Tandy and Adrienne - Castles

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Tandy comes to Adrienne with an idea that's so crazy it just might be brilliant.

"Adrienne!" Tandy called out for her guardian when entering their suite. She had a crazy idea that she wanted to go over with Adrienne first before pulling in Sue. No use of getting her friend excited about the idea when it could turn out to be a total bust. "I need you."

"I thought we'd been over this, Starlet," Adrienne replied, sliding her legs off the couch from where she'd been lounging going through some of eVolution's accounting files and sitting up. "If you need me to help you bury a body, you have to use the code! You say 'I need you to go buy bacon from such-and-such place' and then the name of the supermarket you tell me is the code for where we meet to do the burying! How could you forget the body-burying code?"

Tandy smiled at Adrienne. "No. No body needs burying. At least not yet." She came over to stand next to the couch. "I want to buy a castle."

"Tandy," Adrienne began, sounding sympathetic and indulgent, "we've talked about this. You can be a princess for Hallowe'en, but you're not a real princess. Your parents weren't born nobility, and I'm powerful socially, but even I'm not powerful enough to get you knighted or whatever it is makes one a princess."

"But if I get a castle I could be one." Tandy reached into her bag and pulled out the papers. "I was doing research about French history and they have quite a few number of castles and one of them is on sale." Handing the papers over.

Adrienne cocked a suspicious eyebrow at the teenager. "One; why were you doing research about French history? And two; this is legit? You actually want to buy a castle?" She took the papers and scanned them. "In France? With turrets and shit? And a bridge?"

"I, uh, am trying to see if any other history has issues with magic and demons. You would be surprised at the things I have found. And yes, totally legit. It was owned by a family that did a lot of restoration on it. There is even a little town not that far from the castle."

"Huh. Okay. Good plan. The magic and demons thing. I'm still not sold on the castle thing," Adrienne admitted, reading the papers in more detail. "Sweetie, this is... a lot of money. And it's a lot of space. I'm not saying no to you buying it," she added quickly, hands up in the air defensively, "I'm just saying... a place this big, so far away... it's gonna hemorrhage money unless you use it for something. Rent it out for parties or charge for tours or something." Thinking this might be a good time to teach Tandy a little about business, Adrienne got off the couch and went to the table in the kitchenette she used for her in-suite office. "I could show you how to write up a business plan? For what you'd do with the place if you owned it? How to make money on it?"

"Currently I believe they are using it for tours but I was thinking more of the Hotel side of things. Can you imagine spending the night in a castle?" Tandy followed Adrienne to the table. "More numbers?"

Adrienne sat down and hooked a second chair with her foot, spinning it around in front of Tandy. "Numbers, Starlet." She got a kick out of the pain Tandy conveyed over numbers. "Let's crunch some numbers. Mmm," she shuddered, wide grin on her face, "I'd better watch myself. Numbers get me hot. A hotel's a really interesting idea," she added, grabbing a pencil and a blank notepad. "Especially when it's also been zoned as a vineyard. There's a romantic weekend retreat right there. Bachelorette parties, corporate retreats. All kinds of shit."

"Please, I don't want to picture you getting hot." Tandy closed her eyes and shook her head. She took a seat in front of Adrienne. "It sits on a lot of acres. 69 I think I read somewhere?" Looking over at the paper with the picture on it. "I kind of like the look of it."

Smirking at Tandy's discomfort, Adrienne started circling and underlining things in the papers. "And it has a drawbridge." She chuckled. "An actual drawbridge."

"Yup. An actual drawbridge. It is what sold me. Never mind that it was built in like the 13th Century."

"Is this because you found a family of trolls in the woods and want to give them a new home?" Adrienne asked, eyebrow raised.

"I didn't find anything in my research about trolls living in the woods. Adri...it is a castle! Think of the summer vacation home..."

