Wednesday Oct 30.

Bobbie met with Mark, Effie and Will and it took all morning. She and Mark were really pleased with how the motel restaurant was running. The tea service was still popular; the Sunday brunch was always sold out and the expansion of their lunch service into the main restaurant was working.

Will found both an upright industrial freezer and cooler that each had glass doors. They were in SPOKES and they were ready to start selling the take-out dinners. Mark had the chili and baked beans like he sold at the market on Saturdays and now they could sell them all the time. He wanted to expand the menu and add more meals like Lasagne and various kinds of soup. And they’d offer all the different kinds of bread too.

Gina and Sipho were full of ideas and Bobbie was happy that more Italian food and some African meals were being tried. She loved being a taste tester. In fact, she was too full to have lunch after all the tasting.

The restaurant was profiting enough to pay the restaurant staff salaries. Effie reported the motel rental books looked good too. The room rentals paid for the rest of the staff salaries and general maintenance. Bobbie just wasn’t making much profit for herself. She didn’t have many expenses and she had her modest government pension so she was fine, but that didn’t help her condo development problem.

On Monday she went through all Townes’ paperwork. She even knew his passwords because he kept them on a little piece of paper in his day planner. He wasn’t on social media platforms but she had passwords to a few things that needed to be cancelled. It reminded her of when she had to do all that for Alex. She didn’t know why her sadness over Townes made her miss Alex more. She vowed; no more relationships. She was tired of feeling sad.

She had a list of people to talk to and meet with about the Condo development. She called the head architect on Tuesday. The architect was a woman named Tilsey Went and was relieved to her from Bobbie. She was very helpful because she wanted the project to succeed. Bobbie also found the name of the banker who financed the project and gave that to Frank.

Townes’ plans were to expand his company into real-estate and Bobbie didn’t share that dream, felt no real connection to Carson Oil and was beginning to realize that she might have some staff that she hadn’t thought about. She gathered her papers and headed over to the other building to talk to Greg and Frank. Marshal, her tax man was joining them too. Bobbie was going to ask him about what to do with Townes’ money; if there was any.

Bobbie had files but hadn’t come up with a decent spreadsheet for the Condo Project. In her mind it was unclear because of uncertainty around the Carson estate itself. She didn’t really have a handle on either.

Frank and Marshall came up from the parking lot. “Hi Bobbie how are you holding up?”

“I’m OK Frank, I am just trying to understand things.”

“I can imagine. I have about 6 messages from a Tilsey Went about the Condo project. She’s very anxious about its fate.”

“I spoke to Tilsey too. I told her I’d keep her up to date. Did she work for Townes? I wonder if he had staff. Remember those people that came to the motel?”

“No. Townes never hired anyone as an employee. He contracted everything. There are workers depending on the Condo project to get paid though.”

Marshal gave Bobbie a quick hug. “Maybe you can sell some jewellery Darling.”

“Ha ha, very funny Marshal. I’ve considered it but I’d have to sell my whole collection.”

They walked through registration and Bobbie waved to Quinn and Lacey.

Frank led them up to his office and they sat around his desk. Frank turned his computer screen around so they could see and they started their meeting.

Danny Ruggles had expedited probate so he could buy the Carson ranch from Bobbie. She had the money from that.

“I sold him the ranch but I’m keeping some land and the cows and I wanted to use the money form the sale of the house to build a smaller ranch and take care of the cows.”

“I’m not sure it’s a great idea. I assume you want to use the beef from the cows in the restaurant. I don’t think it would save any money. It would be better to invest it.”

“But Frank, the beef would be so good. And it fits the farm to table philosophy we have.”

Marshal sat back. “Building a ranch house and likely a barn with a bunkhouse and the cost of keeping and butchering and transporting cows and all that, are legitimate business expenses; If it’s for the restaurant. If you use the money you got for the ranch house, we can avoid capital gains from the sale of the Carson ranch.”

Frank Frowned. “I did consider that guys. I just thought Bobbie wanted to simplify things.”

“I want a place where I can have the family visit too. I can imagine riding horses and enjoying the summers and skiing and sleigh rides in the winter.”

