Tiny House in the Trees

by Celia Bonaduce

  He thought about the words Molly wrote on her hand every day. He tried to think of a few of his own.

  Mature?

  Steady?

  Solid?

  My words suck.

  The fact of the matter was that even though he built tiny houses, which to some might seem eccentric, at his core, Bale was a grown-up.

  And being grown-up is never sexy.

  No matter how many he built, a tiny house paled when compared to a helicopter.

  * * * *

  Molly drove home in total humiliation. How could she have been so lame? Of course Quinn only wanted to talk about her job—she did work for him, after all. She fought with herself all the way home. On one hand, she was an employee. On the other hand, she was an employee who went on a helicopter ride for breakfast in the next town. She didn’t even remember what she’d said. She must have sounded at least a tiny bit coherent, because Quinn never took his eyes off her while she blathered on about her big plans for the seedlings. Those gorgeous eyes just made things worse.

  She drove past Bale’s Tiny Dreams. Half his houses had gone with him to Colorado and the lot was locked. The place looked as forlorn as she felt. When she’d been sitting on the platform high up in the trees, she felt so full of creativity. She couldn’t wait to get home and work on her model.

  But as soon as she stepped foot back on earth, reality came crashing down.

  She still didn’t know very much about her job or her salary. The only thing she was sure about were her hours. Quinn said ten in the morning until three in the afternoon sounded about right for his seedling seeker.

  “That’s five hours,” Molly had said.

  “Oh, is it?” Quinn asked.

  Quinn looked surprised. Was he making things up on the spot? He suddenly looked serious.

  “Well, there’ll be an hour for lunch, of course,” he added.

  Molly was thunderstruck. She wanted more hours, not less. A chill went down her spine when she calculated. Even if Quinn paid her slightly above minimum wage, she wouldn’t have enough money for much more than coffee and birdseed. She really had to work up her nerve to ask Quinn about the details.

  Maybe she could look for another part-time job.

  But where?

  Molly parked her car and peered out the window, making sure Mr. Detman wasn’t nearby. She was late on the rent again and she knew she was getting dangerously close to being evicted. She glanced at the path between her parking space and the walkway to her apartment.

  All clear.

  She quietly got out of the car. Pulling her hoodie over her head, she strode purposefully toward the path. Once she was on the path, it was only twenty steps to her front door. She started counting down….

  20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15…

  Molly’s step quickened. She was going to make it!

  14, 13, 12, 11…

  Mr. Detman intercepted her halfway between the parking lot and her front door.

  “Hey there, Molly,” Mr. Detman said, peering at her under her hood. “I wasn’t sure it was really you hiding under there.”

  “It’s me,” Molly said.

  She wanted to add, “And I’m not hiding,” but refrained. She was trying to live up to positive thoughts, and that sounded rude and petulant. Plus, she was hiding.

  “I just need to talk to you about your rent,” Mr. Detman said sorrowfully, wagging his head.

  “How are the budgies doing?” Molly asked, trying to distract him.

  “They aren’t as much fun as I hoped they’d be, frankly.”

  Molly took in a breath. Grateful as she was to steer the conversation elsewhere, it annoyed her when people wanted their birds to be fun. Birds were regal and an honor to care for. You could learn a lot from birds, but they would never be a barrel of laughs.

  “If you want fun, get a dog,” she wanted to say.

  But she didn’t. She really did feel sorry for her landlord, but he just wasn’t realistic.

  “I’ll bring them a wooden chew toy from Pammy’s Pet Palace,” she said. “I’m working over at Quinn’s now, and get off work before the stores close.”

  She hoped the hint that she had a new job would help matters. But it didn’t.

  “I have to serve you with an eviction notice,” he said, his hangdog expression worthy of a basset hound. “Seven days to quit.”

  “Seven days,” Molly gasped. “I thought I’d have six months!”

  “Well, if you call a lawyer…. You might buy yourself some time.”

  “Then I’ll call a lawyer.” Molly’s mood brightened.

  “You’ll cause me a lot of trouble if you call a lawyer.”

  Molly’s momentary elation of holding up her eviction in court vanished. She didn’t want to make any trouble for Mr. Detman. It wasn’t his fault she couldn’t make ends meet.

  “The new tenant in 12B left a bunch of boxes in the carport. You’re welcome to them.”

  He handed her an envelope.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Thank you?

  “And don’t worry about that chewy toy,” Mr. Detman said, as he walked away. “You should save your money.”

  Molly spotted her words of affirmation. They seemed so childish. As if words could save her. She slapped her own hand in anger.

  She put her key in the door. Today had started so well. A helicopter ride with Quinn. Finding the secret tree house. And now this. Couldn’t things go her way for more than a few hours at a time? She put her head against the door and cried.

  She was so tired of crying; she was so tired of worrying.

  She was so tired.

  She let herself into the apartment, but she hesitated before turning on the lights. Her electric bill was seriously delinquent, and she was parceling out electricity as if it were caviar. In the dark, she could hear Galileo rustling around. She braced herself for one of his insults, but he must have heard her crying outside the door, because instead he greeted her with her father’s sweet rendition of the soothing Irish classic “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ra.”

