“He’s fine with it, Mama. Go get you any kind of dog you want. Do you have a particular breed in mind?”
“Well, I’ve always favored poodles, so I thought I would try to find one of those. A black one.”
“That should be cute. And I’ve heard that poodles don’t shed, so that’s a plus. I hope you find a good one.”
Mother and daughter chatted for a little while longer before hanging up. Rafael had ended his call to Mickey and was talking to his mom when Victoria was finished with her call. She went into the bathroom and took a shower and got ready for bed. Rafael was off the phone when she came out of the bathroom. Rafael took his turn in the shower, and then joined Victoria in bed. They watched TV for a little while and then turned it off in favor of other entertainment.
Even though it’s less than four hundred miles from Dearborn, Michigan to Niagara Falls, New York, they took two days making the journey. There were too many interesting things to see and places to stop along the way.
Tuesday was spent at Niagara Falls and the surrounding area. They added Lake Ontario to the list, completing their goal of seeing all five of the Great Lakes. Driving through upper New York took another couple of days of sightseeing before crossing Vermont, New Hampshire, and into Maine. Those three states took them a week, and they still didn’t see everything that they would like to have seen.
“You know, we’ve had a whole month of wonderfully peaceful fun and good times,” Victoria said one morning as they set out for another day of sightseeing.
“I know,” Rafael agreed. “Isn’t it great? Other than that tire blowout, the whole trip has been perfect. Everything is fine on the home front, too. Amazing. This may be the longest stretch of peaceful life that we’ve had.
“It is, I think. I just wonder how long it will last,” Victoria said.
“Don’t even go there,” Rafael warned. “No need to borrow trouble that may never come.”
“I know,” she sighed. “It’s just that the way the past year has gone, I feel like I have to look behind every door, and over my shoulder all the time. Like trouble is lurking just around the corner.
Chapter Two
Boston was next on the itinerary. Rafael and Victoria had a great time poking around in that historic city. So far, they had “collected” the state capitals of almost every state they had driven through. They had completely filled up one photo album and had started on the second. The vacation so far had been everything they had hoped for: peaceful, relaxing yet energizing, and lots of fun.
Rafael in particular was paying close attention to, and taking notes on, each RV park they stayed in. He noted the positive things about each one, and the negative, all the while making determinations on what type of park he would want to own, and what it would take to make a great park.
Both of them made regular calls home to visit with their moms and let them know that they were still safe. Rafael kept tabs on Thornton Park, and on Thornton-Rivera Enterprises as well, just making sure that money was being properly deposited into all the correct accounts, and that everything was as it should be. So far, so good.
As they were looking ahead as to where they would go and what they wanted to see and do in the next few days, they discovered that to get a good RV park nearby and a bus tour through New York City, they needed reservations. So they took care of that, fortunately just in time.
They journeyed through Rhode Island, which wouldn’t have taken long at all, except for all the interesting places to stop and see. They cut kitty-corner up through Connecticut to pick up Albany, the capital of New York, and then down close to New York City.
They found the RV park outside of the city where they had previously made reservations. They had also made reservations for the bus tour into the city that took them to all the major points of interest. It was probably the best decision they made on the trip, as it would have been a nightmare to try to navigate the motorhome around through the New York City traffic. They had thought LA had traffic until they got into New York City.
They left New York behind to travel through Pennsylvania and Amish Country. Next was Washington, DC. Again, they found an RV park outside of the metro area and took guided tours into DC. The Smithsonian, the White House, the Capitol building, and all the monuments and other places of interest took them nearly a week to cover.
They veered west a little ways into West Virginia after leaving the DC area. One afternoon as they were driving through the beautiful countryside, Victoria’s cell phone signaled an incoming text. It was from Sarah, telling her that she had just emailed a list of gift shop stock that they were low on. Victoria texted her back, assuring her that she would place the order that day.
While Rafael drove, Victoria picked up her laptop and logged onto the Internet, using her phone as a hotspot. She opened the email first to see what she needed to order, and then went to each vendor’s website to place an order of the things needed from each one. Within an hour she was finished with business. As long as she was online, she scouted an RV park ahead where they might spend the night.
They dropped down through the Virginias, through the Appalachians, to North Carolina. In western North Carolina they took in the Biltmore Estate, Cherokee, and several other attractions. The RV park they pulled into near Asheville just happened to be for sale, and after just a couple of hours there, they were smitten with it.
“I know that we thought it would be best to buy on the west coast first, but this one is so beautiful, and the price is fair. What do you think?” Rafael asked Victoria as they were walking hand in hand by the small lake that was on the property.
“I think I love it here,” she said. “If I wasn’t such a Californian, I’d want to move here. If we were to buy this RV park, we’d have an excuse to come back real often, just to check up on it, wouldn’t we?”
Her eyes sparkled with delight as she looked up into his face. Rafael thought he would never get enough of looking into Victoria’s face when she was alight with the joy of living, just as she was now. When he thought of all that she had been through in the past year and a half, he always marveled at how optimistic and full of the sheer joy of living that she continued to be, no matter what.
