Sewing in Circles

by Chloe Taylor

  Zoey said she’d made a decision for the second round of ideas for Daphne’s shop and showed them her choices.

  “You’re sending your favorite skirt?” her dad asked.

  “How will you live without it?” Marcus added. “It’s practically your uniform.”

  Zoey cringed at the thought of uniforms. “Well, I decided to send things that were both creative and wearable, and most of all, very me. These are things I usually want to wear, so hopefully, Daphne will think other people will want to wear—and buy—them too,” Zoey said. “Besides, I guess it wouldn’t hurt for me to give the skirt a break in my clothing rotation.”

  “That’s my girl!” Dad said. “I’ll pack and mail these first thing in the morning.”

  Dad and Marcus gave Zoey high fives, and then the game came back on, so Zoey headed over to her work area. She was relieved to have found pieces she could really feel good about sending to Daphne—pieces that represented her as a designer and a person. To get a head start, in case Daphne liked one of them, Zoey had made patterns based on the pieces she’d sent, and got to work cutting out fabric in a variety of clothing sizes.

  When she needed a break from that, she switched gears and focused on the gift fair dilemma. She looked at all the accessories she’d made in the past, trying to figure out if maybe she could use them instead of the bracelets for the gift fair. Some were much more complicated and time-consuming to make than the bracelets, and others were about the same, but she didn’t think they’d sell as well. She still had to make a few more clothing items in different sizes for the gift fair. Even though she liked the clothes, she was a bit worried they might not be good enough for the fair, since they weren’t good enough for Daphne. The truth was, she just didn’t have time to sew new outfits, and deep down, she liked what she had made, anyway. So she decided to focus on the accessories.

  Do I let quick and easy win over any niggling worries I have about copying the bracelets? she wondered.

  She was going to have to make a decision—and soon.

  CHAPTER 6

  Switchbacks and Roundabouts

  Have you ever been on one of those roads going up a mountain where there are lots of switchbacks or hairpin turns? Sometimes they’re even called “dead man’s curves,” but that freaks me out! It can make you kind of dizzy. But also, it’s exciting, like you’re on a roller coaster. That’s what it’s been like around here lately—and it inspired the roundabout shirt and tote bag. I get excited, then go around a corner and get disappointed, then get excited again, then hit another bend. . . . I hope the road ahead gets a lot straighter and less complicated soon!

  “What are you making?” Priti asked Zoey in industrial arts the next day.

  Zoey was on the lathe, chiseling a piece of wood into a cylinder.

  “I’m trying to make wooden beads,” Zoey said. “I was thinking that if I can make enough of them, I could do wooden bracelets for the gift fair.”

  She stopped the lathe.

  “But at the rate I’m going, there’s no way that’s going to happen. It’s taking waaaaay too long to make the beads, let alone varnishing them and making them into bracelets.”

  “They do look pretty fiddly,” Priti admitted.

  “That’s it. I’m giving up on the bead idea.” Zoey sighed. “Time to turn to plan B. I think I’m going to make some wooden trays instead. They’ll be good for displaying things, and I can even sell them. They’re kind of accessories, right?”

  “Those will definitely be easier to make,” Priti said. “And they’ll look good in your booth.”

  Zoey took the wood cylinder off the lathe and went to find some wood to make a tray. As she was looking through the woodpile for a suitable piece, she overheard Emily asking Ivy about the bracelet Zoey had made her. Ivy had been wearing it constantly.

  “Where did you get that cool bracelet?” Emily asked. “I’ve never seen that pattern before—and I know pretty much all the ones they make.”

  “Oh, it was a gift from a . . . friend,” Ivy said. “Isn’t it great?”

  Emily took a closer look. “Wait—let me see the clasp. . . . That’s not the same kind as mine. And it doesn’t have the charm with the brand logo,” she said. “That bracelet is a fake. I guess whoever gave it to you as a present isn’t that good of a friend after all.”

  Zoey glanced at Ivy, who looked mortified.

  “It’s real. I’m sure it is,” Ivy said. “But I don’t really like it that much, anyway.”

