Better Than New

by Nicole Curtis

  We stood there, me sweating through my favorite Mean People Suck T-shirt, my dust mask hanging on my neck, and Steve as beat as I had ever seen him. We looked at each other and said, “We’re in over our heads.” Framing requires knowledge of basic homebuilding and carpentry and a mastery of construction math. This situation revealed the tiny flaw in my charge-ahead-and-you’ll-figure-out-how-it’s-done philosophy. We stapled three-millimeter clear plastic sheeting over the hole in the wall while I figured out how I was going to get the room framed.

  I found the answer in the form of a handyman ad in the local Pennysaver. This guy was not a contractor, just a handyman paid by the hour. Then again, I wasn’t looking for code-compliant work. At that point, I didn’t even know what codes were. Much as I didn’t want to, I hired the guy to frame and side the three exterior walls, and install the glass doors. In the end, I parted with some hard-earned Hooters cash, but I had a dining room. One with exposed studs and a concrete floor, yes, but a dining room. I even put up a couple of pictures on the studs. In keeping with my glass-half-full outlook, I looked at that room and saw a dining room straight out of a magazine. And I still remember the look of horror on Steve’s very affluent mother’s face when she visited. In that room she saw a disaster in the form of exposed studs and insulation and a painted concrete floor with a concrete step into the living room. As soon as she returned to Michigan after her visit, I received a large binder with “suggestions” for the house. I still have the book; it sits in my office. We’ve had our differences throughout the years, but I’ve held on to the book. If nothing else, to have a good laugh. I’m sure she never had a clue how much I’d take that all to heart.

  On the other hand, when my parents came for a visit, they did what they could to throw some skills our way. By the end of their stay, we had painted vibrant colors throughout the house. Ugh. Looking back, it was horrible. (Living with those colors for a year is probably why I paint every wall a neutral color to this day.) I had my dining room. I had my house. I had my BMW, and I had my own money. As I saw it, I was ahead of the game. My friends in college were going to wait years before they had a house or a high-paying job. Of course, I was slowly realizing that they were going to catch up and maybe even pass me and have really nice houses and jobs with futures. Like every nineteen-year-old, I was starting to face the stark reality of my future.

  I enrolled at Hillsborough Community College. I was someone who had breezed through honors classes in high school and I considered myself a bit overqualified for the basic English class that was required. However, I loved the professor. She reminded me of my Gram. She was in her seventies, tall, with short white hair and the posture of a ballet dancer. She had a PhD and was supersmart and pulled together. I was fascinated by this woman. But I was absolutely blown away when my first piece of homework—a simple one-paragraph assignment—came back trashed with red marks.

  I remember going to my professor in disbelief and her telling me, “It needs to be better.” I was perplexed; I still have a report I wrote in third grade about John Quincy Adams on which my teacher wrote: “Better than most college students’.” I’m sure she was just instilling confidence in a child, but teachers take note: That comment made me feel smart, and I still own it! Here I was, a college student, basically being told my essay was as good as something the average third grader would write. Then and there, I realized there’s always room for improvement—always. I worked hard in that class. I was bound and determined to win her praise. She saw my attitude change and pulled me in for a conference. She asked what my goals were; I said I wanted to find success. I told her I worked at Hooters and went to school part-time because I wanted to make money. She said, “I think you need to work on how you define success and realize that you’re not going to get what you want until you hang up those orange shorts.” I thought, Oh, ouch. Then, You know what? She’s right.

  It struck me like a lightning bolt. I didn’t have a long-term plan. Her comment stayed with me as I turned a critical eye on my current situation. There was a small group of waitresses at Hooters that the rest of us called “lifers.” They were in their late thirties or early forties and had already done a stint at the restaurant when they were my age. Most had gotten married (some to customers) and then after a divorce or a few children, they were back at Hooters because they didn’t have a plan B and had never finished school or acquired other job skills. It was sobering to think I was headed down the same path.

  Around that time, things with Steve finally came to a head. He sat me down one night for “the talk.” It was obvious to both of us that all the work I was doing was a way for me to not be at home or in the relationship. Steve was ready to settle down, get married, and all the rest. I was just realizing that I had a lot to do before I ever “settled down.” If I ever settled down. I had discovered that I could go it alone. And that was the death of our relationship, right there. I knew what was coming when we sat across from each other in the dining room. But I don’t think he did.

  “We can’t go on like this.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “We have to make some changes.”

  I kept nodding. “I know.”

  “You have to make a decision. You’re either in or out.”

  “You’re right.” And then I stopped nodding. “So this is what we should do. I’m going to keep the house. You can move out as soon as you find a place and . . .”

  Judging from the shocked look on his face, Steve had thought the conversation would go in a different direction. I’ve always been one of those people who just rips the Band-Aid off. When I make a hard decision, I don’t look back. I’m a firm believer that there’s no use in second-guessing yourself.