  The tears came hotter and faster.

  Chapter 9

  Molly had gone to sleep hoping that things would appear less dismal in the morning.

  They didn’t.

  Galileo had gotten over his wave of empathy and woke up swearing. Trying to sort out what she should do and where should she go, Molly fed him in a daze. She tried out a few different scenarios on the African Grey.

  “We could fight the eviction,” she offered.

  Galileo looked at her sideways.

  “I know,” Molly sighed. “I mean, it’s not Mr. Detman’s fault I haven’t paid the rent. Why should he be punished?”

  Galileo turned his feathered back on her.

  “I know it’s not my fault either,” Molly pleaded. “I don’t know why I can’t make ends meet.”

  She chopped up a carrot for him,

  “We could go back to Iowa,” Molly said. “Mom would be thrilled to see us.”

  Galileo ruffled his feathers.

  “Okay, she’d be thrilled to see me,” Molly rephrased.

  Molly’s mom was not Galileo’s biggest fan. Besides, Molly hadn’t exactly left home with her family’s full confidence. Curly never seemed to make a mistake, while Molly’s throw-stuff-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to life had served up her share of failures. Her family would be happy to have her home, she knew that. But there would be whispers of “Oh, poor Molly,” which she couldn’t stand to even contemplate.

  She needed another plan.

  Molly could tell she needed to come up with her positive words or her mood was going to tank. She closed her eyes and inhaled. She let out her breath slowly and evenly.

  “Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale,” she commanded herself.

&
nbsp; The words floated into her mind.

  Resilience.

  Spirit.

  Agility.

  She opened her eyes. Agility! That’s exactly what she needed. She pictured herself as a running back, dodging the tribulations of life.

  Eviction—dodge left.

  Car troubles—dodge right.

  Thesis stalled—

  Her breath caught. She tried to imagine not being tackled by this one and determinedly kept the goal in sight. Molly visualized her victory but could feel the other team bearing down on her. She tried to keep her mind focused, but she felt her victory slipping away as she rummaged through her purse looking for a pen. She couldn’t get positivity on her hand fast enough.

  “Where’s my damn pen?” Molly called out in frustration, dumping her purse on the table.

  “Bite me!” Galileo squawked.

  For such an unpleasant bird, Galileo hated conflict.

  “Sorry,” Molly muttered, pawing through the flotsam and jetsam.

  The contents of her purse, strewn across the table, were glaring evidence of her disorganized life. There were four tubes of lip gloss, scraps of paper with ideas for her tree house, more scraps of paper with doodles for concepts she wanted to share with Bale, at least five pounds of pennies, and a set of keys she’d never seen before.

  She picked up the keys. She studied them in a patch of bright sunlight flooding through the window, hoping the intense brightness would make the keys give up their secrets. She turned them over in her hand several times.

  Then she remembered.

  These were the keys to Crabby’s restaurant.

  Crabby’s.

  Closed.

  Unused.

  Vacant.

  Restaurant.

  She held them up to Galileo in triumph.

  “I know where we can go!”

  * * * *

  Orchestrating a tiny house migration from Cobb, Kentucky, and back again took all of Bale’s concentration. After the last of the tiny houses were returned to the lot, the houses stabilized, and the drivers paid, Bale finally had a moment to relax. He let himself into the office. Thor scooted in ahead of him. By the time Bale snapped on the light, Thor was already curling up in his favorite chair. Bale took a seat behind his desk, which was only clean for moments at a time. He always cleared both his literal and virtual desktops before leaving town. As soon as he returned, chaos reigned again.

  He dropped his messenger bag in front of him and started emptying it. He pulled out his sketchbook full of the new ideas that usually sprung up right before he fell asleep. Several of the younger tiny house builders told him he should get a laptop with drawing capabilities, but Bale couldn’t see any advantage to that. It was hard enough to wake up enough to draw a simple sketch, let alone be laptop conversant enough to render any kind of useful image.

  The fact that Molly also used an honest pencil and pad gave him the courage of his convictions. Of course, she was making her thesis tree house model from some newfangled medium, but he felt he could still hold his head high as long as someone legitimate was still drawing on paper.

  He tried to shove Molly from his thoughts.

  He rummaged in one of the deep pockets of his bag. He pulled out a fistful of business cards and stacked them. He might not be ready to tackle computer drawing, but he was a master of the virtual Rolodex. On top of the pile, he saw a white card with a background of barely visible purple flowers. He studied it.

  Violet Green

  “Have Sphygmomanometer, Will Travel”

  Phone: 202-555-0166

  Email: VGreen@green.name

  He had no idea what a sphygmomanometer was but figured anyone who needed a traveling nurse might be amused. He went to type in her information but couldn’t stand it. He googled “sphygmomanometer” and found it was a fancy name for a blood pressure monitor.

  “Cute idea,” he thought.

  He typed in “How to Pronounce Sphygmomanometer” and practiced saying it a few times. If he ever saw Violet again, he might impress her by knowing how to say it.

  His phone vibrated, making a racket on the desk. Papers jumped in surprise and the stack of business cards toppled in surrender. Thor blearily lifted his head, saw there was no need for action, and went back to sleep. Bale looked at the phone. It was a text from Molly.

