Chapter 13: A New Condo

Connie said, “Your book is unconventional. I loved it. I’ve read it twice.”

Stella said, “If you bring it in, I’d be glad to autograph it for you if you want.”

Connie reached in her desk drawer and produced the book. She said, “I read at work.” I wondered how she found the time given all the real estate listings scattered all over her desktop.

Stella wrote a small essay on one of the opening fly-leaves in the book and passed it back to Connie, who thanked her.

Connie said, “Now, a condo.”

She had pictures and even videos of dozens of condos around town. She sat us in front of her large screen computer, and led us through scene after scene as we narrowed the field down. She carefully noted our likes and dislikes based on what we saw and our search criteria narrowed the field. She also gave us the pros and cons of each building. She led us to more contemporary units that were downtown but close to major routes. We obviously liked the views on the higher floors, especially looking out over the marina and bay.

We agreed to meet her the next morning to actually go see five of the units. Lexi joined us on Sunday, and we went in one unit after the other. While we were visiting one building, Connie got a text from her office telling her that yet another unit was just coming on the market. She got us in to see that one, too.

The one we liked best turned out to be a 3,000-square-foot condo on the fourteenth floor of an eighteen-story building. The rooms were spacious, there was office space for Stella, an open plan living room-dining room-kitchen, a huge master bedroom suite, and two guest rooms, one of which Lexi could turn into a student dorm room as she chose. Further, some of the furniture came with the place.

Connie told us the price of the condo and I about choked. Before I could say anything, Stella said, “We’ll take it. We want a better price, however.”

We went back to Connie’s office and put in a lower offer. Stella wrote a check for ten percent down as earnest money.

I whispered to her. “I thought you didn’t have any money?”

She grinned. “I’m kind of rich right now. I’m getting royalty checks every week for Starling. Let me handle this.”

“Put this in your name, then.”

“It’ll be ours – jointly. I want us tied together in ways other than being in bed together.”

Lexi said, “I have nothing to contribute.”

“You play the role of our sex slave,” Stella teased with a laugh.

“Oh, okay, I’ll continue along in that role.” Lexi seemed happy with that arrangement. Connie blushed but laughed. “I guess that settles that.” She put all three of our names on the contract.

When we got home, Stella rifled through a pile of papers she’d collected that obviously included some mail she’d gotten in California. She passed me a couple of bank statements and said, “I know how to read the bottomline, and I know I’m supposed to reconcile my accounts in some way, but ... well, I need your help.”

Lexi looked on with great interest.

I opened up the statement. “HOLY SHIT, STELLA. You’ve got more money in here than God. I think this is bad in some ways.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well for one, the government wants part of it. Did the publisher withhold taxes?”

“I think so; I’m not sure. I think somebody came and explained it to me, and I recall something about that. I have a statement from them in that pile, too. What else is wrong?”

“This is in your checking account. This earns zilch – no interest. Most of this money should be invested in stocks, bonds, or something that grows or pays you some significant interest. We can expect the condo to appreciate in value, too.”

“Do I have enough to pay for the new condo? I thought I did.”

I rolled my eyes. “You mean you wrote that check and weren’t sure of what you really had in the bank?”

“Pretty much,” she sounded contrite.

“Let me go over all this stuff, and then I’ll explain it to you.”

I ended up spending about twenty hours over the next week collecting the raw data and then reconciling her two checking accounts – one in L.A. and one in Florida. Thankfully, she used online banking, thus, much of the data was online. At least that way, I could also tell who she wrote checks to and what accurately got deposited to each account.

When I was through, I sat with Stella and went through it all. In the meanwhile, she’d gotten another huge check from the publisher with her royalties, plus a check from Marcia with her payments for some of the personal appearances, mostly on television. I explained all the income payments to her. Stella was rich.

Stella said, “I didn’t realize that I was getting paid to appear on television.”

“Didn’t Marcia tell you?”

“I think she probably did. I was more distracted by what I was going to say in the interviews than getting paid.”

