Chapter 2: Chapter 2
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Around eleven, Bill went out to the foyer to see how his mother was doing. Not that he had any doubts about her handling the front desk. She’d done it for years when she and his father were running the B&B.
“Mr. and Mrs. Greene, I hope you enjoyed your stay,” he said to an older couple who were checking out.
“Of course we did. We always do,” Mrs. Greene replied, patting his arm. “We’ve already reserved the Molly Brown suite for our anniversary.” She sighed. “I hope it holds off snowing until afterward.”
“You and me, both,” Bill said with a smile. They were semi-regular guests, so he knew their anniversary was in early November, when there was a definite chance it would snow, but not heavily. The heavy snow usually didn’t start until around Thanksgiving. From then until well into March, Middleton would have more than its fair share of storms, although, thankfully, the state kept the highway plowed—a must because there was a large ski resort approximately twenty miles east of town. But real snow was still over a month away since it was only late September.
“Here, let me,” Bill said when Mr. Greene started to pick up their luggage. There were only two bags, but they were old-fashioned ones, without wheels. Bill followed the Greenes out to their car, then put the bags in the trunk. “We’ll be looking forward to seeing you in a November,” he said. “Drive carefully.”
Mr. Greene chuckled. “As if I have a choice, with her playing co-pilot.”
Bill watched as they drove away, turning left onto the bridge over the river which would take them to the highway.
He was about to head back inside when Mattie drove into the lot, so he waited for her. “How did it go at the doctor’s?” he asked.
Positively beaming, she replied, “It’s going to be a boy. Mike will be ecstatic.”
“Fantastic.”
Mike was her husband. He owned the Roman Candle, one of the gift shops in town. It, Polly’s, and China Berry Floral, which also has gifts, were on Main Street. Middleton Collective, a co-op made up of artists and makers of hand-crafted furniture, was next door to the Roman Candle. The Studio 25 Shops took up two buildings in the north-west corner of town, behind the school.
“Now I have to survive the next six months,” she grumbled, although from the look on her face, she didn’t have any problem with the idea at all.
As soon as they were in the foyer, Mattie hurried over to tell Carol the good news, and take over the front desk. Bill headed upstairs to make certain that Shelly and Teresa, the two young women who were the B&B’s maids, were doing their jobs. Not that he had any doubts, but it was part of his daily routine.
Teresa came out of the Zebulon Pike room, carrying an armful of dirty sheets. “You might want to get Pete to take a look at the sink in the bathroom,” she said. “It’s leaking.”
“Again?” Bill grumbled. “Time to replace it, I guess.” Thankfully, one of the shops in Studio 25 carried the kind of replica pedestal sinks from the nineteen-forties that were in all the B&B’s bathrooms. Since he ran a local business, he got them, and any other bathroom fixtures he needed, at only ten-percent above cost.
He went in search of Pete, finding him in the workshop off the laundry room. He told him what they needed, remembering just in time to tell him to stop by the office to pick up Norene’s shopping list.
By then, it was well after noon, so he headed home to fix lunch and take Warwick, his German shepherd, for a walk. When he strolled through the back gate into the yard, the dog greeted him as if Bill had been gone for years, not a few hours.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re starving.” Bill patted War’s head then opened the back door to let them into the house. War made a dash for his bowl, scarfing down the dry food as soon as Bill filled it. Then, the dog watched hopefully as Bill made a couple of sandwiches. “Not happening, dog,” Bill told him, holding the plate out of reach as he returned to the yard with it and a glass of milk. He settled on the patio to eat, savoring the warmth of the sun and the colors of the trees on the hills. The leaves were beginning to turn brilliant yellows and reds.
“Pretty soon we’ll be ass-deep in snow,” Frank, Bill’s next-door neighbor said, leaning his arms on their shared fence.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone