Tiny House in the Trees

by Celia Bonaduce

  “No, I’m trying to design a tree house that would work for—”

  “For the same people who are interested in living tiny,” he said. “And that means a different kind of artistry.”

  “I’m not sure how to do that,” she said.

  “For one thing,” Bale said, “start with the fact that the tree is in charge of the design, not you.”

  “I thought gravity was in charge of my design.”

  “No, gravity is in charge of your bathroom.”

  “My mistake,” Molly said, frowning and pouring a cup of coffee for herself.

  “I’m no expert,” Bale said. “I mean, I start with a trailer bed and work from there. But you have a tree. Take your design cues from it.”

  “What if the tree doesn’t want a bathroom on the ground floor?”

  “I’d guess a buzz saw could be a good bargaining tool,” he said as he paid his bill.

  Molly smiled as she stared at her new design. Surrendering to the challenges of the shape and structure of the walnut tree led her in unexpected directions.

  She started with the bathroom on the ground floor, tucked into a hollow at the back of the tree. Because she was following the contours of the trunk, the bathroom was misshapen, like a gossamer hut in a fairy tale. Molly found it strangely beautiful. From there, the tree house came to life. Part steampunk contraption, part fairy-tale castle, the levels started to soar through the branches.

  Molly took up where she’d left off—creating a porch off the living room on the third level. Much like an actor creating the backstory for her character, Molly created a life for her tree—a life that included a view of the Kentucky River. It all seemed so real when she was working on it. Molly designed a curvaceous porch, one supported by the black walnut’s strongest branch. Since the living room was so high in the air, Molly added a wooden safety fence.

  She took a peak at Galileo, who was sitting on the perch in the opening to his cage. The bird didn’t really need an enclosure, but the five-foot-tall cage was a flight of fancy. It was one of Molly’s first projects, and while Galileo might not be impressed, she was very proud of it. When she worried about having to downsize, she wondered where she would put the gigantic cage. Now, with the promise of a job on the tree farm, she wouldn’t have to worry. As if reading her mind, Galileo said:

  “I love you, Quinn.”

  “You need to stop saying that,” she said, pointing at the bird. “Quinn is going to be my new boss. I can’t have you humiliating me. Stick to ‘bite me.’”

  Molly shook her head. As if Galileo’s signature “Bite me” hadn’t embarrassed her enough over the years. The time the African Grey said “Bite me” to her tenth-grade math tutor—not to mention the time he managed to teach “Bite me” to a four-year-old that Molly was baby-sitting—would pale in comparison to the imagined scenario of a romantic encounter with Quinn and having the African Grey prematurely blurt out the obvious.

  “‘I love you, Quinn’ stays between us,” Molly said sternly. “Do you hear me?”

  “Bite me.”

  Chapter 6

  Open

  Discover

  Willing

  Molly woke with the sun. She’d hardly slept. The thought of working with Quinn every day was a dream come true. Of all the people who were going to be unemployed, he’d chosen her to come work at the farm. She tried not to read anything into it, but, frankly, it was hard to ignore the evidence that he was at least aware of her.

  She knew she should spend every waking moment on her tree house model, but instead she’d spent the whole previous night researching anything she could find on Christmas tree farms. She’d vamped her way into a job she knew Quinn dreaded—mapping out old tree stumps on the farm—but she didn’t really have any idea what that meant. She’d studied up and determined that April was the month Christmas tree farmers started establishing new trees. For every Christmas tree harvested in the late fall and winter, one to three seedlings are planted the following spring. To avoid erosion, the best way was to plant new seedlings between old rows of tree stumps.

  She couldn’t wait to impress Quinn with her knowledge. She dressed in jeans and a cotton plaid shirt. As she envisioned herself stomping around old tree stumps, which probably held bugs, she donned her most serious hiking boots.

