Ashley why when a Lexus pulled up in front of the office, which meant she'd need to do a showing.
So I kept reading. In the area where it said why they were declined, there was an X beside the option for "the selected unit was approved to another applicant." Curious, I opened our leasing program and checked. We still had three of their style vacant, and Ashley had already marked the ones who'd been approved.
Still, I made the call, thankful I got their voicemail. One short and professional message later telling them to call back if they had any questions, and I was into the second file. This one was no different. From everything I could see, they looked like the perfect clientele. The wife was even a doctor! The only thing I could come up with was that their references hadn't panned out, but I didn't have access to those.
File after file, there was only one thing I could understand: something weird was going on. This took the idea of exclusive to a whole new level of obsessive, but it also wasn't my property to make that call. I was the woman being paid too much and getting too many perks to complain. That didn't mean I didn't notice, though.
The only thing that made me feel better was something Ian had said. They wanted to change the world. They wanted this place to be a community, so clearly they were picking people who had a history of interacting with their neighbors? That was a criteria that wouldn't show up in the paperwork, but which Ashley would get when she made the phone calls to their references. Just one problem. I had no idea how she'd made it through this many people in the few hours we'd had between clients this week.
Granted, she did work on this at home. I'd seen the proof of that myself. So, deciding that I shouldn't worry about it and that it was none of my business, I sucked it up and made the calls. A few answered. A handful were pissed at being rejected. Mostly, I just left messages on their voicemail.
On the upside, Gabby was going to a friend's house after school, so I had most of the evening to myself. As I headed out the door, I said something to Ashley about a hot bubble bath and an old lady nap, which made her laugh as she waved for me to get to it. The truth was that even after the intensity of this week, I still liked my job. Not just the people I worked with, but even the job itself felt rewarding in some way, and I was pretty sure a lot of that had to do with my boss.
I was halfway across the street when I noticed something moving in my yard. For a split second, I panicked, remembering the wolves that had scared me that first week, but this animal was different. First off, it was red. Secondly, it had a lot of fluffy hair. In other words, it was my neighbor's dog, the one who'd been snooping in my backyard once before. Didn't Seth say his name was the overly original "Red"?
So I tried it. "Hey, Red?"
The beast - because this animal was massive - looked at me, then proceeded to hike his leg - right in my flower bed. I gasped, hoping that wouldn't kill the shrubs and walked a little faster.
"Quit!" I hissed at it. "Dog!"
Satisfied with himself, the mutt lowered his leg and trotted to the next spot only to find another place to piss. His tongue had flopped out of the side of his mouth, almost like he was happy to see me. Well, they'd said he was friendly, right? I just hoped their idea of friendly was the same as mine.
"Hey, boy?" I tried, squatting down so I wasn't looming over him. "Are you Ian's dog?"
The laugh that came in response startled me, but it was just Pax, and his eyes were on the mutt. "Dude!" he yelled. "You're not supposed to be in the front yard."
"So this is your dog?" I asked him.
He grunted. "Something like that. He's kinda a force unto himself." Again, he raised his voice. "Stop pissing on things and come be nice, at least?"
Like that was a command, the dog hurried over, aiming right for me. I couldn't help but smile. The truth was that I liked dogs. Our last one had died of old age right