Karen

Setting my coffee down, on Maria's cart, I pulled out my phone and showed Lisa a few photos of the cars that I had built over the years; she seemed genuinely interested in the photos and was apparently about to ask me a question or two, concerning the vehicles, when Karen politely interrupted our conversation by firmly touching my forearm with her finger tips.

Holding up her arm, Karen pointed to her watch and said "We need to go now or we'll be late."

Picking-up on Karen's cue, Lisa, glanced quickly at her own watch and then turned towards the coffee cart and paid Maria for the coffees. She also left a generous tip I noticed. After saying good-bye to Maria and wishing her a good evening, Karen, Lisa and I started walking back towards the office building.

"This is awesome coffee ladies, thank you, I really needed this. She's a cutie too." I added in reference to Maria.

"She's a doll, but she works too hard and doesn't get out and play enough, Tim." Lisa responded.

"Her trip to Mexico, this summer, is the first time she's done anything for herself in two years, Tim." Karen added, while sipping her latte.

Karen and I walked Lisa to her car which was parked in a reserved parking space outside the Insurance brokerage. The car was a small white Cadillac sedan with a personalized license plate that said "NSUREU". The ladies made small talk while Lisa slipped on her seat-belt and flipped down the driver's side sun-visor; she then flung her briefcase on the passenger's side of the seat and closed the driver's door. After starting the engine she powered-down the driver's side window, Karen then walked over to the car and gave a Lisa a brief hug through the open window.

Lisa, now looking at me, held out one of her business cards for me to take. I took the card and handed Lisa her coffee, which she had placed on the roof of the car before getting in. Lisa then held out her hand for me to shake.

"I'll be in Edmonton next week but you can still call or text anytime, Tim, and please say hello to Patti when you call her to check-up on my credibility ok?" Lisa said smiling while she still held my hand.

"I will Lisa, and I'm sure Patti will say that you're a fine lady." I responded.

Lisa's hand pulled me to the window and we pecked each other on the cheek, I felt a rush of adrenaline suddenly surge through my body.

"Call or text, anytime, Tim." Lisa said as she slipped the car into reverse gear and began to back out of her parking space.

Karen and I both waved good-bye to Lisa as the little white Cadillac drove slowly through the parking lot and then quickly slipped into the flow of Las Vegas traffic.

Looking at the sky towards Laughlin, Karen and I decided to put the top back up on the Miata, this was simple enough and we were soon inside the car putting on our seat belts. Karen started the engine without saying anything as I sat in the passenger's seat and sipped my coffee. She then turned to me with a bit of a dazed expression on her face and said

"Wow, Wow, WOW! I have never seen Lisa react that way to anyone, EVER, Tim. She really likes you!"

"It's not part of a sales pitch, Karen?" I asked, not really sure what to think.

"NO WAY Tim, she's as legit' as they come, cowboy, she likes you." Karen said.

I was, in fact, a little shell shocked, myself, by the happenings of the last few minutes with Lisa, as I was quite attracted to her. I kept thinking about the smell of Lisa's perfume and the way she had gently pulled me towards her and pecked me on the cheek.

Karen put the car in gear and we started out of the parking lot, following in the same path that Lisa had taken only a few minutes earlier. The sun would be setting soon and traffic was starting to thin out now as Karen took off her sunglasses and carefully pulled the car onto the thorofare, she then began accelerating and shifting gears rapidly and soon we were keeping up with the flow of cars and trucks.

As we drove, Karen informed me that Lisa was long divorced but hadn't been interested in dating for the past few years. She then told me that I definitely needed to call Lisa in the near future and ask her out!

"Lisa is half owner of McGowan & Associates, Tim, and normally she would have delegated a simple home owner's policy to one of her employees but because I'm your Real-Estate agent and a close friend of Lisa's she waited for us in her office at five o clock on Friday instead of making us wait until Monday when the doors open again, as would normally have occurred with anyone else. Lisa has policies on the books that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and in a few cases over a million. She is an extremely astute business woman and she knows integrity when she sees it. She also doesn't need to resort to peck-on-the-cheek gimmicks to drum-up business; her apparent warmth for you is genuine, so when you ask, is it a sales pitch? the answer is no." Karen said, looking at me rather sternly.