  Galileo rustled in his cage. He and Molly rarely spoke in the morning—he was not a morning bird. But Molly was too excited to keep quiet. As she got out his food pellets, cubed an apple for him, and refreshed his water, Molly asked his opinion.

  “What words should I write on my hand today?”

  Galileo reached into his bowl, delicately selecting a sunflower seed and cracking it open. He ignored her.

  “I’m thinking ‘Open,’ ‘Discover,’ and ‘Knowledgeable,’” she said, grabbing her pen.

  She wrote “Knowledge” and stopped.

  “Do you think that’s overly confident?”

  She was met with a munching sound.

  She rubbed out the letters.

  “I think ‘Willing’ is a better word for a new employee.”

  She looked down at her hand.

  Open.

  Discover.

  Willing.

  She looked at Galileo.

  Munch.

  “Okay. See you later,” Molly said, heading out the door. “You have a good day.”

  Munch.

  “Come on, Galileo,” Molly said sternly. “You know better than that.”

  The African Grey looked at Molly sideways.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Bite me.”

  “No.”

  “Crap,” Galileo said. “I love you.”

  “That’s better.”

  As Molly closed the door, she could hear him add:

  “Quinn.”

  What a difference a few hours of daylight could make. Cobb was a small town, and she was through Main Street in two stop signs and one red light. She usually sped down the deserted street before dawn, always late to open Crabby’s for breakfast. Now, at 9:45 in the morning, the town was humming with pedestrians already engaged in their day. Waving at some familiar faces, she turned left at the edge of town, excited to be inching closer to her new life.

  Quinn’s Christmas tree farm wasn’t much to look at in late April. While the rest of the South was nudging into spring, the evergreens looked bored as soldiers waiting for action. She turned on to the dirt road that led to the office and Old Paint’s helipad. Molly’s heart beat faster as she saw Old Paint hunkered down on the helipad and Quinn’s truck parked in front of the office. She took them as omens that Quinn might be around. The silhouette of a man, backlit among a close row of trees, waved as she approached. Molly squinted—the dark outline of the man’s arm shooting across the sun made a windmill effect. She couldn’t tell if it was Quinn, but she waved energetically anyway.

  The silhouetted figure was using a weed whacker around each of the trees. Molly frowned. Just last night, she’d read that mowing between trees started in April and continued through October. In October, the final big push of getting the trees ready for sale started. If she knew this beforehand, she could have told Quinn she wanted to be one of the mowers. Talk about job security. Getting the seedlings in the ground would only guarantee her work through spring.

  She’d made a list of other jobs she might suggest for herself to Quinn, but decided not to get ahead of herself. She’d almost written “Do Not Get Ahead of Yourself” on her hand but decided that was not positive.

  The man with the weed whacker turned off the machine, dusted off his hands, and headed toward her. She smiled brilliantly, still not sure if it were her new boss or not. As far as this job went, she was in it to win it! She toned down her smile. Her radiant smile might scare off a stranger.

  Her s
mile turned to confusion. The sun had shifted, revealing the man walking toward her. It wasn’t Quinn. It was Manny!

  “What are you doing here?” Molly asked. Realizing her shock might come across as rudeness, she added, “This is sure a surprise!”

  No lie.

  “Quinn offered me a job last night!” Manny said. “How cool is that?”

  Quinn hired Manny? She rummaged around in her brain for some way to spin this so she still felt special, but she came up empty.

  “Very cool!” Molly squeaked.

  “Yeah,” Manny said. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after Crabby’s closed. Guess Quinn took pity on a couple of strays, huh?”

  Molly bit her lip, trying not to say “Bite me” in Galileo’s raspy voice.

  A door banged open behind them.

  Molly and Manny turned at the same time to see Quinn, aviator sunglasses already perched elegantly on his nose, coming at them. Molly thought he lit up when he saw her, but perhaps that was just her own radiance reflected in his shades.

  “Hey, Jane,” Quinn said.

  Molly tried to decipher if he was surprised to see her.

