Making Progress

Having received the key to their new place, it was time to visit the house ones more and start planning on how to divide the rooms. Looking at Alice, Loraine wanted to say something before she was cut short by Alice who said, "I understand that you want to work on your house for the coming days. Therefore I and Margret will lead the most things regarding the store. Just make sure to meet us every night, so we can discuss the progress."

Hearing that, Loraine became excited and thanked Alice a few times before turning to James. Without saying anything, she pulled his arm and headed towards the door. Just before they left, James stopped and looked over at Alice who was standing there laughing to herself.

Having understood the cue to leave, Alice was the first one to exit the room, directly followed by the couple.

As they made their way to the house, Both James and Loraine felt excitement building up with every step they got closer. Standing in front of the house, they one more looked at each other hoping that they would not wake up from a dream.

After making sure that this was not a dream, they finally opened up the doors and walked into the house. As it was a rather old house, there were a lot of things that had to be done. First of all, the house was rather dusty so they had to clean up most of it. Moreover, as there was no furniture, this also had to be provided.

For this all, the couple made a list and divided the tasks between them. James was mostly responsible for the exterior of the house, namely the repairs and fixes that the house had to have. As for Loraine, she was responsible for the interior. James knew that if he got involved with the interior, that Loraine would redo everything. Therefore he directly stepped off from those tasks.

…

The following few days was rather tiresome for the couple as they had to fix a lot for the new house. Moreover there was also a lot of furniture that had to be bought and moved over to the house. However with time, this all got handled.

As for the business, during the time period Loraine kept in contact with both Alice and Margaret as they had agreed. Every night they had a meeting concerning the progress that they had made.

With the influence that both Alice and Margaret have to the surrounding, it did not take them a long time before they could get their hands on a suitable location for the store. Unfortunately, the store was not directly at the city center, but a few blocks away. However this did not stop the group from getting excited.

Because of the location, even the price got more affordable. As the idea came from Loraine, she would automatically become the major owner of the venture. This also meant that she had to pay the most out of the three. In the end, the group decided to split the company as followed, Loraine would pay 50%, whereas Alice and Margaret would each pay 25% each.

Other things that had to be fixed where the furniture for the store as well as actually finding someone that would be able to make these pastries. Moreover, news had to be spread about the opening of the store as well as finding some guards to handle the security for it.

Alice was the one that would take care of the furniture. With her business contacts from the general store, getting good quality items for a good price would not be a major problem.

As for the spreading of the news, that would be done by both Alice's and Margaret's store. They could spread the word within their stores.

Security could be handled by James. Given that he is a former knight, he knows how to handle tough situations. As James currently was unemployed, this would be a perfect opportunity for him not to stay idle and also keep an eye on Loraine.

With all that taken care of, the only thing that they had to do was finding someone that would be able to make delicious pastries for the store. For this, the group came with an idea. They would hold a cooking competition, where everyone would be welcome to join. The winner would get some price money. With that they would be able to judge possible candidates.

If everything worked out fine, they would have someone they could hire and also know what the talents are in the city. With that, they decided to make a competition and post it on various notice boards across the city. But first they had to go to the city hall and ask permission for something like that.

…

A few days later they got the permission that they wanted and scheduled the day of the competition. Even some of the city officials wanted to join as they found the idea rather appealing. With that they would have publication for their store and also possible candidates.

With that, it was time to wait for the competition day to arrive.

…