Trading Bright Lights For Lightning Bugs: Small Town Girl, #1

By Jann Franklin

Sometimes life throws you curveballs.

 

Jen Guidry thrives in the big city, but her husband Mike finds the bright lights blinding. He moves their family back to the tiny town in Louisiana where he grew up, a place that doesn't even have a coffee shop! How will Jen cope with being a fish out of water?

 

That doesn't mean you lose hope.

 

God puts us all where we're needed, and it isn't long before Jen is living a life she never knew she wanted. Can she give up the bright lights of the big city and truly appreciate her yard full of lightning bugs? Join Jen and her family in the first book of this delightful small-town series, as she finds new friends and new adventures (and misadventures) while navigating small-town life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rougarou Press LLC
• Release date: Nov 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215771464

Jann Franklin

Jann Franklin lives in the small town of Grand Cane, Louisiana.  Over three hundred other people also live in Grand Cane, and many of Jann’s chapters came from her weekly visits at the downtown coffee shop.   She would like it on the record that Grand Cane’s current mayor and aldermen are nothing like the characters in her book.  They are definitely larger than life, but in a good way. She and her husband John enjoy Sundays at Grand Cane Baptist Church, dinner with family and friends, and watching the lightning bugs in their backyard.  Their kids come to visit, when they aren’t too busy living their big-city lives. She graduated from high school in Russellville, another small town in Arkansas.  She obtained her accounting degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas and moved to Dallas in 1989.  She still dabbles in accounting but has taken up writing to satisfy her creative side. Like Jen Guidry, she never appreciated her small-town upbringing until she was encouraged to move back to one.  Now she cannot imagine living any other way. If you ever make it to Grand Cane, stop by 4C Coffee Shop and say “hi.”  Rhonda Cox and her employees make amazing coffee, and they will save a seat and a smile for you.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1-City Girl Interrupted

Do you remember the eighties song that goes something like, I was born in a small town, and I live in a small town... I'll probably die in a small town. Nope, that would not be me. I may have been born and raised in a small town with a population of just twenty thousand people, but that was as close to that song as I was going to get.

As a kid, we used to joke that the population on the sign outside of town definitely included all domestic pets and livestock. My friends and I spent Friday nights driving the drag, the loop around downtown, with all the other local teenagers. We laughed because the teens from even smaller towns would travel to our big city, so they could drive on our drag. Their towns were too small to even have a drag to drive.

I left town as soon as I graduated high school, drawn to the bright lights of the big city. I chose a university in a city of over two hundred thousand, not including the school. I learned how to navigate one-way streets, a roundabout, and even multilevel highway access. I shopped at an actual two-story mall and had my choice of several grocery stores. I embraced this bigger city and all that it offered me.

After four years, I graduated and slid into an entry-level copywriting job in Dallas, Texas. I only thought I had lived in a big city!

All sorts of entertainment beckoned me, just minutes from my doorstep. I was definitely a city girl, and my desire to be in the thick of things had been met tenfold. I lived in the tiniest of apartments, so I could be fifteen minutes from my job downtown but also near any destination I desired. I was living my best life, so I thought.

One evening, I met my friends after work in a local bar, and my girlfriend brought along the new guy from her office, Mike Guidry. We talked for hours and found we had a lot in common. Mike was raised in a tiny town outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We had both migrated to universities in big cities and taken jobs in Dallas with dreams of making it big. We both had small-town values but big-city hearts. We were meant for each other.

We got married six months later in my hometown with the mayor attending. He had gone to school with my grandfather, and there was a story about a skunk in the principal's office. No one ever really knew the whole story, but it made my family small town royalty.

Mike and I honeymooned in the Caribbean and quickly settled back into big city life, only now I was Mrs. Jen Guidry. We saved and bought a house and planned our big city life together. We both agreed small towns were for visiting family, not for living. How can you live with a decent cup of coffee more than ten minutes away?

A few years later, we had Henry, and I was thankful he would have all the blessings of the big city, which included lots of choices and opportunities. My son wouldn't have to settle for what was on the hangers at the local retail stores because we couldn't drive an hour for more choices. He could always do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, as long as it was legal and ethical, of course.

My husband didn't seem to share my enthusiasm, however. I'd exclaim opportunity, and Mike would bemoan the traffic. I would rejoice in my five choices of Chinese food, and he would gripe about the prices. I chalked it up to my husband being tired or stressed with work. I should have known better.

When James came along two years later, Mike's unhappiness grew. I was working from home to be more flexible for my family. Mike had just finished a project at his office and had a two-week hiatus until the next one started. I still tried to classify his unhappiness as work stress or possibly a midlife crisis. I started to worry that he was going to trade me in for a younger model. I was hoping for the best-case scenario and that he'd just come home with a Corvette or a motorcycle. I was never so wrong.

Henry was about to start kindergarten in the fall, and I had begun the application process. I'd made a list of schools to visit, again celebrating all the opportunities ranging from progressive to charter to magnet to public to parochial. My kid had the world at his feet, and I had the list to prove it. I just needed to sit down with Mike and discuss how to narrow the playing field.

After dinner and the kids were down for the night (hopefully), I started to broach the subject with Mike. He had been awfully quiet, which I took as a sign that he was eager to go over my kindergarten pros and cons list.

Just after we sat on the couch, but before I pulled out my list, Mike said, Jen, I've really got to talk to you. There's something on my mind I need to say, but I don't think you're going to like it.

My heart stopped for a beat but thankfully began again. This was it, I reasoned. I was being traded in for a younger, flatter model.

Jen, Mike continued hesitantly, I'm so unhappy. I hate my job, and I hate living in this house with its tiny yard. I feel like I can't breathe. I remember what it was like when I was younger, and I want to go back to those times.

