Page 14 of Story of My Life
I flipped the folder open and found copies of news stories and notebook pages. It was my ideas folder that I’d forgotten existed.
Once upon a time, I’d enjoyed brainstorming story ideas with Zoey over wine served in actual glasses.
Once upon a time, I’d laughed and showered regularly. Well, okay, maybe not quite regularly on the shower front. Authors maintained a certain slovenly lifestyle that was conducive to focusing all mental energy on fictional, better-smelling people.
I paged through the first few papers. There were old news stories about organ donors, adoptions, and babies with cochlear implants hearing their parents’ voices for the first time. I found handwritten notes with such gems asheroine hiccups every time she liesandfurniture designer builds bed on which to bang heroine.
I drummed my fingers and waited, but there was nothing. Not the slightest creative flicker in my brain. Not even a whiff ofWhat if?
“Annoying,” I announced to the empty apartment.
I dug deeper and pulled out an old news article from a Pennsylvania newspaper.
Small Town Bands Together to Save Home of Elderly Resident
In the quiet, outdoorsy town of Story Lake, Pennsylvania, beats the heart of true community. When resident Dorothea Wilkes found a sewage leak in the basement of her historichome of forty years, she knew she didn’t have the funds to make the required repairs.
Since losing her wife five years ago, Wilkes, 93, a retired engineer, says times have been tough. The upkeep of Heart House, a grand Second Empire home built in the 1860s, was getting progressively more expensive. When she hired a local contractor to take a look at the damage and give her a quote, she warned them her budget was limited.
But Bishop Brothers Construction wasn’t worried about budget. The brothers took one look at Wilkes’s property and decided they would do all the work…at no charge.
“It’s what we do here. End of story,” Campbell Bishop said succinctly in a phone interview before leaving his brothers to answer the rest of the questions.
There was a grainy shot of a grinning Dorothea Wilkes standing proudly on the front porch of her stately home. The Bishops stood below her in the yard. According to the caption, Campbell Bishop was the muscular, possibly gorgeous man who scowled when everyone else was smiling.
I sat up straighter.
Some grumpy, do-gooding small-town hero who got pissed off anytime someone dared thank him for his help.Thiswas classic Hazel Hart. This was pre-Jim Hazel Hart.
Awesome. Now I just needed a heroine, a reason why the two of them couldn’t be together, and an entire story tying it all together. Oh, and one of those happily ever afters I no longer believed in. And to write it all in less than five days.
“Piece of cake.” Hmm, cake. I wondered if the late-night bakery over on 28th Street would have any pineapple upside-down minis.
“Stop thinking about cake and start thinking about housing options,” I ordered myself and returned to the article.
“My neighbors saved my home,” Wilkes declared.
A scene popped into my head. A me-like heroine, strolling down some tooth-achingly sweet main street, waving to people who greeted me by name. Fresh air. Town carnivals. Closet space. People walking their own dogs and going for ice cream after the high school football game.
There was scowly Campbell Bishop, doing something manly that involved sawdust and a tool belt to a big house while I watched from the doorway. He turned and used the hem of his T-shirt to mop his forehead, flashing me a front-row view of manly abs.
Big-city girl starts fresh in a small town. Ends up finding inspirationandherself.
My eyes popped open like I’d mainlined two gallons of Wild Cherry Pepsi.
My fingers warmed and flexed like they wanted to type something. Words!
The tool belt rode low over ancient denim as he pulled a hammer free. His scarred work boots sounded solid, determined, on the hardwood planks as he closed the distance. She wasn’t prepared for the proximity of such blatant displays of testosterone.
I dove for my laptop, sending more paperwork showering to the floor. That was one thing about me that had always infuriated Jim. When there were scenes in my head, nothing else mattered.
I forgot all about being almost homeless, jobless, and agentless as words—halle-freaking-lujah words—spilled nonsensically onto the screen in a crude outline of notes and questions.
What’s halfway between dad bod and God bod?
Is there a danger of splinters if they have sex in a construction zone?
Are splinters in erogenous zones funny?