  She tore the bracelet from her wrist and shoved it into her backpack. When Ivy looked up, she caught Zoey’s eye and gave her an angry look.

  Zoey felt terrible. She’d only made Ivy the bracelet because Emily had been harassing Ivy about when she was going to buy one, and after seeing Ivy at the food pantry and learning the secret about her dad losing his job, Zoey had wanted to try to make Ivy’s life easier. Now her kind gesture seemed to have backfired.

  I have to find a way to talk to Ivy after class and explain, Zoey thought. She didn’t know Ivy had thought the bracelet was store bought or that it would matter so much that it wasn’t.

  Finding Ivy wasn’t so easy. It seemed like she was trying to avoid Zoey. It wasn’t until the next day that Zoey finally spotted her going into the girls’ room and followed her. All the stall doors were open, except one.

  “Ivy?” Zoey called through the door. “It’s Zoey.”

  “What do you want?” Ivy said, sounding even angrier than Zoey expected.

  “I need to talk to you,” Zoey said. “About the bracelet. It’s okay, we’re alone.”

  The toilet flushed, and Ivy came out and went to the sink.

  She gave Zoey a dirty look in the mirror. “Oh, you mean the fake bracelet? The one you made to humiliate me in front of Emily?”

  “I didn’t, I—”

  “Do you know I purposely learned everyone’s schedule at the food pantry, so I could make sure we never go to pick up food when Libby, Kate, or Tyler is there?” Ivy said, ripping paper towels out of the dispenser angrily and drying her hands. “And now you had to do this.”

  “Ivy, I promise you, I would never do anything to embarrass you on purpose,” Zoey told her. “I was only trying to be nice!”

  Ivy threw the paper towels into the garbage. “Yeah? How do you figure that?”

  “Well . . . because in industrial arts, I kept hearing Emily asking you when you were going to buy a bracelet, and you kept on making excuses about why you hadn’t bought one yet,” Zoey explained. “And then when I saw you and your mom at the food pantry, and you told me about your dad losing his job, I realized why you hadn’t bought one.”

  “You haven’t told anyone, have you?” Ivy demanded.

  “Of course not!” Zoey said. “I wouldn’t do that! I just wanted to help you in some way, so since I like crafts and stuff, I figured I could make you a bracelet to try to get Emily off your back. I guess I should have bought one instead, but I didn’t realize it was so important to you to have the real thing.”

  Ivy gave her a skeptical look.

  “I don’t get it. Why would you want to be nice to me after how I treated you?” she asked.

  Only Ivy would assume the worst about someone being kind, Zoey thought.

  “You’ve been nicer to me lately,” Zoey explained. “And . . . I just figured everyone deserves a second chance. Especially when they’re going through a rough patch.”

  Ivy seemed to consider Zoey’s words, but being humiliated in front of Emily was clearly just too much for her.

  “It would have been better not to have any bracelet at all than to have had a fake one,” she grumbled.

  “I’m sorry that’s how you feel,” Zoey said. “I was only trying to help. I didn’t mean to cause you problems. Really, I didn’t.”

  “Well, you did,” Ivy said, marching toward the exit. “And I can do without your ‘help,’ okay?”

  “Okay,” Zoey said to Ivy’s retreating back as the bathroom door swung
closed behind her.

  As she walked to her next class, Zoey worried about how this was going to affect her fragile truce with Ivy. It wasn’t like Ivy had gone out of her way to be nice to her, but she hadn’t been mean lately, either, and it had made Zoey’s life a lot more pleasant.

  “Hey, Zoey?” It was Josie, the student who’d moved to Mapleton from France and was now Gabe Monaco’s, Zoey’s friend, girlfriend. She stopped Zoey in the hallway.

  “Oh, hi, Josie,” Zoey said.

  “You look . . . How do you say it in English? Like your head is in space?” Josie asked.

  “Yeah, I was just thinking about something.” Zoey sighed.

  “I hear this thinking can be very dangerous, no?” Josie said, smiling.

  Zoey laughed. “Hopefully, safer than the alternative!” she said.