How blessed I am to have the love of this woman, he thought to himself.
“So are you game?” he asked her.
“I’m game if you are,” she replied confidently.
“Let’s go call the owner on it and make an appointment to talk with him about it,” Rafael suggested. “I want to see a profit and loss statement on the place, and find out about any potential issues or problems that exist.”
“That’s a smart idea,” Victoria told him. “That’s why you’re the businessman and I’m the flunky.”
They both chuckled at her remark.
“You’re the most beautiful flunky I’ve ever known, and you’re my flunky, so that’s all the matters,” he said, leaning down to give her a quick kiss on the lips.
“Besides, you’re not a flunky. You’ve just never been taught all the ins and outs of business. Your dad taught them to me, but not to you. Not sure why. It’s just the way it was.”
“I know why,” Victoria stated. “It’s because Marian wouldn’t allow it. She was grooming me to be a society wife, not a businesswoman. I couldn’t stand that thought, so I ran away to Seattle.”
“Well, you’re not too old to learn,” he told her. “And you’ve already begun to learn a few things. I think you’ve got a good feel for business. You have great ideas. The rest will come with time and experience. I certainly don’t know all there is to know about business. I learn new things all the time. A lot of things you just have to experiment with and learn by trial and error. A lot of error sometimes.
“If your dad hadn’t had Thornton Enterprise already set up so well, we’d still be floundering around trying to figure out how to make a living. He did all the hard work when he came up through the ranks.”
“That’s very true,” she replied. “And h
is dad before him. I imagine that it was Grandfather Thornton who did much of the work to get the company on solid ground.”
“Likely so.”
Rafael called the owner and got an appointment for the following morning to talk about the park. After the call, they walked around the park, making mental notes on everything they wanted to inquire about, and noting everything that was good and/or bad about it. Back in the motorhome, they wrote down everything they had observed and all the questions they wanted to ask the owner the next morning. Then they went out to find something to eat.
The next morning, a Monday, the owner of the RV park, Bill Vest, came to their motorhome to discuss the park. He brought with him the latest profit and loss statement, as well as some other financial reports that showed the park to be on stable footing. The three of them walked around the park while Mr. Vest told them everything about it.
Rafael asked the questions that they had written down the night before and got answers to all of them. They spent the better part of the morning in serious discussion. They talked about permits, cost of utilities and insurance, the workamper program, various RV club membership programs and which ones the park was currently participating in, when the busy season was and how things were during the slow season, upkeep costs, and everything else any of them could possibly think of.
When they had just about exhausted all possible issues to discuss, Rafael made an offer that was a couple hundred thousand dollars below the asking price. Mr. Vest countered by dropping his asking price by a hundred thousand. After some deliberate hesitation on Rafael’s part, he agreed, and the men shook hands. After that, it was a matter of paperwork. Gobs of paperwork. Rafael wrote a check to Mr. Vest for the total amount, which he then verified by calling Rafael’s bank. Of course it was good.
“If you two are hungry, how about if I take you out for lunch, since it’s past time,” Mr. Vest offered when the deal was done.
“That’s very kind of you,” Victoria replied.
“Yes, it is,” Rafael agreed.
“Okay, then. If you’ll follow me in your car, I’ll take you to the best place in North Ca’lina for down home Southern cooking. You’ll want to know where to go every time you come to check on the park.”
“Sounds good to me,” Victoria said with a smile.
The café wasn’t very big or fancy. It was just a plain little place, but the waitress greeted them warmly and showed them to a booth by a window that overlooked a pretty little yard where rose bushes bloomed and a weeping willow tree shaded the green grass and an old wooden bench.
The food, when their orders came, was served family style in serving bowls from which they dipped up their own plates. There were mashed potatoes and gravy, fried okra, fried chicken, sliced tomatoes, and biscuits with plenty of butter and honey.
“If this is what Southern eating is all about, I’m sold,” Victoria said around a mouthful of fried okra. “This stuff is delicious! I’ve never had it before, but this won’t be the last time, either.”
“I’m with you,” Rafael agreed. “This is fabulous. I didn’t think anything could top Mexican food, but I could eat like this the rest of my life and never miss another taco.”
“Glad you like it,” Mr. Vest said, smiling. “Not everyone likes okra, but it’s one of my favorite vegetables. I like Mexican food, too, though. We have a few pretty good Mexican places in the area.”
It took the rest of the afternoon to complete their business. Mr. Vest took Rafael and Victoria in the RV park office and introduced them to the park manager and the workamper who was on duty as the new owners. Of course, they had all met previously, but this was a different kind of introduction.
“George is a highly reliable manager,” Mr. Vest had told them before they went in to meet him. “I strongly recommend that you keep him on. He’s the guy who really knows all about this park. He knows where everything is, what can go wrong, and how to fix it. He gets great reviews on the website, and he is well liked by guests and staff alike.”
