Chapter 53: House Construction. A New Hobby. Party Guests Arrive

Mark

Mid-morning Saturday, the week before the party, I stood beside our array of cars at the farm. We were five days into work on the new house. Greg and Sean from Elsa’s architectural firm were atop a pile of dirt about twelve feet tall with the new construction manager, Doug Reed. They were looking at a page from the hundreds of blueprints for the house, and pointing in various directions.

When I’d arrived on site, Elsa had stuck a printed page into my hands, and said, “Here are our entries for the name of the house and property to replace ‘The Farm.’ I won’t tell you who suggested what, so you won’t have any biases. We had a bunch, even from Brita. I listed them alphabetically in making the list. We like all of them, so any will do from our point of view. Any that one of us didn’t like have been weeded out of the list. I assume if you have any you can add them to the list.”

I laughed, “I’m not entering my own contest, Elsa.” She gave me a hug in return.

“Oh, it’s a contest, is it? We didn’t know that? Well, in that case, I hope I win the big prize.” She glanced down at the perpetual lump in my jeans that I maintained whenever I was around my wives. They were always arousing and at that moment Elsa’s cleavage was part of the reason.

We walked around a number of construction barriers and watched as a large concrete truck started to pour the concrete footings for the house. Two more trucks were waiting. There were piles of dirt everywhere. Everyone, including me, wore construction boots and jeans. Elsa was the only one in a hard hat at that point, but it looked incongruous given her tight jeans and the shirt she had unbuttoned to nearly her navel sans bra. The cool weather was doing even more to accent what she did for the front of the shirt. I do have to say that all the five girls looked exceptionally hot in the tight jeans they’d adopted as their uniform for the site visit. Many of the construction guys checked them out as they wandered around the construction site.

I pointed to another construction site about a half mile away to call attention to it to Cindy and Elsa, “That’ll be your new hangar very soon. Doug told me a few moments ago he’d have that completed before Christmas; room enough for several planes, office space, and even some overnight accommodations for visiting pilots or an overflow of guests from the house. The freshly paved runway stood out from this viewpoint like a new highway – a highway to the skies.

In a different direction but much closer to where the house would be, I pointed at where a bulldozer and backhoe were at work clearing a site. “And over there will be our swim cabana. Don’t worry after it gets landscaped you’ll barely see the building either from the river or from here.”

Sheila asked, “How will they get power and utilities?”

Sean had just joined our circle. He responded, “The cabana will use filtered river water, a pump, and a pressure tank for water. There’ll be a separate well for the hanger. Both will have independent generators if the power fails. Otherwise we’ll have utilities brought in from the east where there’s a pole line. The house already has an underground feed from the main road. There will be some interconnection between the power feeds so that if one goes out, the other will automatically pick up the load since they’re on different parts of the electrical grid. The house also has its own standby generator. We also need some major underground feeds between the various sites for security lines. Those pipes and junction boxes go in next week.”

Greg joined us along with Doug Reed – our site manager, who we’d all met. Greg pointed out, “The fencing will start to go in next week along the north and east sides of the property. We’re also going to pave most of the driveway and parking area with the undercoat next week to facilitate getting the construction vehicles up here in bad weather. We learned from Wednesday’s rain that this place can become a mud pit if we’re not careful.”

Elsa pointed out to the others, “Working on Saturday is not normal on projects like this. We’re doing this to close in faster on the July 1 completion date.”

I nodded and said to Doug, “Remember, if you make that date I’ll pay a five percent bonus to every person that worked on this job atop what they made while they were working on this job. You make that date and I guarantee you a lot more than that.” Doug already knew he’d get a minimum of twenty-five percent bonus if we could move in on July first or earlier.

Doug looked surprised. “That’s very generous. I’ll pass the word around again. To beat some of the cold weather, we do plan to work on Sundays and some holidays. We’d like to be working inside the shell of the house by Christmas, but that’s pretty optimistic.”

We were all over the home site. As the concrete footings were poured the project became more real to all of us. We could appreciate the footprint of the large house. Off to one side a truck was off-loading the forms for the foundation walls.

I had to laugh when I turned in a circle and looked back at the caravan of cars we’d come in. The limousine and war wagons were there with our security guys looking ever vigilant, a few scanning the property around us with binoculars. Standing apart from the others was my beat up CJ6 Jeep that I’d bought from Andy’s son when I’d been trying to fool Elsa into thinking I was just a normal guy and not a billionaire. The Jeep was not exactly a warm or comfortable ride given the chilly weather, but that could change in an hour this time of year. Cindy had driven her six-year-old Toyota sedan so that she and Elsa could go to martial arts class and then to the gun range and meet Deke for a short session later that afternoon. They’d be followed by a war wagon with a security detail.

After we sated our interest in the initial progress on the home’s foundation the six of us took off in different directions: Elsa and Cindy to the gym to meet Wan Suh – their instructor; Melanie, KC, and Sheila to take the limousine back to the condo; and me to ‘run some errands.’

The errand I had was a first for me.

I went out to Air Ranch Airport for my first flight lesson with Wes Silver, one of the girls’ instructors who’d been sworn to secrecy about my starting attempts to master the stratosphere.

Wes was all smiles as I pulled in, the old Jeep being followed by a bright shiny Chevy Suburban referred to as a war wagon because of the firepower that could come from the car at a moment’s notice.

This time I was able to explain face-to-face my interest in flying. Wes again promised to keep the secret from Elsa and Cindy, and to manage our schedules so that our paths didn’t cross at the airport until I was ready to go public. Scott Stone came by for a personal introduction too. I already knew I’d see both men and their girlfriends at the party on the following Saturday.

