They went downstairs and out the back door of the kitchen and headed for the copse of trees that led to the creek. Polly's eyes were caught by the bark on the trees that was pulling away in the late fall air and showing the mottled wood of the tree itself. "Sycamore," she thought. Then she realized and said, "OH! That's why it's called Sycamore Creek." It was only a trickle, there hadn't been a lot of rain this year, so she and Obiwan crawled down over the bank and walked the creek. She let him off the leash and he ran ahead of her and then back to see if she was going to catch up. The creek ran under the highway, but she crawled back up and walked around, continuing to follow it. The trees had been losing leaves for quite some time and she picked up some of the prettier ones as she walked, looking at their veins and appreciating the peace of early morning in a small town in Iowa.
This was the right decision. Sometimes she felt as if she'd fallen into everything, but it seemed like every step she'd taken had been the right one, even if strange things had happened along the way.
Polly thought about her new friends. They were so different from the girls she knew in Boston. Their careers had been all-encompassing, and while Beryl's art was nearly an obsession for her, she was still pretty laid back. Polly knew she would miss her life in Boston with all of the excitement of the city and the easy access to activities on the East Coast, but this slower life was nice. She would enjoy this.
She picked up a few more leaves and looked at the symmetry. The sycamore trees lining the creek covered everything in falling leaves.
Polly's mind took her back to her elementary Sunday School class. "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see. And when the Lord came passing by, he looked up in the tree. And he said, 'Zacchaeus! You come down! For I'm going to your house today. I'm going to your house today.'"
A few of the trees were huge and through the fog of her memory she saw an immense tree spread out in a field, with soldiers and horses standing under it for shelter. "Hmmm," she thought.
She turned the sycamore leaf over and over in her hand while she and Obiwan walked home. They'd been out for forty-five minutes and she was getting hungry. She also wanted to spend a few minutes doing research on the internet. It took nearly as long for them to walk back to the school. Obiwan had to cover all of the territory he'd already marked, to ensure nothing had interfered with his efforts, and then explore new territory as well. They walked back in through the kitchen door and she snagged her laptop before heading upstairs. Dropping it on her coffee table, she poured food into Obiwan's bowl, then stripped her sweatshirt and boots off.
"Whaddya think, Obiwan?" she asked. He looked up from his food dish and wagged, "I think it will work quite well."
Flipping her computer’s lid up, she sat down, pulled it on to her lap and began to search.
"Exactly!" she shouted. Obiwan stopped eating and turned his head to look at her. "Oh, sorry, little guy. Go ahead. I'll try to be more respectful."
At the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War, both Lafayette’s and Washington's armies took shelter under the tree.
Polly did a little more research and choked up when she read that it was a seventy year old sycamore tree which saved St. Paul's Chapel across the street from the Twin Towers after the tree fell and its branches protected the chapel from falling debris.
In America, the sycamore tree stood as a symbol of strength and protection … exactly what Polly hoped for the future of this building.
Her mind began racing as she pictured big sycamore trees lining the driveway and the sidewalk along the highways. More trees would fill the yard and over the years as they grew, would offer incredible shade.
People would stop calling it the old school when she put the sign out front: Sycamore House.
That was perfect.
Obiwan jumped up on the couch beside her and she hugged him close. "Sycamore House," she whispered to him. "Sycamore House."
Thank You!
I hope you have had a wonderful time visiting Bellingwood and getting to know some of Polly’s new friends.
Check out Polly’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pollygiller for news of upcoming novels. Tell me about your favorite characters and what you remember collecting when you were in high school. Would Doug Leon have found some of your things lying around?
Diane Greenwood Muir’s website, http://nammynools.com might be under construction for a while, but will also be home to more news from Bellingwood. Come back often.
The next book featuring Polly and all her friends will be published in April 2013, but never fear, there’s more before you go. Turn the page and find a short Christmas story.
Polly’s
First Christmas
At Sycamore House
A Bellingwood Short Story
Chapter One
Standing still was not an option, so Polly paced back and forth across the hallway. This was the first time she had ever done anything like this and she was absolutely terrified. She smoothed her sweater once more, and then checked her hair again in the reflection of the window to the office. Obiwan sat against the wall of the auditorium watching her. She paced around twice more, then stopped beside the dog and bent over to scratch his ears. In the month they'd been together, he'd grown quickly and she didn't have to bend over quite so far.
She walked away, then went back to the office, stepped in and turned the light on. She walked through the other two offices, checking to ensure everything was neat and tidy, turned the light off, thought about it and turned all of them back on. She stopped at the conference room table, straightened a folder at the end, nudged the chair in closer to the table, then nudged it a little to the left.
