“I’ve got something called celiac disease,” Lynnie said.
“So…that’s no flour, right?”
“It’s worse than that,” Lynnie said. “Did you hear me? It’s a disease. Not just flour, but soy sauce, beer—all kinds of stuff. How am I supposed to live without bread?”
“There’s gluten-free bread,” Summer said. “I’ve seen it in the freezer at the market.”
“How can you, of all people, think frozen bread is worth eating?” Lynnie whimpered. “It tastes like sawdust.”
Summer wished she’d never mentioned that her grandparents owned a bakery.
“There has to be a decent gluten-free bread out there,” Summer said.
“I think you should experiment with some of those gluten-free flours and see what you can come up with,” Lynnie said.
“Why should I experiment?” Summer asked. “I can eat wheat!”
“Bread is in your blood!” Lynnie said heatedly. “You come from a long line of bakers.”
No matter how many times Summer told her that only her grandparents on her father’s side of the family were bakers, Lynnie insisted on the longline-of-bakers lineage for her.
Lynnie finally wore Summer down. Summer brought an automatic bread maker. Just the thought of her grandmother finding out that she had one terrified her. Still, in time, Summer crafted a sweet-enough, moist-enough, sort-of-flat-but-edible bread. She handed the bread maker and recipe to Lynnie and moved on. Lynnie had taken it from there, and now was turning out gluten-free treats on a weekly basis. Give a lady a loaf a gluten-free bread and she’ll eat for a day. Give her a bread maker…
Summer studied the cookies.
“Which one is better?” Summer asked, realizing how much she was going to miss these treats.
“I think the oatmeal raisin,” Lynnie said. “Try one.”
“Sure,” Summer said, munching on the cookie.
She wasn’t sure if she’d just gotten used to the heaviness in Lynnie’s
gluten-free offerings, but this one wasn’t bad.
She gave Lynnie a thumbs up as she tossed the espadrilles in the GIVEAWAY box. Lynnie looked shocked.
“You’ve going to give away those darling shoes?” Lynnie asked. “If you are, I’ll take them.”
Lynnie had laid claim to just about everything in Summer’s apartment—whether Summer was taking it or not.
“I haven’t decided,” Summer said, putting the shoes on a shelf and leading Lynnie and the cookie to the kitchen.
“I saw a big red truck in your parking space,” Lynnie said. “You seeing somebody new?”
“No,” Summer replied, hating herself for answering but knowing there was no point keeping anything from Lynnie. “It’s mine.”
“Wha…?” Lynnie froze mid-bite.
“I’m going to need it.” Summer shrugged, pleased that she’d caught her neighbor by surprise for once.
“Why’d you buy a big old truck?”
“To tow the house,” Summer replied.
“I was hoping to hear you’d come to your senses,” Lynnie sighed and put her half-eaten cookie down.
“That’s very…supportive of you,” Summer said, hoping to end the conversation. Lynnie’s lack of faith sometimes shook her to the core.
“I just don’t want you to regret anything.” Lynnie said, her “I’m on your side” expression going into overdrive. “I mean, you got a degree in risk management for a reason, right?”
“I guess so,” Summer said, wondering if it really had ever been her goal to get a job in insurance. “But when I was choosing a major in college, risk management sounded a lot more exciting than it was. In the real world, it turns out to be too much management, and too little risk.”
“Making felt purses to sell at craft fairs and dragging a tiny house behind a big truck?” Lynnie asked. “That’s risk without the management, if you ask me.”
I didn’t ask you.
“I’m stuck in a job I don’t want. Living a life I don’t want. I just need to simplify things,” Summer said. “And you’re only young once, right?”
“Can’t argue with that!” Lynnie sighed, looking around the half-packed apartment. “But I don’t know how you’re going to get all this stuff into three hundred square feet.”
“Two hundred twenty square feet,” Summer said patiently. She’d explained all this before.
“Those tiny houses are just a fad, you know,” Lynnie said. “If you want to live like a vagabond, the RV people have already figured everything out.”
“Except how to make it feel like home,” Summer said.
“I’m sure you could make an RV feel like home,” Lynnie said. “You just don’t want to put your mind to it because an RV is not trendy.”
“Why are you defending RVs?”
“Why are you attacking them?”
“Just because I don’t want to live in one doesn’t mean I’m attacking them,” Summer said, wondering why she was even having this conversation. “I just love the whole idea of living the life I choose, without crazy overhead, in a cute house.”
“But two hundred twenty square feet!” Lynnie shuddered.
“It has two lofts.”
“How is Shortie supposed to climb a ladder? Or does he only get to live on one floor?” Lynnie asked, a tinge of outrage in her voice for Summer’s half Dachshund half Chihuahua companion.
“There are stairs to the bedroom loft,” Summer said. “I’ve seen smaller dogs than Shortie climb stairs.”
“Where?”
“On that TV show about tiny houses,” Summer tried not to sound defensive.
“He’ll figure it out.”
