Monkey Wrench

by Terri Thayer

  My heart sank.

  Then she grinned. “Are you following us?” she said. “I swear we just saw you at the Emporium.”

  “What took you so long?” the leader of the other pack said. “We’ve been here for at least ten minutes.”

  Two groups, who’d clearly met up at a different shop. Strangers before today, now friends. Or at least friendly enough to tease.

  “You have not,” the redhead exclaimed. They all laughed.

  Dad stamped their passports. The leader of the pack said, “See you at Roman’s.”

  “Not us,” Blondie said. “We’re heading south now.”

  I asked, “How many of you have smart phones?”

  All eight nodded their heads except for one quilter who looked to be about my age, thirty. She reached in her bag and pulled out an iPad.

  I grinned. “Even better. Follow the Quilters Crawl on Twitter. We’re going to announce special prizes.”

  The women gathered around each other, entering info into their phones and checking their Facebook accounts. Two decided to become friends on the spot.

  Jenn came rushing through the back door. She had a large bag slung over her shoulder. Jenn was the queen of homemade bags.

  “Sorry to be late,” she said. “My son broke his arm after school yesterday. Fell off his skateboard. Last night, he insisted he didn’t need the Vicodin the doctor had prescribed. This morning he changed his mind. I had to get to Walgreen’s before coming here.”

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  “He’ll be fine. This is not his first. He broke his leg last year. I wish he’d take up skiing or extreme snowboarding. Something with less probability of breaking every bone in his body.”

  She dropped her bag in the office and pulled on her apron. She went up front, calling out to Ursula as she did that the cavalry had arrived.

  I wished we needed the cavalry. The two groups went out the back door without buying a thing.

  I went back into my office. Why wasn’t this working? I checked the Crawl’s Facebook account. Summer had posted a picture of her display of quilts based on Roman architecture. Customers liked her note, giving her thumbs up. Maybe I should take a picture of the shop, and put it up.

  I went over to the Twitter account. @Quilters Crawl had gained some more followers.

  I surfed over to Wyatt’s account. After hearing Vangie’s account of the night he died, I was sure there was more to him than I’d thought. Someone was probably looking for those drugs. That person might even have been the one who killed him.

  He must have stashed the drugs in Vangie’s car earlier. She had an assigned spot in the parking garage. Her car was always in the same spot. The drug bust probably had many of the drug dealers on the run, doing things that they wouldn’t have considered. Like hiding drugs in Vangie’s car. Or killing other dealers.

  I read through the tweets that had come up after he died. I didn’t see anything as blatant as the kid looking for Provigil.

  _____

  Dad left his post about twelve-thirty and wandered into my office for the fifteenth time. He wanted to grouse about how different this Quilters Crawl was than the last one he worked, nearly six years ago.

  “Still not much action?” I said, not quite succeeding at keeping the exasperation out of my voice.

  “Nobody’s coming. Did you guys advertise this thing or what? You gotta advertise,” he badgered. “Take an ad in the paper. I used to do that all the time. What about the Yellow Pages? You in the Yellow Pages?”

  I sighed. There was no point in arguing with him. I could never explain Twitter to him.

  He needed something constructive to do. I handed him a stack of sandwich request forms. “How about going to Zanutto’s and getting lunch for everyone?”

  That could get rid of him for a good hour. Florence alone could spend twenty minutes with the menu making up her mind between Jack and American.

  I checked the boxes that would get me a turkey sandwich on whole wheat with cranberry sauce and mustard and handed my form to my father. “We’ve got plenty of snacks and drinks here, so we only need sandwiches. Take my credit card.”

  He pulled his hand away as I tried to give him my plastic.

  “I got this,” he said gruffly. He shuffled up front. “Lunch wagon,” he called.

  I brought my laptop out to the greeting table and settled there.

  Jenn came back, holding our Twitter prize basket aloft. “You like?”

  “It’s fabulous,” I said.

