A Novel Idea

by Melissa Bowersock

  Chapter 1

  THE Stinsons pulled up to the curb in front of the house and parked, Robert in his BMW sedan, Jennifer behind him in her sportier Toyota SUV. She grabbed her purse and her small overnight bag and climbed out of the car quickly. They could come back for the clothes hung across the back seat and the larger suitcases; she wanted to see the house.

  In all her thirty years, she had never been as excited about a house as she was about this one. A curious mixture of Victorian and Midwest farmhouse, the upper structure rose elegantly above the square first floor, its gabled roof and widow's walk an odd contrast to the stacked rock of the front porch supports. The house was either the masterful melding of two different styles or the work of a schizophrenic architect, depending on one's viewpoint.

  Jen actually could not say exactly what it was that drew her to the house. If pressed, she could point out the finer features of the carved newels that lined the widow's walk railing, the lovely cornflower blue color that mirrored the Nebraska sky overhead, but the truth was that it was more nebulous than that. All the separate pieces came together in an indefinable but comforting way. It just felt like home to her.

  She walked briskly up the front walkway, mounted the five wide steps and waited a trifle impatiently for Robert to bring the key.

  Her husband struggled with the large suitcase he’d pulled from the Beamer’s trunk, dragging it noisily up the steps. “This place needs a frickin’ ramp,” he declared testily.

  Jen dismissed his comment and the negative emotions that went with it. She wasn’t going to allow his mood to leach away her excitement. Suppressing the urge to bounce up and down on the balls of her feet, she waited until Robert turned the key and pushed open the door, then stepped happily into her new home.

  The dining room was to her right while the living room opened up to her left. Straight ahead was the hallway that led to the back rooms, next to the stairs that rose to the upper floor. Her shoes tapped lightly on the wood floor of the entryway, then silenced on the slate blue carpet of the living room. The new carpet smell was a bit strong, but airing out the place would take care of that. She put a hand to the freshly painted off-white wall. Maybe some wainscoting with a light colored wallpaper beneath? Her mind was already turning with decorating ideas.

  “Where do you want this?” Robert asked, his hand still on the handle of the suitcase.

  Jen tore her attention from the living room. “The master bedroom,” she said. “We can hang our clothes up and put the suitcases in the closet so they’ll be out of the movers’ way.”

  “I hope they get here when they said they would,” Robert groused. Pulling the rolling suitcase behind him, he moved off down the hall.

  Jen sighed. She knew he wasn’t as keen about this as she was; he was still angry about being assigned to this rural sales route. The new CEO of Copper Creek Industries, a young forward-thinking go-getter, had shaken up the structure of the company completely and had apparently decided that Robert was no longer a “good fit” for his prior route in the outlying area around Albany. Robert had been offered this northwestern quadrant of Nebraska—or he was free to look for opportunities elsewhere. At first the couple was dismayed to realize that the largest town near the center of the route was Alliance with a population of just 10,000, but the clean, friendly city had appealed to Jen on their first reconnaissance trip, and finding this house had cemented it for her. Robert was less convinced.

  Feeling as if the house itself helped to shore her up against his venting annoyance, she took her overnight case into the bedroom and began to help Robert hang up clothes.

  The movers arrived just after noon and the quiet stillness of the house was shattered by the constant movement and shouting of the men as they jockeyed furniture into place. Jen stationed herself at the entryway, directing men this way and that, while Robert tended to follow after them to make sure they placed the furniture correctly and didn’t ding the walls as they did so. The living room began to take agreeable shape with the sofa and chairs set around the coffee table but the dining room set was almost too much for the dining area. The formal dining table and six chairs had been perfect in their large Albany apartment, but here the heavy, dark furniture almost overpowered the small space allotted for it. Luckily, the smaller, lighter kitchen table and chairs fit perfectly into the small breakfast nook at the back of the kitchen.

  The master bedroom was elegance itself with the king bed against the inside wall and facing the two back windows with their chiffon curtains, the matching cherry wood dresser on the side wall opposite the closet. The two upstairs rooms adapted easily to their roles as small spare bedroom and office; each had its own front window that looked out over the widow’s walk and the quiet street below. Jen was already imagining pictures on the walls and found herself itching to tear into the boxes that piled up in each room.

  The best thing about the house was the fact that it did not need major restoration. Built in the 1920s, the house had undergone both plumbing and electrical upgrading earlier in its lifetime, and the inspectors had not found any structural issues at all. With all its underpinnings intact, the house was almost like a bare canvas, just waiting for Jen to sweep across it with color and accent.

