Chapter 44
Kellan
“Great to meet you, Clam!”
Spencer Sterling, owner of Sterling Properties, boomed his greeting as we stood next to his favorite booth in the Big Biscuit Diner on Route 1. It was the corner booth, generous and wide befitting his 6’2”, 300-pound stature. I noted the half-empty cup of coffee and glazed donut crumb covered side dish on the placemat in front of the seat he’d just vacated.
Carla chuckled. I blushed. Spencer looked perplexed. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked, nodding toward the booth as he arranged his considerable girth back on his side.
“It’s Kellan,” Carla corrected, sliding into the booth opposite her father’s frequent fishing customer.
Spencer’s face crumpled, as if trying to learn French before the waitress returned. “Like the powder?” he asked as I noted a vaguely southern accent.
Carla opened her mouth to correct him yet again but I nodded, eager to get the show on the road. “Close enough,” I said, extending a hand as I slid into the booth next to Carla. “Nice to meet you, Spencer. Carla’s told me all about you.”
“All good, I hope,” Spencer boomed, waving the waitress over as if he was as eager to get through this business meeting as we were.
“Of course,” Carla said. “When Kellan and I decided to start looking for investment properties in Siesta Key, we knew we had to go to Sterling Properties.”
“I’m flattered, Carla,” he said as a waitress approached, middle aged and frazzled in a yellow uniform and red apron. “And to think, last time I saw you, you were cutting bait on Roy’s boat. What was that, six? Eight summers ago?”
“Try ten, Spencer,” she said, pausing to give the waitress time to speak.
“What can I get you folks?” asked the waitress, whose nametag read “Mavis”.
“Coffee,” Carla said before I ordered orange juice.
“Great choices, guys,” Sterling boomed, winking to Mavis who not-so-subtly rolled her eyes. “They come with the ‘business meeting special’. Make it three, Mavis, and keep the coffee coming!”
Thus dismissed, Mavis tottered away, scribbling on her pad and mumbling under her breath. I watched her go, secretly wishing I could join her. While our pillow talks over the weekend had been fun and festive, now in the light of day—it was real.
We were real—doing this—Carla and me. We were really meeting with a realtor, who was clearly a hustler and not going to let a little thing like my cold feet stand in the way of his commission.
It wasn’t Carla, actually. There was no better way to celebrate our new-found love and excitement for each other— to say nothing of how we’d upended our entire lives—than by moving in together. And, after all, buying a place together had been my idea from the start. But in my excitement I suddenly felt that I’d skipped right over moving in together to get straight to investing in a house together, and suddenly my gut wavered with regret.
“So,” Spencer said, peering at us both with shrewd eyes above a blurry smile. “Just to be clear before we go any further, what’s your price range?”
“$250,000,” I blurted at the same time Carla blurted, “$350,000.”
While we chuckled, nervously, Spencer frowned and tore at the edges of his paper placemat. “You guys haven’t talked about this?”
I shrugged and Carla made an apologetic “I’m sorry” face. “We’re just kind of exploring our options at the moment,” she said while I nodded.
“This is more of an exploratory meeting,” I chimed in as Mavis approached with steaming coffee mugs and tiny juice glasses.
Spencer grumbled and slid a battered notepad from the inner pocket of an ill-fitting jacket. “So,” he grumbled, sounding vaguely paternal, “let’s ‘explore’ the fact that, in a town like Siesta Key, those figures won’t get you much.”
Carla and I turned toward each other with doubtful glances. “Not for nothing, Spencer,” I said, voice turning toward the gritty side. “But even in South Beach a good real estate agent could find us something perfect for either of those amounts.”
Carla’s face crumpled, as if I might offend, but Spencer hardly noticed my tone—or slight remonstration. “This ain’t South Beach, kid,” he said, dispensing with the formalities. “You’ve got a smaller, more competitive market and less stacked space in the form of condos or tall buildings. Most properties are oceanfront, which also drives the price up, and county codes limited the construction of new apartment buildings years ago, so…”
“So how much will, say, 300 grand get us, Spencer?” Carla blurted, showing a little grit as well. Spencer might have had a good twenty years on us, but Carla was a business owner and we both had property back in South Beach, so we weren’t exactly new to the negotiating table.
“It depends on what you’re looking for,” he said, apparently reconciled to the fact that we weren’t reality stars with unlimited budgets. “I’ve got half a dozen charming fixer uppers in that price range, several starter homes, a few condos and even a few steals. I just wanted to know what I’m working with so I can steer you in the right direction…”
Mavis brought plates just then, small ones featuring a slice of bacon, one fried egg and two pieces of toast each, and I smiled at Spencer’s version of the Business Breakfast Special— probably something off menu he’d pre-arranged with the restaurant years ago for something like $2.99 each.
It worked for me, though. Talking numbers and signing contracts had found me with less of an appetite than usual and as Carla shoved bits of egg around her plate—it was clear I wasn’t alone.