“No such thing as old stock. Fabric can’t go stale. What’s wrong with you people?”
The little crowd laughed indulgently, but also honestly.
The man in the bright plaid shirt shouted, “Preach!”
Shara scowled darkly at her, then raised her hand.
“Yes?” June pointed to Shara.
“You have the floor.”
“I yield it to you.” June’s smile was tense.
“No, I mean you have the floor, hang onto it better or we’ll never get done.”
“Got somewhere better to go?” the young guy in the bright shirt asked.
“Yes. Home. So let June talk.”
He shrugged.
“We all have stock set aside for the event, as we agreed in January. And we are going to use funds from our dues to pay for co-op ads in the Corvallis and Eugene papers.” She paused, but no one interrupted.
“In addition, we agreed to split the cost of radio ads to be determined, and we are all agreed to use Christmas outdoor decorations for the week of the sale.” June stared at Shara.
“Whose hair brained idea is this?” Grandpa Ernie scowled.
June turned a much more natural smile to him. “Laura loved the Christmas in July sales.”
“Laura doesn’t know a sale from a hole in her head. Wait till Delma hears you want her to dig out all her Christmas decorations in July. She’ll have a fit. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Taylor swallowed. It was evening. He seemed to get a little more lost in the evenings. And first thing in the morning. Taylor mouthed an apology to June, but her attention was all on Grandpa Ernie.
“Delma likes this, I promise.”
The young man in plaid choked back a laugh.
“You’re all crazy. Who’s going to come to a store just to buy blanket fabric? No one. That’s who.” Grandpa pushed his chair back with a terribly grating scrape. “Come Laura, we’re leaving.”
Taylor knew she should stand, but she couldn’t. She felt glued to her seat.
He had been so with it. Seemed to follow what was going on. Seemed to want to be here. When had he slipped away from them? Were there signs she should have seen?
Carly patted her back. “Darling, it will be okay. We all love Ernie.”
Grandpa Ernie didn’t seem to hear Carly, and was stumbling his way to the door.
“But you should call me as soon as you can. I had some ideas for your mother that I think you should hear. For Ernie.” She watched Grandpa make his way to the door, then mouthed the words, “For care”.
Taylor swallowed and nodded at her. “Sorry.” She also stumbled out of her seat like she was unsteady.
Shara sighed. “In the future, maybe Ernie can stay at home.”
“Shara! You’re heartless,” the plaid guy said.
“Before you go,” June interrupted them, “are you in for the sale?”
“Yes, yes. Definitely, and whoever is planning the ads, I’m happy to help.”
“Wonderful!” A woman whose name Taylor hadn’t caught, but who wore a macramé vest, clapped her hands together. “I’ll call you.”
“Great,” Taylor tossed the word over her shoulder as she hustled after Grandpa. Outside she took his arm and they started the now, much longer seeming, walk back home.
Chapter Twelve
Roxy texted Taylor the next morning at 7:30. “How about filming today. You ready?”
“Yes. Good. Fine. Okay.”
Roxy responded with a laughing smiley.
Taylor had the rough outline for a class on color theory. Her mom had done one about six months earlier, but she’d do a different take on it and show a fun fabric color wheel she had invented in college. She was sure someone else somewhere had also “invented it”, but it felt like it was all hers. She met Roxy in the shop at 8:30.
Taylor had the simple wheel of cotton fabrics on the worktable and was digging through a basket of scraps to make the sample for the show.
“That looks like more than ten minutes of work.” Roxy greeted the bright morning in a tank top and shorts, her small wiry self all muscles and excitement.
“I won’t do the whole thing at once. Today I’ll just show how to cut the diamond shape and then sew three together.”
“Hmmm. That could work.” Roxy held her chin as she considered her color wheel, then nodded.
“I hope so.” Taylor set aside three good scraps. She was getting there.
“Here.” Roxy placed a cardboard carton on the table. “Dig through this too.”