"Breathe, Giller," she said out loud. "You can do this. You're in charge. This is your place. You'll be fine." After her personal pep talk, she took two deep breaths and walked back out into the hallway. "Benches would be great out here," she thought to herself. "I should talk to Henry about that." Before she could pull out her phone to send herself a note, the front door opened and a young man walked in. He was over six foot tall, with dark, curly hair and was dressed in a well-cut charcoal suit, with a burgundy shirt. His tie was conservative, but Polly caught a glimpse of color in his socks as he walked. She pushed her phone back into the pocket of her jeans and strode over to greet him.
"Welcome to Sycamore House," she said. "I'm Polly Giller."
He met her and they shook hands. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Giller," he paused. "It is Miss Giller, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's Miss. Actually, I prefer Polly." She took her hand back. He had a nice, firm, confident grip. "And you’re Jeff Lyndsay?"
"Yes I am!" He glanced at the dog. "Is he yours?"
Polly couldn't help herself and giggled. Why else would there be a dog patiently sitting here watching, but she said. "Yes, that's Obiwan. He's my shadow."
She gestured to the office and said, "Shall we go on in and get started?"
He followed her through the outer office into the conference room and took a seat. She sat down at the end of the table and pushed away the folder she'd left there. Polly hoped this worked out. She'd talked to eight different people and none of them had seemed to have the right mix of personality and creativity, business acumen and excitement about her dream. If she was going to hire a full time coordinator, she wanted someone who would fall in love with Sycamore House as much as she had and after talking on the phone several times to him, she really wanted it to be Jeff. He had flown in this morning from Columbus, Ohio so they could finally meet and do a live interview and seemed like the perfect person to get Sycamore House going.
"You know," she said, "I'm not sure why we're sitting down in here. I want to show you what I've been dreaming about for the last six months. Come on, let's talk a walk around."
Jeff smiled and nodded, then followed her back out into the main hallway.
"I was thinking before
you walked in," she said, "that we need some benches or something out here. It's pretty barren." Polly pointed at a painting series on the wall in front of her. "That's by my friend Beryl Watson. Isn't her stuff great?"
He nodded and didn't say anything, continuing to smile.
Across the hall, they entered a room clearly still under construction. "This is where Henry Sturtz, my contractor and wood guru has been working. When he's finished with everything else, he'll do this space. It will be split into four rooms, so we can have classes and small gatherings, maybe some computer space and a lounge area."
They walked around the corner and headed for the kitchen. "This was my big dream. I have appliances in here no woman should have unless she is serving hundreds of people every day." Polly giggled, "That might be an exaggeration, but I had a great time putting it all together. The open counter is from the days when school lunches were served. It’s awfully convenient."
She pulled out her key and opened the door to the auditorium. "This will be for large gatherings and events. Nearly anything can happen in here." She pointed to the walls. "Within the next week these will be fully baffled for sound and then we will also bring down the ceiling a bit because of all the ductwork that needs to go in. It will be finished before Christmas.
"Behind the stage are the bathrooms and storage. You can get to it from the far hallway and from the kitchen."
"So, if you are in one of the classrooms, you have to cut through the auditorium to get to the bathroom?" he asked.
"I suppose so," she responded. "There weren't too many options."
"Alright," he said. "What's upstairs?"
"Let's go up! It's one of my favorite places."
They walked up the steps to the landing and looked out over the main floor, then took the left stairway on up to the top level. On their right was Polly's apartment with its extruding entryway. Polly pointed at it and said, "That's my apartment. I'll show you that in a minute, but over on this side are the three rooms I would like to keep filled. I am hoping to make them longer term rentals, say, for an author who needs a month away from their life, or an artist who needs something new to look at. We're still working on the interiors, but they are pretty much finished."
She opened the door to the smallest of the three at the front of the building. It was one immense room. Light streaming in from the tall windows illuminated the patterns in the flooring and the knots and burls of the wood in the bookcases and trim around the room. A small sink was tucked into a corner behind a closet buildout and there was a large king-sized bed in the room, but otherwise it was empty.
"The other two rooms are similar to this one," Polly said as they left and moved to the center room. They glanced inside, and then went to the last room.
"No bathrooms?" he asked.
"Well, there wasn't a good way to incorporate those into the room plans, so we converted the old boys and girls bathrooms up here," and she pointed to the end of the hall, "into two spa bathrooms, figuring we were going to have no more than three guests at a time, so it shouldn't be a problem."
"Alright, last stop on the tour is my private apartment," Polly unlocked the door to her entryway and led him inside. She had just finished outfitting the kitchen and had moved the eight-foot table and chairs up to the dining area. It was still a bit sparse. One day she would move the items in from her father’s home which were in a storage unit in Story City, but she had done well with the space and was pleased to finally be settled.
"This is quite nice," Jeff said. "You have a good eye."
"I read a lot," she responded. "Read and look at a lot of pictures. It might take a while, but I finally decide what it is I like and then I figure out how to make it happen."
They walked back to the main hall and she pulled the door shut.
"That's the inside, for the most part. We have a lot of outside work yet to do, but I won't start that until spring."
Polly stopped before they headed back down the steps. "Tell me why you are interested in leaving Columbus, Ohio for a little town in the middle of Iowa?" she asked.