“Good emphasis, actually. If you don’t come across well, you won’t get asked back. Good girl.”

Lexi asked me for help with her banking, too. I gladly dealt with the much smaller payments that the university was making to her from the pool of money that Taylen Furbish had from the grants he’d gotten.

We got everyone’s finances squared away by the weekend.

Lexi asked Stella and me at dinner one night, “Would I be in trouble if I wanted to fuck another guy that I like?”

We both shook our heads. I guessed, “Taylen – your boss?” I didn’t think she’d met anybody else of significance at the school.

“Yeah. He’s really nice and I like him a lot. I don’t like you guys any less, in fact I love you more each day. I just would like to be with him sometimes.” She turned to Stella, “I know you warned me about him being nice to me so he could get in my panties. I really don’t think he’s that way; if he is, he hides it well. Besides, I think I want him to take my panties off before he gets part of him into me.” She giggled, but she was obviously horny for her boss.

I said, “If you did something in his office at the university, particularly where he’s your ‘boss’ and you’ll soon have a student-faculty relationship with him, he could get fired if anybody found out.”

Lexi took that in. “I wouldn’t have thought about that. Thank you. Maybe I’ll have him drop me off here some night and we’ll use my bed.”

Stella chuckled, “If he’s that nice a guy, then I might like to fuck him, too.”

I laughed. Lexi liked that idea. She said, “I’ll tell him I rent a room and have kitchen privileges. Later, we can tell him the truth. I like this idea. I want you to meet him and tell me if he’s the guy I think he is.”

“Bring home a picture of him,” Stella suggested.

The picture appeared the next day on Lexi’s cellphone. Taylen Furbish was quite a nice-looking fellow. He was young, thin, wore a bow tie, and appeared to be not much older than Lexi. I wondered if he was even my age. Stella looked interested in him, too.

I suggested, “Invite him for dinner with all of us on Friday. We’ll get Marcia and Matt here, too. Maybe we’ll have a big orgy.” We all laughed, but that throw-away comment turned out to be more accurate than any of us expected.

I had a great week at work. My relatively new ideas to fill in the product line for the burgeoning company were not only selling well, they were making money for everyone. I got a sizeable bonus, plus was told to go buy a ‘company car’, with the suggestion that I start looking at cars at the Porsche dealer near our offices where Jake, our ‘big boss’ had set up a special account for me to use. There was a big cash bonus, too.

I didn’t need to be told twice. By the end of the day, I had a company car – a new Porsche 911 Cabriolet convertible. In theory it would seat four people, but the back seats were quite small. Someone could fit in the back kind of sideways – maybe. The color was a cross between maroon and red – a deeper darker red that was still flashy, but not as in-your-face as the fire engine red that I’d seen on other models.

My boss smiled when I pointed out the car in the parking lot. He said, “Just keep coming up with ideas and more good things will happen.” I was speechless that I’d just gotten a $120,000 car to use. There was also a $50,000 cash bonus. That was a lot of love from my bosses.

Matt about shit a brick when I took him outside and showed him the car. Jeff and a couple of other guys came with us. They were duly impressed with the car and with my new status with the ‘big bosses’. I explained about my ideas and how they’d paid off. I encouraged them to also come up with ideas. The better the company did, the better we all did. Part of our annual earnings were based on company performance.

I texted Lexi and asked whether she’d like a ride home from the university instead of taking the bus. She did, so I drove over there about four-thirty. I parked and went into the engineering building. I found Taylen Furbish’s office and the door was wide open. Lexi was working with great concentration on a laptop on a table just inside his open door. He was at his desk further into the office working on a large desktop computer.

I listened at the door for a moment before going inside. Tay said to Lexi, “You are really good at this. I didn’t see that hole in the text that you found. My students wouldn’t like that at all. Nice work.”

I liked that he gave one of my girlfriends some complimentary feedback about her work.

I knocked on the doorframe. “Come in,” Tay said in a raised voice. He looked at me with a large question forming on his face as to who I was.