The biggest downside to having a large delivery scheduled somewhere as remote as Bluebell and Konohana, I discovered, was the lack of phone service. The only places that had phones at all were the two town halls and the clinic. And even then, the phone lines were often down due to storms or fallen trees. So when the day for my furniture delivery arrived, I had no way of knowing when they'd be there. They had the number for the Bluebell town hall in case they got lost along the way, but I had to sit around and wait all day for them to show up.
Finally, late in the afternoon, a large truck came rumbling down my long, winding driveway. It pulled up to my house, and two men stepped out. The driver, a muscular middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, walked up to the porch, exclaiming with a low whistle, "Whew, lady! They weren't joshin' when they said you live in the boonies! How do you do it, driving on those goddess-awful roads?"
I laughed as I took the paperwork he handed to me. "Well, I don't. There's a couple of people around here who have trucks, but mostly we get around either on foot or horseback. And honestly, we just don't leave the mountain very often. Some folks have never left it. We're pretty self-sufficient here."
He just shook his head as I signed on the lines he pointed out. "Well, ma'am, I don't envy you. But I guess it takes all sorts, don't it? Now where do you want all this? Service includes delivery into the house and any assembly that's required."
"Why don't you go ahead and start unloading, and I'll show you where the pieces go as you bring them in?"
It took a while, as several items needed some assembly, but they had nearly finished putting everything together by the time Cam arrived. He stepped gingerly around where they were working, putting the shelves in the bookcase, and admired the new furnishings.
"Gotta hand it to ya," commented the second delivery guy, a slim young man of perhaps twenty years or so, as he looked up with a grin. "Your missus has good taste. Knows exactly what she wants, too."
"My...." he said, looking bewildered for a moment. "Oh! No, we're not... I mean, we're separated."
"Oh, yeah?" said the boy, looking me up and down with keen interest, in spite of my swelling belly. "Hey, you doing anything tonight? I'm off work as soon as we're done here. I know some real fun places we could go."
Cam looked furious but held his tongue. I choked slightly, trying not to laugh out loud. "No, sorry. I'm not available."
He looked confused. "But I thought he said you was..."
"Not. Available. Period." I said with a frown.
"Geez, okay, lady," he said, scowling as he turned back to his work.
"Back off, Romeo," his coworker said with amusement. "The lady's not interested. And you shouldn't be hitting on clients—remember the last time you did that? You know what the boss told you then."
The young man grimaced. "Yeah, yeah.... Hey, sorry lady. I... I was just kidding, ya know."
I shrugged. "Sure, whatever."
After they left, Cam helped me rearrange things until I was satisfied with their placement. I made up the bed with the linens I'd purchased—crisp, white cotton sheets and a white matelassé bedspread. Pretty, and not pink. Eileen had repainted the walls in that room a pretty blush, just the color of wild roses, with dark brown trim that nearly matched the dark-stained wood of the floors. The ceiling was painted a pale French blue, and the furniture was oak with a light golden-brown stain. Overall, with the addition of some pink accents and a few botanical prints on the walls, it looked feminine but not excessively girly.