"I gathered that she's smart and I didn't mean to belittle her at all, Karen, I've just learned to be a bit skeptical is all". I said simply.

"You need to ask her out Tim." Karen repeated again.

Karen and I stopped in Searchlight which is approximately half-way between Las Vegas and Laughlin, I pumped gas into the Mazda while Karen found a ladies room. A few minutes later she returned with two bottled waters and handed me one.

"You drive, Tim" she said and got into the passenger's side of her own car.

"I don't know how to get to the condo from here, Karen." I said to her through the car window.

"I'm putting it in the Garmin for you right now" Karen replied.

"Putting it in the what?" I asked.

"Just GET IN the car and I'll show you!" Karen responded as she rolled her eyes.

I got in the car and Karen showed me how to follow the route now displayed on screen of the GPS. Thirty six minutes later we were in front of the condo in my parking space.

"That is freaking awesome, Karen! What do you call this thing, again?" I asked in amazement.

"It's a Garmin; they've only been available to the public for about twenty years now, Tim." Karen said, rolling her eyes again and opening her door to get out of the car.

Glancing at my phone, I was happy to see that we had made good time on the road from Las Vegas and were actually five minutes early for the meeting. I unfastened my seat-belt, got out of the driver's seat and locked the car. I then handed Karen, back, her keys and followed her up the cement walk-way. The condo which I had purchased was in a secured building and a paper sign taped onto the entry way gate read CONDO MEETING IN APP# 14 @ 7:30PM.

Holding her bottled water now and pushing the keys on the electronic pad with the same hand, Karen entered my personal apartment code into the electronic box on the entry way gate. A buzzer then sounded and the gate opened for us to enter. Karen and I then went up two flights of stairs and entered Apartment number fourteen

"MY GOD, I DON'T BELIEVE IT; YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" I bellowed loudly when I instantly spotted someone in the room from Anchorage that I actually knew.

Presently there were eight or nine people in the room and all conversation in the apartment suddenly ceased, mid-sentence, with my grand entrance and mild out-burst. Dead silence and baleful stares now greeted Karen and me like we were a couple of rude party crashers that had just disrupted a sacred religious service. Subconsciously I noticed that the woman who I would come to know as Andrea Millhouse eyed me longer than anyone present. Karen, somewhat shocked, herself, quietly closed the door and entered the room behind me.

Karen was obviously embarrassed by my sudden change in behavior and was looking at me with a puzzled and somewhat hesitant expression on her face now. I disregarded the awkwardness of the moment and walked directly over to a large and powerfully built man in his mid seventies who was standing alone next to the large living room window.

I held out my hand and grinned widely at him and as recognition and a smile suddenly came to his face he grabbed my hand and began pumping my arm vigorously.

He then said "Ya' look like you've gotten some sun, kid, tan looks good on ya'".

Eyeing Karen, then, he continued with "Looks like you're keeping helluva lot better company than the last time I saw you, too."

I motioned Karen to come forward while holding out my arm as an introduction to her and said

"Hans, I'd like you to meet Karen, Karen this is a Hans, a friend of mine from Alaska!"

I intentionally didn't introduce Karen as my real-estate agent, hoping that Hans might get the impression that there was more between Karen and me than simple business dealings in real-estate. Karen, seeming to notice the omission of the title "Real-Estate Agent" in my introduction, quickly walked over to where we were standing and hooked her left arm in my right arm. She smiled brightly at Hans and while shaking his hand asked

"You two desperadoes know each other?"

Hans and I laughed loudly together at Karen's quick and flippant description of us and I couldn't help but notice how small Karen's hand was as the two of them shook hands.

"I've worked with Hans for years, Karen, he's a truckie." I answered.

"Used to be, sold the last one a few months ago, I'm done." Hands replied.

Hans and I then began talking about working in Alaska and recanted some of the more memorable characters and events which had occurred over the years on various construction jobs which we had both worked on together. Karen seemed to be enjoying the conversation that Hans and I had started and by now the other people in the room had gone back to their own conversations and the apartment was filled with a low crescendo of small talk and bits of laughter here and there. The condominium was a new building and most of the people who were going to be living next door to each other had only met once or twice before.