  Steve moved out three weeks later, but not before we had a blowout about who would get our brand-new futon. The fight was about much more than the futon, of course, but as I’ve learned since, arguments are rarely only about the matter at hand. My dad drafted a contract for the house and the futon and I bought Steve out. The house was now mine alone. I was carrying a mortgage by myself. I hadn’t really created a formal budget, but it quickly became apparent—between a hefty car payment, living costs, and a mortgage—that I either needed more income or I had to rent out rooms. I’m all about the work, so my ears perked up when one of my Hooters regulars, a sales guy named Jack, gave me some free advice.

  “You need to get into outside sales,” he told me.

  That’s what Steve had always done, so I knew the risks.

  I shook my head. “I can’t do all commission.”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “You do commission here every day. You sell a million wings and you get a piece of that. Call it tips; call it commissions. It’s the same thing.”

  It made sense when he put it like that. The next day, I corralled one of my friends at Hooters, a waitress named Kristina. I knew she had been selling cell phones in her free time, and I knew cell phones were high-ticket items that everyone wanted. Kristina said, “Oh sure, it’s easy. They sell themselves.”

  That was pretty much all I needed to hear. I went down and talked to the manager of the company she worked for and convinced him that I could move cell phones (even if I didn’t happen to own one yet!). I sold me. He hired me on the spot. That’s how I gave up my day shift at Hooters, said good-bye to working grueling doubles, and started filling my days with cold calls convincing people to ride the early wave of the wireless revolution and part with fifteen hundred dollars for a Motorola StarTAC.

  I learned that no matter what the situation, you dress the part and get to work. Even though I could work at home, I knew that with this being straight outside sales with no leads, if I didn’t take myself seriously, no one would take me seriously. So rather than make pitches on my own cell phone from the beach, I put on a suit and started visiting businesses. I loved having the freedom of making my own hours, and very soon the commission checks started coming i
n.

  A girlfriend from Hooters moved in because I needed help paying the mortgage. For the first couple of weeks, it was fun having her there. We talked a lot, dreamed aloud, watched movies, and ate bad food. Having a roommate was okay. That is, until I realized I was the only one buying the food. I was also the only one washing dishes, vacuuming, and scrubbing the toilet. And when the rent came due after the very first month, along with the utilities and the cable bill, suddenly the fun stopped and the excuses started. It amazed me that while I was working around the clock juggling cell phones, Hooters wings, and a toilet brush, she was the one who was hard to track down, especially when the bills were due. It took me a while to realize that when people owe you money, they will do everything in their power to make you out to be the bad guy. I’d like to say I learned that lesson right there, but no, as my Gramps says, you don’t let people’s ignorance change who you are. Once a giver, always a giver.

  So I was about to turn twenty, I was struggling with a hefty mortgage and bills, and I was beat. Cold-calling for commissions can take the wind out of anyone’s sails. I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel with one community college class at a time either. I began to feel like I was spinning my wheels.

  The hardest part was the dawning realization that I was using temporary solutions for long-term challenges. I wanted success and to be self-sufficient. But I wanted it now. So instead of thinking long term—go get a college degree, start my own business, be smart about it—I did everything short term. I worked my butt off at three jobs I didn’t particularly like to buy a house for way more than it was worth instead of saving for what I really wanted. Even at twenty I could figure out that if I had done things the right way, by twenty-five I’d have been able to buy the house I really wanted.

  That’s not the thinking you want to be doing just when you’re headed home for a visit. It was my grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary and my parents were seeing me at my weakest. There was nothing about my life that made sense to them. They had never been thrilled about me working at Hooters. Even though I had the new prospects of the cell-phone job, they hoped that all my high-school honor roll achievements would lead to a college degree. It’s fair to say I was a little vulnerable the day after the party, when I said to them, “I’m thinking of coming home.”

  Trust, I pulled my words back five seconds later, but my mom heard what she wanted to, and the wheels were in motion. I saw the wisdom in it. I thought, You know what? If I’m so smart, getting a college degree won’t slow me down, and it just might help. I flew back to Tampa feeling a little lighter.

  But I wasn’t ready to sell the house just yet. It was an investment, and it was still important to me that I owned a house. I could always come back. Plus, from time to time, I would trot out the note with the schedule of payments. On the payoff date, I would be twenty-eight years old. The way I saw it, at twenty-eight I would have fifty-eight thousand dollars in the bank! I wasn’t about to let that go.

  Coincidentally, a friend needed a new place to live. So to kill two birds with one stone, I told him I was moving back to Michigan, and that he could rent my place. This time, though, I bought a standard-form lease and had him read and sign it. That led to my first experience having to evict a tenant. Just like you should never do business with friends or family, you should never rent to them either.

  A month later, my mom showed up with my brother and a U-Haul. It was time to go. We packed up my things and I took one last look at the house, with the flowers still in bloom along the front walk and the clean windows sparkling in the sun. Then I crammed myself into the truck’s front seat between my mom and my brother and we started the long drive back to Lake Orion. It was another sunny Tampa morning, but I felt a little dark. I tried to focus on what would come next, but the trip made me feel a bit like the wayward daughter slinking home. Halfway to Michigan, I was begging my mom to let me unhitch my car and drive home by myself. She wasn’t having it. I think she figured I might try a break for the coast.