  “Hey, Quinn,” she said, trying to sound casual. “I’m here, right on time!”

  Quinn nodded vaguely. She knew she sounded ridiculously perky. Quinn stared at Manny.

  “Hi…” Quinn started, a question mark clear in his intonation.

  “Manny,” Manny offered.

  Molly noticed Manny didn’t seem offended by Quinn’s lack of recognition. Maybe just having a job was enough for Manny.

  Maybe it should be enough for me.

  Molly made a vow to herself. No more romanticizing Quinn’s motives. He hired her to do a job and she would do it! She would think of him the way she thought of Bale—a smart and helpful friend. She studied Quinn. She wondered if he was as smart as Bale. But he gave her a job, so he was definitely helpful. That would have to do.

  She turned her attention back to the conversation between Manny and Quinn.

  “I found the weed whacker in the tool shed,” Manny said. “So I thought I’d just get to work mowing the rows of trees until you came out.”

  “Good thinking…” Quinn cocked his head to one side. He seemed to be struggling.

  “Manny,” Manny said again.

  “Good thinking, Manny,” Quinn said in a slightly stronger voice.

  “I was thinking I’d do the rows of smaller trees first,” Manny said. “Then move on to the larger ones.”

  “That sounds good,” Quinn murmured.

  “I can also hand-weed the trees that are set aside for landscaping, if you’d like.”

  “Uh, sure,” Quinn agreed. His head snapped up and he looked at Manny. “Oh, yeah. You. You’re the one with the cousin in the tree business, right?”

  “That’s right,” Manny said proudly.

  He had a cousin in the tree business? Of all the lousy luck.

  Molly found herself being envious of Manny’s well-informed tone. Perhaps she should have written “Knowledgeable” on her hand after all.

  Quinn turned to Molly.

  “Where am I going to get coffee now that Crabby’s is closed?”

  “I guess you could stop in at Cora’s,” Molly said, offering up the only suggestion she could think of, the only other spot in town open for breakfast.

  She reddened when she remembered Quinn was banned from Cora’s, having been caught several years ago making out with Cora’s twenty-year-old daughter in the pantry. This happened long before Molly arrived in Cobb, but it was part of the town’s lore. Word was that Cora was upset because the pantry was where she and Quinn had their own romantic encounters. Molly refused to believe half the stories she’d heard about Quinn. If he were half as busy with the town ladies as the locals made him out to be, he’d never get any work done.

  “Maybe I’ll head over to Beamer’s in Burgoo,” Quinn said, looking up at the sky.

  Manny and Molly looked at each other. Burgoo was another little town on the Kentucky River, but it was about thirty miles away—hardly close enough for coffee.

  “I could make coffee in the office,” Molly said, wondering if he was too shy to ask.

  “Nah,” Quinn said. “I’m really thinking a cup of Beamer’s coffee is just what I need.”

  “Okay,” Molly said hesitantly.

  “Want to come with me?” Quinn asked Molly.

  “Sure,” Molly said breathlessly. She saw a cloud pass over Manny’s face, and added. “We can talk about my new duties.”

  Quinn seemed to pick up on her thoughts and turned to Manny.

  “You can hold down the fort?” Quinn asked.

  “Sure can.” Manny puffed with pride.

  “Want us to bring you anything?” Quinn asked.

  Molly was thrilled at Quinn’s use of the word “us.”

  Quinn gave Manny a manly smack on the shoulder as Molly headed toward the truck.

  “Where you going?” Quinn called to her.

  Molly spun to face him in confusion.

  “We can’t spend all day on the road. Besides, Manny’s coffee would get cold,” Quinn said. “Let’s take the chopper.”

  Molly tried to act casual as she buckled herself into the safety harness and put on the noise-cancelling earphones. Quinn hopped in the pilot’s seat.

  “Got any sunglasses?” he asked.

