A Small Town Christmas

by Sheila Roberts

  “Great sale,” said her friend Kerrie, coming up to the counter with a couple of bolts of fabric. “I want to sign up for your quilting class.”

  “I thought you were too busy with Nesta to start quilting,” said Emma, surprised.

  “It’s slowly dawning on me that I’m going to be busy with Nesta for a lot of years. I may as well start having a life. This will be something fun I can do when she’s napping.”

  Emma was ringing up her purchases when Shirley came to the counter, practically lost under a pile of fabric finds.

  “Wow, aren’t you ambitious,” Emma greeted her.

  “A girl’s got to take advantage of the sales,” said Shirley playfully, her irritation from the day before forgotten.

  Hopefully, she wasn’t going to take advantage of the shop owner. Emma took Kerrie’s money, gave her two punches on her punch card and her fabric, and then sent her on her way. She turned her attention to Shirley, who had heaved her finds onto the cutting counter.

  “I want two yards of each,” Shirley said. “Oh, and lets add two spools of white thread, too.”

  “Okay.” Should she ask Shirley now if she’d brought cash or just trust that she had? Emma opted for trust and cut the fabric.

  “And I brought my cash,” Shirley said, scrabbling around in her purse as Emma worked.

  Hallelujah.

  But when Emma rang up her purchases Shirley’s face fell. “I only brought a ten,” she said, setting the bill on the counter.

  And she’d spent almost thirty. Surely she hadn’t expected to buy so much for so little. Very sneaky to announce her money shortage after Emma had cut the fabric. Emma was nearly overcome with a strong desire to wrap a measuring tape around Shirley’s scrawny neck and squeeze.

  “I’ll come in tomorrow with the rest,” Shirley promised.

  Okay, Shirley could live another day. “Great,” Emma said with a smile. She put the fabric in a bag and slipped it onto the little shelf behind the counter. “I’ll hold it here for you.”

  Shirley gaped at her. “Oh, but I wanted to take it today.”

  Emma was suddenly aware of other women hovering nearby, listening. One of them was the Savemart woman. She should stand her ground with Shirley. Otherwise everyone would think she was a soft touch. Or maybe they’d think she was heartless.

  But all this had nothing to do with heart. It had to do with running a business. Her big heart had been part of her problem. Big heart, little brain, bad combination.

  She opened her mouth to say, “Sorry. No can do.” Instead, she took the ten and handed over the bag, saying, “Go ahead and take the fabric.”

  Idiot. You deserve to go out of business. What are you thinking? Panic welled up in her the minute the words were out of her mouth. She’d be bankrupt or paying off her business loan until she was fifty. She lowered her voice. “But please, Mrs. Schultz, bring me the rest of what you owe me tomorrow. I really need to balance my books.” And pay my rent.

  Ruth was at the counter next. She gave Emma a penetrating look, the kind her mother always gave her when she was pretending everything was okay. “Are you in trouble, Emma?”

  “What do you mean?” she stammered. Oh, this was not good. A woman couldn’t go around telling her customers she was a failure. If only she were Tess L’amour, confident and successful. She tried to get in touch with her inner Tess and smile as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “You know what I mean,” Ruth said sternly. “If you’re going to stay in business you can’t keep letting mooches like Shirley have a free ride.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “That’s great advice.” She blinked hard to keep back the tears. Too bad the advice was coming too late. She was going down the financial tubes, forty-percent-off sale and all.

  EIGHTEEN

  Now, this is what I call a sale,” Jamie said as she and Sarah sifted through a pile of women’s sweaters stacked in front of a BUY ONE GET ONE FREE sign. It was Sunday afternoon and the mall was crowded with Thanksgiving weekend shoppers. So was this store. Did Emma have a crowd at her shop today? Jamie picked up a mint-green cashmere sweater. “Does this scream Emma or what?”

  “I could see her in that,” Sarah agreed.

  “I think I’ll get it for her for Christmas.” Emma would, of course, love the sweater . . . if she didn’t drown herself in the lake before Christmas. Jamie chewed her lip for a minute. “Do you think she’s doing okay?”

