Tiny House in the Trees

by Celia Bonaduce

  “You couldn’t do better at the Four Seasons,” Molly said proudly.

  Galileo eyed his new home. He did not complain.

  Leaving him exploring his new surroundings, Molly headed off to work, hoping she might still catch Quinn. She waited in the car until the road was clear, then slunk around the tiny houses until she got to the gate. She had a lump in her throat as she pulled the car through and locked the gate behind her. She was more nervous letting herself out than she was breaking in. It was broad daylight and would be no easier to explain.

  As she drove to the tree farm, she saw Old Paint rise into the air, heading to Beamer’s. Molly sighed. She’d missed him again—and she was actually hungry from all the work on her masterpiece for Galileo back at the loft.

  Molly pulled into the farm and waved to Manny, who was just coming out of the office with his cup of coffee. Molly slowed and rolled down the window, concerned by Manny’s tense expression.

  “What’s up?” Molly asked.

  “Deer were at the trees again,” Manny said. “Quinn’s hopping mad.”

  “Oh no,” Molly said, having forgotten all about the deer amid all her own problems. “I’m… I’m working on that.”

  “Well, that deer repellant won’t spread itself. I’d appreciate it if you worked fast.”

  Molly figured the deer would probably appreciate it too.

  She wondered if Manny was judging her for not having a second job. She sometimes judged herself. But she had to think of her thesis as her second job or it would never get finished. She went into the office and sat down at the computer. Now that she knew Galileo was safe and she could get the rest of her belongings out of the tree later, she settled down at the computer to work on a humane, non-stinky way to keep the deer off the farm.

  She grabbed a pen and wrote her affirmation words for the day. They came easily:

  Accomplish

  Productive

  Innovate

  Good, solid, employee words!

  Her research led her to several conclusions. Her scarecrow idea was a good start, but deer needed more than a stationary object to keep them at bay. She thought back to spritzing the raccoon with hairspray. She would have been happier if she could have just squirted him with water, but at the time, she just needed to get the thing away from Galileo.

  Was water the answer? She checked out a few portable sprinkler systems. She knew that Quinn had lots of water available on the farm, which was just off the river. She remembered looking out from the tree fort and seeing a sprinkling of small lakes on the property. So access to water wouldn’t be an issue. The problem was, Quinn used drip irrigation. Effective watering, but a completely quiet and motionless system. It wasn’t going to disrupt a deer hell-bent on an evergreen snack. She tried various combinations of cute or scary scarecrows attached to a sprinkler, but since the sprinkler head would have to be attached to a hose, nothing was practical for the size of the farm. After an hour, she decided she needed to change approaches.

  She was so involved in her research, she wasn’t aware that Old Paint was landing until it cast a shadow over the computer. She looked out the window as Quinn and his passenger climbed out of the helicopter. Her heart stuck in her throat as Naomi’s bright pink lipstick caught the sun.

  Naomi went to breakfast with Quinn?

  Molly tried to hide, but too late. Quinn saw Molly through the window and made a circling gesture that she should come out. Molly took a deep breath, plastered on a smile, and went outside.

  “Hey, Naomi,” Molly said.

  “Hi, Molly,” Naomi said, leaning into Quinn’s body. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “I work here,” Molly said.

  “Oh, I know that,” Naomi laughed.

  Molly supposed the laugh was supposed to sound like a wind chime’s tinkle, but it came out more like a donkey’s bray.

  “I just meant I didn’t expect to see you at the office. I thought you…scooped up pine cones or something.”

  “I’ve been doing some research,” Molly said, trying to sound important.

  “Molly’s our little scholar,” Quinn said. “That’s why we love her.”

  “Oh, I know that.” Naomi flashed her brilliant teeth.

  “Thanks for breakfast,” Naomi said, giving Quinn a full body slam as a parting hug. “That was super fun.”

  Molly watched as Naomi got in her little Fiat and drove away, waving until she was out of sight.

  “So, you’ve replaced me already?” Molly asked.

  She meant it to sound flirtatious, but it sounded petty and accusatory. Quinn just smiled.

  “I stopped in the convenience store last night and ran into Naomi,” Quinn said easily. “We got to talking and I invited her to ride out with me to Burgoo, since you don’t seem to be interested in joining me anymore.”

  Molly knew he didn’t owe her an explanation, but she was glad he was giving her one.

  “I have seen the error of my ways,” Molly said.

  This time, she must have gotten the intonation right because Quinn laughed.

  “I’ve been looking into the deer situation,” Molly said, hoping to sound studious and indispensable.

  “Do you have a solution?” Quinn asked, guiding her into the office.

  “Not yet, but I can run a few ideas by you,” Molly said.

  “That’s okay,” Quinn said. “This can be your project. When you have something, let me know.”

  Molly blinked in surprise as Quinn went into the back room. If she’d come up with a few theories about tiny houses or her tree house, Bale would have wanted to hear all about it. She just had to remember Quinn was not Bale.

  And maybe there was something to be said for letting her work it out for herself.

  Her phone buzzed. She was used to hoping it was Bale, but now she feared it was him. Caller ID let her know that it was Albert from the garage.