  “I have a favor to ask you—I saw the très hip bracelets you made for Libby, Priti, and Kate, and I was hoping you could make one for me too,” Josie said. “I’d like to have my own special design, like you did for them.”

  “I can do that,” Zoey said.

  “I know a bunch of other girls who want them too,” Josie said. “You could start a Sew Zoey accessory line.”

  “Um . . . yeah. I don’t know, maybe,” Zoey said. “But . . . right now I have to get to class.”

  As she rushed down the hallway to beat the bell, Zoey thought about how the bracelet Zoey gave Ivy caused nothing but trouble, but Josie was begging Zoey to make some for her and her friends. The key, Zoey thought, was that Josie wanted her bracelet to be different from the branded ones, to be special and personal. With such demand, and the cost of the booth expenses hanging over her head, selling unique versions of the bracelets began to sound like a very good option, even if they were copies.

  CHAPTER 7

  Minds and Manners

  Have you done something because you were trying to be nice, but it ended up going wrong, and then the person you were trying to be nice to thought you were doing it for completely different reasons? Like, not-nice reasons? It feels so unfair, but it’s hard to know what to do. If someone is going to think the worst about you, it seems like there’s not a lot you can do to change their mind. I’m not even sure if writing an apology note would help. Hopefully, it’s true that “It’s the thought that counts.” Isn’t it?

  I’m busy working on Aunt Lulu’s maternity dress, plus making bracelets and sewing more sizes of the different clothing designs for the gift fair. I hope I at least make back the cost of the booth—or even better, make a profit! I gather from your answers to my question in a previous blog post that gift fairs can be a mixed bag: Sometimes they’re awesome and you do really well, and other times . . . not so much. Please send awesome wishes my way!

  “I’ve got good news!” Zoey told Ezra when they met up after school on Wednesday at Poppa’s Pastry Shop. Marcus had picked Zoey up from school and given her a ride there, teasing her about her “date” the whole way.

  “What’s that?” Ezra asked, spooning whipped cream off his hot chocolate and into his mouth.

  “I got a booth at the gift fair after all,” Zoey told him. “They had a cancellation. There’s just one catch: They want me to have some nonclothing items for sale, like accessories, to make my booth more gift fair–friendly.”

  “That’s great!” Ezra exclaimed. “Do you know what you’re going to sell?”

  “I’m probably going to make more fabric bracelets—you’ve probably seen girls wearing them at school; they’re really in style,” Zoey said. “I’ve made some copies for my friends with prints that match their interests.”

  “That sounds cool.”

  “I thought so,” Zoey said. “And they’re easy and quick to make. But now I’m not sure if I should be making money by copying someone else’s idea.”

  “I think it would be okay as long as they’re different enough designs from the originals,” Ezra said. “I mean, if someone copied my stuff, I think I’d take it as a compliment.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly how Daphne Shaw told me to look at it when someone copied my sari design,” Zoey told him.

  “Listen, if you’re really worried about having enough accessories . . . What if you displayed some of my paintings at your booth? It would be a win-win, because it would make your booth more gifty looking, and I’d get a chance to sell my artwork.”

  Zoey was taken aback by the suggestion. She tried to hide her feelings, because she didn’t want to upset Ezra, but even though she thought his paintings were cool, she didn’t think they really meshed with the Sew Zoey style. She wanted the booth to reflect her style, not be a mishmash of Sew Zoey and Ezra styles. She was also worried about having to call back the gift fair organizers to ask them if it was okay to sell paintings that weren’t her own, since they were so particular about what was being sold. But then she thought of something that made it seem worth it.

  “I guess it would be fun to hang out together,” she said finally. “But I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Hang out?” Ezra asked.

  “You know, manning the booth?” Zoey replied.

  Ezra paused. “Oh. I guess I kind of figured I’d just hang the pictures and you’d do your thing. But yeah, if you want me to, I’ll help you. It would be fun to hang out.”

  “Okay,” Zoey said, trying to figure out if he was just saying it to be nice. “You know, I’m just not sure I want to rock the boat with the organizers, anyway. I’d have to ask permission to sell the paintings, and they barely admitted me as it is.”