"You buy one of these condos too?" Hans asked me.

I then explained briefly to Hans that I had indeed, finally purchased my "Get-Away" condo and that my time in the long, dark, cold winters of Alaska was now a thing of the past. Hans and everyone else that I work with had listened to me talk, over the two-way radio, about buying a vacation condo for years.

"Glad to hear it boy, it'll do you good to play more in the sun. Sorry about your mom too, saw the obituary in the paper." Hans said, nodding his head sadly.

Karen tugged me a little closer then as I replied with "It's been hard, losing Mom."

A middle aged guy in a suit and wearing a paper sticky with the name "Ed" on his breast pocket, then spoke above everyone else in the room and said

"Folks, it's seven thirty five, we need to start the meeting now... please, can we start now?"

Upon hearing Ed's call for the meeting to start, I quickly traded cell-phone numbers with Hans and then followed Karen as she led me to some vacant chairs where she and I sat down.

After finding our seats, Karen leaned over to me and whispered

"Ed is the Property Manager for the mortgage company; Tim. He's a good guy."

After everyone else had found a chair and sat down, the process of introductions of those present began. There was Alex Lipke, a tall and introverted guy around sixty years of age that was currently moving into apartment number nine, next was Emma Zimmerman, a widow around seventy that lived at the south end of the building on my floor in unit number eighteen. Andrea Millhouse was a slender and attractive brunette around fifty five that lived right next door to me in apartment twenty four. Ron and Kathy Smith were a middle aged couple that had purchase apartment number sixteen. There was a tall and sullen Texan, who was about sixty years old, named Calvin Hitch that lived in apartment two and Bob and Katy Orth, a couple in their sixties, that lived in number twelve. My friend Hans then introduced himself and stated that he had bought apartment number one. I went last and greeted everyone as their neighbor in apartment number twenty three.

Presently there were still sixteen apartments left in the new building that were as of yet unsold.

The condo meeting then officially began and was, as I expected, mundane and full of mild conjecture on everything from the placement of the washers and dryers in the laundry room to the general lay-out of flower beds located in the palazzio. Opinions also varied widely on the proper location of the address numbers located on the side of the building and which mailboxes should be delegated to which tenants.

Twenty minutes into the meeting, Ed and Andrea Millhouse began a slightly heated discussion on the proper color of the painted lines outside the building which separated the parking spaces for each individual tenant or tenants. Andrea Millhouse insisted that proper protocol dictated that they should be painted a Hi-way Safety, yellow, while Ed argued that they were within proper building code and specifications, painted white, as they now were.

Andrea Millhouse and Ed then opened the large binder containing the written condo guide lines, where upon each in turn would read sections and paragraphs of the written by-laws concerning the parking spaces and other condo rules and regulations. Andrea Millhouse and Ed would then argue the actual interpretation of each and every paragraph's actual meaning and what each rule's implication was in their own opinion. The conversation was monotonous and went no-where yet continued on for another ten minutes.

As Ed and Andrea Millhouse continued to spar incessantly with each other over the parking spaces outside the building, Emma Zimmerman, quiet and composed, put on a pair of bifocals and pulled out a pair of long knitting needles from a plastic bag that she had brought with her. Silently she began working slowly and methodically on a tiny sized blue sweater which looked like it was three quarters of the way completed and probably intended for a grandbaby boy.

Alex Lipke with arms crossed, was looking at the floor and rocking back and forth in his chair like a kid wanting, desperately, to get out of a church service on a hot summer's day.

The Orths and the Texan, Calvin Hitch, sat stoically and seemingly never to blink.

Ron and Kathy Smith sat quietly together with eyes closed as they leaned against each other. The couple looked as if they had already put in a full day's work and would soon be asleep at any moment, sitting right where they were.

Now seemingly at a stale-mate with Ed, concerning the parking line issue, Andrea Millhouse suddenly switched topics and relayed to Ed and the group, that - as of yet, there were still no window screens for her condo and how disappointed she was in discovering the actual quality of bath fixtures in her new apartment.

Andrea seemed to be dominating the entire meeting and was now standing in the middle of the room addressing Ed and the rest of us, seated, as if she were a criminal defense lawyer five minutes before the jury went into deliberation, complete with hand gestures and animated body language to stress each of her individual points.

