To make Sea Turtle profitable would take so much work. Work that Jorge and Didi maybe just couldn’t do anymore. She remembered the phone bill, unpaid, the calls unanswered. There was no website either, so no wonder no one was staying here. They couldn’t, unless they had a reservation from a year ago or they walked up and tapped Didi on the shoulder for a rental.
Ali closed the ledgers. The math was easy here, and the job was hard.
Ali looked at her phone. It was just about time for her appointment with Patsy Gleaner, the Gulf Coast’s Premiere Elite Commercial Real Estate Agent. Or so it said on her website, Gulf Coast Elite.
At 11 a.m. on the dot, a tiny woman knocked on the screen door of the office.
“Hello!”
Ali swung open the screen and let Patsy inside, though letting really wasn’t what you did with this woman. You made way for her!
Ali was not tall, at 5’4”, but she was long-limbed. Most people thought she was tall until they stood next to her. Patsy was maybe five feet? She was built like a gymnast and had the same flip-flopping energy. Her hair was a literal bouffant, though she didn’t look much older than Ali. She wore white capri pants, high-heeled white pumps, and a leopard print blouse tied at the neck with a big bow. Her pink lipstick and nails matched perfectly, and she smelled like Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion Perfume.
This little dynamo grabbed Ali’s hand with both hers and shook hard.
“I’m so excited you called me! We’ve all had our eyes on this place for just ever. Ever!”
“You have?”
“Are you kidding? It’s prime beachfront and no one had been able to touch it since God knows when. I’ve called the management company personally a dozen times over the year, but not even so much as a return call. And now there’s not even a number.”
Ali had found the same problem, and unfortunately, Didi and Jorge were no help either. They said it was all “on the internet.”
“Well, be that as it may, I own it, it turns out, and I need to get a better picture of what it’s worth.”
“You own it? How amazing! Did you buy it? I didn’t see a real estate transfer notice in the records? All under my nose! That’s quite a feat.”
Ali didn’t feel like she owed Patsy her life story. As likable as the little dynamo was, they had just met. And Ali didn’t really know the story herself. She decided to keep things vague.
“My father passed away recently; we discovered it while we settled all of his affairs.”
“My condolences. Okay then, let’s take a walk, shall we?”
“After you.”
Ali gave Patsy a similar tour to the one Didi had given her just a few days ago.
“Oh gosh, this hotel, I mean, this wastheplace to stay back when I was a kid, in high school.”
“Really?”
“Yes, before all the condos, we’d come for spring break when theMTV Spring Breakerscame to Daytona. We had a much more chill vibe, but still, all the cute boys!”
Ali laughed; she liked Patsy.
“But, yikes, these rooms, ah, ew.”
Ali had an urge to stick up for the little hotel. “They’re okay, cleanish.”
“Aha, but that doesn’t cut it if you’re going to get top dollar.”
They walked through the little inn and then out to the pool.
“Whoa, what in the Sea Turd is this pea soup?”
“Sea Turd?”
“Yeah, sorry, love, just being honest. That’s the nickname this place has, thanks to, uh, stuff like this.”