At the sound of his name, Shortie waddled into the room. Both women stared at him. He had the huge ears and eyes of a Chihuahua, and the body and two-inch inseam of a Dachshund. He did not look like a dog who was going to navigate a tricky staircase.
Summer looked defiantly at Lynnie, but Lynnie had already lost interest in the dog.
“I guess you won’t be taking those two chairs by the fireplace,” Lynnie said, switching gears.
“I guess I won’t,” Summer said, waiting for what always came next.
“I can take them off your hands if you’d like.” Lynnie said. “I mean, anything that will help you simplify your life.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“I’m going to miss you,” Lynnie said as she got up and dusted crumbs off her jeans. “I mean, you and me have been a regular Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern.”
Summer nodded. If it weren’t for TV Land and Hulu, she wouldn’t understand half of Lynnie’s references. Lynnie saw herself to the door, mercifully leaving the cookies behind. Summer grabbed one, scooped Shortie off the floor and plopped them both down on one of the now-claimed chairs.
“Are we crazy?” Summer asked Shortie, giving him a pinch of an
oatmeal-raisin cookie.
Visits with Lynnie always left Summer questioning her decisions. Was she happy? Was she doing what she really wanted to do in life? Exactly what did she want to do in life?
It was while she was asking herself the hard questions one day while folding laundry that she held up a sweater that she recognized by the pattern was hers, but by the size of it, it belonged to the toddler down the hall. She realized she’d washed and dried her favorite cashmere sweater on hot.
She raced to the computer and looked up how to unshrink a cashmere sweater. Even the internet, with its trove of false promises, gave her no hope. But a DIY video showed her how to turn it into a funky purse. She hauled out her hand-me-down sewing machine and followed the video’s instructions. The purse came out a little lumpy, but she had to admit, it was pretty cute. Everyone at work wanted one. A tiny seed was planted that this might be something to explore.
It wasn’t until
she was at a viewing party for a colleague who had participated in a home renovation TV show that her new life plan materialized. Previews for the program Traveling in a Tiny House had everyone discussing the pros and cons of living this new vagabond existence. That night, Summer went home and started following several tiny travelers on Instagram. Within a week, she’d flown to Cobb, Kentucky, where the Internet said she’d find the perfect home. She met with Bale Barrett, who used to sell real estate and was now making small homes on wheels at Bale’s Tiny Dreams. Bale was a startlingly large man to be selling tiny houses. His shoulders took up the entire width of the front door—a fact Summer pretended not to notice. She also pretended not to notice his green eyes, long legs, sun-flecked hair, or his calloused workman’s hands. She was a sucker for a man whose hands felt like they knew how to earn a living. She sure wasn’t going to meet anyone like that in the lunchroom at work. But there was more to Bale than his looks. He was a man following his dream! Inspired, she picked out a tiny house shaped like a caboose—if she was going to make a statement, she was going to make a statement. Summer wrote Bale a check and promised she’d be back to pick up her house on wheels in a month. She was ready to put her plan into action.
“If you change your mind,” Bale said, covering her hand with both of his. “You call me. This is a big decision and I want you to be happy.”
As she sat in the airport for her flight home, giddy with possibilities, she worried the Bale-ness of the situation might have gone to her head. She took a deep breath and fired up her computer. Typing in “Buyer’s Remorse” with her manicured nails, she read article after article. According to the Internet, she had two choices: continuing with the purchase or renouncing the purchase. She looked at the situation as an impartial observer: assessing the risks, the rewards, and the financial burden. All her professional instinct said to cancel the check. But she remembered the sandpapery texture of Bale’s big hands and flew back to Hartford to detonate her life.
Back in the kitchen, Shortie gave her a slobbery kiss, which startled her out of her reverie. Summer first saw Shortie on Facebook—a friend of a friend of a friend needed to find him a forever home. She drove the sixty miles to Danbury to take a look at him. It was love at first sight for both.
Summer’s cellphone vibrated on the counter. She looked at the screen: It was her Grandmother Murray, known to everyone, family and townspeople alike, as Queenie. Summer had been avoiding her grandmother’s call for almost a week. Summer had sent Queenie an email, letting her know that she was quitting her job and exploring other options. What she left out were the truck, the tiny house, and the idea of earning a living selling purses made from old felted sweaters. Shortie looked at her as if to say: “You can’t put it off any longer.” Summer took a deep breath and answered the phone.
“Hi, Queenie,” Summer said, bracing for the worst.
“Clarisse, you need to come home,” Queenie said.
Summer winced. Only her grandmother still called her by her given name.
Even at seventy, Queenie had a stately authoritative voice. Anyone else who said, “You need to come home” might sound petulant, like a five-year-old refusing to share. But from Queenie, it sounded like a command.
“I’m sort of busy right now….” Summer started.
“You’ve been busy since you left for college,” Queenie said. “It’s been ten years. I’m beginning to take it personally.”
“You’ve seen me…around,” Summer said lamely.
She knew her grandmother didn’t mean family holidays with her parents. It was obvious to the entire family that Summer had avoided the town of Cat’s Paw her entire adult life.
