Vesper gets woken up early the next day from her cellphone playing Thank God I’m A Country Boy by John Denver. The ringtone was assigned to Gus. She picks the cellphone up and wonders what Gus wanted, as her eyes adjust. She presses accept “Hello Gus.”

“Did I wake you sleepy head?” Gus could hear the tiredness in Vesper’s voice.

“Actually, yes you did. What can I do for you, Gus?” Vesper’s mind was still a little foggy and she hadn’t had her coffee yet.

“How soon can you get to 3145 Orange Grove Rd?” Gus looks at the property that Ole Samuel was selling. He’s already seen the inside of it.

Vesper looks at her alarm clock and saw that it was two in the afternoon. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes.

“Give me an hour, Gus. I’m still in my night clothes and I haven’t had my coffee yet.” Vesper gets out of bed and start changing out of her nightclothes.

“You can grab some coffee at Red Barn on the way here.” Gus knew Vesper didn’t function well without her coffee. She was just like him in that respect.

“Alright, I’m on my way.” Vesper ends the call and gets dress in a pair of jeans, a sweater shirt because it was still cold outside and her hiking boots.

She runs a brush through her hair and put on some light color lipstick. She doesn’t bother putting on anymore makeup. She grabs her purse, car keys and locks her apartment on the way out the door.

Vesper stops at Red Barn on route to the address Gus sent her and buys a large cup of coffee and a monster slim jim. Recently, she has come to enjoy eating them. They at least had some protein and tasted alright.

When Vesper approaches the address Gus gave her. She spots his truck in the drive of a ranch style brick house with a two car garage. She pulls in behind his truck and parks her Suv. She doesn’t spot Gus anywhere when she gets out.

“Gus?” Vesper calls out for him.

“I’m in the house.” Gus yells back.

Vesper starts walking towards the house. She looks inside and spots Gus taking some measurements of the living room. She walks towards him
“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking measurements for your, new living room.” Gus turns around to look at Vesper.

“What do you mean, for my new living room?” Vesper was suspicious.

“What I mean my dear, is here is a chance for you to own this house and fifty acres of farmland that comes with the house for sixty thousand dollars.” Gus couldn’t believe his friend wanted to sell the place and land so cheap.

“I don’t have sixty thousand dollars, Gus. Also, why so little? Isn’t this land and house worth more?” Vesper looks around the room they are in.

“Yes, and the reason it is going for so cheaply. Is that ole man Harrison is going to move in with his daughter in Florida? He wants to sell as quickly as possible. I told him I knew someone who could use this house.”

“But I don’t have the money and I doubt the bank would loan me the money either.” Vesper has been on her job for five years and the only money she had was what she has been saving up to get her surgery.

“Don’t worry about the money, Vesper. Dorothy and I are going to cosign a loan for you.” Gus had already talked it over with his wife and they both agreed to loan Vesper the money to buy the place and land.

“I can’t ask you to do that for me Gus. You and Dorothy are family to me and you’ll need that money for later on.” Vesper didn’t want to put them in debt.

“Hog wash, Vesper. We have no children and Dorothy and I see you as our daughter. The money is just sitting in our account doing nothing. Plus, there’s an upside to buying this place. You can lease at least forty-eight acres to old man Jones down the road. He can pay you to keep using the land for growing crops on and it can pay for itself.” Gus knew about the agreement his buddy had with Jones.

“Let me guess, you already spoke to him about this?” Vesper knew how Gus operated.

“Yes.”

“How come he doesn’t buy the land and house?” Vesper was curious.

“Because all he would want is the land. He doesn’t care about the house. So, it works out for you.” Gus knew Mr. Jones didn’t want the house and it would had just set and wasted away.

Vesper thinks about it. She could use a bigger place. She looks around notices that the place was going to need to be updated. She walks through the place, examining every room. It didn’t have a master bathroom, but one could be installed.

“At least let me put what I have towards buying and fixing this place up.” Vesper looks at Gus when she says that.

“That’s fine. We’ll take out a bigger loan so you can update and fix the place to your liking.” Gus knew he could talk Vesper into buying the place.

“I’ll let my buddy know you’re going to buy.” Gus pulls his cellphone out and dial his buddy.

“Yeah, I just hope I know what the hell I’m doing.” Vesper wasn’t sure she was ready to own a house yet, but it does make sense to do it. She could use some of the money from leasing the land to pay for her surgery.

The rest of the day Gus and Vesper make arrangement with the current owner and the bank to set up everything. She was going to contribute what she has saved so far for her surgery so Gus doesn’t have to give so much money to the loan. They were doing a secure loan, where Gus and Dorothy were giving the bank the money and Vesper would pay the loan off.

After inspecting the house and property with Gus and making notes on her cellphone. Vesper follows Gus back to his place and help Dorothy with fixing dinner. They talk about how they are going to arrange things and Vesper insist that she contribute to the loan.

Vesper leaves Gus and Dorothy’s place around eight o’clock and head back to her place to arrange things with the bank she deals with. Dorothy told her to keep some money in her account. So, Vesper keeps five thousand dollars in her account and put the twenty thousand dollars towards the loan. She transferred the money to the account she had on file for Gus. In the past Gus has loaned her money and she always repaid him through the bank account her gave her. It easier for Vesper to do it that way instead of withdrawing the money and handing it to him.

Vesper takes a shower and works on the photos for a while. She was thinking about buying a used poster printer. That way she could save money and print the photography’s her herself. She goes on Ebay and look at what they have for sale. She finds a few printers that were nice, but were to much money. She locates a few that a recent technical school that just shut down was selling they were the top of the line ones and they didn’t want too much money for them. She purchases two of them. That way she would have a backup, just in case one failed or needed service work done to it.

Vesper browses the internet for a while, before calling it a night and heads to bed. As she lies down, she knew the next few days were going to interested and she’ll have to start packing things up.