Page 31 of Your Every Wish

“You’re overlooking the fact that we’re only an hour away from Lake Tahoe,” I argue. “You can’t touch anything there for less than a million dollars. Cedar Pines Estates could be the next best thing.”

“And monkeys could fly out of my ass.”

“I give up. But your lack of vision makes me sad.”

“Would you look at that, we’re here.” Kennedy pulls into the parking lot of Sierra Foothills Real Estate.

From the outside, the office is underwhelming. Just your basic strip-mall storefront with decorative beds of gas-station flowers along the walkway, and printer copies of real estate listings taped to the plate glass window.

Clearly, Kennedy is as unimpressed as I am because she goes on the offensive. “According to everything I’ve read, they’re the go-to people for commercial property around here.”

We stop for a few minutes to peruse the listings on the window. A gas station in South County, a bed-and-breakfast two miles out of Ghost, a working horse ranch on twenty-six acres, and a defunct campground on Fall Lake, which looks amazing.

Inside, the office is equally bland: blue carpet, white walls, and two rows of desks. There’s a glass conference room and a coffee station with a basket of snacks in the back.

We tell the receptionist that we’re here to meet Sheila Bruin. We’re invited to help ourselves to something to drink while we wait. She’ll be right with us.

Kennedy continues to examine more listings posted on the wall while I help myself to a bottled water and a bag of Goldfish. A few minutes later, Sheila breezes through the door in a prim navy-blue skirt and white blouse.

She shakes our hands vigorously, then escorts us to the conference room for “privacy.”

“Cedar Pines,” she says while flipping through a three-ring binder. “The trailer park off Ghost Highway, right?”

“Yes,” Kennedy says. She’s designated herself the lead on this, which is fine with me. I don’t even want to be here.

“It’s a beautiful piece of property and highway convenient.”

“So you know the place?” Kennedy says.

“Of course. I was the listing agent . . . I think it was two or three years ago.” She sticks her face in the three-ring binder again while Kennedy and I exchange glances.

Two years ago was when Willy purchased the park. I don’t have to ask to intuit that Kennedy and I are thinking the same thing.

“Yes, it was two years ago. Whew, time flies.”

“Did you know the buyer, Willy Keil?” Kennedy asks.

“His agent was Dick Morton, if I’m not mistaken. Dick Morton from Compass.”

Kennedy drums her fingers on the table. “Did he say why he wanted a trailer park?”

For a moment Sheila is confused. But she rebounds quickly, realizing that Kennedy is talking about Willy Keil and not Dick Morton from Compass.

“Hmm, I’m trying to remember. Why?”

I step in. “Because Willy Keil is our late father. We inherited the property from him when he died.”

“And now you want to sell it,” she says, trying to steer us back to business.

“Yes,” Kennedy says. I kick her under the table. “Not immediately,” she amends. “First, we want to learn a little about the market.”

“Makes sense.”

But I can see Sheila deflate like a balloon that’s been stuck with a ten-inch nail.

“Would you like me to work up a comp analysis for you? Let’s see . . .” She’s got her nose in the three-ring binder again. “Two years ago it sold for two point two. But it was starting to look its age. Still beautiful but in need of a little updating. Purely cosmetic, though.”

“It’s more than cosmetic now,” I say. “Quite honestly, it’s pretty run-down.”

“But nothing that can’t be fixed,” Kennedy quickly adds. “You were saying two point two. But there’s been appreciation since then, right?”

“Absolutely. The market’s gone crazy. Everyone priced out of wine country is coming here.”

“Which is great for the profitability of a trailer park, isn’t it?” I say and flash Kennedy a grin that says See?

“For sure. Or developers. Sky’s the limit.”

“So, how much do you think it could go for?” Kennedy asks.

“I’d have to work up some numbers. It’s a unique property, not a lot out there like it for comps. Can you give me a couple of days?”

“Can you just give us a ballpark?” Kennedy says.

Sheila turns to me. “You say it’s in disrepair.

” I nod. “I’d have to do a walk-through, see what’s going on, but off the top of my head three maybe.

More if the repairs don’t require too much.

But honestly there are newer, more modern trailer parks in the area.

I would market this as builder-ready land to open up our buyer pool.

As I recall, it’s a significant amount of property. ”

“Eighty-six acres,” Kennedy says.

“Septic, and electrical . . . it’s all there. It’s all ready. Developers won’t care about the fact that it’s fallen into disrepair, whereas a buyer who wants to keep the trailer park will want us to make all the fixes or sell at a rock-bottom price.”