The question for me was how much time I could devote to lessons, practice, and the book learning so I could pass the FAA written test. After discussing the pros and cons the two men tried to talk me into trying to do four half-weeks with them for both ground school and flight training. I’d get in my required number of flight hours, take the tests, and hopefully end up with my private pilot’s license at the end of that time. They had wanted to see whether I could finish before Christmas, but I abused them of that notion given my crazy schedule that could have me half-a-world away for a week with only a few hours notice. If I were lucky, I’d be able to fit in everything I needed before the following summer.

Wes and I went up for almost two hours in the Cessna 152. I took to the hobby like a duck to water, and even had trouble understanding some of the problems he said other students had, such as holding altitude, understanding the sight picture, or sensing subtle sounds in the engine as the attitude of the plane changed.

Lucas, my security man, waited patiently on the ground for us to return from the lesson. He’d also been sworn to secrecy about my insipient hobby.

We did a lot in the lesson, and then even practiced some touch and go landings at Air Ranch, a standard practice possible because the runways were adequately long.

After we stopped, I got my first dose of ground school that included a drink from a fire hose about all the different kinds of air space around the country, including the Class A inverted wedding cake surrounding city airport and what that meant for practice flights – we’d always go east under the nearest tier of the controlled airspace and keep our transponder on 1200 all the time.

Since Cindy and Elsa were taking Sunday lessons for their instrument rating the next day, I opted to skip Sunday and focus on book learning. Wes helped me load several texts onto my iPad about FAA rules, aviating, and weather, and I was off for the rest of the day.

I was about to leave the room we’d been using for ground school when Wes stopped me. “Errr, I just wanted to thank you for the invitation to your party next Saturday. I know Scott and our girlfriends are enthused about it too.”

“Oh, we’ll be glad to have some new faces there. Elsa did mention a few things about your girlfriends – very interesting things. I gather they enjoy their own brand of sexual freedom.”

Wes said, “Did Elsa or Cindy mention our concern about some adverse publicity should it become known that you had some porn stars in your circle of friends?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell you my view. The media has repeatedly gotten fact after fact wrong about me. If anything I have an image as a boring man who is monolithically focused on business and ruthless about making money. The media keeps trying to spruce that up with various fictions. Truth is, I don’t care. I have been that boring man, and I’m setting about changing that through my lifestyle and my hobbies that now include flying. So don’t worry about your attendance at the party. No pictures and don’t talk about what goes on with people that aren’t also there. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir; we sure can. Elsa already talked to us about that.”

“Good. Tell Vanessa and Anna that I look forward to meeting them ... and being with them. I think every man has a fantasy of being with a porn star sometime in his life. Perhaps mine will come true next week. Elsa told me that Van and Anna are hot, so I look forward to meeting them. I love pretty women.” I gave a lecherous grin, and Wes laughed.

I drove back into the small town of Dillonville followed by the war wagon. I stopped at a jewelry store and spent about forty minutes ordering up some Christmas presents for the girls. No one appeared to recognize me.

Lastly, I headed back to the condo. Elsa and Cindy were probably at the gun range, and everyone else seemed immersed in projects.

First on my list was a name for the farm. We were no longer going to be a farm, and I didn’t care for that appellation for when I lived there. I scanned down the list of names the girls had assembled. There were about fifty or sixty entries in what had become my contest.

One name leapt out at me because it reflected the ambiance of the farm and the pastoral surroundings, as well as the heritage of the land. I instantly decided I had a winner. The property would become The Meadows. I made a few notes and then called Doug Reed’s cell phone.

Doug was still at the building site continuing to supervise the pouring of the footings for the main house. I described what I wanted in terms of the name, gave him my private email, and asked that he follow up with me sometime the following week. I liked Doug. He didn’t care whether I was rich or not, so long as I paid my bills and honored my commitments. He was a large, burley, bushy gray haired, grandfatherly, and no-nonsense man who was fair but firm with the work crews. I knew he would be a top-notch construction manager.

At that point, I broke out my iPad and got in about ninety minutes studying boring but important rules and regulations for flying. I stopped a little after five when I heard Elsa’s voice in the living room. I quit that app and went back to the news on my iPad in case anybody peeked to see what I’d been doing.

My sleek and modern condo took on a unique look in preparation for the early-November party. A few ‘harvest’ touches got added here and there – a cornucopia on the dining room table, and few colored leaves on some of the tabletops for color. The pumpkins to celebrate Halloween were retained.

I never minded when the girls decorated. Given that there were five of them, they’d been amazingly solicitous of keeping my décor preserved and always looking neat. Papers, hobbies, and projects never seemed to clutter up what they’d decided was the public space. Nothing more than a single book or magazine or iPad was ever left about by any of them. Instead, they’d adopted a couple of the bedrooms for hobbies and what they deemed messy activities.

There was something else about the five women that also amazed me; specifically how well they got along together. If I took five people at random in my company, I was guaranteed to have petty grievances if not a war between all of them, plus at least one major personnel problem – not so with my girls.

I constantly heard tones of love between them. They cared for each other. They watched out for each other. They willingly shared everything they had with the others – clothing, jewelry, books, ideas, and so. It wasn’t that they acceded to a request to borrow something; no, it was often the other way around, as in ‘Oh, I have just the blouse that would go well with that skirt. Do you want to take a look and see if you agree?’ I had the feeling too, that there were no secrets. They let it all hang out with each other. In a way, they were like sorority sisters who had intentionally bonded. To me they were my intentional family.