"Okay, okay," Adrienne chuckled, putting her hands up in defeat. "I get it. I give up. You wanna buy a castle. So let's write up a business plan for said castle, and then we can talk to the firm that's handling the property sale, and maybe, maaaaaaaaaybe make an offer."

"Who wouldn't want to buy a castle? That is the real question." Tandy looked at Adrienne for a moment, was her brain ready to be made into mush from talking about a business plan? "Okay lets do it."

***

"Okay, the guys I just talked to said they could do it for under a million," Adrienne reported, writing the contractor's name and quoted price on a whiteboard in the kitchen under the other names and quotes they'd gathered. They'd been at it for almost three hours. Having written up a comprehensive business plan, they had now moved on to getting preliminary estimates from French contracting companies for work the castle would need. Adrienne was in her element, feeling energized and excited about this business venture.

Tandy was still sitting at the same chair watching Adrienne writing things on the white board. "I am still in disbelief that it would go for that cheap. I mean it is a castle. You would think castles would go for more."

Adrienne looked over at the price the real estate agent quoted them, which she had also written on the board. "Yeah. Makes you wonder if there's something wrong with it. We're going to have to call a building inspector to look at the place when we go," she muttered. "We can meet with some of the contractors then, too, if there turns out to be nothing significantly wrong with the castle. So," she smirked, "are we moving to France to become hoteliers? Because, y'know, I finally told Xavier I was quitting teaching after this semester's over, but hotelier in France wasn't exactly on my career bucket list, I gotta tell ya."

"Hmm..." Tandy stood up and walked into her bedroom to grab her laptop. When she returned she placed it on the table. "I read somewhere it was recently renovated. I think in the last couple of decades, no more than the 1950s. I think." She looked over at Adrienne. "I wouldn't mind spending some time in France. It is a nice get away spot and the more I think about it the more I think it makes sense. It is located in a very popular area, tourist already visit the castle as it is open to tours, I am pretty sure people would love to spend the night in one of the rooms."

"Fifty-eight," Adrienne chimed in, recalling it from the notes she'd made for herself. "Which is great, but is still pretty much sixty years ago. So if it's going to be a hotel, it's going to need overhauls to the plumbing and HVAC systems, not to mention kitchens and laundry facilities. Hence contractors," she reminded her ward. "But you're right. It does make sense. It's a good idea," she praised with a grin. "Assuming the realtor isn't screwing us over by there being something horribly wrong with it which is why the price seems so low, of course," she added.

"Why don't we go there ourselves and see it. Can't you Read it or something?"

"Of course," Adrienne chuckled. "And we will go. And I will Read. But that doesn't mean we don't do our research or make business plans or write stuff down, Sweetie. This is the fun part," she said convincingly, gesturing to the phones and the laptops and the notes and the paperwork and the whiteboard. "The mutant powers part is, like, what you do to justify all your research so you can prove to everyone that you're brilliant."

"Fun part?" Tandy smiled at her guardian. "Well I am already brilliant. So what is next on the list?" Turning to her laptop and opening up to the castle's page.

"How about if you book the flights and accommodation for an upcoming weekend so we can go check it out while I call a couple more contractors?" Adrienne suggested, cuffing Tandy around the neck in a quick hug as a response to the comment about Tandy being brilliant.

"Done." Tandy opened a new tab to look for tickets. "I'll let you deal with the fast talking French people."

"Soon you'll be dealing with the fast talking ones too," Adrienne assured her. "I have a feeling you're going to get a lot of practice."

"I am thinking about going to college next term. I think I am ready and I can see if they have a French class." Tandy looked up at Adrienne and shrugged. "Don't think I will continue with movie stuff though."

"Good for you! I mean, it's too bad about the movie stuff, but I think it's great you feel like you're ready to go to college," Adrienne praised. She wouldn't tell Tandy, but the businesswoman was secretly thrilled that the teenager was finished with 'movie stuff.' "French is pretty useful." She rose from the table to stretch her legs, grabbing two beers from the fridge and twisting the caps off, handing one to Tandy. "Are you going to get your own place? I mean, now that Sue's stolen your boyfriend and everything, I thought maybe you wouldn't want to get a place with her," she teased.

