Chapter Thirty-Four Kiersten
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kiersten
Kiersten glanced at Piper and Rosamund as she opened the door and invited Aspen inside. They all looked guilty, like people on Law & Order who claimed they were home watching television alone on the night someone murdered their archnemesis.
“We were just getting organized for our first day of homeschooling,” Kiersten explained.
“Then my timing is perfect!” Aspen lifted her shoulders in a perky shrug. “I just wanted to bring you some muffins for luck, and this too.” She handed Kiersten a canvas bag filled with the same books they’d just been looking at. “To help you get started with your new way of life.”
“Gosh, thank you so much.” She gestured to the books on the dining room table. “But I already ordered them.”
“That’s so cool! You can give the extra copies to your friends.” Aspen gestured to Piper and Rosamund. “Good to see you again.”
“Lovely to see you too,” Rosamund said with a gracious smile.
Aspen clasped Rosamund’s hand in hers. “I’m so glad you’ve decided to live your lives with intention.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Rosamund said firmly as she disentangled her hands from Aspen’s clutching fingers.
“Look, I don’t want to interrupt you,” Aspen said. “I just wanted to drop some things off to help you get started. I recommend starting with The Happy House Life, and then The Happy House Life Workbook and The Happy House Life Schedule. Do the workbook first, to figure out your core values.”
“Our core values,” Piper repeated. “Right.”
Kiersten glanced at her. Piper looked polite, but she could swear she saw the corner of her mouth twitch.
Aspen nodded. “We use our core values to make our Happy House Life serenity schedule. Then we go through The Happy House Life Cookbook to make our weekly meal plan, which I call the Table of Sustenance.”
They gave her a blank look, and she elaborated.
“It’s a play on words. The Table of Sustenance workbook is set up like a grid or like, you know, a sort of mathematical table, but it’s about food, and you eat food at a table,” she finished, looking pleased with herself.
“I came up with that one morning in the shower.”
Rosamund gave her a brilliant smile. “I love a good double entendre.”
Aspen frowned, obviously unfamiliar with the term, then gave a cheerful shrug. “Anyway, we incorporate the Table of Sustenance meal prep into our serenity schedule.”
“Got it.” Kiersten nodded enthusiastically to make up for Piper’s decidedly more muted response.
“I know it sounds like a lot.” Aspen wrinkled her adorable nose. “But if you have any questions, you can always ask me, since I’m, like, right next door.”
“Would you like to join us?” Kiersten asked. “For homeschooling, I mean?”
Piper shot her a look of horror that clearly said this whole Minnesota-nice thing had gone too far.
But it seemed rude, mean even, to start a home school on Beaverbrook Lane and not include all the neighbors .
. . even if this particular neighbor was skinny, blond, and perfect, with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers and talked about things like the Table of Sustenance.
It sounded like something Bilbo Baggins might sell in the housewares section at Target.
Aspen smiled. “You are so sweet. But we create a lot of content while we’re doing school, so I don’t think that would work. But I’d be happy to be your Happy House Life mentor, you know? I do this for a lot of people, and I’m happy to waive my normal $2,500 fee, since you guys are neighbors.”
Rosamund exchanged a glance with Piper. “How very . . . kind,” she said.
Piper emitted a sort of moan-grunt of faux gratitude but only succeeded in sounding like she had peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“That would be great,” Kiersten said, once again attempting to radiate the enthusiasm her neighbors lacked. “We’d like that so much.”
“Great!” Aspen smiled back, white teeth gleaming.
“So tell me.” Piper gestured to the pile of books. “How did you come to develop this . . . Happy House Life thing?”
“My husband’s grandmother is the inspiration,” Aspen said, tossing her luxuriant hair over one shoulder.
“We were going through a rough patch after our second child was born, and Grammy gave us this retro advice from back when she was a young bride. We thought it was, like, genius. So we decided to totally embrace her 1960s trad wife lifestyle. It, like, transformed our marriage and our home.”
“Transformed it how?” Piper asked.
“Read my book first,” Aspen said, “and then we can talk about it.”
“I can’t wait to . . . dive in,” Rosamund said with a polite smile.
“But the book was just the starting point.” Aspen clasped her hands to her chest, glowing like an evangelist. “I also went rummaging around in Grammy and Grampy’s attic, and I found all these recipes written on index cards.
So I started cooking Grammy’s meals while wearing some of her really cool vintage dresses and posting it on TikTok and Insta.
Then I started following her schedule, with laundry on Monday, baking on Tuesday, cleaning on Wednesday and so on. ”
“And you turned that into a book?” Piper asked.
“Once we hit 500,000 subscribers, a publisher reached out and asked us to turn our content into books. We sold, like, a billion copies. Then we did The Happy House Life Cookbook, and that has sold, like, a billion copies too. I’m going to be on the Channel Nine morning show next month doing a segment on Thanksgiving prep if you’d like to watch. ”
Rosamund frowned. “Which one is Channel Nine again?”
