Read Online Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved by Kate Whouley - Free Book Online

ensemble, where I would place the average age somewhere around sixty-two.
    Behind the counter, Tom hangs back, almost loitering; his curiosity transparent. He nods my way, but doesn’t interrupt. I notice his blue suit, his serious demeanor, the way he is listening in without joining the conversation, the way he doesn’t even act surprised to see me. I decide Tom is probably the boss of the Health Department. And I didn’t even know I had friends in high places.*
    * JANUARY FLIES BY. I’m finishing up my big contract, writing reports and editing PowerPoint presentations. I haven’t worked for big business—ever—and the volume of their documentary requirements overwhelms me. But their timing has been perfect. I’ve been chained to my computer through November and December—months when my bookstore clients want me to leave them alone to sell books. Now this project is drawing to a close, and I’ll need to line up some other work—especially if I want to move this house.
    I visit a longtime client in the middle of the month; we plan a series of management training classes. Back at my hotel, I hear from another client who is concluding a lease agreement on a new space in San Francisco. Can I fly there—in three days? Before I leave, I hear from another client, a bookseller in Maine, with whom I’ve worked for many years. He’s opening a second store in the fall. We’ve already worked through sales projections, budgets, lease negotiations; now he is ready to think about the space. I’m delighted to help, looking forward to the freedom to work in three dimensions instead of two. With three projects in the offing, it looks like I’ll have plenty of work for the spring.
    While I am in California, Tony is on Cape Cod. He likes the small escapes from the city; he loves Egypt. Sometimes Anna joins Tony on a Cape weekend, but mostly he comes alone. He believes that Egypt needs some “guy quality time,” and it is his mission to provide it. I’m not sure what happens when I am away, but I know that movies are watched and lots of chips and salsa are consumed. And when I come home, Egypt is nonchalant about my arrival, the best sign of all that he is well cared for and happy in my absence. It is a perfect arrangement. Tony juggles a number of jobs while he is working on his dissertation. He teaches part-time, is coauthoring a book with one of his professors, works as a statistician at a sociology think tank, and also works for me. Sometimes his tasks are mundane—keeping my accounting records up-to-date—and sometimes they are more in keeping with his expertise—decoding the results of an employee survey for a client of mine.
    This week when he visits, I have asked him to take some photographs for me. He is an excellent photographer, and I can’t think of anyone better to take some photos of the cottages being moved—since I can’t be there myself. While I am in San Francisco, the cottages will be lifted off their foundations and moved to another section of the property. Eastward wants to get moving on their project, and they have come to realize that they will not be able to sell and relocate those little cottages by the end of this month. They have found a place to put them. The colony will stay together, each cottage set on concrete blocks until an owner claims it, takes it to a new and permanent home.
    Tony enjoys this assignment, though he tells me when we speak that evening that it was a cold, cold day. You can almost see that in the photographs; the blue in the sky is pale and blunt, clear in a way that speaks of temperatures in the single digits.
    “It was pretty cool,” Tony says, now speaking of the cottages rather than the weather. “I saw them move two of the cottages, but they didn’t get to yours. Yours will probably get moved tomorrow.”
    Tony can’t make it tomorrow. He needs to be in Boston for work, so we won’t have pictures of this first relocation of my cottage. I’m a little