"I had been talking to a consoler at the school. NYU has a program I am interested in." Tandy took the beer from Adrienne. "He isn't my boyfriend...and she didn't steal him. We are just doing an experiment." Tan quickly looked away as she took a sip from the bottle. "We are still planning on it. It was just delayed for awhile."

"I was joking," Adrienne snorted. "I've been having a lot of difficulty getting that across lately," she mused. "It's a good PR stunt," she said appreciatively. "What's the cause of the delay? Or is this one of those things you don't want to tell me and I really shouldn't know?"

Tandy stuck her tongue out at the other woman. "And the delay was sorting out my head. It was kind of like, do I want to spend my life doing something I love but not really making a difference. Or do something I can be proud of."

"Oh wait," Adrienne admitted, blinking several times, "I thought the delay part of the conversation was about the PR stunt, not the Sue thing. My bad." She looked down at the explosion of papers and notes on the desk. "I think maybe I've gone insane from too much number crunching. I think maybe I need to play a video game to clear my head," she admitted. "But I'm glad you got your head sorted out. And I definitely understand you wanting to make a difference and do something you can be proud of. Wait... am I rubbing off on you?!" she asked with a slight squeal, eyes going wide. "My leaving teaching so I can work for X-Factor and feel like I'm using my powers to help people? Am I being a good example for you? Oh my God! So many people just lost bets!" In reality, it was probably Tandy's influence on her leading her to want to do more, but Adrienne was going to keep the dream alive.

"You were always insane." Tandy pointed out as she booked the tickets for December. "Christmas in France? Does that sound nice?"

"They say I have improvement and I think Miss A still wants to know more about the demon memories." Tandy smirked at Adrienne. "And I just won bets. Woot woot."

"I hope they were worth a lot of money," Adrienne smirked. "And yeah. Christmas in France sounds lovely. Can my boyfriend come with us on our Christmas vacation, Dad? Please? Pretty please? I promise we'll sleep in separate rooms and you won't even know he's there!" she teased.

"Dad? Now I am going to say no." She smirked at Adrienne. "As long as he pays for his own ticket." She teased right back.

"Deal. Eeee! Thank you thank you! Best dad ever!" Adrienne cried out, continuing the charade. "But seriously. If you wanna buy this place, we should probably go look at it first, don't'cha think? Maybe pick a weekend sooner, and that way if you do buy it, we can go at Christmas and see how it's coming along?" she suggested.

"How about sometime next month? Maybe towards the beginning? I would say next week but promised Uncle Mike I would do church stuff."

"It's also Hallowe'en next weekend," Adrienne reminded her, eyebrows waggling. "No way we can miss Hallowe'en. If you think I'm going to miss seeing you Sailor Scouts running around thinking you're actual Sailor Scouts, my insanity is rubbing off on you. But yeah. Maybe the weekend after?"

Tandy typed in the dates and nodded. "Yea. That would be fine. Also do you think we can get Miss A to do some magic hocus pocus to make sure our trip goes smoothly? Or maybe we should invite her?"

Adrienne took another sip of her beer and rose from the table, heading over to the couch to turn on one of Tandy's video game consoles. "Of course we can invite Amanda if you want to. Having a witch around to do your bidding and come to your rescue is never a bad idea," she answered, steeping her fingers and cackling a little.

"Should I book her a ticket? Give her less reasons to say no? I mean it is a free plane ticket to France."

"That's my girl," Adrienne praised, nodding fervently and grinning like a crazy person. "Then get over here so you can kick my ass at this game."

Tandy made a few more clicks as she made the reservations for the tickets before hitting enter. "You are getting better." Grabbing her own bottle and sat down next to Adrienne. "Oh but not at this game." She said with much seriousness before she took a long sip of her drink.