d also wall off the bedroom, and I’d find a spot to add a reading nook—a little corner with shelves and a comfortable chair, where you could curl up with a book and a cup of coffee.”