Hearts and Headstands

Chapter 1

"There's a bathroom in the back but it only has a curtain as a door. When the general store owner moved out, she took the door with her." Ray, the man in Schitt's Creek who held the record for the most jobs, ushered David back to the main space. "It must have held sentimental value."

"Eww." David kicked a can of green beans with sneakers that probably cost more than the lease.

"Nice of them to leave the curtain ," Wendy said. The woman always had something positive to say. David scowled. He didn't need that kind of toxic positivity in his life.

"Is it?" He turned to face Wendy and tried to cut the sarcasm back a bit. "I don't know if this place will work. A curtain for a bathroom door? Can you imagine?" A full body chill rocked his body as though he stood naked in the Arctic instead of on the verge of sweating through his black leather sweater.

Once ideas for his immersive brand experience had clawed their way into his mind, they hadn't let go. Like when Alexis had jumped on him the other day after seeing a spider crawl under her bed. She was lucky he hadn't jumped in her arms first.

The empty general store sat at the heart of Schitt's Creek. If a town with one stoplight had a heart. Scratch that. Two stoplights after mom threw that fit on town council.

Wendy looked at Ray and smiled. "How much is the lease?"

Ray walked over to Wendy and handed her a piece of paper. The man only had one speed: ready to make a deal.

"David, this is half of what I paid each month for the Blouse Barn. It's a steal." She held out the paper to him.

He looked at Ray and forced a smile. "I'd have to steal the contents of a bank vault to get enough money to get this place to the aesthetic I have envisioned."

David walked toward a long brick wall painted white where he could imagine placing rustic shelves sparsely stacked with premier skincare placed in uniform rows liked soldiers with minimalist labels. Maybe a couple of wicker baskets with precisely folded blankets.

The bones of the place weren't terrible. Already having white walls helped him view the place as a blank canvas. The flooring of wood panels in a rainbow of shades didn't quite match the mood board he'd created, but he could adjust the color palette.

Wendy waved a hand. "I have plenty of store furnishings left from the Blouse Barn. I'd be happy to give them all to you."

David's hands shot up and his voice even higher. "God, no! Those busty mannequins aren't coming anywhere near this place." He eyed her. "I thought I sold all those."

She smiled sheepishly. "I have a storage unit I never told you about."

David leveled a look at her. "You know how I feel about those bumpy beasts.

"Skanky?"

"Yes, skanky. But thank you for the offer," he quickly added. He didn't want to skank-shame a gift horse.

"The scarf stands would fit nicely here and the giant jewelry rack. You're planning to carry handmade jewelry, right?"

"Mm," he said through tight lips. When Wendy offered to finance his idea, she had promised she would be a silent investor. One who was generously replaying his efforts to help her earn a fuckload of money off of her travesty of a business name. However, he began to worry their definitions of silent were very different. Particularly when she had insisted on driving over from Elmdale to see the space. She was silent like Alexis at that silent meditation retreat when she had kept hitting on an instructor.

"We'll take it."

David felt his eyebrows reach for the sky. "Wendy, I don't know if I'm—we're—ready to make that decision. I'm sure there are other spaces to look at." He looked at Ray expectantly.