Prelude to kisses

Chapter 7

Jackie couldn't remember being this excited to go to sleep only to wake up the next morning. She had a purpose now, a reason. Every question had an answer now although she didn't know how she'd do this, how she'd get there, she knew without a doubt that she could do it. Needed to make everything in her mind a reality. Needed to make it come true, not just for herself but her country. As she closed her eyes she could feel and envision the tall building and tall apartments, she could see the colors and the interior, she could see herself walking into each apartment room after it was fully furnished and being super proud of herself. She could see herself handing tenant's keys to their new apartment rooms with a sense of pride. She could see them fall in love with their new home and utter the words "We'll take it", as they smiled at each other. Her heart felt full, like it could burst.

After a few weeks she realized that knowing what you wanted was a lot different from having a plan to get it. In order to get what you've never had; you need to do something you've never done. She made a whole list of all the things she had to do to put her plan into motion. The first was to observe people who had what she wanted. The first person that came to mind was Gregory. 

Gregory was quite a good businessman. He might not operate his business the way she imagined herself operating hers, but it was a great place to start. She watched him, studied him and listened to him. He was great with money, and she realized that she needed to be that too. She needed to be good with her money and be very intentional about saving. She had to see it as a friend rather than the enemy. It was easier said than done, because she had developed bad spending habits of spending too much and not keeping track of where her money was going.

Gregory was a government employee and was making more money than she could ever make, so she quickly realized it would take her double the years to even buy stand. Which meant she needed a secondary stream of income. Her birthday was around the corner, and as a present she asked her mom to buy her a laptop and printer. There was a small room open for rent and when she saw the flyer pasted on the glass window, she knew what she wanted to make of it. With her paycheck and most of her savings over the last two months, she paid rent for three months in advance and in a week, her laptop and printer arrived.

She didn't know much about the printing business prior to this but now she had done an extensive amount of research that by the time everything was set up, she knew almost everything from printing, writing CVs, making business cards and lamination. She could only work at the printing shop on the weekends and hired someone to work during the week. It wasn't as easy as she'd imagined and in the first three months, she barely saw any profit, but sales quickly grew. She made a point of not using any of the acquired profits from the business and to also invest sixty percent of her salary into the apartment business for two years. It was an excruciating time, barely having time for herself, she was constantly working.

Towards the end of the year, Gregory took a leave, he and his girlfriend had planned a holiday getaway together, but Chichi still had a week of work before she could take a leave. Gregory was more than happy to give her a week off to rest and she used that time to rejuvenate. Gregory had allowed her to take an early rain check and when she got home, she found Angie sitting by the mirror doing her makeup while the radio blasted in the background. 

"Going somewhere?", she asked as she threw herself on the bed.

"No Hun, we are going somewhere", Angie said as she looked to her friend.

Jackie frowned, "Who is we?" she knew the answer even before Angie opened her mouth.

Angie laughed and got up from the mirror to pull Jackie up, whose eyes were drooping with sleep. "Dylan is taking us out. His friend is in the city for some time and wants to introduce you two". Angie said excitedly.