Silverbrook

Luce stopped in later than usual. She looked worried, but she wouldn’t talk about it at the shop.
“Your dog’s sleeping in back,” I pointed my head toward the kitchen as I poured coffee. I didn’t want to have her thinking that I’d let one of her charges hang out on the street all night. It might only be late October, but the nights felt like November to me.
She slid around the counter and poked her nose in the kitchen, “Dolf! Such a good boy. You haven’t been making any trouble, have you?”

My home consists of four rooms above the coffee shop: kitchen, bedroom, bath and sitting room. The upstairs kitchen has a sink and clothes washer for appliances. It is where I store extra inventory and its table is my business office. The real kitchen is downstairs. From there I bake my muffins for the day and sometimes make sandwiches. I’ve gotten pretty good at muffins and am slowing expanding into sweet breads, but I’m no baker. Baking isn’t an elective in business school.

Later that afternoon, I shared the results of Officer Vinny’s investigation with Luce.
“Ernie’s right,” she said, checking the expiration dates on packages. “There’s something going on up there.”
“You went up again?” To my recollection, Luce had never been daring enough to brave the terrors of the old high school back in the day. She had been a good student and not that adventurous. Kind of opposite of how I spent my youth.
“I got a little closer. It’s definitely music and it’s coming from the gym.”

Choices, but none that I am in love with. I came upon this conundrum in the ordinary way: over commitment, under achievement. The usual stuff. On the corporate ladder looking at the glass ceiling one day, selling everything to open a coffee shop in a forgettable place the next.

Silverbrook is the working title of my 2015 NaNoWriMo project. What you see here is subject to change as I work my way through the draft. And yes, it is very, very, drafty!Also note, that my chapter boundaries occur without rhyme or reason.