Downton Shabby by Hopwood DePree

Author:Hopwood DePree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Midlife Meltdown

WHAT HAVE I DONE???”

The words were screaming in my brain. I was lying in bed, still jet-lagged, and unable to fall asleep.

It was 3:30 A.M.

I couldn’t help but think that my friends in LA were probably just coming in from a day at the beach.

In the darkness, I looked around my new headquarters for the foreseeable future—one medium-sized room—and although it was perfectly comfortable, I couldn’t quite get over the fact that it resembled my college dorm room from thirty years earlier. It was just big enough for a double bed, a desk, a chair, a wardrobe, and a dresser. The main difference was that this place came equipped with an electric teapot known around these parts as a kettle. A hotel room in England without an electric kettle would be as unheard of as a room without lights. Thick brown decorative curtains covered a wide picture window to keep the cold night chill from creeping in. I could hear the howling wind unrelentingly whipping outside, and if there was any hope at all of possibly drifting off to sleep, it was dashed by a tree branch that would sporadically knock against my second-story window as if to say, “Wake up, Hopwood! Welcome back to your dorm room!”

Most people my age would’ve probably attempted to reclaim their youth by simply buying a sports car, or perhaps dating someone fifteen years younger. Not me—for some reason, my midlife meltdown entailed going so far back in time that I was now going to relive the past of my ancestors!

The reality of my situation had begun to sink in. I was thousands of miles away from my real home, which I had sold. I knew only a handful of people. I had taken on a massive project with no end in sight. I had turned my back on my life and career in Los Angeles. The fact that I was basically staying in a rented room only added to the feeling that I regressed back to some kind of overgrown adolescent.

As I tossed and turned, I decided what I really needed were sleeping pills. If I were in LA, I could drive over to the nearest twenty-four-hour pharmacy and get whatever I needed. But England was going to be trickier. I’d learned the hard way that on this side of “the pond,” most stores closed by 5:30 P.M. The only places I knew that were open in the middle of the night were the gas stations—and the nearest one to the Castleton was the Hopwood Service Station. Surely, they must have some NyQuil—or whatever it was called over here. So I got up, threw on some clothes, and crept downstairs, grabbing an umbrella and letting myself out the front door.

Outside, it was pitch-black, pouring with rain, and freezing, even in August. I shuddered under my umbrella. I didn’t have a car, so I walked along the side of the road until the gas station came into view, glowing like an oasis in the desert.

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