Writers study people. We see people and automatically begin crafting a story. Everyone has one you know – a story. It goes deeper than the snapshot we see when we encounter someone for the first (and often only) time. How many times have you stood behind someone in a checkout line at Walmart and made judgments based on what they unloaded from their shopping cart, or the clothes they wore, or the tone they used with the cashier? We all do it, but we writers tend to think we are experts at it.
Day 1
My family and I arrived in Santa Rosa, Florida on a hot July afternoon, tired from our seven-hour drive. The neighborhood was nice. Every house in the cul-de-sac looked new, except one. The house directly across the street from us was old and dilapidated and the tiny yard stood in desperate need of a hungry goat. My first impression was that the property had been abandoned, then I noticed a car in the driveway. The car had a sticker on the back but I couldn’t make it out. You can tell a lot about a person by the stickers they are willing to slap on their cars. You have to be committed to something to proclaim it with a sticker that can never be completely removed.
We went inside and unpacked. The house was terrific and the air conditioner worked well. I soon noticed that sitting at our kitchen table, looking out the window, I could see two new houses with for sale signs out front. The houses had never been lived in. Everything was new and pristine. Leftward, just beyond the privacy fence, sat the car with the bumper sticker I couldn’t read. Left of that was the house with the bedsheet curtains. On the third floor, high above the street, I noticed a window with no covering. It was open. Potted flowers and running vines were visible. Then I saw her – the woman. Someone definitely lived there. She occupied the window only for a moment, then she disappeared again, almost like a ghost.
I joked to my wife that the place might be haunted. My mind began crafting a story. She lived alone, obviously, and she had a cat. Women who live alone always have a cat.
Day 2
I’m almost always the first one up. Mornings are my quiet time. I sit and drink coffee and write. Vacations are no different. Vacations are for relaxing, and writing relaxes me. Sipping coffee and working on my manuscript helps prepare me for the busy day ahead, even if the business of the day is making memories with my loved ones. Writing is the safety valve on my imagination, like the valve on a pressure cooker. It helps keep me sane in an insane world. The word sane, when applied to writers, is best taken with a grain of salt, but that’s a blog post for another day. Let’s not get sidetracked chasing rabbits.
Across the street, the front door opened and the house spat out a woman. An unleashed dog trotted out behind her and they – canine and human — took turns following each other down the street then back. The woman paused to chat with a neighbor, meaning she was sociable, or that she was simply distracting the man while her dog peed on his palm tree. I guessed her age to be post-retirement. From what job I couldn’t know, but for the sake of crafting a story, I determined she had once taught school. One assumes a certain degree of creative license in my business.
Woman and dog left the neighbor and went back inside the old house. My theory about the cat was debunked.
Day 3
Again I started my day sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee and writing. Just like yesterday, the woman and her dog came out for a quick walk down the street. She definitely lived alone, and she probably had no children (adult, of course) living nearby or her yard wouldn’t be so overgrown. Her story was coming together. Pure speculation, mind you, but instead of being childless, she had lost a child (sadness adds depth to any story). If she had lost a child, then she had also lost her husband. She was definitely a lonely, sad woman who lived alone in a neighborhood where her house stood out for all the wrong reasons.
She was certainly not a ghost, though in the back of my mind I suspected the house had an Ouija board for emergency purposes.
Day 4
The sad widow who had lost her only child came out again to let her dog trot the street, then she went back inside to tend her flowers in the upstairs window. The dog and her flowers probably gave her the only joy she had in her solitary life. I felt immensely sorry for her. In the back of my mind, I began doing the legwork for a novel about a lonely widow who is struggling to save her house from being condemned by the greedy homeowners association she predated. They had probably tried to buy her out but of course she refused because the house held all her memories. There was a case to be made for condemning the property. People on vacation don’t want to look out their window and see a house falling down around itself. Every story has two sides.
Day 5
We exhausted the morning packing because it was our last day and we had to be out by 10 AM. The woman came out and followed the dog down the street then went back inside. Every hour of her day – of her life – probably adhered to the same lonely routine. Her story definitely had a place in some future novel. If not the main character then certainly in some supporting role. Being male, I’ve never attempted to write a book with a female lead. I don’t feel qualified, and I’m sure it violates some rule.
Something unexpected happened. A shabby pickup truck turned onto the street and parked in front of the old house. A man got out. He appeared to be her age or older, and he walked with a stooped back. The door opened and both woman and dog came out to welcome him. He was home. That was suddenly obvious to me. Within the span of two minutes the story I had spent the week building crashed to the ground. The pages of the novel with her as the lead or at least the supporting role caught wind and blew away. I tried to construct a second draft with the man coming home from work, but it was too late. Our vacation was over and the car was packed. My wife and kids were loaded and the car was running and a puddle had formed underneath near the right front tire where the air conditioner had wrung water from the cabin.
As our car left the cul-de-sac and turned onto the street that would eventually take us home, her story began to break apart the way a dream does when you first awaken. The farther I got from the old house, the more her story evaporated, until it was no longer her story but their story. His and hers. A man and a woman living in an old house a stone’s throw from one of Florida’s prettiest beaches. Prime real estate by any standard, and they didn’t have a cat.