  “I’ll send you some photos of the paintings I’d want to display, just in case you decide to call them,” Ezra said.

  “Okay,” Zoey agreed.

  Now what? she thought. Doing the gift fair was becoming more complicated by the minute!

  At lunch the next day, she asked her friends what they would do.

  “It’s not that I don’t like his paintings,” she explained, having received Ezra’s photos by e-mail before school. “I really do. It’s just . . . they’re not exactly . . . Sew Zoey-ish, if you know what I mean. And if I’m going to take a risk by spending all this money to rent a booth, I want it to look like the Sew Zoey blog came to life.”

  “Hold on!” Priti exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t you let your crush display his paintings? It’ll give you the perfect excuse to hang out!”

  “That’s what I thought at first,” Zoey said. “It turns out he thought he was just going to leave them there and let me do all the work—until I mentioned hanging out, and then he said he would, and yeah, it would be fun. But I don’t want him to feel like he’s forced into it.”

  “I think you should stick to your original vision,” Kate said. “If he’s really into you, he’ll come visit, anyway.”

  “Okay, so one for and one against,” Zoey said. “What do you think, Libby?”

  Libby, who’d been crunching on carrot sticks during the discussion, swallowed and shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it would be cool to let Ezra show his paintings and spend time together. But I can see how you’re laying out all the money for the booth and want it to look perfect. So, basically, I’m no help.”

  “When do you have to decide?” Kate asked.

  “Soon!” Zoey said. “Like, today, since I need to get permission, and the gift fair is a week from Friday! Plus, I still haven’t decided exactly what to do for accessories. I’ve made some that I’ll sell, but I don’t like them as much as the bracelets, and I don’t think there’s enough variety.”

  “You will figure it all out,” Libby said. “You always do.”

  It was true. Zoey did find ways to make things work. But there was always a first time for disaster, and Zoey was worried.

  “Why are you so grumpy faced?” Marcus asked when Zoey walked in after school. “Cheer up, little sister!”

  “I can’t,” Zoey complained. “I’m stressing out about the gift fair. I don’t know what to do.”

  “What�
��s the problem?” Marcus asked. “I thought you got a booth? And you just have to make some accessories, right? Piece of cake.”

  “I know.” Zoey sighed. “But the only accessories I’ve made lately that I really like are those fabric bracelets.”

  “What’s wrong with those?” Marcus asked. “Didn’t you say your friends loved them and wear them every day?”

  “Yeah,” Zoey replied. “But they’re copies, basically. I’m going in circles trying to decide if I’m okay with selling them. Anyway, the real problem is that when I told Ezra all this, he suggested I sell his paintings in the booth as gifts, instead. And I’m not sure if I want to. But I don’t want to hurt his feelings, either.”

  “Awkward. Trouble in paradise already,” Marcus joked. Then, seeing that Zoey really wasn’t in the mood for humor, he asked, “So what are the pros and cons?”

  Zoey filled him in on the good and bad points of letting Ezra display his work.

  Marcus drummed on the table with his fingers. It was a family joke that he always seemed to think better when he was drumming.

  “Zo, I think you should stay true to yourself and say no. Maybe offer to call and see if he can get his own booth or something,” Marcus suggested. “If he likes you enough, he’ll understand.”

  “That’s a great idea!” Zoey said, feeling like a weight had lifted from her. “Thanks, Marcus!”

  “Well, now that I’ve solved that problem . . . How are things going with you and Allie?” Marcus asked. “Last time she was here, things seemed tense.”

  “Oh, that,” Zoey said. She hadn’t wanted to mention Allie to her brother, but she was still worried. “Well, we’re both selling accessories, so we made a No Weirdness Pact.”

  “Uh . . . what’s that?”

  “Basically, we agreed to have fun and not make the gift fair sales a competition,” Zoey explained.

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Marcus said.

  “If we can keep to it,” Zoey said. “The thing is, Allie and I were never supercompetitive before, but things feel different ever since you guys broke up, even though we’re trying to get things back to normal.”