Taylor hoped she’d find bright and cheerful solid colors, but instead she found hats and scarves. “Help me out here…what am I supposed to be finding?”
“Costumes!” Roxy grinned. “I always wanted your mom to wear them, but she wouldn’t. She didn’t have that kind of spunk.”
Taylor lifted an eyebrow.
“I’ve always seen you as the real spunky one in the family. You could pull this off.” Roxy reached in the carton and pulled out a pill box hat that looked like a pin cushion, right down to hat pins sticking out of the top.
“I’m not sure…” Taylor narrowed her eyes. That hat was cutesy. She wasn’t cutesy. Was spunky another word for cutesy?
Roxy stuck it on her own head. “Cute, right? I’ve sold quite a few of these on Etsy.”
“Ah.” It looked adorable on her, but maybe only because Roxy with her big eyes and bigger grin in a petite package would be cute in anything. “I think…you know…this is the first video since I lost my mom. Maybe this time we need to be a little more sedate.”
“Oh…” Roxy nodded in sympathy and placed the hat back in the carton. “What about this one?” She held up a black beret that hosted a small cluster of blue and brown feathers held in place with a pewter broach.
Taylor tried it on and turned toward the mirror behind the register. To her surprise, it flattered her face shape and matched the colors in her blouse. Her dark brown eyes also seemed to pop with the dark hat nestled on her head.
She looked like her mom.
She’d aged over the last couple of weeks, but there was something about it that she liked. Some kind of character or strength she hadn’t had or needed before. “Sure. This is nice.” She nudged it in place.
Roxy put the pin cushion hat back in the box. “I had another idea, since this is the first show since we lost Laura.”
“Shoot.”
“I binged on her show last night and noticed that she often had these little tid bits of life wisdom. They just came out as she worked, real natural. I thought we could clip those moments and do a Laura feature at the end of each sewing show.” She blushed and looked at the ground.
“That’s brilliant, Roxy. It really is.” Taylor gripped the edge of the table.
Roxy was smart. She was worth so much more than they were paying her.
Roxy looked up again, her eyebrows lifted. “Jonah will do a great job. He’ll do all the editing on today’s show and then send it to you. Give him a couple of days since he has to find th clips.”
“And Belle handles the rest?”
“Um hmm.” Roxy shifted the box off the table. “We were due a team meeting when your mom passed. Would you like to have one?”
“It sounds like the sooner the better. And please, please get me those invoices. I don’t want to short shrift you.”
“Will do, Taylor. I promise.”
With that, they began the shoot. Taylor stumbled over words and her hands were unsteady. She forgot lines and steps in even this simple project, but Roxy was patient with her and promised the half-hour’s worth of material would be edited into a fantastic ten-minute show.
“We usually did about two hours of filming so we could do several episodes at once. It’s good to get ahead of the game for these.”
“Does that mean you have some unaired shows?”
Roxy pressed her lips together, as though holding in a bit of emotion.
Taylor had been making that face herse
lf quite a lot recently.
“Yes. We have five. I wasn’t sure if it was tasteful to upload them during the crisis.”
“Of course not, but…can you send them to me?”
Roxy nodded and put away the tripod and lights she had rigged for filming.
They had plenty of time before the shop opened, but Taylor wasn’t sure she could fill it with chatter just yet. “Can you do me a favor?” She grabbed her purse and pulled out some cash. “I could use a pick me up after all of that. How about coffee and donuts from the place on the corner of Main and Temple?”
“You got it.” Roxy took her box of hats and scarves with her as she left, though when Taylor glimpsed herself in the mirror, she spotted the attractive beret still on her head.
It was a slow day, but a rush of women at noon made her more optimistic about their future. They came in small groups, three or four women, one after the other. The jingling of the bell over the door sparkled like the hope that bubbled up in Taylor. They laughed with each other and smiled at the fabrics. Roxy sold all four of the Mother’s Choice wall hanging kits they had put together over the weekend, and Taylor sold three of the Bubbling Creek kits. Their electric fabric sheers were practically smoking from all the yardage they had cut, and when the final little group of happy quilters left, they both sighed deeply. “That’s what season ought to feel like,” Taylor said.