  She’d taken the basket that Freddy had brought and gussied it up. Glittery silver ribbon wound through the handle. Lark’s book was featured prominently; the scissors were nestled on a bed of candy and silver confetti. She’d attached silver balls on matching pipe cleaners. If I’d done that, the result would have been Martian. Hers was chic.

  Of course, if we’d had more business this morning, the basket would have remained unadorned. I would have been okay with that.

  “Have you been checking the tweets?” she asked.

  “I’m about to,” I said, opening the laptop.

  Jenn pulled her phone out of her apron pocket. “This friend of mine is tweeting as she goes from shop to shop.” Jenn said, “She’s funny. Snarky.”

  My heart did a little flip. This was the part of Twitter that was nerve-wracking. Instantaneous judging. “Has she been here? What did she say?”

  Jenn looked down at her phone. “Not sure. She’s not specific. She probably doesn’t want to get sued. Listen to this, though. I bet you can tell which shop this is. Expect puppies and rainbows to fall from the ceiling. Sweet overload. Specializes in twee florals.”

  I had to grin. That was the perfect description of Barbara the Damp’s shop.

  “How about this one? Surf’s up, dude. If a quilt shop can be righteous, this is it. Every fabric has a peace sign on it.”

  Ursula joined us. I looked behind her. I couldn’t see one customer on the shop floor. Business was slower than our slowest day this year. The Quilters Crawl had probably scared away our regular customers. And no one was crawling here.

  “Oh, that’s definitely the Santa Cruz shop,” Ursula said.

  “Type A. Not a speck of dirt anywhere. No fun either.”

  We all said in unison, “Barb V!”

  We laughed.

  Jenn said, “She’s going to keep it up all day today. Her husband drives and she tweets.”

  “Is she following the Quilters Crawl Twitter feed?” Ursula asked. I looked at her in surprise. Ursula was not known around here for her technological prowess.

  “Hey, I’m figuring this out,” she said. “I signed up for an account myself last night. I’m following David Boreanaz, the guy from Bones. He tweeted a picture of his cool socks. Red and black argyle. Very hot.”

  I looked at her in amazement.

  “What?” she said. “It’s not rocket science.”

  “Go, Ursula,” Jenn said, giving her a fist bump. Florence looked up questioningly from where she was straightening the bookrack, trying to follow the conversation.

  I got up and gave her wrinkled hand a pat. “Nothing to worry about, Flo. Today, I only need you to cut fabric and chat up the customers, making them feel at home. Making them want to spend more time here. You’re the best at that. No wi-fi or plug-in required.”

  I sat out front while Flo, Jenn, and Ursula ate lunch in the classroom. My father was telling them stories and I heard plenty of laughs and giggles. At least he’d found his audience.

  The store remained quiet. I told myself the hoppers were all out to lunch.

  Finally, it was time for our Twitter event. I had the laptop open and Jenn came back from lunch with her phone at the ready.

  At the stroke of two, Freddy sent out his tweet. “Special prizes at these two Quilters Crawl locations, QP on the Alameda in San Jose and Quilts Up in Santa Cruz.”

  “This is it, ladies,” I said to my staff who trickled back in from lunch. Dad frowned. “And gent.
Get ready. Jenn and I will take the doors. We’ll give a special ticket to everyone who comes in. The winner has to be here at three o’clock when the prize is awarded, so all the participants should be mingling for the entire hour. Be sure to tell them there’s food in the classroom.”

  I got their nods. “And point out the QP Originals, please.”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Wait,” Jenn said. “We need a picture.”

  Ursula said, “I’ll take it.”

  Jenn handed over her phone. She and I stood holding the Twitter basket.

  “Smile like you mean it,” Ursula said. “This is an historic moment. The first Twitter event in the history of the Quilters Crawl.”

  Claudia and Florence clapped as Jenn and I posed. I didn’t have any trouble smiling genuinely. My staff was trying really hard to cheer me up. They wanted the best for me and that felt good.

  I raced to the back door. Dad was at his station.

  “Be ready, it’s Twitter time,” I said. “We are going to be really busy for the next hour.”