My heart slowed down as I puzzled over his words. When he was younger? Did he mean when he was single? I felt like someone had put a foot on top of my chest and was standing on me, so I couldn't breathe.

Babe, Mike whispered, there's this store in my hometown. It's called Big Ed's Parts 'n' More, and it's for sale. I want us to buy Big Ed's and move to my hometown, so I can run it. He breathed a huge sigh of relief, and so did I.

I was not being traded in for a newer model, and I wasn't going to have a Corvette or a motorcycle in my driveway.

Then the reality of what my husband had said hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I relished the reality that, within ten minutes, I could be purchasing a movie ticket at any of seven different movie theaters or ordering from twenty different restaurants. My big city days were going to end. I was definitely a city girl, and I wanted my boys to be big city people too.

I started to protest, but as I looked at Mike's face, I saw pure joy. I saw my city guy for what he really was, a small-town man dressed in khakis and a golf shirt. I loved this man with my very soul, and I could not continue to watch him die a little every day. As much as I loved the bright lights, I was going to have to give them up. For the love of my life, I was going to have to trade them in for lightning bugs.

Thus began our move to Graisseville (pronounced Graceville), a village in Louisiana with a population of less than five hundred. The men in my life were enthralled with the upcoming reality that they would be surrounded by trees and open spaces. Their dad remembered when he got to just run. He wanted his boys to have the same childhood that he had, the opportunity to just run. I got that, I truly did. As a mom of boys five and three, I saw the benefits of sending my boys outside to just run. Yet I was wondering how far I would have to go to get a good cup of coffee.

CHAPTER 2-You Want Me to Live Where?

In typical small-town efficiency, Mike's cousin was the realtor listing the Big Ed's Parts 'n' More property, and his buddy from high school was the escrow officer. These small-town connections made us the proud owners of Big Ed's in record time. We scrambled to get our

house on the market and decided to take a long weekend to search for our new home in Graisseville.

I've lived in a big city for my adult life, but maybe going back to small-town living won't be so bad. The boys will have room to run, and hopefully living in a small town will make our expenses less too. I was trying to be optimistic, maybe even excited.

After three weeks, it was pretty clear that Graisseville had fewer options than we had realized. There were several nice homes for sale, but they were in the historic district. We just didn't think our rowdy boys would do well in a home with small bedrooms and turn-of-the century crown molding.

We started looking outside of Graisseville, places with more land and newer houses. As it began to set in that I was going to be living in a small town, my uneasiness grew. Where was the closest decent cup of coffee? How far would I have to drive to find a women's clothing store? Would the kids have any friends not named Joe-Bob or Bubba?

Mike called me one evening from Graisseville to talk houses. He had been running Big Ed's as soon as we closed on the property because farmers and ranchers don't take time off. He was staying on his parents' couch, and his dad was driving him crazy with all sorts of helpful new business owner advice. He was beyond eager to find our new home.

He exclaimed, I've found three houses to look at just outside of town, and I'm going to send you some pictures.

I ran to the computer and waited impatiently for his email. While waiting, I decided to Google Graisseville, and the first thing that popped up was the Arts and Music Festival in nearby Zachary. The next Google result was the actual population of 298.

Good grief! That's one percent of my small hometown. My brain started reeling, and I began to hyperventilate. I don't know if I can do this. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Maybe my husband could continue to commute. It was only four hours away.

But I knew that wasn't ideal because we all needed to be together as a family. I was going to have to make this situation work. The computer pinged to let me know I'd received my husband's email. This was getting real.

Of the three houses my husband sent, one property was only land, so we would have to build a home. The second house was next door to the parish dump. The third property was literally a horse barn.

When I protested the barn, my husband replied, Jesus was born in a stable, which is basically a barn. Are you better than Jesus?

I glared at him, and even though he was on the phone and couldn't see me, he could definitely feel it.

Fine, we don't have to look at it, he said reluctantly.

No, I conceded. We can't narrow a field that's already too small to begin with.

I was starting to think our standards were too high, unreasonable even. We wanted three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an extra bedroom for guests, and a large backyard with hopefully some acreage. We also wanted either a storage shed or third garage for assorted bikes, tools, lawn mower, etc. Our wish list seemed impossible.

We toured all three properties and eliminated the house by the dump without getting out of the car. This quick decision left us with either building or remodeling. A relatively sane person would have chosen to build from the ground up, but I think I've established we aren't reasonable people. The barn property had a tiny one-room home that we could live in while renovating the barn. The property came with five acres and a shed to store our belongings. The barn had recently been built, so it was in great shape and could easily be changed. It was outside of Graisseville Village limits but only ten minutes from Big Ed's. It was the best option we had found, and the boys couldn't wait to tell their friends they would be living in a barn.

I curiously asked Mike's cousin, the realtor, why the property was for sale.

He replied, Well, when Arthur took out a loan to build on the property, his wife, Maryann, thought it was to make the house bigger so they could start a family. But you see, Arthur used the loan to build a barn. Then he bought some horses. Now Maryann, she told Arthur it was her or the horses. Arthur, well, he told her that he'd need a good night's sleep to think about that. When Arthur woke up the next morning, Maryann had packed up and went to her mother's. So Arthur came to me and said he had to sell this place real quick, or Maryann might never come home.

I thought, If I ever met Maryann, I would definitely hug her.

Remember those girls in high school that always tried to fix up their friends? You'll love going out with Debbie because she has a great personality. We all knew that was code for fat or ugly. And that's what I thought when I looked at the barn that was going to be our home. It had a great personality. It was probably very nice and stayed home most Saturday nights too.

I reminded myself how much I adored my husband, and we put an offer in on the home with a great personality.