Page 3 of The Hampton Beach Café
“Well, it’s my birthday this weekend, and so I took the week off to relax. I think it’s called a stay-cation these days.”
“Ohhh, very nice, and how’s Malc––”
“Hi Monica,” Lucinda said, smiling through her interruption. “I could ask you the same thing! Don’t you have a thirty-million-dollar listing to sell?”
Monica pouted and pressed one of those remarkably long acrylic nails to her lips. “Shhh! It’s a secret! Well, sort of. Only you, me, and my followers know about it! No. I’m joking, obviously, but I am actually here to meet a client––they want to sell that huge four-story thing off The Birds, and I’m telling you it’ll go for sixty million. This is hardly my favorite place to do business, but honestly, who would say no to working next to a rooftop pool this gorgeous, right?”
Frances smiled and nodded, hoping that Lucinda’s trick of getting Monica to talk about herself would keep working like a charm. It showed no sign of letting up, but as Monica wrapped up, letting them in on all the real estate gossip, she made rather confronting eye contact with Frances.
“Now, I couldn’t help but overhear. It’s probably, like, a side effect of so getting my face frozen like this…the price we pay to stay young, right? Anyway, I thought I heard Miss Lucinda saying you were looking for a place! Investment or residential?”
Lucinda and Frances looked over at each other, managing to resist rolling their eyes. Both women were in their early forties, and Monica wasn’t even thirty yet.
“Both…” Lucinda said, surprising Frances, “…she’s thinking of living in for a while and renovating, then selling.”
Monica’s eyes lit up, and Frances could have sworn dollar signs flashed behind the woman's eerie green contacts.
“Uh, yeah, I mean,” Frances said. “But I don’t really want to spend a lot or get a huge loan.”
“Why not get finance? You’re so secure! You’re like, the Ferrari of risk management…everyone wishes they had you on their corporate side!”
Sipping on her gin and tonic, Frances glowered at Lucinda.
“Because…” she said, “…I hate loans, and I don’t want a huge financial burden.”
Monica pursed her lips and nodded. “Well, if it’ll just be you there––I can’t see Malcolm putting up with contractors and paint fumes––you could do a little place down by the water for less than five mil. Let me have a look around, and I’ll call you.”
Before Frances could say any of the ‘no, please, it’s fine’ variations that she had planned, Monica was standing and waving at a short, dark-suited man who had appeared at the bar.
“My client’s here. I’d say wish me luck but come on…it’s me. I don’t need luck.”
They watched as Monica sauntered over. She was already tall, but her stilettos meant she had to lean down to place two heavy kisses on the man’s cheeks.
Lucinda turned to stare at Frances. “It’s me? I don’t need luck. Good lord, that girl…”
Smiling into her gin, Frances laughed quietly. “It’s a little off-putting, but I sure wouldn’t mind her confidence.”
“You can be confident without being conceited,” Lucinda said. “Anyway, how’s that five million dollar bargain she had for you? Jeez, Louise, I’m so glad I rent.”
There wasn’t much to say. Frances couldn’t afford that––or even half of that––and she really didn’t want to think about the question of interest rates even if she could get a loan post-divorce. Sure, she earned well enough and was a shareholder of the company she and Malcolm ran––
Coughing, she had choked on the soda at the thought of her husband. Well, her sort-of-ex-husband now, she supposed.
“You alright?” Lucinda asked, suddenly sounding concerned.
“Stop asking me that,” Frances said, clearing her throat. “Of course, I’m not. I just need to get used to the idea that he’s not my husband anymore.”
“It’s been less than five hours. Give yourself a hot minute, okay? I know you’re a perfectionist, but you don’t have to heal before five pm.”
“You take your business coach voice out of your mouth,” Frances said, but softened her tone to make sure her friend knew it was all in good fun. “I don’t need you to invoice me.”
It must have struck the right tone, because Lucinda laughed and actually did drop the patient teacher air she had taken on. Frances smiled as her friend leaned over and patted her knee.
“Listen, I know you don’t like doing big things for your birthday, but I know you and Malcolm were going to go out for dinner and whatever else––why don’t we go away for the weekend? Big change of scenery, no eavesdropping real estate agents, and an excuse for me to take some half days.”
“Don’t your clients need you twenty-four-seven?”
Lucinda laughed. “That’s the beauty of contracting––I can work from wherever I like so long as there is WiFi or cell signal. Jamaica, Bora Bora, Fiji, Atlantic City––wherever! Now, you tell me where that is––birthday girl.”