  He cracked his knuckles in response. I stopped to give him a quick hug.

  “Hey, what was that for?” he said, straightening out his Mr. Rogers-type sweater.

  “I’m glad you’re here for the fun. This Twitter thing was my idea, mine and Vangie’s, and it’s happening.”

  The wind had died down and the sun had heated up the afternoon. I stood outside on the tiny porch, ready to greet anyone who came by.

  The back parking lot was small, only holding about a dozen cars. We shared it with Mrs. Unites’s burrito shop but her lunch crowd had come and gone, so there was plenty of parking. Customers had no excuses not to stop.

  It was too bad Vangie wasn’t here. I pulled out my phone to call her. Not now. I’d wait until after the Twitter event and let her bask in the glow of the success. Maybe I’d call her when we pulled out the winning ticket. That would be perfect. She could be in on the big moment that way.

  A bird sang heartily from the pine tree in the neighbor’s yard. People in this neighborhood loved their bird feeders, so the array of songbirds was always wonderful.

  I wanted to hear a different kind of bird, though. The kind that tweeted online.

  I paced. A car came around the corner. I took my place at the door, threw my shoulders back and smiled. The car continued past the driveway into the neighborhood beyond. Dang.

  I walked some more and forbade myself from looking at my watch. Or the phone. I wasn’t going to check the tweets. I wouldn’t drive myself nuts.

  I glanced in the back door even though I knew I couldn’t really see the shop floor from here. I could see Dad. He was reading the paper.

  Jenn had to be doing better. People must have parked on the street out front.

  Forty minutes went by without one customer coming in the back door. I went in and put the roll of special tickets next to my father.

  “What’s this?” he said, folding the sports section.

  “Make sure anybody that comes to get their passport stamped gets one,” I said, not pausing. I headed for the front door.

  “I thought we were going to get busy,” he said after me.

  Three customers holding pink tickets were gathered by the cutting table. They were looking through the prize basket.

  “Pretty sweet,” an apple-cheeked blonde said. “This is Lark Gordon’s newest book.”

  Her friend pumped a fist. “One of us is bound to win,” she said. “The odds are really good.”

  “Do we have to hang around until three?” her friend whined.

  Ursula said, “Those are the rules.”

  My heart sank. I crossed the shop to skirt around them, avoiding eye contact. I couldn’t make small talk right now. I went out to Jenn.

  “Is that it? Three people?” I asked as soon as the door had closed behind me.

  She nodded. “That’s all. What about you?”

  I shook my head. “Nobody. Let me see your phone.”

  She held it away from me. “Freddy followed up a minute or so ago.”

  There was something else. Some reason she wouldn’t let me see her phone.

  “What?” I demanded. “You know something. Tell me.”

  She looked away. We were both hopeful as a PT Cruiser went past, but the driver didn’t stop.

  “Quiltsaplenty is at the Santa Cruz shop. She says there are at least thirty people there.”

  “Damn!” I said, kicking an empty soda can. It landed noisily in the gutter. I fetched it and put it in the recycling bin.

  I looked up the street. “Do you think the freeway ramp is closed for construction again? Maybe there’s an overturned tractor trailer that we didn’t hear about.”

  Jenn shrugged, without looking at me.

  “Are we hard to find? I’m sure our address is correct on the map. Where are all of our customers?” I cried.

  Jenn put a hand on my shoulder. I could tell she wanted to tell me something.

  “Tell me,” I said. “What am I doing wrong?”

  Jenn frowned. She suddenly looked like a mother about to give her kid some vile-tasting medicine. I straightened my back. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer to that question.

  “Do you really want to know?” Jenn asked.

  Jenn and I had had a bumpy relationship. She had been Team Kym when I’d fired Kym. When I brought Ursula back with me from Asilomar, Jenn had nearly quit in protest. Ursula had been the one to bring Jenn back into the QP fold, with her gentle persistence. She’d informed her that she was counting on Jenn to teach her the ropes. They’d bonded over the correct way to fold a fat quarter and cash counting techniques.

  But Jenn had always remained a little cold to me.

