Page 72 of Coffee Shop Girl
“Not kidding.”
“That’s not fair! There’s enough pressure as it is,” she said, half-laughing. “You can’t put that on me.”
“Has nothing to do with you.” I shrugged. “And everything to do with my setup. The Frolicking Moose will prove whether I can take my skills in the sales force and my knowledge of business and apply it to a brick-and-mortar Mom-and-Pop kind of shop. It’s not always the same thing.”
Her gaze tapered to slits. “You really are testing this with me.”
“As previously discussed.”
“Very diplomatic,” she replied wryly, a laugh hidden in her voice. “I think I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Maybe. Working for Mallory may be good for you on several levels, but it’s not great. You don’t want to give up something that promises stability and some level of passion, but not much else.”
Startled, I nodded. “Yes. That’s how it feels.”
“It’s how I feel about the coffee shop.”
“Really?”
Her brow furrowed. “I love it because Dad loved it, but I don’t want to be strapped to a shop my whole life.”
“Then what do you want?”
She looked at me. “That’s a great question.”
“Do you have the answer?”
“Real estate.”
“Really?”
She nodded. When she drifted into deeper thought, her lips twitched to the side of her mouth, and one side of her face wrinkled. I reached for my beer to keep myself from staring a littletoointently.
“I want to sell homes, and I want to eventually carve out a niche in the high-end market. I love luxury houses. The feel. The theme. Merging functionality with beauty and art. It’s a cool thing. Plus, I love the sales process for houses. It’s a big part of someone’s life. Whether it’s a first-time home or the result of a lifetime of work. It’s cool to be part of that. Plus ... I never knew where my home was. Of course, it was with Dad. But he was military for a while. Pappa would come over while he was gone. Or I’d go to Mama’s. It’s just ... I want to give people that security.”
“I know the feeling,” I murmured, unable to tear my eyes away from the dark lashes that contrasted with her freckled skin.
“With renovations?”
“Yes. I love it. I love taking raw material, infusing new life, and making something else out of it. Particularly when I can reuse what already exists. It’s efficient and less wasteful and impacts everyone more positively.”
“Sounds like your new business idea.”
Startled, I blinked. Though I hadn’t seen the parallel before, there definitely was one, and I made a mental note to follow up on that later. I didn’t like the idea of such a big facet of me remaining undiscovered to me but apparent to everyone else.
“Yes,” I said.
She smiled, as if she knew she’d caught me by surprise, and grabbed a second slice of pizza.
“Well,” she continued, “your high-level position is certainly a far cry from renovating a cabin and selling it or trying to help small business owners save themselves. So, what’s the big motivation behind the helping-small-businesses idea?”
“A high-level position is lucrative,” I admitted. “There’s something amazing about being able to scale that high, impact an entire culture or way of life within a business—which is really like a little city itself—and know that you’re helping people be their best selves. Success is literally everywhere. But it’s also isolating. It forces me inside all the time. Even though I work, I never feel like I’m changingme.”
She seemed to mull that over. “Interesting. But working with smaller businesses can’t come with much money.”
“It won’t.”