  Molly: A little bird told me you were back in town. When can I see you?

  Bale sat back in his swivel chair, staring at the phone in his right hand. He had Violet’s card in his left. Maybe now would be a good time to move on? Stop torturing himself about Molly? Maybe he shouldn’t do anything—he’d been unlucky in love. The one time he threw caution to the wind, he got burned. Not that the woman, whose name was Summer, did anything wrong… Their relationship was new, and she was just still in love with someone else. She let Bale down very gently.

  But let down he had been.

  He stared at the phone.

  A woman he was in love with was in love with somebody else…that seemed to be the story of his life.

  He texted back.

  Bale: Pretty busy right now. Chat soon.

  Chapter 10

  Calm

  Vision

  Foresight

  In the morning Molly found herself weirdly calm at the prospect of moving out of her apartment and into Crabby’s. She hummed as she stirred a pot of chicken double noodle soup. It was as if she’d spent so much time trying to make ends meet—while knowing deep down that was never going to happen—that, weirdly, the eviction letter seemed to free her. She was proud of herself. She hadn’t panicked—or, at least, she hadn’t panicked for long. And now she had a plan. True, it was a plan that involved trespassing, but it was a plan nonetheless. There would be no more lying awake at night wondering what she was going to do.

  “We’re going to make this work,” Molly said to Galileo.

  “Amen, brother,” Galileo replied.

  Molly was about to correct him, but she saved her breath. If she had to cure Galileo of saying “Bite me,” “Shit,” or “Amen, brother,” a gender mix-up seemed the least of her concerns. Galileo looked at her sideways, a look Molly knew meant he was waiting for her to correct him. She bit her tongue. Her father had taught the bird lots of attention-getting sentences, everyone laughing every time the bird cursed. She’d read that not rising to the bait would (possibly) stop the African Grey from uttering antisocial comments. But it was all a crapshoot. Besides, if she had to stop just one of Galileo’s utterances, it would be “I love you, Quinn.”

  And she couldn’t blame that one on her father.

  As she sat on the couch sipping the mug of steaming soup, she looked around the apartment. She couldn’t just walk away, leaving poor Mr. Detman holding the bag—or bags. This was a small town. People would talk. She’d have to make it look as if she had a place to go. That meant she’d have to pack everything she’d accumulated since she’d arrived in Cobb and move it to Crabby’s. Doing that without raising a few local eyebrows wouldn’t be easy. Her mood plummeted as she took inventory. How had she accumulated all this stuff? When she moved to Cobb, she had one suitcase full of clothes and Galileo in a small traveling cage with an expanding perch. Every pot, dish, lamp, and pillow—not to mention Galileo’s enormous cage—had been carefully chosen since her arrival in Kentucky.

  She could feel the tension in her shoulders mounting but pushed the anxiety aside. There would be plenty of room for everything at Crabby’s. She wouldn’t be homeless forever.

  Tears sprung to her eyes.

  Did she actually just think that word?

  Homeless?

  She took deep breaths as she considered the implications. There was no way around it… She would be “minus”—or “less”—a home. She closed her eyes. Would Crabby’s be her new home? She decided she could pro
vide a safe place for Galileo and herself—and that was all that really mattered. She’d have four walls—and a walk-in refrigerator.

  She made a note to go get those boxes Mr. Detman had mentioned.

  She turned her attention to the tree house model sitting on the coffee table, limbs patiently outstretched, waiting for attention. She studied it. She still loved her steampunk design, but her foray into the tree house on Quinn’s farm made her look at the model with new eyes. When Molly was in the tree, looking out over Cobb, the simplicity of the lean-to and platform made Molly feel as if she were part of the tree. Even though she had taken down the safety railing on her model and replaced it with a transparent material, her tree house, with its turrets and curved porches, felt heavy—a foreign object in a forest. She stood up and walked around the model, trying to decide what she could alter. She thought she should make all the windows bigger, letting in more light. She took a tiny knife and cut away at some of the windows. That was a good start! She felt she should go for broke and decided to add another level to the model. She grabbed her sketchpad and added a widow’s walk as high as she could make it. She’d perfect the addition on paper, then add it to the model later. She envisioned a tiny room where you could feel as if you were part of the earth’s plan.

  Her phone, attached to a power cord across the room, rang. It must be Bale, she thought as she dashed to retrieve it. She hadn’t heard from him in…forever. She couldn’t imagine what could be keeping him away. He must be super busy. It wasn’t like him not to be in touch.

  It flashed through her mind that he had always seen her at Crabby’s, when he popped in for breakfast after returning from a show. Was it possible their friendship would end now that she was over at Quinn’s? The thought stabbed surprisingly deep.

  The phone continued to ring. She yanked it from the cord and looked down at the screen.

  It was her brother, Curly. Molly smiled. She’d been avoiding calls from home, afraid she’d blab about her lousy situation. But now that she had a grasp of the immediate future, she wouldn’t have to out-and-out lie.

  “Hey,” Molly said.

  “Hey,” Curly said. “How are things with you and Galileo?”