  “Hello?” Molly said. “Albert?”

  “Yeah. Hi, Molly. Just letting you know the car is ready.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Molly said, lowering her voice. “And I can owe you the money?”

  “Sure,” Albert said. “I know you’re good for it.”

  Clearly, he hadn’t had a chat with Mr. Detman.

  She hung up the phone as Quinn was coming out of the back room.

  “I’m going to go pick up my car later, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure,” Quinn said. “I hate car problems. They are always so damn expensive. And you never have anything cool to show for it.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Look, Molly.” Quinn suddenly sounded serious. “Can you afford to spring your car?”

  “Yes,” Molly said. She reconsidered. “No. But Albert says I can put it on my tab.”

  “That sucks.”

  Molly was confused. Considering her finances, she thought it was great.

  Quinn disappeared again, returning in an instant with a small canvas bag.

  “How much is it?”

  “How much is what?”

  “The car.”

  She swallowed hard. This was really a personal question—and to her mind, a personal failure. She told him. He didn’t bat an eye.

  Instead, he took a stack of hundred-dollar bills out of the bag and handed it to her.

  “I can’t take this!” Molly gasped.

  “Why not?” Quinn asked. “I’ve been on a winning streak lately and I’m happy to share. Anyway, you work for me, not for Albert. Better to keep it in the family, right?”

  Molly didn’t remember the rest of the day. She’d gotten her car, she’d picked some fir cones, she’d loaded her trunk with the tree house model and driven back to the tiny house lot, replaying Quinn’s use of the word “family” over and over in her head.

  Chapter 21

&
nbsp; Manifest

  Visualize

  Attract

  Molly woke with the words already in her head. Positive, exciting words seemed to come tumbling into her brain. Her life seemed almost perfect. In the last week, she’d settled into a routine of having civil conversations with Galileo, who seemed to adore his new digs, racing off to meet Quinn for breakfast, working on the farm, and sometimes accompanying him to the gym.

  Although Quinn didn’t seem terribly interested in the deer situation, Molly continued to do research into the problem. It made her feel a little more like she was doing something productive with her brain. She hadn’t come up with much in the way of an inexpensive, reasonable solution, but she made it a habit of shooing the deer away on her rounds, hoping they’d get the hint.

  Molly still spent a part of each day in the tree fort, where her imagination soared. She realized she could use the tree fort as a sort of test kitchen for her thesis. She could try out various lever systems and decide which materials might weather better in trees.

  Molly had taken over coffee duty at the tree farm, a job that required stopping for milk or sugar, even though Manny worked at the grocery store. Molly didn’t mind. The hardware store was right next door, and she was always happy to strike up a conversation with Mrs. Minsberg, one of the proprietresses. Mrs. Minsberg loved the idea of Molly’s miniature tree house.

  “I have a few couplings you might find interesting,” Mrs. Minsberg said, offering Molly a bag. “They’re all different shapes and sizes. I was going to toss them, but then I thought, ‘Molly might be able to use these.’”

  Getting a bag of couplings was better than being handed a bag of candy as a kid.

  Mrs. Minsberg also saved cans of paint that had been returned. Molly hauled up cans of half-priced paint and stains, along with treasures from the local junkyard, until she had an entire workshop in the tree. Working with full-sized materials, she found herself coming up with more interesting ideas than she’d ever dreamed possible. She knew she needed to finalize her design or she’d never get her thesis in on time, but the possibilities seemed endless. She kept hearing Curly’s “Don’t get distracted” admonishment in her ears, but then a new deck stain that looked like dark tree bark with a hint of moss creeping in would catch her eye and she’d find herself…sidetracked.

  Curly didn’t say anything about getting sidetracked.

  She was working away on a shelf made of red-stained pipes when the lean-to was thrown into shadow. Molly looked up in surprise. Had it gotten dark without her noticing the time? The sky suddenly rumbled. Molly looked out the window. Clouds were rolling in fast. A storm was on its way. Molly climbed down the ladder and sprinted to her car. She slammed the door just in time. The clouds released a torrent of angry rain. Molly studied the tree that housed her tree fort. She loved the place but she was happy she and Galileo had another place to call home.

  It was still pouring when Molly pulled into Bale’s tiny house lot and let herself inside the Tower. After greeting Galileo, she made a cup of tea without hitting her head on the shelf over the stove and watched the storm rage across Cobb. It had taken her awhile to get used to the place. Tiny houses had a steep learning curve—literally. Molly didn’t need the dexterity to launch herself into a loft, a requirement of most tiny houses, but this model’s fancy bed-in-a-drawer-under-the-kitchen-floor required a certain amount of strength. Molly could feel her biceps getting stronger by the day.

  Molly smiled to herself. She used to think of any house not on wheels and over three hundred square feet as a “real” house, but now, safe and warm in the snug little house as thunder and lightning jousted outside, she felt very much at home.

  “We are so lucky,” she cooed to Galileo.

  “Bite me,” he said.

  The thunder cracked outside.

