Ashanti massaged her forehead. “I’m not surprised,” she murmured.
“We start taking official bids on Monday,” the real estate agent said.
Ashanti thanked her for her time and tried not to feel defeated as she disconnected the call.
Back when she was a little girl, whenever she asked for something, her mother would ask if she thought money grewon trees. She’d vowed to one day find a money-growing tree to prove that they existed.
Ashanti looked up at the ceiling. “I need to find one of those trees, Mama.”
Even with the boost the daycare had received from that viral livestream, there was no way she could afford that house, especially when she was looking at another three- to four-hundred thousand to renovate and outfit it for boarding and a bakery.
She needed to hug her dog.
Ashanti pushed back from the desk and nearly had a heart attack as Ridley came bursting through the door.
“Did you call?” she asked.
“What the heck, Rid?” Ashanti yelled, splaying her hand to her chest. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a meeting?”
“I canceled it,” she said. “This is more important.”
“Yes, I called.”
“And?”
“And.” Ashanti braced herself for Ridley’s inevitable reaction. “I can’t afford it.”
In a stunning turn of events, her melodramatic friend did not go into an immediate meltdown. Ridley quietly rounded the chair that faced Ashanti’s desk and sat. Hanging her arms on either side of the chair, she manspreaded as wide as her pencil skirt would allow and began to sink to the floor.
Ah, there were the theatrics.
“Get up,” Ashanti said, walking over to the chair. She hooked her arm in the crook of Ridley’s elbow and lifted her.
“No. Just let me go. You insist on killing me, so just let me go.”
“They’re asking for a million, six hundred thousand, Rid.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all?” Ashanti laughed.
“That house can easily go for two million.”
“And you think I can afford to pay that kind of money?”
Ridley stood. She took the bottle of conditioning shampoo out of Ashanti’s hands and tossed it on the desk. “I am not allowing you to do this, Shanti,” Ridley said.
“Do what?”
“Give up!” Ridley jabbed a finger at Ashanti’s Meghan and Harry pencil holder. “You deserve this. And I will not stop pushing until I know you’ve exhausted every single avenue. Now, when was the last time you had an evaluation done on Barkingham Palace?”
She’d known Ridley long enough to tell when she wasn’t going to let something go. This was one of those times.
“Never,” Ashanti answered.
“So you have no idea how much this business is worth? Let me clue you in on something, Shanti. You’ve got a fucking gold mine here. You can get a loan like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Add in that viral video and the plans for a bakery, and you can have your pick of lenders.”
“A bank is not going to loan me two million dollars because a video of Duchess and Puddin’ sharing a doggy treat went viral. I would need collateral. And even if I could get a loan, I can’t afford to take on that kind of debt.”
