Page 16 of Sensing Selma
I shrugged. “I still have so much to do here. Someone should be coming today to look at a few pieces of furniture that we want to sell, and then we have someone coming in tonight to look at a few paintings that my mother is prepared to part with.”
“In other words, you’re tending to your responsibilities while she is out at play.”
I put the last of the dishes away and smiled at him. “Someone has to do it.”
“I assume she’s not so responsible as you.”
“You assume right.”
He leaned against the door jamb. “With my brother being so much older than I am, you’d think that he was more responsible than I was.”
“And he’s not?”
“Two years ago I had to help him out a bit when a financial endeavor didn’t go the way he’d anticipated.”
“That’s no fun.”
“And three years before that, he got himself into a bit of a bind and I helped him out, and five years before that he overextended himself and I loaned him a bit of money to get him through a rough time.”
“If you keep going back in time like that, you’ll end up telling me that when you were ten years old you had to bail your twenty-one year old brother out.”
He laughed. “Almost.”
“I was about to go out to the garden shed and greenhouse to see what can be sold. Care to come take a look?”
“Of course.”
It was a damp and cloudy day, the air heavy with the threat of rain. On the way out, I grabbed my sweater and put it on.
“My father had the greenhouse built a few years ago. He wanted to dabble with seed collecting, but it wasn’t as easy as he thought it’d be.”
We entered the greenhouse. A wide counter to the right was filled with empty pots of various sizes, three watering cans and a misting bottle. Beneath the counter were bags of dirt, fertilizer and several smaller bags of seeds. To the left were several hanging planters that were also empty, and very large flowerpots on the ground.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many flowerpots in one place.”
“I think he came to just enjoy buying pretty planters.”I pulled a planter closer to me. Filled with dirt, the dried and brittle branches of a small plant begged for loving care. “Do you garden?”
“Me?”he said with a laugh. “No. You?”
“Oh, heavens no. I’m better with numbers than I am with plants. Numbers don’t lie. They don’t need special care. Plants on the other hand, they can start to wilt, and you think you need to water them only to learn that you’ve been watering them too much. Fertilizer? Same thing. More? Less? Different PH?”
“So, you’re a numbers person.”
I nodded as I ran my hand over the top of a pretty yellow flowerpot. “An accountant to be more precise.” I looked at him. “What about you? What do you do? When you’re not helping your brother out that is.”
“These days all I do is work with my brother. About a year ago he was having a rough time, and I joined him on this real estate development business. My brother sees big. He’s a dreamer. Maybe a bit of a gambler. I’m the more level-headed one who actually looks at the numbers, the feasibility reports, the budget. In other words, all the boring, practical side of the business.”
“I get that.Does that mean that real estate isn’t your first love?”
“Far from it.”
“What is your first love? What do you want to do with your life?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“Why? Why would I laugh?”
He shrugged. “Well, my brother did when I told him.”
