Marilyn looked interested, but it wasn't quite what I had in mind. "What else do you have there? I was thinking of a sort of villa or house, not really a hotel. Something more private than that."
"But not so remote as to be a desert island, right?"
I thought briefly back to my hike back through Nicaragua. "No, not that remote. Maybe a place we could get a nice car for the week and go into town if we wanted."
Taylor nodded. She put away the brochures on the hotels and pulled a few others out. "Here's something you might like. This is on Eleuthera." She tapped the map on a different island. "This is called La Valencia. It's a private estate that can be rented. It's right on the ocean, almost a thousand feet of private beach, plus a very discreet staff."
"How do you get there?", I asked. The place certainly looked lovely on the brochure.
"It's near the island capital, sort of, called Governors Harbor, and there is a small airstrip there. It's certainly large enough to fly a Learjet in and out of. It also takes flights in and out of Nassau and Miami.", she explained. "Rent a car for a week. Oh, by the way, they're English originally, so they drive on the left."
I snorted at that. "Maybe we can save on the jet fuel for the ride home if we die while driving on the wrong side of the road."
"I'll drive.", said Marilyn.
"Now I know I'm going to die!"
Charlie woke up at that point and we all took a break as Marilyn tended to our son. She came back down five minutes later with Charlie in a fresh diaper and a clean onesie. He was deposited in my lap while Marilyn scurried off to the kitchen to prepare a bottle. Taylor made a few funny faces at him, and then took him from me and played with him a bit.
Marilyn returned to find Taylor making raspberries with our son. "Typical man, get a woman to do your job for you.", she commented.
"He's so adorable! Mine are all older than him.", commented Taylor.
"How old?", asked Marilyn.
"My oldest daughter is twelve and my son is nine. The baby is our youngest girl and she's already seven."
"What's your husband do?", I asked.
"He works for the telephone company, but we don't know whether he'll stay with AT&T or go with one of the regional companies."
"He should be safe either way.", I commented. "Ultimately the value of the various Baby Bells will be greater than that of the mother company. I put a flat million into shares of AT&T after the court agreement was made. I intend to stick with it after the breakup." Taylor blinked at this announcement. While I couldn't remember all the values and foolishness, for the next thirty years and beyond the various Bell companies and Baby Bells and the original national Bell bought and sold various pieces of each other and their competitors. The ultimate result was a very strong phone system and very valuable stocks.
This seemed like the kind of vacation I had in mind. Taylor told me she would make the various arrangements over the next day or two, and asked how I wanted to get them. It was at times like this that I missed more modern communications methods. Forget about computers - fax machines were still in their infancy! Modem speeds were practically nonexistent. Fiber optic didn't exist yet. Cell phones had been invented but still hadn't been rolled out to the United States. I told her to simply mail it to me. I gave her my American Express card number and we wrapped it up for the day.
The next few weeks went quietly. Andrea's engineer did a perc test and the property passed, so we gave the word to John to start the work on the title and the closing. We would close on the property after we got back from vacation. Marilyn and her mother chattered frequently about the christening and they made arrangements to do a double christening. Mark and Lauren were christening their second child, Justin.
I spent quite a bit of time teasing Marilyn about what I was going to do to her once we got to the Bahamas. That got her very turned on for a few days, but then she had her period and that put a kibosh on any fun and games for most of the week before we left. Well, better than during our vacation week, which we both agreed on.
I converted part of the spare bedroom into an office, buying a desk, a small filing cabinet, and a small copy machine. Jake Junior had me bill this all through The Buckman Group, since it would be a business expense. Theoretically I could have claimed some portion of my home expenses towards office costs, but that's one of those items the IRS red flags for special attention. At my income level, everything gets audited in any case, but why ask for trouble?
At some point I was going to have to ask John about actually running a business. Right now all of my money was tied up in the stock market, or some more liquid assets that I could tap for quick cash. As my wealth grew, however, was I going to need to hire an accountant or bookkeeper for the Buckman Group? What about a secretary? Get an office somewhere? That sounded like more of a pain than anything else. Right now it didn't take all that much time, but would it be less expensive to bring it in-house rather than outsource it?
Was I about to become a business?
Chapter 64: Vacation
On Friday, April 2, Marilyn and I packed up all our stuff for the weekend and loaded it in her car. We would drive up to the Westminster airport, unload it into the plane, and then leave the car for the weekend. I felt like I was climbing in and out of a clown car. It was very nice and very cute - and very small!
"Honey, why are we using your car?", I asked.
"Because the car seat is already set up for my car."
"Well, why don't we buy a second and put it in my car? Same type, same model, same everything." We had gotten this very expensive and elaborate contraption that you could unhook from the car and use as a carry around baby carrier, and then put onto wheels as a stroller.
Marilyn didn't have an argument against this, and we decided to get a second one for when we came home. As it was, with Charlie in the passenger seat, I drove and let Marilyn ride in the back, which seemed very confusing to our son. He kept trying to turn around to look at his mother.
Lloyd Jarrett turned out to be our pilot, and he loaded our gear into a Beechcraft King Air. By the number of bags Marilyn had packed in the trunk, you'd have thought we were making a pilgrimage to Mecca. I just had my B4, but Marilyn had a jumbo suitcase, and Charlie had even more stuff. "You do realize,", I asked her, "that your mother has everything imaginable that he's going to need! She only had thirteen children!"
"It's not the same!"
I just stared at her for a moment and then shook my head. My wife would learn. Eventually, after we had our children, we used to joke that the first one is utterly special. The second child isn't so special, but is still kind of nice. By the time the third comes along, they're all just spare parts! You're too tired to find anything special about them! We used to joke that after we got rid of them all, we'd buy a one bedroom trailer from her father and move into it, and then throw carpet tacks on the living room floor to keep them from coming back! It didn't quite work out that way.
We had gotten a call from Taylor a couple of days after we had made our arrangements with her. She had heard from Lloyd Jarrett that a better choice for airport would be New Castle in Wilmington. It was closer to Newark and vastly easier for a small plane to fly in and out of, and even more vastly easier for passengers. We got the directions to Suzie.