“That’s good to know,” Rafael told him. “I know we will be glad to have him, especially since we live in California. As long as he is trustworthy and honest, I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”
“He’s as honest as the day is long,” Mr. Vest assured them. “I’ve never missed a penny since he’s been the manager.”
“That’s great,” Rafael said.
So when Rafael and Victoria were introduced as the new owners, Rafael assured George that as long as he kept doing as good a job as Mr. Vest had told them he did, the job was his.
“Thank you, sir,” George said. “I appreciate that. I’ll keep on doing the best I know how to do. If there are any changes you wish to make, just let me know, and I’ll work with you just as I’ve always tried to work with Bill.”
“Sounds good,” Rafael said. “So to start with, I’m Rafael and my wife is Victoria.”
“Thank you, sir, Rafael,” George said with a nod of his head. “Victoria, ma’am.”
“Since as far as I know, our business is finished, I’ll let you talk with George, and he can fill you in on all the day-to-day details, and I’ll go home,” Mr. Vest told Rafael.
The three shook hands all around, each thanking the other for the ease of the sale, and Mr. Vest took his leave. Rafael, Victoria, and George spent another hour or more talking about the park.
“Are there any improvements that you know of that need to be made?” Rafael asked George.
“Well, let’s see,” George said slowly, scratching his head. “The office building here could use a new paint job. It’s been about ten years since it was done, and it’s beginning to need it again. Say, are you going to change the name of the park?”
“I don’t believe so, at least not at the outset,” Rafael said, looking at Victoria for her input.
“It seems to me that if the park has a good reputation under its current name, that it would be the sensible thing to do to leave it alone,” she said. “That’s my opinion, anyway. I like the name it has. I think Smoky Trails RV Park is a nice name. We could put up a banner that says “Under New Ownership” maybe, if you want to, though.”
“Yeah, we might,” Rafael said. “We’ll see.
“You do know that the name is a reference to the Smoky Mountains that we’re in here, don’t you?” George asked.
“I kinda figured so,” Rafael said. “I see a lot of places that use the word ‘smoky’ as part of their name.”
“One thing I definitely think we should do is revamp the website and make it a lot more detailed and user-friendly,” Victoria said. “I think I can handle that. I did the website for the art gallery while I was there.”
“Yeah, good idea,” George said. “That’s the biggest complaint of the customers that I hear, is the poor website. But I don’t know how to do it, and the guy who put it up is no longer here.”
“If you can give me a list of all the best local attractions, and all the places that guests can go using the park as a base, and all the best places to eat, I want to incorporate those things into the website.”
“I’ll do that,” George said.
They talked on until it was time for George to be off for the day, and time for Rafael and Victoria to get some supper.
Chapter Three
“Well, we didn’t get any sightseeing in today, but I think the day was well spent,” Rafael said as they walked back to their motorhome.”
“Yeah, I’d say,” Victoria agreed wholeheartedly. “Now we’ve got another property to add to Thornton-Rivera Enterprises. Cool, huh?”
“Yeah, very cool.”
That evening, Rafael made a new entry in the Thornton-Rivera system, adding in Smoky Trails RV Park to the database of properties owned. Tuesday morning, he and Victoria went in to Arden to open a new account in a branch of their bank located there. This account would be solely for the RV park deposits.
He had gone over with George the procedure for depositing all of the funds received int
o their bank. Nothing much would change on the RV park’s side of things. The daily deposits would go into the bank each evening, and every two weeks, the employees’ wages would be direct deposited into each one’s personal account.
The couple spent a week there in the park, both sightseeing around the area and familiarizing themselves with it, and getting to know the park itself, so that when they were 2,800 miles or so away from it, they would still have a clue as to how to address any issue that may come up.
The day after Labor Day, Rafael and Victoria headed east through North Carolina. They passed through Raleigh, collecting that capitol building, and proceeded on to Kitty Hawk where the Wright Brothers made their historical first flight. Then they visited Roanoke Island, home of the Lost Colony of the late 1500s.
Turning south, they made their way into South Carolina to Charleston, where they spent about three days sightseeing there. Traveling south along the Atlantic coastline took them through Savannah, Georgia, where they took time to enjoy the grand old historic homes in the area.
Florida was next, with Disney World, the Everglades, Miami Beach, the Keys, and other places of interest. Then they doubled back up into Tennessee, where they visited some Civil War battlefields, Nashville, and of course, Graceland in Memphis.
By this time, the motorhome was pointed in a westerly direction, so they meandered through Arkansas and then turned north into Missouri, just before entering Oklahoma.
“I almost hate to be going west,” Victoria said as they crossed the Missouri state line. “I know right now we’re going north, but we are working our way west.”
“Why is that?” Rafael asked.
“Because it means that our vacation is getting close to being over. It has been so nice to have all of this time with just the two of us together, no work to be bothered with, and mostly no catastrophes or traumatic events to have to deal with. No one has died on this trip; no one has been hurt, kidnapped, or otherwise molested. I almost dread going home for fear it will all start up again.”
The Perfect Revenge: The Couplete Series Page 57