  I had a lot to think about on that long drive. But only over time would I understand the lessons the house on West Pearl Avenue taught me.

  The wrong house can be worse than no house at all. Just like the right job is the one you decide you’ll take, instead of letting circumstances or other people’s expectations choose for you. You really have to think long term, in life as well as with houses. I had bought a house someone had flipped, and I’d gotten stung for it.

  Now no matter how quickly I plan on turning a house, I always ask myself a question: If you couldn’t sell it, would you live in it? If you can see yourself living in a house for the foreseeable future—having a good life there and making pleasant memories—chances are other people will, too. Houses flipped only for profit are rarely about quality, and that’s what I want in my life and my work: quality. That’s why that house was so wrong. It just wasn’t quality.

  So, no, the Tampa house was never a good long-term solution, but it was a place to make some cheap mistakes and learn valuable lessons. It’s where I discovered that it’s wise to know what you’re doing before you launch into a project. Understand value in everything you do. I also learned what I don’t want in life: throwaway things. Cars that don’t matter. Relationships that don’t matter. And houses that have no value. I learned that I had to plan a little more, both in life and in renovating houses.

  Within a couple of years, the house would be gone, the BMW would be gone, and most of my Hooters money would be gone. But the lessons that house in Tampa taught me would remain. That house may have been a mistake, but it was anything but a failure. It didn’t make me money, but it gave me knowledge that I would use as a mother, a businesswoman, a friend, and a person. This is what I tell people when they beat themselves up about taking a chance that didn’t work out. You got a gift. Failure teaches so much more than success. Don’t avoid your failures; turn them into assets by taking away essential life lessons. You’ll be happier if you look at things that way. I don’t worry about the Tampa house, and I’ve long forgotten the mistakes of that time. But all those valuable lessons? Thank goodness, they’re with me still.

  Chapter 2

  You Can’t Always Choose What You Keep, but You Can Choose What You Let Go

  minnehaha house

  Coming back to Michigan from Tampa was a journey into both the past and the future. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel a little defeating to move back into my parents’ tri-level, open-floor-plan home (with no place to hide except in my bedroom). It was tough for everyone. I had lived on my own and I was a landlord with my own little ranch in Tampa. But my parents still thought of me as the high school teenager I had been when I left, right down to the eleven o’clock curfew and the list of chores. I stayed focused on the future. For me, that was all about regrouping, getting myself through college, and starting my career.

  Bartending at the Fox and Hounds.

  All that—and getting my own place—was going to take money. Within a couple of weeks of coming back from Tampa, I had applied at the Fox and Hounds, an upscale restaurant outside of Detroit. When I left Hooters I was working as a bartender, but at the time, Hooters served only beer and wine. The manager who hired me in Detroit didn’t realize this, and knowing I would make more money as a bartender than as a server, I didn’t correct him. On my first day, I was thrown right into the fire bartending a wedding. People were asking me to make Greyhounds, Rusty Nails, and Old-Fashioneds. The good thing is that when alcohol is free, people are very forgiving. More than once, I would ask, “Tell me how you like yours made.” Those wedding guests gave me a quick education. And I decided to find a shoulder to cry on about my lost independence in Steve, who had moved back to Michigan as well, and as a former bartender, he helped me get up to speed. It was important to me that I master this job, as insignificant as bartending may seem to some (mostly to those who have never done it). I like to be perfect at every job I t
ry. I was serving the who’s who of Michigan, and I definitely wanted to make a good impression; breaking off a cork in a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine or ruining a hundred-dollar pour of Louis XIII cognac was not the way to do it. I saw the opportunity in having close contact with Detroit’s elite. Most people have to compete for an intern position with such high-powered CEOs; I just had to learn the ins and outs of cigars and how to pour a proper drink. And no one loves to tell you what you need to do to succeed like ego-driven CEOs. I soaked up every last detail, and came to the conclusion that even though I wanted to go my own direction, I would still benefit from having a college degree.

  I was done with plugging away at college one class at a time. I was miserable living at my parents’ house and thought if I was going to put myself through this, I might as well put my nose to the grindstone. I took a full class load and then some at the community college. I worked around the clock and kept reminding myself that in the end, it would all be worth it. It’s the same mentality I use when I’m running to get from mile one all the way to the end. If you are going to do it, just get it done. The best way to get through hell is to keep on moving. And sometimes that means literally moving— I moved back in with Steve.

  My newfound plan was proceeding nicely. But as you’ve probably heard before, one way to make God laugh is to make a plan. Just into the spring, Steve and I found out that I was pregnant. I was twenty, which seems so young to me now, but my mom had me when she was seventeen. I would be twenty-one by the time the baby was born, so it seemed right on time. I was feeling excited and scared, and most of all blessed. I grew up in an extended family with a lot of children; I loved kids, and Steve was excited too. He and I might have faltered before, but I felt that we had found our way and we truly loved each other.