I count how many times she says “we” as if she has the listing already. And even if I wanted to sell, which I don’t— not yet anyway—the idea of selling to a developer who will kick everyone out makes me queasy.

“This has been extremely helpful, Sheila.” I gather up my purse, bottled water, and shove my individual package of Goldfish in my jacket pocket. “Thank you for seeing us. We’ll be in touch.”

“Uh . . . okay. Yes, thank you, Sheila.” Kennedy follows me to the car. “What the hell? We were just getting to the good part. ”

“The good part? About how a developer could buy Cedar Pines and mow the place to the ground? And Sheila sucks.”

“What do you mean she sucks?”

“You told her we were coming. She had plenty of time to prepare. She should’ve had a list of comps for you and a concrete number. That’s why we went there in the first place, isn’t it? To find out what Cedar Pines Estates is worth.”

Kennedy unlocks the door. “She said at least three. Did you not hear her?”

“She threw out a number to satisfy you, to get you to list it with her. Dex said we should get an analysis of what other like properties have sold for in the last thirty days. She should’ve had a list for us.”

“She said there aren’t any like properties. And if your precious Dex knows so much about it, why didn’t he run the numbers? Three words: Realtor, Dot, Com.”

“Because I don’t want to sell.”

“So you’ve said twenty million times.” Kennedy starts the car and screeches out of the parking space.

We’re halfway home when I remember the steaks I wanted to buy.

“We’ll find the money another way,” I say, sorry that I was such a snot at the real estate office.

Kennedy’s desperate, I get that. I would be too if I were in her shoes.

But we’re talking about a great sum of money here and the no small matter of possibly uprooting people from their homes.

The bottom line is selling is not something we should do out of desperation or on the spur of the moment.

We should know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into and the true value of the property, not Sheila spitballing a random number.

And then there’s Willy. Yes, he was a shit father and probably a shit human being. And a crook, let’s not forget. But from everything I’ve learned about my late father, he was deliberate. Calculating. And whip smart.

“There’s a reason Willy bought Cedar Pines and there’s a reason he left it to us,” I tell Kennedy, who’s giving me the silent treatment. “As far as I can tell it was his last big purchase before he was carted off to prison. Why? Why a broken-down trailer park in the middle of nowhere?”

“Perhaps if you hadn’t dragged us off the way you did, Sheila could’ve enlightened us on that front.”

“Didn’t you notice that when you asked about Willy, she obfuscated? Willy bought Cedar Pines under a limited liability corporation. My guess is neither she nor Dick Morton from Compass ever met Willy Keil. More than likely they dealt with a representative of Willy’s LLC.”

“How do you know this?”

“I looked it up.” Actually, Michael Cabanatuan, an investigative reporter at SF Voice, did it for me. “It’s public record.”

“You think Willy was trying to hide the purchase?”

“I do. It’s not all that unusual. Movie stars do it all the time for privacy reasons.”

“Willy wasn’t a movie star,” Kennedy says. “He may have been famous in the gambling world, but he was far from a household name. Did he buy other things under the same LLC? For all we know he used this phony corporation to buy everything, even his toilet paper.”

“Okay, even if that’s true . . . why? You yourself said it wasn’t as if he was Jennifer Aniston or Steph Curry, or Jeff Bezos.”

Kennedy hangs a right off the highway into Cedar Pines. “For tax reasons? Maybe he had an outstanding debt and didn’t want anyone to know what his assets were. Or he was just a secretive SOB.”

“All valid possibilities. But we’re back to the original question: Why a trailer park in the middle of nowhere?”

“Beats the hell out of me.”

* * *

This isn’t turning out the way I’d hoped. Since Dex got here, he’s done nothing but complain. The Wi-Fi sucks , the bed is lumpy , the steaks are too well done .

When he’s not bitching incessantly, he’s on the phone, drafting players for his fantasy football team with Darnell, a coworker.

This weekend is supposed to be about us spending quality time together.

“You want to take a walk?” It’s getting darker earlier but there’s still enough daylight to take a quick creek-side stroll.

“Yeah, sure.” He stops channel surfing and puts down the remote control. “You have any bug spray?”

“Let me look.” I find an ancient can of Off in the medicine cabinet and wonder if it has an expiration date. “Here you go.”

Dex drenches himself in spray, then whines about the smell.

“It’ll go away once we’re outside.”