He began walking down, then stopped on a step, "I wanted to do something different with my life. I could get into a hotel chain and make my way up, or manage restaurants or even get into corporate work, but this looked intriguing to me. Your offer is a good one, enough so that it shouldn't be ignored." He started back down again, then, turned around.
"How cosmopolitan is this little town?"
Polly laughed out loud. "Bellingwood? It wants to be bigger than it is, but there are still too many of the older generation who like things the way they are. We're close enough to Ames and Des Moines to have a pastiche of cosmopolitan life, but it doesn't happen ... not really. I suspect if we make a name for ourselves, we'll draw from around Iowa and maybe into the states surrounding us, but as much as I'd like to think we would bring people in from the coasts, I'd be fooling myself.
"The people are ... genuine," she said. They continued down the steps. "Some of them are extraordinary and most have education beyond high school. They are genuinely interested in you and many will accept you as you are. I've been surprised at how easy their acceptance of me has been. Things were a little weird when I moved in, but they’ve opened up and let me be who I am."
"Here," she said as the hit the main floor, "do you want some coffee?"
"Coffee would be fine," he replied.
"Go on back in and I'll get it." She poured out two cups of coffee and went back to the conference room.
"What would you want me to do, specifically?" he asked.
"Everything and anything." Polly replied. "I'll take care of management and financial decisions and I want to know everything you are doing and planning, and I would want to be notified of any major decisions, but what I'm looking for is someone to handle this entire place, from making sure we have the guest rooms full to keeping guests happy and content; from scheduling and organizing parties in the auditorium, to any classes we have going on, from helping me with decorating, to landscaping. I'd want you to be practically a partner with me in this endeavor."
"What about hiring decisions, cleaning and lawn work and all of the nitty gritty details," he continued.
The two of them continued to discuss the job and what Polly envisioned for Sycamore House and before he left, she realized he was probably the right person for the job, but knew she needed to be able to think about it a little more.
"When are you planning to head back to Columbus?" she asked and stood up. The two of them walked out into the hallway again.
"I have a flight scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I thought I'd spend the evening and tomorrow morning looking around the area since I've never been to Iowa."
"Where are you staying?"
"I'm at a hotel in Ames and I haven't checked in yet, so that's my next stop! Thank goodness for GPS in the cars these days, right?" He laughed a little uncertainly. "Oh hell," then he laughed again. "Well, that language was probably inappropriate for the first time I meet you. Anyway, Iowa can't be that big and scary. Can it?"
"That’s funny. I returned six months ago from living in Boston for fourteen years. Iowa really isn't that scary. Enjoy your evening and I'll be in touch. Is there anything else you'd like to ask me?"
He looked her in the eyes and said, "Is there any reason you wouldn't offer me the job right now?"
Polly was taken aback. She swallowed, blinked and looked back at him. "Honestly, no. It just scares me to make that kind of decision in a hurry."
"Then, offer me the job. I'll accept it and you can take me out to dinner somewhere in Ames to celebrate. I'll fly back to Columbus, pack a few bags and come back by the end of the week and help you get ready for a terrific Christmas season. We can have a huge party here. I'll do all the work. You can introduce Sycamore House ... and me ... to the area and then I'll find a place and move out here after the first of the year. Tell me why that couldn't work?"
"Wow." Polly said. "Let me do it this way. You go
away. I need to think … "
He interrupted and said, "What do you need to think about? I'd love this job and you will love me. I can promise you'll love the way I do the job, at least."
"I need to think. I don't rush into decisions like this."
"If you had found anyone else, this job would already be filled and you wouldn't have paid for me to fly out here. You need me, Miss, I mean, Polly Giller."
Polly looked around, then said the first thing that came into her head. "We need benches in this hallway. I need to sit down and put my head in my hands for a few minutes."
"No you don't. You're fine. And this is going to be great." He threw his arms open wide. "This is already great and I am going to make it grand! Sign me up, Polly. Let me do this job."
Polly laughed a little hysterically. "Alright. You're on. I had plans for tonight, but I can cancel them. I need to do a quick run with Obiwan here, then go upstairs and change. The contract is in that folder on the conference table and we'll sign it over dinner. If you want, you can make the computer in the far office yours. Feel free to wander around and dig into anything you'd like to see." By this point, she was practically hyperventilating, so she slowed down and took a breath.
Jeff smiled at her and nodded again, turned around and walked into the office. She took the leash hanging on the newel post and attached it to Obiwan's collar and opened the front door, walking outside into the mild December weather. "Alright, bud, mama needs a walk. Let's go."
She hadn't gotten around the side of the building when her phone rang. It was Lydia. "How did the interview go? I figure you wouldn't answer if you were still in the middle of it."
"Oh, Lydia!" Polly laughed. "He hired himself!"
"He what?" Polly heard Lydia laughing on the other end.
All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) Page 28