Tuesday Aug 6

Bobbie finished putting away the cleaned coolers and everything from the regatta and decided to head over to the gallery space.

Quinn was leaning on the counter. “Hi Bobbie, it’s nice to see you. I guess we’re leaving the room at the motel soon. I wanted to talk about coming back to work from maternity leave a little early. I’d like to arrange to work part of my day here and then return home at lunch and finish my day at home.”

Joe was nodding. “If Quinn comes back, I can scale back my hours a bit. A kid I met in tech school has a startup that’s pretty exciting and I’m helping him get it off the ground.”

Bobbie looked thoughtful. “That sounds good. Quinn, our entire reservation system can be accessed from your house already so it should be easy. You can do design work with your layout space and special software at home. Joe, if you go down to part time, we’ll continue your medical care but well have to dial back our contributions to the retirement fund. That what I do for the Jess’ since they’re part time. We’ll sort out the details later.”

Lacey and Greg walked in. “I thought you’d be back up in Cap City, Greg.”

“Trixie’s still in the Hotel, her apartment isn’t finished yet and I wanted to come home and get a few things sorted out. She wants me to talk to you about a new financial analyst. I have a good guy. I decided I’m going to set up an office here, upstairs anyway. It’s lonely at the house. Come on up, I want to talk to you about a few things.”

Bobbie chatted with Lacey about the Indigenous art project and then headed upstairs to see Greg. He was in the first corner office and had the desk pointing towards the door with the windows behind him.

“Your office looks nice; did you need to talk about something?”

“Close the door. Trixie had a little investment info that I’m supposed to give you. She still has control over you’re accounts and doesn’t want you to panic if you see some returns going down. She sold a couple of things because she felt they are not for you anymore and bought into some of the green energy companies she plans to work with.”

“Ha, Ha, so Trixie is doing some insider trading for me?”

“Shh, it’s not funny, well it’s not technically insider trading but it’s not too far off.”

“Could we get in trouble? Greg.”

“Trixie ran it through the lawyers and it’s fine. She just wants to make sure your investments are more ethical. You really need to get a new financial guy though. She has signed all the papers and handed everything over to my guy, Frank Jones, he’s great and he’s a genius and he’s not on the board of the company that owns half your investments. Here’s the transfer documents. Trixie had Derek (Bobbie’s lawyer) initial everything and said that Marshall (Bobbies tax accountant) knows Frank and will meet with him.”

Bobbie signed all the papers and got Frank’s contact information and Greg offered to send copies of the documents to him for her. “Thanks Greg. I’ll have to meet with Frank sometime. I was just going to the terrace to get some lunch; would you like to come?”

Johnny and Rocco were sitting at a table.

“Hi guys can we join you?”

“Sure Bobbie, we haven’t ordered yet. It’s nice to see you, I have a moment to breathe, Lorne and I just finished up George’s condo.”

“I wanted to pick Rocco’s brain about getting my foundation for my homestead ready. He’s going to get me a backhoe next week and I can dig the crawl spaces and get them formed up.” Said Johnny excitedly.

“Greg was helping me get a new financial manager, now that Trixie’s really gone.”

Greg looked up from his phone. “Speak of the devil Bobbie, Frank wants to meet with us on Friday; here.”

“Great, let’s eat, I hear there’s a fresh batch of roast beef au Jus sandwiches today. I think I want one of Mark’s Greek salads and I’ll start with fresh mussels”

They all placed their orders and Bobbie asked Rocco what he and Lorne were working on next. Rocco explained he had 2 crews that did the building, electrical and plumbing stuff and he managed them but mostly near the end of the projects, he and Lorne get together and do the design and finishing work.

“Lorne works with the architects at the start on the bigger remodels. We are finished up the farm house for Ray and Quinn already.”

“Oh, I saw the place earlier in the week. It’s beautiful. I will miss seeing them around the motel but I’m so happy that they are moving back home before the fall. And Thanks for getting my trail look off made. It’s great and has a little platform that has railings, some garbage bins and a nice bench. It’s a legit rest stop. Did you talk to Lorne about your new place too, Johnny?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve talked to everybody. I can’t wait to get started and stop bugging everybody.”

They all laughed and started eating.

Greg offered to treat, since he was a new tenant and after Johnny and Rocco left, he asked Bobbie if she wanted to go for a hike up the mountain.

“I might run home and change and then would you like to head up the mountain hike? I’d like to see the new rest stop that Rocco made.

“Sure Greg, I’ll meet you back here, I want to see the rest stop too.”

Bobbie went back up to her apartment and checked her emails. There was one from Frank about Friday’s lunch meeting and one from Barb saying she was thinking of retiring before the September. Bobbie e-mailed back that that was exciting but also pretty short notice. Bobbie changed into some hiking shorts and a tee shirt and put on wool socks and her hiking boots. She grabbed two water bottles and put ice and water in them and headed down to wait for Greg. Mark was taking his break and was sitting on the terrace.

“Hi Mark, the chili stall at the market is becoming an institution are you finding it difficult to manage?”

“No, I’ve got Gina and Sipho prepping everything for me and I throw the chili together pretty quick. The biggest effort is the sourdough garlic toast but Sipho is almost an expert at sourdough now and is a huge help these days.”

“So, if I just pay overtime for whomever operates the market stall it’s fair, now that everything else is done during regular hours anyway?”

“That seems fair to me. I’ll run it past Gina and Sipho. You let us keep the profits at first and we appreciate that but now it’s just our regular business.”

“Hey Bobbie, are you ready to go hiking up the mountain.” Greg was back with his hiking boots and hiking clothes. “I’m just going to take my suit up to my office. I have a meeting there later.”

Bobbie chatted to Mark a bit about the garden and Brit and joined Greg when he emerged from the other building.

They had an easy walk most of the way and then went single file after they got part way up the mountain. They came around one corner and saw the rest stop. “Wow this is nice and it’s such a great view. I can see your motel down there. I wonder how Rocco got all the wood and stuff up here.”

“I don’t know, I’ll have to ask him. It’s really nice up here though.”

They sat on the bench a couple of minutes.

“Trixie wasn’t ever your financial manager?”

“We were planning to bring her on but my business has a lot of moving parts. My family started with importing spirits, which I think was a polite way to say rum running. My grand father lucked out and started packaging dried food. He made a lot of money during the war and we still have a brand of freeze-dried coffee we sell. Dad invested in car part manufacturing and that played out pretty well and I expanded the import export business. I have a factory where things come in one door and go out the other door to the clients. It’s a quick turnaround.”

“Wow Greg that’s interesting. I guess Trixie was spending all her energy with me after she left Bridges and Floyd.”

“She was pretty disillusioned when they finally offered her the national branch. They took all her big clients away. Even the ones she brought to the company and were her best clients. They left her with small accounts that were proven to have very little growth potential. She worked so hard for them. It should have been Bridges Floyd and McNally. She would have had to build the office almost from the ground up. For them. She really needed do something worthwhile. Helping you and your employees was the perfect thing to help her see what she wanted.”

“She helped me so much with the motel. She supported me like I needed when Alex died. I guess I was helping her get over the professional let down too. I didn’t know those old Basters did that to her.”

They proceed down the hill and Greg went to his office and Bobbie went to her apartment. She called Trixie and left her a message asking her to call and had a bath, and fed Fossie.