Excerpt
Stacey struggled along the rainy, windswept street, stopping every few feet to set her bookcase down, and rest for a moment. It was only a small bookcase, three shelves, about four feet tall, but, as with all the furniture in the used furniture shop just across the street from the Greyhound bus terminal, it was solidly made. Wood could be very heavy, she thought, struggling along. A person who was used to the more lightweight metal tables, with wood veneer, could forget how heavy real wood actually was.
Her desks were metal, with wood veneer, but her bookcases were wood, except for her Mediterranean-style metal ones, plus some other metal ones - face it, she had little specialty bookcases all over her house, of all styles and materials, except that the SmartCubes, made of heavy-duty polypropylene, were still unaffordable for her, so far.
“Those next!” she vowed, with cheerful focus and determination. She shifted her bookcase a little, to try to go more than a few steps at a time. But she knew it would take more than just a few improvements in her business strategies to be able to bring in enough money to really set up a nice wall of open shelving, for her special projects.
Crossing the street at the corner, she set her bookcase down yet again, and stopped to look around her. The rain was a little cold and wet, but not heavy, and it gave the small-town street the look of a rainwashed hometown, connected with all of the others by the reassuring, upbeat presence of the Greyhound bus terminal, newly re-renovated to present Greyhound’s new, more modern, look. With Greyhound, a person could do without a car, as she was, and still go from city to city, she mused. As some of these people were. She looked more closely at the station, and, sure enough, a Greyhound bus was still sitting there, revving its engine occasionally, while the passengers, newly disembarked, were getting luggage and struggling up the street, some coming toward her, others going the other way, into the town, a few, going across the street to the ice cream parlor, and, one, even, a woman, heading straight for the used-furniture store.
“She won’t have much time,” Stacey thought to herself. The bus didn’t usually stay long. But still, there was usually enough time for a purchase, and maybe she called ahead, Stacey thought to herself. Hopefully, she hadn’t wanted this bookcase. No name had been on it, but there hadn’t been that many small bookcases there. Stacey felt reassured that she hadn’t taken the last one. She reached down to shoulder her heavy load again, after this refreshing break. She only had two more blocks to go. It wouldn’t be that hard. She picked it up and began walking again.
“Nice bookcase,” a male voice said, coming up alongside her, from the direction of the Greyhound terminal.
She looked over. He was trundling along one of those suitcases on wheels, pulling it behind him, and carrying another suitcase in his left hand.
“I’d offer to help you, but...” he continued, smiling and gesturing with his hands as well as he could, to indicate that both were in use, right now. “Do you have very far to go?”
“Only one more block,” she said, cheerfully. “But maybe I should have tried to find one on wheels...”
“Rolling furniture is the way to go,” he answered. “My whole office is like that. But I’m only going half a block, in fact, this looks like the house I’m renting, so let me put my things down, on the porch, here, and then, let me carry that for you.”
He stepped neatly down a little sidewalk to the left, set his bags down on the little porch, and then, without stopping to unlock the front door, he came back down the sidewalk, and hefted the bookcase to his shoulder.
“Further this way?” he asked, starting to move forward.
She nodded, dumbstruck. He had moved into the little house! The Tiny House, made by the Tiny House Company, that had been their sales office for so long, until the sales office had been relocated to the Tiny House Village, now known as Tiny Homes, just outside of town.
She followed along, intrigued, now.
“It’s the next house over,” she told him.
“We’re neighbors, then,” he said, looking over at her. “Large house, though. You like the homey, old-fashioned look, I see.”
“It was the wrap-around porch,” Stacey admitted, defensively. “Yours has one, too, though.”
“One-eighth of my square footage is on that porch,” he told her, smiling again.
“You must have completely down-sized,” she said, admiringly. Maybe she should try to live in a more streamlined way.
“Oh, I won’t be staying long,” he said, reassuringly. “This is just temporary, while I work on a special project, up here in the north.” He set the bookcase down on her porch. “You’ll want to dry that off, a little.”
“I keep a towel by the door,” she said, reaching for her keys, to unlock it. “Would you like to come in for a cup of hot soup, or something? It’s so cold and wet out.”
“Maybe another time, thanks.” He looked around him, for a moment. “Such a big house, and a big yard....do you live alone?”
“I’m divorced,” she said, briefly, opening her front door and reaching for the towel. “No kids,” she added hastily, at his look of concern. “But we had dogs, and he gave me the house...”
“That was nice of him,” he commented. “So then he moved into a Tiny House, himself, and...?”
She laughed. “No, but I’ve often thought I might like to. I have it planned for about ten years from now. In the meantime, I’m using my house to try out my business decor ideas and my organizing invention.”
She saw his look.
“Specialty bookcases are the thing, now,” she told him.
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