  Molly dug in her purse and held up a pair of oversized Armanis she’d gotten from her mother for Christmas. Quinn gave her a thumbs-up, a few words of caution about how the helicopter worked, and away they went.

  Molly noticed a corroded hole at her feet. Old Paint really was a mess, but Molly loved watching the ground receding further and further. She looked at Quinn, who seemed totally in control as they sliced through the sky. She looked at the clouds above.

  This was as close to heaven as she had ever imagined.

  Chapter 7

  When the chopper touched lightly down back at the tree farm, she could barely remember her trip to Burgoo. Once they were back on the ground, Quinn handed Manny a cup of still-hot coffee, then waved to Molly and Manny before ducking back into the office. If it weren’t for the steaming cup curled in Manny’s hand, she might have thought it had all been a dream.

  “We didn’t talk about what I should doing,” Molly said to Manny, although he hadn’t asked.

  “Quinn seems to run a pretty loose ship,” Manny said, shrugging. “Seems like he wants a few self-starters.”

  Was this a tip—or criticism? Molly arched an eyebrow and waited for further illumination.

  “Just get on with it,” Manny said as he blew on his coffee and returned to work.

  Molly took in a deep breath. She peeked over at the office, but there was absolutely no movement coming from within.

  She scanned the horizon. Quinn had been chatty in Burgoo, filling her in a little about the farm. Quinn’s farm was three thousand acres—large by Kentucky standards.

  “I came to Cobb almost by accident,” Quinn had told her over breakfast at Beamer’s. “I’d just gotten out of the service…. I’d been a helicopter pilot and I was bumming around, looking for something to do. So I thought I’d come see Uncle Crabby. I figured I might be able to help out at the restaurant.”

  “You worked at Crabby’s?” Molly asked, elated that they might have such an intimate connection.

  “Never got the chance,” Quinn said. “I had just hit town when I won Old Paint in a poker game and—”

  “You won a helicopter in a poker game?” Molly almost choked on her coffee.

  “Yeah,” Quinn said, smiling nostalgically. “It was quite a game. Anyway, so now I needed Uncle Crabby to not only take me in but take my helicopter in too.”

  “Wow. I can’t imagine him doing that.”

  �
�Yeah. He couldn’t imagine it either. Gave me the boot.”

  “Just for having a helicopter? That’s unreasonable even for Crabby.”

  “Well, to be fair, I was supposed to be working my first shift when I organized the little game in the backroom. Put up a ‘Closed’ sign when I thought Uncle Crabby would be gone for the day.”

  “Yikes.”

  “‘Yikes’ is one word for it. Anyway, appealing to my uncle’s higher nature—”

  “Crabby has a higher nature?”

  “Not really, but he’s afraid of his sister—my mom—so he got me a job on the Christmas tree farm. It was November. They would be harvesting the trees—and they needed a helicopter.”

  “Why?”

  “I won Old Paint from their last pilot.”

  Molly decided she’d walk the farm, making a map of areas she saw where new seedlings could be planted. The gentle rolling landscape undulated with pine, spruce, and fir trees of all sizes. She worried that Quinn might already have a map of the farm and know where the seedlings were to be planted. But to know that, she’d have to ask—and if Manny was right, if Quinn wanted a self-starter, he would think less of her. On the other hand, if he already knew where the seedlings were going, and Molly wasted precious hours mapping out an already mapped-out farm… He might think less of her.

  Molly wished she’d asked Bale when he would be coming home. He would have an answer to this conundrum. He seemed to have answers to all conundrums. As Molly traversed the farm, she noticed that the trees were all planted in rows, but there were clearings here and there, where she presumed trees—in all height ranges—had been selected in past holiday seasons and had been harvested.

  Molly’s phone vibrated in her pocket, surprising her. It was so quiet back among the trees that she forgot all about cell service. It was Bale.

  “Hey,” Bale said. “Just checking in. How’s the new job going?”

  “Really fun,” Molly said, trying to contain her giddiness. “I went for a helicopter ride.”