  “Thank God you’re not afraid of storms,” she said, as she covered his cage for the night.

  “Amen, brother,” he said gravely.

  “It’s sister,” Molly said with a sigh.

  Why couldn’t he get that right?

  Curling up under the blankets, Molly had one final thought before sleep settled over her like a down comforter:

  I wonder how long Galileo and I can stay here before we’re busted?

  * * * *

  Bale and Thor sat outside the converted school bus, absorbing the quiet of the grounds. Now that the tiny merchandise had headed off to the next showcase in Missouri, the county fairgrounds where the tiny house convention had been held had an exhausted, sleepy feel to it. The convention had been a huge success. Bale had more orders than he could handle. It would make sense to go straight back to Cobb. But the next showcase lasted only a few days and his inventory was already on the road, so he figured, “Why not?”

  It also gave him an excuse to touch base with Violet, since the showcase was going to be located in the Missouri Bootheel, a stone’s throw from Tennessee. They’d been Skyping about various ideas for her tiny house but by now, both had given up the pretense that they were constantly in communication over just design ideas.

  Bale knew Thor would never tell, so he admitted he also wanted to stay away from Cobb a little longer, because every day he was away, it was easier not to think about Molly. He was holding to his resolve not to text her. And she sure wasn’t texting him. Maybe more time apart—especially with that time being filled up by Violet—would just about cement the idea that they were better off as friends than…anything else.

  From the lack of communication, he was pretty sure he was in this struggle alone. His phone vibrated. Thor looked at it and then at Bale.

  “It’s Violet,” Bale said.

  He was happier every time he got to say it.

  * * * *

  Quinn was leaning against Old Paint when Molly drove up in the morning. Molly looked at her hand. She’d forgotten to write her words this morning, but nothing printable came to mind when she looked at Quinn.

  She’d just have to go naked-handed today.

  “You ready to ride?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t sure we’d go today,” Molly said. “After that storm.”

  “What are you talking about? After a storm is the best time to go. The ground looks completely different.”

  He was right. Molly always felt the world seemed cleansed after a big rain. But yesterday’s storm seemed to have slapped the earth silly. The river was pulsing, little puddles had turned into lakes, and potholes dotted the country roads.

  Conversations with Quinn had gotten easier over the past week. Molly noticed that Quinn never wanted to talk about anything important or stressful. There were never any discussions about politics or family drama. A quick update on Crabby was usually the most Molly got out of him, but after their breakfast arrived at Beamer’s, Molly decided to dig a little deeper.

  “So exactly how are you and Crabby related?” Molly asked casually while stirring a hazelnut creamer into her coffee.

  “He’s my mom’s brother,” Quinn said. “He was bigger than life. I wanted to be just like him.”

  “Really?”

  Molly couldn’t imagine what there was about Crabby, with his forlorn, almost bitter demeanor, that would make a young kid want to emulate.

  “He was a helicopter pilot. Really played it up…leather bomber jacket, the whole nine yards.”

  “No kidding?” Molly almost snorted her coffee she was so surprised.

  “He used to take me up with him when I was little. I’d sit on his lap, and he’d let me fly the thing.”

  “That sounds pretty reckless.”

  “Runs in the family, I guess,” Quinn said with a killer smile.

  “So what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Molly realized she couldn’t really say, “When did Crabby become…crabby?” But Quinn seemed to understand what she mea
nt.

  “Life is hard sometimes, you know? We all have our coping mechanisms. I gamble when I’m stressed…or when I’m not…and Crabby just lost interest in everything. We all handle it different ways.”

  Molly nodded. She certainly agreed life was hard. And she knew everyone handled life’s ups and downs differently. She wondered if her coping mechanism was avoidance. She’d have to find the opposite of that word and write it on her hand.

  The flight back to the farm was uneventful. When she walked around the farm, she was suddenly aware that she knew the differences in the various evergreens. When she first started, all the trees looked the same. She wondered if the lack of stress in her life at the moment was helping her see life around her in a new way. She hoped so. She didn’t want to end up like Crabby.

  The sting of Bale’s abandonment seemed to be easing as well. Which was a good thing and a bad thing. If she was so dispensable in Bale’s life, how was he going to feel about her…visit…to the tiny house lot?

  She drove carefully home from the tree farm, avoiding new potholes created by the storm when she could. She’d gotten so used to driving into the lot, she’d long since abandoned checking for other people on the road. She slammed on the brakes as soon as she got to the gate.

  It was open.

  It must be Bale.

  In the nine days since she’d moved in, she’d rehearsed and rehearsed what she would say to him, but now her mind went blank. Her heart pounded, and her palms turned to marshes of sweat. She knew it was time to face the music.

  It turned out she didn’t have to face the music, or Bale. As she skirted the corner of the tiny Victorian, she saw the police car parked in front of the office. The uniformed officer had his back to her, hands on hips, staring up at the workshop.

  Molly stopped the car. Maybe he wouldn’t notice her. She got out as quietly as she could, but as soon as she took a step, the officer turned around.

  She knew the cop. It was the deputy named Officer Melon, a man in his forties who was as wide as he was tall.