Frank laughed. “OK, I get the picture. Simple is not on the table.”

“Don’t worry Frank. You’ll be invited to go on sleigh rides too.”

The rest of the afternoon they worked out a list of contractors that needed to be paid again next quarter to keep the condo project going. They saw, from Townes’ files that he broke the project down into three parts. The most costly, was phase one that dealt with planning, and designing, all the work he did with the city concerning the access roads and laying the foundation. That phase was complete and paid for.

The next Phase was framing and utilities and general carpentry and they were almost finished that. They hadn’t paid the plumbers and electricians yet.

Bobbie had some insurance money from Mrs. Carson that she thought could pay that. Marshal told her to invest the insurance money because it wasn’t taxable and pay them some other way. “In all seriousness selling some jewellery would work in this instance.”

Frank shook his head. “Maybe it won’t come to that. Remember, Townes had a plan and he was funding the condo with his trust fund. I’ll be getting information about the size of the trust later today. Maybe you’ll have no trouble.”

“Barb says she wants to help me manage the project and we have all Townes’s notes so I’m going to go and work out a budget and spreadsheet for phase three. I have ideas about who will design the show suite and who will do the landscaping. Have any of the condo’s been sold?”

“Not yet. You’re right, that has to start soon, though. We have to decide on the floor plans. There are 2 buildings and they are 8 floors each and Townes agreed that 2 apartments on floors 2,3,4,5 and 6 will be affordable with three bedrooms, in each building. There are 6 condos on each floor except floor 8. Space for business and the show suite on the first floor, so there will be 10 lower profit condos in each building, 22 higher cost 2 bedrooms on the rest of the floors and 3 penthouse, 3-bedroom condos on the eighth floor.”

“In total there are 20 affordable 3-bedroom condos, 44  2-bedroom condos and 6 luxury penthouses. Townes has no investors. He planned to pay for all of it, himself. If I can pay for it all the same way, all the condo sales will be profit?” Bobbie was incredulous.

“Now you are getting a handle on things eh Bobbie?” Joked Frank.

“Well, I don’t feel too bad about leveraging the Motel anymore, that’s for sure. I see now how Townes could develop the real-estate wing of Carson oil using the profits from Stargazer Condo’s. What am I going to do with all that money?”

“You’ll have a healthy investment portfolio for sure.”

I’m defiantly keeping my cows and building my family ranch; complete with a pool and tennis court…and horses…”

Bobbie’s phone dinged. It was a message from Trixie. Margret Fox was dead.

She looked up. “Margret Fox is just passed. It looks like I get to go to yet another funeral.”

Frank hugged her. “I’m sorry Bobbie, I know you were friends.”

“I didn’t know her very well. I just met her, really. I don’t think she had many friends. Anyway, I think I’ll call my mom. She might want to go. She and Margret got along well.”

Bobbie took her papers back to her place and called Trixie, the number was busy so she left a message. Then she texted that she was going to tell her mom and was it OK if Florence came. Trixie texted back a thumbs up.

Bobbie fed Fossie and called her mom. “Hi Mom, how are you today? I have a bit of sad news; Margret Fox passed away this afternoon. There is a memorial tomorrow and funeral on Friday.

“Oh Bobbie, that’s too bad. If you can make arrangements for where we stay, I can book the flights.”

Florence always flew the best class of seat on the plane. “Sure Mom, I think we will stay with Trixie, she has a nice apartment. We might have to share a room but it will be good to spend some time with you. We haven’t really visited since June moved in and you took up with Dean. He’s not moved in yet, is he?”

Florence laughed. “No Dear, Dean and I still just dating. It will be nice to spend time with you and Trixie. I’ll find a flight for tomorrow morning. Probably not that early one though. I’ll send you the flight information and you can let me know when you can pick me up.”

“Thanks Mom that sounds good. I love you, Bye.”

She texted Johnny to tell him about Margret and ask him over for burgers for supper.

He texted back that he was sorry to here about Margret and asked if he could bring Kirby and Myra up for supper.

Bobbie texted back sure.

It will be nice to see Myra again thought Bobbie and she decided to go downstairs to get some stuff for dinner from the restaurant.