Every story has an origin. The Significant Other was born from a chip on my shoulder.

In 2005, I traveled to Los Angeles to pitch a feature film based on Anne McCaffrey's novels. I had secured the rights and believed in the project, but I had one major problem—I had never been on a film set, much less worked on one. Meeting after meeting ended with some version of, "Nice try, but you don't just wake up one morning and decide to make a movie."

The trip taught me something else, too. I was young, single, and most weren't interested in my project, they just wanted to hit on me. My associate producer finally handed me a solution: "Go buy the biggest cubic zirconia ring you can find." When I asked why big, she responded, "If they think they can buy a bigger ring, they'll still hit on you."

Sadly, she was right. It was remarkable how many conversations changed the moment they noticed the ring.

I returned home discouraged, but not defeated. I wrote several more screenplays, but they were either too expensive to produce or too controversial to attract investors. I had no money and something to prove, so in 2006 I took stock of what I had to work with.

At the time, I owned a beautiful Victorian home built in 1896 that I actually planned to turn into a bed-and-breakfast some day and with that reaction to the ring still fresh in my brain, it hit me. I had a high production value setting and a great premise. So I wrote The Significant Other, then produced and directed it and even did the first edit pass i n post. Fun fact: The prop ring used in The Significant Other is the very same cubic zirconia ring I wore on that fateful trip to LA.

In 2007, I returned to Los Angeles—not with an idea, but with a finished feature film in post production. Three years later, in 2010, the film secured distribution, and I found myself walking the red carpet at Cannes alongside many of the industry's biggest names.

Now, in honor of the film's 20th anniversary, I'm turning that screenplay into a fun weekend-read novel. At first I thought it was too late, that the story was too dated, but it's funny how a good story never gets old... especially when, to quote Alice, "men haven't changed over all the centuries!"

Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess in a castle cursed by three wicked old witches. 

Scratch that. It is way too cliche and patently untrue. I am not beautiful, nor am I a princess, but I have been called pretty, and I do live in a giant old Victorian house that looks a lot like a castle. 

And the three wicked witches?  Well, they are really just three nosy old biddies, but the results were the same.  They weaved their web of lies and turned my life upside down! 

It was late March when Grandma passed away. The funeral was touching. She knew everyone and everyone loved her. I remember looking around wondering if there was one person in town that hadn't come by or sent flowers.

Everyone was worried about me, and what I was going to do. Not without her, but with the family home. At first, because I was still overwhelmed, I could pawn them off with an "it's too soon to think about all that," but now it was six weeks later, and I'd have to start thinking about it.

The family home is a giant, 7,500-square-foot mansion that is locally known as “the castle.” It sits on five acres in town and was built in 1895 by my great-great-grandfather Calhoun for his first wife, Dixie Potter. Dixie did not live to see it completed, but his second wife was more than happy to take her leavings and move right in. That would be my great-great-grandmother, of course—and did I mention she was Dixie's sister? And we thought the soaps came up with this stuff all on their own.

Anyway, I was sitting on the grass, staring at my grandmother's headstone, wondering what I was going to do when a cheery little jingle interrupted my thoughts. I fished my cell out of my pocket and answered it.

"Hi, Grant." Grant is my boss. An overfed, over-indulged egomaniac that could curdle milk when he is in a bad mood, which is about seventy-five percent of the time.

"Clara," his tone of voice told me he was in a worse mood than usual, "It's been six weeks. You're out of vacation time, sick time, and personal days. If you don't come back—"

I held the phone away from my ear and tuned him out as he ranted, and that’s when I realized I wasn't going back.

"Grant." But he was still on a tangent, "—and it's costing us money to keep you on the books—"

"Grant!" I shouted.

"What?" he shouted back.

"I'm not coming back," I said quietly.

"What?" He definitely did not see that coming. I won't lie, the words surprised me too, but I meant them.

"I am not coming back. I'm sorry." And I hung up the phone before I could change my mind.

I got up from the grass and blew a kiss to the headstone. I could almost hear Grandma applauding. I still didn't have a clue what I was going to do in this tiny town two hours from any major city, and now I had no job and a huge house to keep up. On the bright side, since I wasn't returning to work, I had a bit of time to figure it out.

That evening I wandered through the house, marveling at the thirteen-foot ceilings with their ornate plaster moldings and the crystal chandeliers I’d always taken for granted. From the entry, a massive nine-foot-tall solid oak pocket door leads to the Formal Parlor. There are four of these giants throughout the house, and I used to love opening and closing them when I was a kid. Silly, I know, but I still love how they glide so easily.

I wandered in, running my hand along the antique sofa where Grandma used to read to me, and studied the pictures covering the walls and tables—generations of my family, captured in moments frozen in time. Some of them go all the way back to 1880, when we first settled in North Texas.

I drifted back across the entry to the Dining Room, letting my fingers trail along the elegant table that could seat twelve without adding a single leaf. So many family dinners, so much love and laughter. I stared at the built-in hutch, which housed all the china and crystal the women in my family had been so fond of collecting. We had Christmas dishes, morning dishes, informal sets, and formal china, plus tea sets from every era since the house was built.