“It’s the one with Nikki Lassiter,” Piper said.
“We’ll be sure to tune in,” Rosamund promised.
“It must be great,” Kiersten said wistfully, “to have family nearby.”
“It’s wonderful for the girls,” Aspen said. “We love having Grammy and Grampy and Trey’s dad right next door.”
“Grammy sounds like a remarkable woman,” Piper said politely.
“She’s, like, really modest,” Aspen said. “She doesn’t like to toot her own horn, even though she invented all these amazing recipes. She was way ahead of her time when it came to things like carbs and cholesterol, stuff like that. She’s really, like, scientific.”
“By the way,” Kiersten said, “I found some old diaries in a box in my basement. They belong to a woman named Dottie who lived on Beaverbrook in 1965. I’m trying to figure out who they belong to so I can return them, but I haven’t had much luck. Do you think your Grammy and Grampy could help?”
“I can ask,” Aspen said.
“That would be great. And thank you for all of this.” Kiersten pointed to the books.
“Why don’t we meet next week to discuss your Happy House Life action plan? That’ll give you some time to read my books and get your thoughts down on paper.”
“I would love that,” Kiersten said, and she meant it with every cell in her body.
Here at last was the thing she’d been looking for her entire adult life.
A plan. A schedule. A magical system to end multiple trips to the grocery store each week for forgotten items, a cure for the inexplicable anger that rose each time someone innocently asked what’s for dinner.
A way to ensure they never ran out of toilet paper, trash bags, or laundry detergent again.
And all she had to do was fill in the blanks and complete a workbook, and then a Disney princess, like Rapunzel with more manageable hair, would come to her house and show her how to implement it all.
“Sounds like you’ve launched an empire,” Rosamund said brightly.
Aspen nodded. “We’re actually in talks with HGTV about a show.”
“Seriously?” Piper asked.
“Yeah, it’s just preliminary right now and it’s a secret, so please don’t share on your socials, but it’s looking really promising.”
Kiersten nodded. That was an easy request. The only things she ever shared on social media were first-day-of-school pictures, with the boys standing stiffly on the front steps, clutching new backpacks.
“I’m waiting to hear back from my agent now about their latest offer,” Aspen said.
Kiersten suddenly felt deeply inadequate. “All this, plus you’re raising two little girls and homeschooling and baking muffins for people. It’s impressive.”
“I’m not here to make money,” Aspen said. “I’m here to turn back the clock and return to a simpler time.”
“Amen to that,” Kiersten said quietly.
“Anyway, I need to get going,” Aspen said. “But I have one favor to ask before I go.”
“Name it,” Kiersten said, ignoring the look of alarm Piper shot her from across the room.
“We’d like to have an Autumn Harvest Festival here on Beaverbrook,” Aspen said.
“In early November, with traditional games like pin the tail on the donkey, and burlap sack races and hayrides and a bouncy house. Old-school fun. My husband’s real estate company will cover all the expenses.
And I was wondering if you guys could help organize it. ”
Rosamund frowned. “We’re terribly busy getting the homeschooling up and running.”
“But it would be educational,” Aspen said, blinking her big blue eyes, as though this should be obvious. “Your kids could run a hot-apple-cider stand and learn about entrepreneurship.”
Piper raised an eyebrow. “Like a lemonade stand, but with third-degree burns?”
“Fine.” Aspen sounded a little sulky. “Maybe they could run cornhole and pin the tail on the donkey instead?”
“Actually,” Kiersten said, “I think it’s a great idea.”
This is exactly what she’d missed most about home.
County fairs and parades and small-town festivals like Bergen Days, with a street dance and sidewalk sales and hot dogs sold by the high school booster club.
Some of her happiest childhood memories involved showing her red-and-white Herford 4-H calf at the county fair.
And now her kids could have something similar, albeit without livestock, right here on Beaverbrook Lane.
“And maybe you guys could help some of the older people with decorations?” Aspen said.
“We want to make sure all the front porches look . . . you know . . . festive. And maybe you guys could organize a potluck dinner and also bake some brownies and cupcakes, but with like, a fall motif, like pumpkin spice with cream cheese frosting? And maybe you could also—”
“Excellent ideas,” Rosamund said firmly, cutting off all further demands. “Please share all the details when you have them.”
“Awesome. I’ll send around a Google Doc with a list of responsibilities, okay? And let me know if you’d like to meet next week to go through the workbook.”
“I’ll do that,” Kiersten said. “Thank you so much.”
“Welcome to the Happy House Life revolution,” Aspen said as she moved through the foyer and onto the front porch. “You’ve made a wonderful decision for yourselves and your family. You’ll never go back to the rat race.”
They stood on the porch and waved goodbye to their neighbor as she crossed the cul-de-sac, white skirt fluttering in the breeze like a flag.