“I so want the good times back.” Roxy sat on a stool at the cutting table, her chin resting in her hand. “This store has always been the most popular on the block, and our little town can do so much.”
“The co-op ads for Christmas in July will help.”
“True. I guess we’d better start making up the Christmas kits.”
Taylor had seen the fabric that her mom had set aside and the list of kit plans for pillow cases, advent calendars, wall hangings, and aprons. All solid promotions for a summer event. Nothing too big or overwhelming in the hot weather. The quilt shop equivalent of impulse purchases.
Taylor was about to head up to the apartment where the materials for the kits had been stored when the bell jingled again. She turned a smiling face to the customer.
Rather than a happy little group of crafters, she found herself smiling at a stout, red faced man whose deep frown seemed to start at his bald head and go all the way to his booted feet.
“Good afternoon.” Taylor kept her smile on like a mask. Surely he was just grumpy because he didn’t know what it was the woman in his life had sent him after.
“You are very difficult to get a hold of.”
She raised an eyebrow and looked at Roxy.
Roxy frowned and her hand went to her apron pocket where she had a phone.
“You’ve got me now, what do you need?”
“I need you,” he sneered like it pained him to speak to her, “to keep Belle away from Dayton.”
Taylor recognized that voice. Her angry caller.
“Taylor, is everything okay?” Roxy was at the register and looked ready to jump over the counter and tackle the guy.
“Why don’t we talk somewhere a little more private?” Taylor’s smile was fixed. She couldn’t have abandoned it if she had wanted to. “Come around back with me and I can get you a cold drink. Is generic okay? It’s all I’ve got at the moment.” Taylor didn’t give him the chance to say no. She walked back to Grandpa’s area and grabbed a cold can of cola. Grandpa was asleep so she continued on to the back stoop.
The angry man followed. “I am a patient father.” He stood feet apart and his arms crossed, back to the door. “I put up with a lot, let me tell you.”
Taylor handed him the can, dripping with condensation. “Just one moment, are you Dayton’s dad? I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Taylor, Belle’s sister.”
“Yes.” He took the drink and held it without opening it. “I’m Dale Rueben. Listen, Dayton has a bright future and I don’t like to see Belle being a distraction.”
Taylor sat down in an umbrella chair they kept outback for breaks. “Would you like to sit?” She indicated one opposite her.
Dale sat. Disarmed now with the cold drink in one hand and seated on a less than stable chair some of the steam seemed to go out of his approach. “Dayton told me all about how Belle is dropping out and that she hasn’t been to school in weeks. You might think that’s fine, but it’s not. Not for my kid.”
Taylor nodded, pushing her smile down into a sympathetic frown. “It’s been very difficult for Belle since our mother died.” She emphasized the dead mother and he had the decency to blush.
“The ROTC will pay for Dayton’s school and give my kid a real future, but not if Belle continues to be a bad influence.”
“I’m glad you’re a patient father,” Taylor’s voice was cloying, even to her, so she tried to stiffen it up a bit, “because whatever evil influence Belle is holding over your…over Dayton…will be done in September when Belle is in college.”
“Excuse me?”
“Belle’s very bright. She’s skipping senior year and going straight to college in the fall. She already has two years of college credits out of the way, so why bother graduating high school with her class?”
He licked his lips and sat back a little.
“I don’t usually endorse dropping out either, but I want to honor the plans Belle made with my mom.” Taylor popped the tab of her own generic soda, the fizz felt like worthy punctuation. “Perhaps, if Dayton is struggling in school, the kids could meet in the afternoon and Belle could offer tutoring.”
Dale grimaced. “I don’t know what game you are playing, but I’ve been getting phone calls from the attendance office daily and when I ask Dayton the answer is always the same. Belle, Belle, Belle.”
“Not Cooper? I’m surprised it’s not a three amigos situation.”