  When she’d majored in art in college, she hadn’t thought too much about the practical application of her degree, but the intern job at an interior design company had changed all that. Suddenly all the theories of light and shadow and color that she intuitively understood had morphed into tangible, three-dimensional things: furniture, molding, windows and walls. When she’d graduated and the intern job had led to full-time employment, she found she had money left to prowl thrift shops and estate sales, and she eventually rented a corner of an antiques store where she could showcase her treasures and make a small profit. Her first venture into home-ownership had been a small bungalow with a large service porch on the back that she had converted into her studio. It was there she learned the intricacies of cleaning antiques without removing the patina of age, and her appreciation of design and craftsmanship increased tenfold. Her eye for value improved as well, and she realized she had a knack for finding valuables in a sea of junk. The entire process—the hunting, the buying, the cleaning, the reselling—was an immense satisfaction to her that she had never imagined in her younger years.

  Probably the largest factor in this Alliance home—at least for her—was the carriage house out back. Converted to a garage decades ago, it also had a second room that ran the length of the garage with large windows and a slate floor. It was the perfect place for Jen to continue her handiwork, and because Robert’s job paid inordinately well, she was free to spend all her time doing just that.

  For her, this house was perfection.

  The movers had the truck completely empty by five o’clock, and the few adjustments that had to be made in furniture location were quickly accomplished. By the time the truck backed out of the driveway and rumbled down the street, Jen was already unpacking kitchen utensils and thinking about dinner.

  “What do you think?” she asked Robert as she smoothed down shelf paper and then stacked plates in cupboards. “Go to the store and get stuff for dinner and breakfast, or just go out to dinner and shop tomorrow?”

  Robert leaned his small, spare frame against the kitchen counter and pulled on his lower lip thoughtfully, then opened the refrigerator door and surveyed the empty space inside.

  “We’ll have to get a few things tonight,” he said, “but I’m hungry. Let’s go to dinner, then stop on the way home and pick up the necessities.”

  “That sounds like a deal,” Jen nodded. “When do you want to go? I need to take a shower and change clothes.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  “Why don’t you take the downstairs bathroom and I’ll go upstairs?” she suggested. “That’ll save us a little time.”

  “Good idea,” Robert said.

  Jen put the last of the plates in the cupboard and tossed the empty box into
the service porch with the others. Following Robert to the bedroom, she grabbed clean underwear and her robe. While he disappeared into the bathroom, she mounted the steps to the upstairs.

  The upstairs bathroom was long and narrow, running along the back wall of the upper story, but it had a double sink, a large mirror and a huge linen closet. She took a fresh towel from the linen closet and started the shower running. It would feel good to wash the grime from her body. She’d have to wash her shoulder-length hair, but it would dry quickly. As she undressed, she noticed that she’d broken a fingernail. Probably wouldn’t be the last. She opened the hammered glass shower door and stepped into the warm water. She had a feeling she would absolutely die when her head hit the pillow tonight.

  Sudsing her hair, she noticed the nice, even spray of the showerhead. That was a surprise. She hoped the same kind was in the downstairs bath. She liked the tile in the shower, too; it was a warm tan with veins of a darker chocolate color marbled through.

  As she washed, she began to notice a prickly feeling crawling across her skin, as if eyes were watching her. She shrugged it off, but glanced over her shoulder through the steamy hammered glass door. There was a shape in the doorway.

  Oh, come on, she thought tiredly. I’m not taking that long. She backed under the shower spray and rinsed the shampoo from her hair. When she’d cleared the water from her face, she looked again toward the doorway. It was empty.

  She finished up and toweled off quickly. When she went downstairs to the bedroom, Robert was nowhere in sight, but his aftershave hung in the air. She dressed quickly in jeans, flats and a black turtleneck. Robert was one inch shorter than her 5’9”, so over time she had gradually switched over to more flats rather than heels, which was no hardship for her. She pulled her light brown hair back in a damp pony tail and grabbed her purse.

  She paused in the open front doorway, the knob in her hand. Robert was hunkered down beside the Beamer, wiping a splash of dirt from behind the rear wheel well.

  “Do you have the keys?” she called. She didn’t want to lock them out of the house on their first day.

  Standing, Robert held up the keychain and jingled it. Jen pulled the door closed and walked briskly to the car.

  “Where to?” Robert asked as he fired up the Beamer. His close-cut black hair still had a sheen of dampness to it, and it lay flat against his head. He slid the sedan into gear as she clicked her seat belt and then pulled slowly away from the curb.