Across from the hutch sat a giant, eight-foot-long German buffet with bear-claw feet. If they weren't carved from wood, I’d swear they’d been cut off a real grizzly—they were that massive. Displayed on top was the silver passed down through generations, including a colossal tea set modeled after the Empress of Hungary’s own.

I crossed through another giant pocket door into the Music Room and let my hands trill a few notes on the Steinway where I’d taken piano lessons as a girl. Above the player piano on the opposite wall hung my parents' wedding portrait. I wish I could remember more about them—they died in a car accident when I was only three.

After that, I grew up here with Grandma. This was as much my home as it had been hers. It wasn't just a house; it was my family legacy, and I had to find a way to keep it.

"How can I do this?" I sighed as I walked into the kitchen, which was as old-fashioned as you could get, but had all the modern amenities. Using the microwave, I nuked myself a frozen lasagna and toasted some garlic bread. When it was done, I sat at the kitchen table and began to brainstorm.

"What can I do for work here?" was the ten-million-dollar question.

It's too bad that there was no real money to go with the house. Grandma had been living off the Social Security and the pension Grandpa left her, but with her death, that went away. All that was left was her life insurance money, and that was not enough for me to retire on. If I didn’t find work soon, it would be gone in a year.

With a sigh for my unproductive thought patterns, I rinsed and put the dishes in the dishwasher. I still didn't have a clue as I made my way up the grand staircase and down the hall to go to bed. I crawled up into the old tester bed and yawned. "Oh well, maybe tomorrow I'll figure it out."

The next morning the first rays of sun tickled my face until I reluctantly opened my eyes. I rolled over and gazed out the windows of my room, admiring the golden light of dawn dancing through the huge old oak trees. I loved this room. I never had to set an alarm because the sun always woke me, and it was the best way in the world to wake up.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. A bed and breakfast. Duh, why hadn't it come to me before? This place is so grand, and with a bit of TLC, it could really be spectacular. I had seven bedrooms and five baths, and it couldn’t be that hard to add two more, could it? With a whole city block behind wrought-iron fencing, it was a wonderful place to get away.

"I'll bet I could get 150 bucks a night here easy, and how hard can it be?" Famous last words, I know.

I bounced out of bed, eager to get online and find all the information I could about starting a bed and breakfast. I was in the kitchen scouring the net on my laptop over a third cup of coffee when Lydia, Michelle, and Alice popped in to check on me.

These three together would strike terror in most people's hearts. They are without a doubt the most meddlesome and nosy old ladies ever known to mankind. I would bet they are direct descendants from the three witches in Macbeth, but they were my grandmother's nearest and dearest friends and I loved them as much as they loved to meddle in my life.

Alice is a sweet, ditzy, and self-absorbed lady who is always impeccably groomed and well-dressed. She's still married and, at 68, quite proud of her sexual prowess. Michelle is a whole whopping four-foot-eleven and weighs in at seventy-five pounds soaking wet, and at 96, she's a widow and quite proud of the fact that she still gets around so well. Lydia is the persona of a loving grandmother, with her round belly, round face, red hair, and laughing green eyes. As Grandma's official best friend, she had become a second grandmother to me.

"Good morning, Clara." Lydia gave me a peck on the head as she headed straight for the coffee.

"Morning, ladies." I gestured to the cake plate. "Have some cake to go with your coffee. It's fresh."

Alice pranced delicately across the kitchen to lift the lid and sniff at the cake. "Mmm. Smells delicious." She set the lid down and began to cut several slices. "Who brought this by?"

"I baked it early this morning." The silence in the kitchen was deafening as all three ladies looked at me like I'd been smoking crack.

"Clara, what are you up to?" asked Lydia with a knowing look in her eye.

"What? A girl can't bake in her grandma's kitchen without raising eyebrows?"

"Not this girl." Alice pulled out a chair and sat down and looked me in the eye. "Spill."

"I quit my job yesterday," I said, looking at each of them nervously, not sure how they'd react.

"What? Clara, what are you going to do?" came in an almost unified chorus.

"Well, I'm not sure, really, but I know I don't want to sell the family house, and I've been thinking." They were all nodding their heads in unison, waiting for my big idea. Definitely related to the three witches. "I could open a bed and breakfast."

I looked at each of the ladies as they digested this information, and before they could mount a joint attack on my fledgling plan, I went on the offensive by swinging my computer around and pointing to the website for another bed and breakfast.

"See, how romantic it is? I could host weddings and do specials for honeymoons." I knew I had my work cut out for me by the way their faces were starting to pucker up into that "over my dead body" expression only women over 50 can achieve.

It took me several hours, but by the time I was done, I'd convinced them it would be nothing but romantic couples and Cherubs with love darts and that everything would be just fine. I was twenty-six for crying out loud, not a baby, but I had to have their support to get the city council to change my zoning, so I buttered them up better than a bundt cake. Grudgingly, they gave in, but only on the condition that it would be quiet and safe.

I wanted to ask them to define "safe," but I held my tongue as they left, happy to be in charge of my own destiny at last.