"Let’s do it, but let me apply for my manager position first," Isabel said with a quick grin.
"Your position?" Penny laughed, her smile widening into a brilliant, supportive look. "That's a girl. Go get your job, and I'll wait right here. I expect a massive family discount on these deliciously overpriced beverages once you're running the place."
Isabel laughed, using her cloth napkin to wipe her mouth before reaching into her purse for a breath mint. She quickly smoothed her hair and adjusted the collar of her shirt. "Oh, good grief, I just realized something. I don't have a copy of my resume with me."
"No worries at all," Penny told her, already pulling her mobile phone from her pocket and tapping the screen. "I have your updated profile saved right here in my files. You emailed it to me last week when we were adjusting the corporate directory records for the Wayne Group."
"Send it over to my personal email address, please," Isabel instructed, remembering she had originally sent the document from her corporate account. "I don't want to use the firm's server for this."
Penny executed a few quick taps on her screen. "Done. It’s sitting in your inbox right now. Now go charm them. I want my discounted pastries."
Isabel straightened her trousers, took a deep, steadying breath, and walked across the dining room toward the high front counter. The young server who had waited on their table earlier was currently restocking a display case with fresh mugs. She looked up with a bright smile as Isabel approached.
"Hi there. Can I get you ladies, anything else?" the server asked.
"Actually, I saw the help-wanted sign in the window," Isabel explained, keeping her tone warm and conversational. "I'm interested in applying for the manager position. Is the proprietor in today?"
The young woman’s face lit up with immediate delight, and she nearly dropped the ceramic mugs back onto the shelf. "Oh, that's amazing! Dr. Reed isn't in the building right now, but I can definitely help you with the preliminary steps. My name is Diane."
Diane grabbed a clean notepad from beneath the counter, scribbling down a line of text before tearing the paper off and handing it to Isabel. "This is Dr. Reed’s direct email address. If you send your details through, I know he'll look at them tonight. Let me take your name and phone number as well, and I'll make sure he knows to expect your message."
Isabel wrote her contact details on the notepad. "Has anyone else applied?"
"We've received a mountain of student applications for servers and counter staff, but absolutely none for the manager role," Diane admitted, shaking her head with a sympathetic sigh. "To be completely honest, Dr. Reed has a massive situation to deal with at the moment, and he desperately needs someone competent to handle the daily operations here so he can step away from the floor. He really needs the help."
"Thank you, Diane. I'll send the file over immediately," Isabel said, feeling a surge of absolute confidence as she walked back to the corner booth.
"Did everything go okay?" Penny asked, watching her face closely as Isabel sat back down.
"Yes. The owner is out, but Diane gave me his direct email address and took my phone number," Isabel explained, already opening the mail app on her phone. She quickly drafted a brief, professional cover note, attached her extensive management resume along with her interior design portfolio, and hit the send button. "Done. Dr. Owen Reed has my application. Shall we finish our coffees and go look at your dilapidated house?" She grinned cheekily at Penny
"Absolutely," Penny said, draining the last drop from her cup. She raised an eyebrow. “And it’s not dilapidated. It’s merely lacking TLC.”
“So sorry,” Isabel corrected herself. “Let’s go look at your unloved house.”
“It sounded much better as dilapidated,” Penny grumbled. “Now, when you say unloved, it makes it sound sad.”
“Well, it is sad when people just leave something to rot,” Isabel said. “Rather tear it down or find something to use it for.” She never understood why, when there was so much homelessness and need for various shelters in the world, buildings like that weren’t used.
“You’re thinking about saving all the homeless and downtrodden in the world, one abandoned building at a time again, aren't you?” Penny asked with a sigh.
“ Am I that obvious?” Isabel asked.
“Honey, you have a heart so big and want to save everything and everyone,” Penny told her. “I know how your mind works when you see what you deem to be wasteful.”
“Well, maybe if people learned to recycle everything and find another use for things,” Isabel stated, “Everything wouldn’t be so expensive and we’d have more open spaces in the world.”
“Come on,” Penny said, standing up. “The cab is outside waiting for us.”
Ten minutes later, the local taxi sedan pulled to a stop, but the sight that greeted Isabel through the passenger window was not at all what she had been expecting. Instead of a modest, weathered beach cottage, the cab had parked in front of massive, towering ornamental iron gates anchored into a high stone privacy wall.
"Penny," Isabel said, as they slid out of the car. Her eyebrows shot up as she stared at the impressive boundary. "I thought you said you bought a little run-down house. This looks like a grand historical estate behind these walls."
Penny smiled knowingly, reaching into her handbag to extract a small black plastic remote control.
"Come on," Penny said, pressing the button to trigger the mechanism. "Let me show you my latest restoration project."
The heavy iron gates clicked, swinging open slowly to reveal a long, winding driveway, now heavily overgrown with weeds and falling leaves.