  Sarah frowned at the sweater in her hand. “No.”

  “You know, she actually lets people get away without paying? I’m worried about her. I think she’s pretty much burned through her savings and she’s got that big loan to pay off and I don’t know how she’s going to do it if her shop goes under.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I’ve thought several times of suggesting she sell the shop, but I just can’t bring myself to say something, not when she’s so passionate about quilting.”

  “Make that was passionate about quilting,” said Jamie. “These days it seems she’d rather watch movies or play on the Internet.”

  “Avoidance. Probably even working on her own projects reminds her of the mess with the shop.”

  “So, what are we going to do?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know. If I had a fortune I’d bail her out.”

  Jamie scowled. “Sometimes it sucks not to be rich.”

  “Sometimes it sucks to be in business for yourself,” said Sarah. “We all take a chance. If she goes under we’ll just have to help her the best we can.”

  “I’d rather find a way to help her before she goes under.”

  “Me, too,” said Sarah.

  They both stood there for a moment, staring at the sweaters. Finally, Jamie asked, “Could you use some fabric?”

  Sarah smiled. “By gumballs, that’s just what I need.”

  “Isn’t that funny? I don’t know how many times I’ve driven down this street and never noticed this shop,” said the woman as Emma rang up her purchase.

  With those Coke-bottle glasses her customer was wearing, Emma was surprised she could even see the street.

  “My daughter wants to start quilting. This book will make a perfect Christmas present for her. I’ll tell her about your quilting classes. Maybe she’ll want to sign up in the new year.”

  Maybe Emma would be in business in the new year, but probably not. It was almost three in the afternoon and she suspected this woman was the tail end of her customers. She’d made enough in the last two days to pay her rent, but the business loan hung over her like the sword of Damocles.

  She forced a smile. “That’s very kind of you. Quilting is a wonderful way to express yourself creatively.”

  “I agree,” the woman said as the shop door opened. “It’s so nice to find a shop right here in Heart Lake.”

  “It sure is,” said Jamie. “Hey, are we too late for the sale?”

  Friends were like a quilt for the heart, Emma decided, looking at their smiling faces. She suddenly felt warm from the inside out. “You’re just in time.”

  “Good, ’cause we need to do some serious shopping,” Jamie informed her, and aimed herself in the general direction of the batiks, her designer-knockoff boots clacking on the floor as she went.

  “How did the sale go?” Sarah asked after Jamie’s customer had found the door and left.

  Emma pasted on a big smile. “Great. Lots of people. At least more than usual,” she added honestly.

  “Are you going to make your rent?”

  “Absolutely.” And please don’t ask me about my loan.

  “I’ve got a spare couple hundred.”

  That made Emma want to cry. If only everyone in Heart Lake were like Sarah and Jamie, it would be heaven. Or at least Bedford Falls.

  Jamie dumped half a dozen bolts of fabric on the cutting counter. “How will these work for a wall hanging?”

  Jamie’s selection looked completely random. Emma raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What do you w
ant your theme to be?”

  “Um.”

  “Just as I thought. Go put those back.” It hadn’t been that long since both she and Sarah had been in the shop, buying merchandise they’d never use. She couldn’t let them do it again.

  Jamie laid an arm over the fabric in front of her to ensure it stayed put. “I will not.”

  “I know what you’re up to,” Emma informed her. And it was really sweet. But Jamie wasn’t made of money.

  “You do not. Now, are you going to help me or do I have to go to Savemart?”

  Just the mention of her fabric nemesis was enough to make Emma want to throw up. “Don’t use the S-word in my shop.”

  “I won’t if you quit being a stubborn brat and help me,” Jamie said sweetly.

  “You may as well give up,” said Sarah. “We’re still in sale-shopping mode and we can’t be stopped.”

  “You mean rescue mode,” Emma corrected.

  “You’d do the same for us,” said Jamie. “Anyway, Christmas is coming. This is going to be a present.”

  Emma gave up. “Okay, let’s take a step back. Who is it for?”

  Jamie shot an uncertain look at Sarah. “My mom?”

  “Does your mom like florals or modern colors? And what’s her décor? Is she country, French provincial?”