Tuning out her endless monolog now, I had to concede that Andrea was admittedly, physically striking with high cheek bones and large dark eyes, a heart shaped face with a clear complexion and luscious full red lips. Her hair, parted in the middle, was shoulder length and stylishly cut with natural grey high-lights. Andrea had on black slacks that conformed well to her slender frame and she was wearing boots similar in style to Karen's. Andrea also had on a, rather tight fitting, white-cotton, short sleeved shirt with a portrait of a lion and MEXICO written underneath in bold letters. Andrea was toned with a nice tan and shapely figure and measured, I guessed, around five feet, four inches in height. Even as attractive as Andrea was, I was very glad that I didn't have to go home to her every night.

Turning my head and looking at Karen, I silently wondered how she could enjoy this type of work and dealing with people like Andrea Millhouse on a regular basis. Karen seemed to be earnestly listening to Andrea and every so often Karen would nod her head, as if in agreement with Andrea and her concerns.

My mind began to drift again and I reflected that since I was now, finally here in Nevada as a part time resident, I still needed to find a good used car and also buy a recumbent bicycle to ride here in Laughlin. I loved riding in this area and bicycling always gave me a boost of energy and cleared my head of fatigue.

Looking at Karen again, I thought, MY GOD, she's gorgeous...

I began wondering which restaurant Karen would likely select when we finally did have dinner together. It might be fun to suggest someplace out of the way and rustic or maybe something a little more exotic and formal. Karen was such an easy-going type of lady that it probably wouldn't matter where we went as long as the food was good. Maybe a bicycle trip with a pic-nic lunch, since we both enjoyed bikes.

My thoughts shifted and I thought about leaning into Lisa's car and getting a peck on the cheek just a few hours earlier and the way her perfume had smelled. Lisa was a knock-out and I was definitely going to ask her out once she got back from Canada and I was a little more settled in the condo.

Karen, Lisa, Karen, Lisa, Karen, Lisa, my head was starting to spin with fatigue from the long day and recent life changing events. Where the hell were all these women when I was in my thirties and forties and lonely as hell? Karen and Lisa were both in a league that was light years above and beyond that of my ex-wife. Mom had never really taken to Susan but had welcomed her into the family with open arms regardless.

Mom had always been so wise concerning matters of the heart...

I came back to the present moment as Andrea Millhouse continued on with

"My last condo had THICK, SOUND-PROOF carpeting of a MUCH higher QUALITY than what I now have to contend with. ALL I'm asking for is my money's worth. Can you write that in the meeting minutes, Ed, so it can be on record please?"

Andrea then began rambling about the quality of paint and other fixtures in her apartment, to which point I began to tune her out again. Andrea Millhouse and the condo meeting were becoming almost unbearable for me now and as I glanced over at Hans, the older man gave me an all-knowing smirk that said

"Can you believe this shit?"

Looking at Andrea Millhouse again and shaking my head slightly, I quietly snickered at Hans's blunt sense of humor and then closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. It had been a long day and I wanted to go to my brand new, quiet, condo now and get a shower and some sleep. I was exhausted and didn't give a flying fuck about any of the trivial bullshit that was being discussed. I was about to nudge Karen, in a silent gesture to leave, when my phone suddenly pinged and alerted me of a text. I pulled out the device and Mom's carnival photo greeted me warmly on the opening page. I then swiped the screen and looked at the text message; it was from my brother Ricky in Seattle.

"What up dude u still coming?" it read.

I silently thanked God for Ricky and his text message and then stood up with the phone in my hand and acted as if the text message that I had just received was of the up most importance and that I needed to leave the room immediately to place a phone call.

Karen stood up as well and as I grabbed my water bottle from the floor, I looked over at Hans and silently mouthed the words "I'll call you", as I made the universal hand gesture with my thumb to my ear and pinky finger at my lips to simulate that I was holding a phone. Hans nodded his head and waved good-bye.

Karen and I headed for the door and went out into the night air while Andrea Millhouse continued talking to the rest of the group without losing stride or even seemingly to take notice that Karen and I were leaving the meeting.