  Jen tried to remember what they’d seen in town. “We could go to that steakhouse,” she said. “Or that Italian place we tried last time we were here. That was good.”

  Robert considered the choices. “Steak sounds better,” he said finally.

  “Yes, it does,” Jen agreed. “I think we’ve both worked up quite an appetite today. You do realize,” she noted, “that we never ate lunch?”

  Robert glanced over at his wife in surprise. “You’re right,” he laughed. “No wonder I’m starving.”

  The Cattleman’s Steakhouse, like most of the restaurants in town, lay along Route 2 that bisected the town from east to west. As they drove toward the urban area, Jen was thankful their place was closer to the outskirts of town. In mid-April, the evening sky was still pristinely clear, and she had a feeling the sky above the widow’s walk would be hung with stars when they returned home. It would be a dramatically different view than the washed-out sky over Albany.

  “There’s a market right there,” Robert noted as he turned into the restaurant’s parking lot. “We can stop there on the way home.”

  Jen nodded, noticing a drug store and a hardware store in the same shopping center. Small town or not, Alliance seemed to have everything they’d need.

  The parking lot of Cattleman’s was fairly full, not surprising for a Friday night, but when they walked in, the hostess was there to seat them immediately. Good thing, too, with the hearty aromas of mesquite-grilled beef hanging heavy in the air.

  Mulling over the menu, Jen’s eyes jumped from item to item, each one looking better than the last. “I think I want one of everything,” she said finally.

  Their waitress, dressed in jeans, a western shirt and cowboy boots, came to take their order.

  “How’s the buffalo steak?” Robert asked.

  The waitress hesitated. “Have you ever had buffalo?” she asked instead.

  “Nope.”

  “It’s not like beef,” she cautioned. “It’s not as tender.”

  “Not tender as in … chewy?” Jen asked.

  The waitress hesitated again. “It can be,” she allowed. “It’s somewhat of an acquired taste.”

  “I’ll have the Porterhouse,” Robert said, closing his menu. “I’m too hungry to acquire anything.”

  “I’ll have the T-bone,” Jen said, silently agreeing with Robert. A day like today was not a day to try something new and potentially disappointing.

  “I’ll have those right out for you,” the waitress said.

  Jen studied her husband. His ice blue eyes looked as intent as ever, but slight shadows rimmed them. She felt sure he hadn’t been sleeping well, even before the move. At least now with that behind them, that was one less worry.

  She glanced around. The walls were paneled with knotty pine and hung with branding irons and steer horns. Every table sported old coffee cans full of peanuts still in the shell.

  “They sure get into the whole open range cattle thing here,” she noted, keeping her voice light.

  Robert smirked. “I guess if you’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, you’ve got to find something to celebrate.”

  Jen reached across the table for his hand. “Give it a chance, Robert,” she asked. “It’s a nice little town. I think we can do very well here.”

  “Accent on the little,” Robert muttered. He did, however, thread his fingers through hers. “I still can’t believe that little snot sent me here. Eight years of busting my balls and this is what I get? Cattle Central?”

  Jen hoped the food would come soon so they could avoid another meltdown. Evan Rodgers, the baby-faced CEO of Copper Creek and son of the president, was two years younger than Robert. Being sent down to the minors was one thing; being sent down by a rich kid with more college degrees than business experience was another thing entirely.

  “He’s just underestimated you,” she said. “You’ll prove to him how good a salesman you are, even here.”

  And at least, Jen thought, he hadn’t been forced to take a pay cut at the same time. That would have been the last straw, she was sure. Robert prided himself on the fact that he pulled down good money, that Jen would not have to look for a job in this backwater hick town. But she also knew that was little salve to Robert’s wounded ego.

  “Oh, he’ll find out what I can do,” Robert vowed smugly, “but so will other companies. I’m keeping my options open, and if any of the head-hunters I know come up with a better deal, we’ll be out of here in a flash.”

  The waitress brought their food, eliminating the need for a response from Jen. She was just as glad. Much as she hated to see Robert depressed by this perceived demotion, she liked Alliance, loved the house and hoped to develop her antique business here. She suppressed a sigh. They would just have to see how it worked out.

  The dinner was surprisingly good and they both ate until they were well sated. As much as Robert grumbled about “Cattle Central,” there was no denying they knew their way around a side of beef.

  Driving home, they were both blissfully quiet, and later, when they climbed into bed, Jen thought they might christen their new home with some lovemaking, but Robert simply rolled over and went to sleep.

  She was not far behind him.