The Welcome

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Rachel tucked her legs underneath herself as she sat in the oversized office chair where she spent her days, the rich smell of her heavily creamed coffee rolling through the air like a fog.  She sipped greedily at the large, pink mug her father had sent her as a house warming present as she waited for her laptop to finish starting the programs she'd be using for the day.

The baseboard heater did little to hold back the early morning's February chill, and even in the house she could see her breath, warmed by the coffee.  She didn't need to look outside to know that it would be the dismal overcast morning that it seemed each day in a Washington winter started with.  She wouldn't have traded it for all the sunny beaches in the Caribbean though--cold as it may be, she was in her office in her house, getting ready to work for her company.  Granted, one person hardly constitutes a "company" (as she constantly reminded herself.)  But still, Laramie Graphics and Web Design was registered with the county, and she even had a bank account for it.  An all but empty bank account, but taking up disk space on whatever computer Wells Fargo held their account information.  She shuddered with the half-sleepy giddiness she'd woken to most mornings since moving in.

It was quite a stroke of luck that she had gotten this place, one of those strange points in life where everything just falls into place, as though orchestrated by a composer standing just on the edge of view.  Although exceptionally bright, she was far from the world's best student, and had taken the five-and-a-half year plan through the art program in Seattle.  Her parents, thankful to see her finally with degree in hand, had given her the last five thousand dollars they had held for her tuition.

A week after she graduated, still fruitlessly scouring both the Post-Intelligencer and the Times for jobs, she received a phone call from Keith, a former classmate and fairly close friend.  Just calling to say hi, how's it going, and oh-by-the-way did she happen to know anyone in the market for a house in a little hick town down south?  His uncle had just passed away--so sorry to hear that Keith--and had left Keith's dad a little fixer-upper that could be a good little starter house or rental property.  Her mother was a real estate agent, and Rachel told him that she'd pass the information along.

Fed up with the lack of entry-level positions for a graphics designer ("They all want experience, but no one's willing to give you any" she often complained to her mother, both during school and after graduation), a plan started to take shape as she hung up the phone.  She called Keith back later that day and asked him how much they were asking.

"Forty-five, give or take.  It's small, and it needs a good helping of TLC, but it's livable and dad wants to get rid of it as soon as he can.  Taxes and stuff.  Why?"

"Just wondering."  She thanked him, talked for a couple of minutes about stuff they had already covered just to be polite, and called her mom.

Two weeks later, she had a house of her own in beautiful Laurie Falls, Washington, her own little chunk of the Pacific northwest.  Her mom was able to whittle the down payment to three grand, and then split her commission of the sale with Rachel, leaving the new grad with slightly under thirty-five hundred dollars to her name.

With that money to back her up, Rachel purchased a hosting package and designed her own website, printed up several dozen attractive flyers, and went door to door seeking clients for Laramie Graphics and Web Design.  She had no clue what she was doing or getting into, like most first-time entrepreneurs, but was still lucky enough to land three clients in her first week of marketing.

While business hadn't exactly been booming in the past month, she still had those three clients, which were keeping her busy enough and paying her well.  She enjoyed getting up in the mornings, having her two or three cups of coffee, and working on their projects until the early evenings.

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