Buy and Hold $$$ Part 7 High Risk - High Yield

“Did you get a new car, Gray?”

Tess has just gotten off the elevator and although it’s only eight a.m., her eyes are dancing.

Bloody hell! She hasn’t even had her coffee and already she’s lit up the room.

“My car? It’s a demo, you might say—a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.”

Her already enormous eyes grow huge, if that’s possible. “I've never seen a model with a strip of taillights straight across the back, and it’s still early in the model year—how could you…”

“That’s why I said it’s a demo,” I cut in.

I catch myself, realizing how abrasive I sound. I soften my tone. “It’s not really a production model, Tess—my friend Hans Mueller arranged for me to test a 2019 model equipped with some of the 2018 features. I really wouldn’t advise your bruiting that around though. Hans has asked me to be discreet.”

“Oh, of course.” Her face has grown somber, but her eyes are still warm. The girl adores me.

She’s busies herself making coffee, all the while talking to me over her shoulder.

“Are you going to Victor’s party this weekend? I hear his Muskoka retreat is breathtaking—all picture windows and right on the lake.”

“A northern chateau? I’d expect nothing less of Victor,” I say drolly. “Yes, I think I’ll drive up Friday afternoon and stay overnight.”

“Sylvia and I want to go but neither of us wants to drive a two lane highway all the way there.”

My heart stirs at the mention of Sylvia’s name.

I feign nonchalance. “You can both catch a ride up with me, but you’ll have to stay over night.”

“That sounds marvelous!” she enthuses. “I’ll have to check with Sylvia, of course, but I’m sure she’d be willing to go.”

“Let me know,” I smile, as I head off to the conference room.

Sylvia and a moonlit lake—the mere thought takes my breath away.

Friday afternoon the three of us leave the firm early and are soon heading north. I would have preferred Sylvia beside me, but the two girls are keeping each other company in the back leafing through Vogue and chatting amiably.

I check the rearview mirror occasionally and always find Tess smiling back—Sylvia is either leafing through fashion magazines, or staring out the window—strange though, how her face mirrors the same expression of the world-weary ennui I see in Victor.

Seems appropriate somehow for The Girl Who Has Everything to be bored with the merely mundane.

We stop at huge roadside restaurant and I enjoy chatting mostly with Tess while Sylvia, oblivious of everything, is disinterested, and blissfully unaware she’s turning men’s heads.

An hour later, we pull into Victor’s private access road, as the western sky is burning like a forest fire and tall pines are casting long shadows.

We drive about a quarter mile and just round a bend, when Tess gasps, “That’s magnificent!”

I stop the car and we both stare at the chateau’s three-storey high picture windows glowing red in the dusk, and beyond, the quiet waters of the lake.

Sylvia is unimpressed and I’m beginning to wonder what, if anything, excites her.

I pull up to the door to let the girls out but am relieved of my keys by a parking valet. I shake my head in wonder.

Even at the lake, Victor entertains elegantly.

Well, I’ve succeeded in arranging a weekend getaway with Sylvia, albeit with Tess along as a fifth wheel, but if I stick to my plan, my high-risk investment might finally result in a high yield.

I’m almost there—I just have to convince Sylvia.

© 2018, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

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