“Anyway, I need to see you,” Queenie said. “So whatever bee is in your bonnet, let him loose. The bakery is falling apart. Get yourself and your fancy college degree up here and straighten things out.”
Her grandmother rang off abruptly. Summer stared at the phone.
Simplifying her life just got very complicated.
Meet the Author
Credit © Ron Slanina Photography
Celia Bonaduce, also the author of The Venice Beach Romances and the Welcome to Fat Chance, Texas series, has always had a love affair with houses. Her credits as a television field producer include such house-heavy hits as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition; HGTV’s House Hunters and Tiny House Hunters. She lives in Santa Monica, CA, with her husband and dreams of one day traveling with him in their own tiny house. You can contact Celia at www.Celiabonaduce.com.
Website: www.celiabonaduce.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Celia-Bonaduce/352890508156101
Twitter: @celiabonaduce
Instagram: Yocelia
Media: www.celiab.name
From ghost town to growing community, it’s been a few years since a group of strangers inherited property in tiny, deserted Fat Chance, Texas. And besides creating businesses, they’ve developed friendships and romances too. But plans to pave the town may put Dymphna Pearl and her beau, Professor Johnson, on opposite sides of Main Street. In his zeal for the project, he’s making great decisions for Fat Chance, but not for them as a couple. Disgruntled, Dymphna heads back to Los Angeles to collect the rabbits she’s created a special place for in the hot Texas climate. But the professor is in for another surprise…
Professor Johnson didn’t even know about Dympha’s sister, Maggie, and when he meets her in a most unexpected way, he begins to understand why. In the meantime, Dymphna is off pursuing an exciting venture to let the world know about Fat Chance—one that will bring a talented new crew to the eclectic group. The kitschy little place they call home is clearly destined for bigger, better things—but with so many changes a-coming will the same be true for everyone in Fat Chance, including the professor and Dymphna?
It’s been a year since an eccentric billionaire summoned seven strangers to the dilapidated, postage stamp-sized town of Fat Chance, Texas. To win a cash bequest, each was required to spend six months in the ghost town to see if they could transform it—and themselves—into something extraordinary. But by the time pastry chef Fernando Cruz arrives, several members of the original gang have already skedaddled…
Fernando’s hopes of starting a new life in Fat Chance are dashed when the town’s handful of ragtag residents—and a mysterious low-flying plane—show him just how weird the place actually is. His hopes of making over the town’s sole café into a BBQ restaurant for nearby ranchers threaten to turn to dust as a string of bizarre secrets are revealed. But just when the pickins’ couldn’t get any slimmer, the citizens of Fat Chance realize they might be able to build exactly the kind of hometown they all need—but never knew they wanted…
For champion professional knitter Dymphna Pearl, inheriting part of a sun-blasted ghost town in the Texas hill country isn’t just unexpected, it’s a little daunting. To earn a cash bequest that could change her life, she’ll have to leave California to live in tiny, run-down Fat Chance for six months—with seven strangers. Impossible! Or is it?
Trading her sandals for cowboy boots, Dymphna dives into her new life with equal parts anxiety and excitement. After all, she’s never felt quite at home in Santa Monica anyway. Maybe Fat Chance will be her second chance. But making it habitable is going take more than a lasso and Wild West spirit. With an opinionated buzzard overlooking the proceedings and mismatched strangers learning to become friends, Dymphna wonders if unlocking the secrets of her own heart is the way to strike real gold…
The Rollicking Bun—Home of the Epic Scone—is the center of Suzanna Wolf’s life. Part tea shop, part bookstore, part home, it’s everything she’s ever wanted right on the Venice Beach boardwalk, including partnership with her two best friends from high school, Eric and Fernando. But with thirty-three just around the corner, suddenly Suzanna wants something more—something strictly her own. Salsa lessons, especially with a gorgeous instructor, seem like a good
start—a harmless secret, and just maybe the start of a fling. But before she knows it, Suzanna is learning steps she never imagined—and dancing her way into confusion.
Erinn Wolf needs to reinvent herself. A once celebrated playwright turned photographer, she’s almost broke, a little lonely, and tired of her sister’s constant worry. When a job on a reality TV show falls into her lap, she’s thrilled to be making a paycheck—and when a hot Italian actor named Massimo rents her guesthouse, she’s certain her life is getting a romantic subplot. But with the director, brash, gorgeous young Jude, dogging her every step, she can’t help but look at herself through his lens—and wonder if she’s been reading the wrong script all along...
Look out, Venice Beach—the Wolf women are all together again. But when 70-year-old Virginia arrives with her teacup Chihuahua and unshakeable confidence, she senses trouble. Erinn is keeping secrets—like being broke and out of work—and Suzanna is paying too much attention to the wrong man—a Latino dance instructor who nearly broke her heart once before. Virginia’s ready for the third act of her life, and she intends to make it rousing and romantic. Now she just has to convince her daughters to throw out their old scripts. If life has taught Virginia anything, it’s this: there’s more than one way to a “happily ever after”...
Tiny House on the Road Page 23