He set his unopened can on the ground and stood. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, I guess I’ll just have to forbid Dayton from seeing Belle.”
“It sounds like you already have. Were you wanting me to do likewise?” Taylor stood also, sick of the conversation.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
He stared at her, frowning.
“Is that all?” Taylor made her way back into the shop, and he followed her again. For a man with a huge chip on his shoulder he certainly seemed easy to lead. They walked all the way back to the cash register where Roxy was still holding down the fort.
“If you can keep Belle away from Dayton then yes, that’s all.”
Taylor laughed. “I can’t. That must be obvious. I’m not her mom. She has no obligation to do anything I say.” Her throat closed over the statement, but she rallied. “I can certainly forbid them seeing each other. Most likely they’ll only get together more once I do, but I’m happy to say whatever you would like me to say.”
He slammed his fist on the countertop. “You might not care about Belle’s future, or Dayton’s future, but Dayton is my only child and I will not see….” The front door jangled again, and he paused.
“Oh jeeze, Dad!” A plaintive voice called out.
A young person with short hair, a denim jacket, Levi’s, and checkered slip on Vans looked at them.
“Dayton, you do not have permission to be here.” Dale stared at his child.
Dayton waved a piece of paper. “Mom told me to come get some unbleached hand quilting thread.”
“Get it from Dutch Hex.” He strode across the shop and pushed Dayton back out the door with the force of his personality.
Taylor exhaled and dropped her chin to her chest. Poor Belle. No wonder she wanted to leave town now, instead of graduating with her class.
Roxy lifted an eyebrow, a silent offer to talk, but Taylor wasn’t up for it. She hid at her little desk by the stairs and began to brainstorm a list of ways to keep Belle and Dayton apart. Midway through, her phone rang. She answered it hoping it was Belle herself.
“Taylor?” The deep, manly voice was not her sister.
“Yeah?”
“This is Hudson East from the bed and breakfast.”
“Ah.”
“How are you doing?” His kind, deep voice was disarming.
Her hackles smoothed out from his one little question. “As good as could be expected.”
“I’ve been thinking about you.” He cleared his throat. “Just…well. That sounded weird, but it’s true. You’ve kind of been through it recently and I was thinking of you.”
“Thanks.” In a world where a quick text usually conveyed this kind of message, his call was unusual. She wasn’t angry with him about suspecting Maddie of wrong-doing, but she was still a little annoyed he had called Belle, Lolita. It seemed meanspirited, and she didn’t have room in her life for people who were mean.
“I’m headed out to Comfort to pick up a piece of furniture for Aunt Andrea and was wondering if maybe you’d be up for a coffee.”
“When are you headed this way?”
“About an hour, but no hurry. I’ve got things to do once I get there.”
“Ahh…I’m sorry. I’m working.”
“Oh, sure. Sorry. Not everyone has my random schedule.” He sounded embarrassed, even gentle. Maybe the mean Lolita joke was out of character.
“I could take a break, though, if we aren’t busy. Roxy will be here.”
“I can stop by the store. If you’re busy, it’s all good. I’m going to be across the street anyway.”
“Yeah, sure. If I can take a break, we’ll get some coffee.”
“Great. See you later.” He sounded happy as he ended the call.
Her heart seemed lighter too. His offer was some sort of antidote to Dale’s tantrum. She had hoped she and her old friend, Maddie, would fall into step and take up where they had left off years ago, filling that social need she was desperate for, but that had failed to happen. Taylor wasn’t looking for a romance, but she could use a friend. Especially today.
As it turned out, the afternoon was quiet, and Roxy was more than happy to cover her while she went for coffee with the good-looking guy who popped in.
On their way down the block to Cuppa Joe’s they discussed the various merits of fancy coffee verses Folgers—neither of them were snobs, but both of them liked something that tasted good. It wasn’t the kind of conversation that lit the world on fire, but it was a bit of a relief from discussing the Great Tragedy, The Trouble with Belle, or even How to Save the Business.
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