  She found her voice. “You’ve been making a lot of changes around here. You don’t have the kinds of fabrics that your mother used to carry. I think your customer base has eroded somewhat.”

  “Quilting is changing,” I protested. “Besides, sales are up.”

  She held up a hand. “I’m not saying you’re doing the wrong thing. First of all, it’s your shop. You’re in a transitional phase. I think your new quilters are not the type that go on shop hops. They’re at work on Wednesdays. Maybe we’ll see them on the weekend. But today, it’s a lot of traditional quilters who have eleven other shops to pick from. They’ll get here eventually.”

  “But I promised that this Twitter promotion would be a good thing for everyone. And here it’s sucking for me.”

  “It’s a smart idea. You may be a little ahead of the curve. I guarantee you by next year, using Twitter will be the norm. Every other Quilters Crawl is going to copy you.”

  I hugged Jenn and went back to my post in the back.

  Right at three, Jenn took a picture of me with the apple-cheeked blonde. She’d won the basket.

  Twelve

  I’d been closed for at least twenty minutes when there was a knock at the back door. I heard the handle jiggle. Oh, no. Was it an errant shop hopper? I had the slowest day in QP history and now someone wants to come in?

  I collapsed against the counter. The Quilters Crawl dictated the hours all the shops were open. I didn’t have the energy to deal with someone who thought the rules don’t really apply to her.

  I wanted to go home. Home to Buster. And bubbles. I needed to erase this day from my memory bank.

  The knock came again, louder this time.

  I went down the back hall to see who was banging at the door, preparing a speech about how I had to obey the rules or I’d get thrown out.

  Through the glass I could see Freddy smiling at me. He was holding a bottle of wine up like an Oscar.

  “Got cups?” he said, when I threw the deadbolt and let him in.

  “You bet,” I said. He followed me into the kitchen, collapsing on one of the retro red-vinyl-covered chairs.

  I pulled out two of our best QP logo mugs, giving Freddy the biggest one.

  “Ice?” I asked, pausing in fro
nt of the freezer door.

  Freddy’s brow furrowed. Nice to see he was laying off the Botox. “Don’t be gauche. This is a robust red. Best at room temperature.”

  “We’re drinking out of mugs, Freddy,” I said. “Gauche is something to strive for.”

  He poured.

  “What a day,” Freddy said, rubbing his scalp vigorously. He’d let his bald spot take over and cut the remaining locks short. I liked it so much better than the ponytail combover he’d been sporting.

  “I’m telling you, if I had to give directions to Barb V’s shop one more time today, I was going to shoot myself right in the kisser. Every single hopper seemed to be going from my place to hers. Why do women assume I know how to get places? Number one, I just moved up here. And number two, I’m a dude. I navigate by the stars.”

  I laughed and took a big swig of the wine. Freddy was like a straight hairdresser or ice skater. Always trying to prove his masculinity, he liked to err on the macho side.

  I was glad Buster was at home.

  “Number three, you hate Barb V,” I said. “Did you have a good day?”

  He glanced at his phone. “I think so. It seemed busy. But I’m not in this for the daily numbers like you. I want these quilters to remember Roman’s Sewing Machines and find their way back when they need a new machine.”

  I was hungry, so I pulled out some cheese and crackers and put them on the table. Freddy poked at a slice.

  “Has this cheese been sitting out all day?”

  “Geez, no!” I said. “Do you think I’m trying to kill you?”

  Freddy smirked. “Don’t play like you never thought about it.”

  “Who hasn’t?” I said. He stuck his tongue out at me. “Don’t worry, this is the cheese for tomorrow.”

  “I’m honored,” he said, biting into the little sandwich he’d made, spreading cracker crumbs everywhere. He pushed the rest in his mouth.

  “So my Twitter thing was a total bust.”

  Freddy had more free time than I did. I knew he would have checked in with the other shops during the day.

  Freddy stuck his finger in the condensation puddling on the tabletop near the wine bottle. He drew little paisleys on the metal. “I heard.”