  Jamie’s eyes were starting to glaze over.

  “Country,” said Sarah. “And maybe you should do something with a Christmas theme,” she suggested to Jamie. “In fact, I think that’s what I’ll do.”

  Last Emma had heard Sarah hadn’t even finished the quilts for her granddaughters. She raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re just a quilting machine?”

  “You know the expression: so little time, so much fabric,” Sarah retorted. She moved from the counter to the fabric section. “Oh, here’s a great Christmas green. Have you got any fabric with holly on it?”

  “Have I got fabric with holly!” Emma joined her and pulled down two bolts. “And here’s a fun Santa print.”

  Half an hour later, Sarah and Jamie had spent a small fortune and proclaimed themselves excited to go home and make wall hangings.

  Of course, it was all a bunch of hoo-ha. “You guys are the best,” Emma told them. She was going to cry.

  “Not really,” said Sarah. “This is a bargain basement opportunity to do something special for Christmas presents.”

  “But Christmas of what year?” teased Emma. “Maybe you’d better let me help you.”

  “Good idea. Let’s start now. Come on over to my house and we can cut fabric,” Sarah suggested. “I’ve got plenty of Thanksgiving leftovers.”

  It was exactly what Emma’s flagging spirits needed. She closed up shop, got in her car, and followed her friends to Sarah’s place. Sam was home and had built a fire in the fireplace and Sarah made them all turkey sandwiches while Jamie put on a Michael Buble CD.

  Eating at Sarah’s dining room table, softly serenaded, Emma reminded herself how lucky she was. Okay, so her shop was in trouble. But she had friends, and no woman was really poor who had friends.

  She stayed at Sarah’s house for two hours, making sure she got Sarah and Jamie on the right track with their projects, and then left for home. Alone in her car, she couldn’t escape reliving her day, and as she backed further up in time she remembered her mom’s words when Mom and Grandma came into the shop. “Gosh, I thought you’d be swamped.”

  “That was yesterday,” Emma had said.

  It hadn’t been enough to remove the worry lines from Mom’s forehead. And now it wasn’t enough to keep Emma from sliding back into the blues. “It will work out,” she told herself as she unlocked her front door. Things had a way of working out. The sad part was that they didn’t always work out the way you wanted them to.

  She opened the door, juggling the goodies Sarah had sent home with her with the bag of groceries she’d gotten at Safeway. “Mommy’s home,” she called, forcing her voice to sound cheerful so she wouldn’t upset the baby.

  She barely made it in the door when her grocery bag burst, dropping cans of cat food like bombs. One bounced off her foot, making her yelp in pain. Another rolled down the hall.

  As she bent to pick it up, something at the end of the hall caught her attention. Dirt. And sticking out from behind the archway she could just see the leaves of the corn plant Mom had given her lying lifeless on the living room floor like the telltale hand of a dead body.

  She hurried down the hall to find her new plant had been knocked off its stand. The pot lay in pieces and there was dirt everywhere. And there, in the middle of the floor, cleaning himself, sat the culprit.

  “Pyewacket! You are the worst cat ever!”

  As if he cared. He loved being the worst cat ever, delighted in it. He combed a paw over his head, smoothing his silky black fur. No one had told him that pretty is as pretty does.

  “Are you listening to me?” Of course he wasn’t. She stamped her foot and clapped her hands together, making him jump and scoot out of the room. “That’s it,” she called after him. “I’m taking you to the animal shelter where you can never destroy anything again!”

  Pye didn’t stop to regard her with his usual look of superior unconcern. This time he kept right on running. A black cat behind disappeared out the front door, which she’d stupidly left open in her haste to get to her plant corpse.

  Oh, no! He hadn’t been outside since the day she brought him in. She hurried down the hall to the front door. “Pye?”

  There was no sign of Pyewacket. She stood in the doorway, listening for a meow, a yowl, even a kitty growl. Nothing. “Pye? Here, kitty, kitty. Mommy’s sorry. I didn’t mean it about the animal shelter. Really.” She stepped out onto the porch and peered under the juniper bush. No Pye. She hurried down the walk, calling his name. Nothing. It was freezing and a cold rain was misting down. Rubbing her arms, she turned and went back to the front door. She called his name one last time. Nothing.

