"Hey, Louise? Could you come down here?" the voice of Louise's father beckoned, muffled by the closed bedroom door. "I need you to help me with something, it's a bit urgent."
"Sure, just give me a minute," Louise called back, shooting off one last text in her group chat, dropping her phone onto the duvet.
Jumping from the edge of her bed, Louise quickly ran her hands across her blue and yellow summer dress, swaying from side to side to let the flared skirt whip across her pale thighs. She grabbed a turquoise hair band from the top of her cabinet and threaded it over her long golden hair, pulling it back to form a neat ponytail that tickled her back with every slight movement.
Louise Anderson was every parent's dream child, beautiful and well-mannered, courteous to a fault. Beauty and charisma were married together for Louise, something that unsurprisingly made her the crème de la crème of the social pyramid for much of her school life. Though eager to attend the parties her friends threw on a near weekly basis, she was never a slouch when it came to her studies, always making sure to keep on top of things in an enviable display of balance.
But with her place at Notre Dame already secured, Louise fully intended to spend the final few weeks of high school kicking back, using what little time she had before college relaxing before the stresses of adulthood piled on. Despite her parents best attempts, Louise decided against joining her family's real estate business by the time she finished college, instead opting for a career in law, with her sky blue eyes set on establishing herself in the city rather than her hometown.
Taking a quick glance in her circular ring light mirror, the eighteen year old added a layer of wet pink lip gloss, giving her reflection an affectionate kiss before darting from her bedroom, with her short skirt bouncing as she skipped down the stairs.
"Yes, daddy?" Louise asked, sweeping into the kitchen, spotting her father sat at the island, surrounded by small stacks of forms. Her younger sister, Rose, was in the middle of making herself a herbal smoothie, testing out yet another diet routine she had picked up from Instagram. Her father lowered his glasses and responded with a smile. "Sorry, I was just getting ready, my friends are picking me up later."
"Going anywhere nice?" her father inquired, scratching his signature at the bottom of one of the forms, removing the top layer of carbonless paper. "The weather's great for a day out, I know I wish I had the time to enjoy it. Alas, the world of real estate is continually in rotation, there's always someone looking to sell their home and another inquiring about buying it."
"Oh, nothing too fancy. We're just heading off to the lake, we're still trying to figure out what we're going to do for the rest of summer," Louise replied, though her evasiveness didn't go unnoticed by her sister.
"That's code for hooking up with someone on the football team, probably a quarterback," Rose scoffed, sporadically tapping the switches on the blender, not stopping until the contents of the clear jar turned a mottled green colour. "Mary Stevens wouldn't shut up about it during lunch last week."
"I told you to stop spying on us!" Louise hissed, sending a dark glare at her sister, plastering an innocent expression on her angelic face when she turned back to her father. "Mary has a habit of throwing out half baked ideas like that, but they rarely ever happen."
"Yeah, sure they don't," Rose countered sarcastically. "Just like how that post-game celebration at Mary's house when her parents were away didn't happen. Remind me, which member of the cheerleading squad had a pregnancy scare the week after that?"
"You're a woman now, Louise. It's not up to your mother and I to scold you for going off with boys, just as long as they don't push it," her father calmed her, stapling a set of papers together, sliding them into a transparent packet. "But before you head off, I need you to deliver this to Julius."
"Julius? You mean Mr Chambers?" Louise asked, her anger at her sister was quickly replaced by a flutter in her stomach.
Julius Chambers was a gentleman in his late sixties, former principal at Louise's high school, taking his well earned retirement just a few years beforehand. He and his late wife had been neighbours with Louise's family since the day they moved into the neighbourhood, having spent the majority of their life in their well maintained home. It was an unusual experience for Louise, to see two different sides to Julius, from the strict disciplinarian at school to the warm figure she had known for her entire life.
The two families were regular features in each other's homes, with the annual summer barbeques becoming a mainstay of the calender. But with the loss of Julius's wife, the older man had become somewhat of a recluse, rarely leaving his home unless it was necessary. Louise's parents did everything they could to pull him back out of his shell, but there was little they could do without pushing him beyond his comfort zone. He improved over time, but never quite returned to his outgoing self.
"Yes, these are just some forms I need him to sign, just so we can officially put his home on the market," her father informed her. "Prices are at an all time high, I want him to get the most he can before the bubble pops."
"What?" Louise exclaimed, moving over to her father, craning her head to read the forms. Sure enough, she spotted the copies of the official papers and various registration of sale. "Mr Chambers is moving?"
"Yep. Once these are signed and sent off then we'll put the wheels in motion," her father said, though his reluctance was clear in his voice. "I'll have to start the vetting process, a big place like that is going to attract every growing family in the county. I'm not looking forward to all the requests for viewings I'm going to have to sift through."
"But Mr Chambers can't leave," Louise whispered, struggling to even imagine the neighbourhood without his constant presence. "Did he say why?"
"No, it felt like too much of a private matter, so I didn't want to pry," he sighed, lifting the packet towards Louise, finding a look of dismay on her beautiful face. "I thought you might be able to get the reason out of him, Julius has always been quite fond of you."
