Chapter 341

• Xxx
• My name is Jim. The last thing I wanted was to lose my job. The last thing I wanted after that, was to find another one in a different state and have to move. Well, that's how the dice rolled and it seemed like my life was going to be uprooted and plopped down somewhere else. Stranger still, I ended up out in the woods looking for a place to live, following a line of homes that looked more like a failed fishing resort than a neighborhood. What was this? I wasn't an outdoors-man at all and have never even picked up a fishing pole, but this was it? This was all there was? According to the real estate office, this is where you lived if you wanted to work in town, so what's a body to do?
• At least there was Raquel. Raquel was my real estate agent and she proved to be the only bright spark in my otherwise unenthusiastic new world. She was perhaps ten years older than me and she sure had more patience than I did, diligently taking me through the small amount of rentals available, and slowly guiding me through the wisdom of financing a home. Thing was, she was coaching me to buy one of these cabin places, since the rental scene was a disaster, and with as much decorum as she dared, she was trying to tell me to loosen up and accept my fate.