  He’ll be back, she told herself as she shut the door. He’ll get scared and cold and he’ll come home.

  She put away her food. Then she opened the front door to see if Pye was on the doorstep. He wasn’t.

  She cleaned up the mess, then spent a little time seeing what was new in My World. After that she checked her e-mails. A friend had sent her a cat picture from Cute Overload and she quickly closed it. She put her computer to sleep and opened the front door one last time. No Pye.

  “Okay, fine,” she yelled. “Stay out in the cold all night. I hope it rains dogs on you!”

  She slammed the door and went and took a bath. Once she was comfortable in her jammies she fetched her quilt in progress, put on her DVD of Sabrina, and settled into her chair to do some basting. And just as the new and improved Sabrina was making her Cinderella appearance at the Larrabee family bash, she pricked her finger.

  “Damn!” She dropped the quilt on her lap. “Damn!” she repeated because the first one had felt so good. Then, possessed by temporary insanity, she shoved the quilt onto the floor and stood up and swore one more time because, of course, the third time was the charm. But it wasn’t. So she hooked a toe under the stupid, who-cared-if-it-ever-got-done-piece-of-poop quilt and kicked it. It lifted like a big bat and fell in folds at her feet. She stepped on it. Then she jumped on it. And stabbed her toe on a pin. She picked it up to rip to pieces with her bare hands and instead burst into tears.

  Still crying, she dropped the quilt, turned off the TV, and went to bed and indulged in a good cry. By the time she was done she had a major headache going. “Stop it,” she scolded herself as she went to the medicine cabinet for aspirin. “It’s just a stray cat. A stupid stray cat.”

  She got into bed and burrowed under the covers. She hoped Pye would be okay. She hoped she would be okay.

  NINETEEN

  It’s my birthday on Saturday,” Damaris announced at the next baking class. She gave invitations to the other girls much like a queen handing out gifts. “You can all come to my party. My mom
rented High School Musical Reunion on Netflix. And I’m having a High School Musical cake.”

  “Awesome,” breathed Lissa.

  “And we’re gonna make jewelry,” Damaris continued. “My mom bought beads. You can all bring me High School Musical stuff.”

  “Very considerate,” Sarah said, “helping your friends out with gift ideas.”

  Of course, her sarcasm was lost on Damaris. She was beaming. “Now that I’m ten Mom says I can have a cell phone, and I get to get my ears pierced.”

  “My dad won’t let me get my ears pierced till I’m thirteen,” Lissa grumbled.

  “There’s nothing wrong with waiting,” Sarah assured her. “And thirteen is a great time to get your ears pierced. You have a special way to kick off your teen years.”

  “My mom said she had her ears pierced when she was a baby,” said Damaris.

  Damaris was obviously going to grow up to be a lawyer. She had a comeback for everything. “Okay, ladies,” Sarah said, “let’s talk and work at the same time. Wash your hands and we’ll get started.”

  Handwashing went without incident, but it was all downhill from there. Creaming together eggs, sugar, and butter should have been easy. Mash up butter and sugar. Crack the eggs in a separate bowl to ensure the cookie dough stayed free of shells. Then dump in with butter and sugar. But somewhere between bowls the eggs got lost, slurping down the side of the counter.

  “Way to go,” said Damaris, probably channeling one of her older brothers.

  “It’s okay,” Sarah told Mandy, who was responsible for the mishap and looked teary. “We’ll just clean this up and start again.”

  And that was when the phone rang. Caller ID warned Sarah that it was Betty, but she couldn’t not answer, not when Betty’s granddaughter was at her house. Maybe Betty needed to talk to Beanie.

  “I just picked up some Cheetos,” said Betty. “Do the girls need a snack? Should I bring them over?”

  “Oh, I think we’re fine here,” said Sarah. She’d already filled the after-school empty corners with nachos. Hey, she could be taught.

  “I’ll get more eggs,” said Beanie, opening the refrigerator.