Behind the Seams

by Betty Hechtman

  When everything was clean and packed up, I passed through the dining room and heard voices coming from the living room, and the tone sounded like somebody was unhappy. I peeked in the living room with the idea of saying good-bye. Nell and her aunt were sitting on the sofa, and the younger woman’s face was twisted in frustration. It didn’t seem right to interrupt, so before they saw me, I backed out of sight.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Robyn is on my case all the time. She keeps bringing up that I got the job because of my connection to you, or as she puts it, I took the easy way, while she got in all on her own.” Nell slumped farther. “She screwed something up and then made me take the blame. It’s just so unfair. My life would be so much simpler if she was out of the way.”

  CeeCee seemed at a loss for suggestions and uncertain about how to comfort her niece. She started to put her arm around Nell, then took it back. Finally, she sighed. “I didn’t get the job for you. I made some calls and my agent got you the interview. You got the job on your own merit.”

  Poor Nell. She was just out of college, where there was some effort to keep things fair, and she was getting her first taste of the unfairness of the world. Apparently, CeeCee was thinking the same thing. She told the girl she’d just have to deal with the woman who was causing all the problems. There was no magic cure.

  If anybody knew about things not being fair, it was CeeCee. When her dentist-husband died, she found out he’d lost all their money and she had to start over. CeeCee might be a little self-absorbed at times, but she wasn’t all fluff. Hidden behind the sparkling eyes and tinkling laugh was a will of steel. Though at one time she’d been the star of the CeeCee Collins Show, when that ended, she set aside her pride and had taken any small part or cameo role she could get. She had even hosted an infomercial. She made it a point to be easy to work with, knowing it would help her get more and hopefully better parts. Her determination had paid off.

  I waited a moment longer and made sure Nell was done before I walked in to say good-bye.

  “Thank you, Molly. What would I have done without you?” CeeCee got up and walked me to the door. Nell had let the dogs out and they were actively searching my shoes for crumbs. “You’re coming to the show, aren’t you?” CeeCee said, stopping in the foyer.

  “Actually, I wasn’t planning to. Adele has her heart set on going, and it’s hard for both of us to be gone from the bookstore at the same time.”

  CeeCee’s smile faded, and she grabbed my hands in a frantic manner. “You have to come. You really do. Molly, we can’t have the Hookers in the audience on their own. Who knows what they’ll do.” I knew she was really talking about Adele, and since I’d seen what Adele could do when left on her own, I agreed to work it out so I could go.

  I came home with the magic combination of food and animal scents, and my two dogs stuck to me like glue after I walked into my kitchen. Blondie, the strawberry blond terrier mix, and Cosmo, the small black mutt, were joined by Holstein and Cat Woman, the two cats my son had brought with him when he moved back home.

  I’d had my share of cats over the years and was always amazed at how distinct each of their personalities were. Holstein was more like a cat-dog. He joined the dogs in following me around the house and couldn’t get enough attention. Cat Woman was more like the generic idea of a cat. She tended to be more aloof except around food. She always sat at my feet and patted my leg with her paw until she got a taste.

  I did a double take when I heard hammering coming from the other room. Supposedly I had been living alone since my husband Charlie died, but then my son Samuel lost the place where he was staying and moved back in with the cats. And then there was Barry Greenberg. . . .

  I followed the sound to the dining room. The lights were on and the skeleton of a shelving unit was on the floor. Barry set down his hammer and looked up as I walked in. He wiped some sawdust off on his faded jeans and rolled up the sleeve that had come undone on his blue and black plaid flannel shirt. “What do you think?” He gestured toward his work. Last time I’d seen it, it was a pile of wood in the back of his Tahoe. The change was definitely impressive.

  “Great,” I said, trying to sound one hundred percent enthusiastic. Really, I was still getting used to the changes around here.

  I used to be upset at referring to Barry as my boyfriend. I mean, he’s in his fifties and a homicide detective. To me, the title boyfriend was somewhere along the lines of wearing clothes that were too young for you. Even if you still had the legs to wear a short little skirt, it looked off. I really didn’t have to worry about the boyfriend title anymore anyway. When Barry presented me with the blue velvet box with a diamond ring inside at Christmas, everything changed, including the title he was after.

  He’s been talking about us getting married long before the ring, and I know most women would have been thrilled. But it was just that I was still getting over Charlie’s death. And to be honest, there was something more. I’d married young and had never been on my own to try my wings. I was in my late forties and finally getting that chance. I liked it; I really did. I’d started a whole new life with my job at the bookstore and the crochet group.

  There were other issues, too. Barry’s job, for one. Forget about making any plans. If he picked up a murder, he could practically disappear for days with barely a call. And then out of nowhere, show up at my door with just a call from his cell phone to let me know he was there. I wasn’t sure how I could deal with a husband who did that.

  And there was the communication thing. Charlie had worked in public relations and talked about it extensively. I’d helped out with his business, too, so it was always in the open. But Barry wanted to shut the door on his day when he came over. I understood, but it still felt uncomfortable, as though I was shut out of a large portion of his life. Again, it was one thing if that was going on with someone you were going out with, another if you were married to them.

  But I pretty much forgot about those problems when he was around. Even if he wouldn’t talk about it, I found it exciting that his work world was dark and dangerous. I felt safe with him. Maybe it had to do with how he was able to fix anything that broke in my house. It felt like he could take care of things. And, of course, there was this chemical thing when he was around. Barry was hot. What could I say?

  I glanced down at my bare left hand. The ring was still in the box in my dresser drawer. I’d thought his getting the ring was a romantic gesture and all, but I still wasn’t ready to be a fiancée.

  Barry wasn’t happy with my fence-sitting and dealt with it by ignoring it. He’d begun leaving more of his things at my house and had gone ahead and started making changes, like building this shelving unit to add to what I already had for my yarn. Those shelves were already overflowing and there were grocery bags filled with my stash on the floor again.

  Barry rocked back on his heels before standing and slinging his arm around my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking, babe. We should get our own place.” He caught my look of surprise and quickly added. “That is if you decide to say yes.” He said if, but I knew he meant when. Once he’d thrown out that qualifier, he continued on. “It would be better to start fresh, no memories.” He didn’t say it, but I knew he was thinking, And no baggage, either. My son Samuel had just walked in the room and was looking over Barry’s work-in-progress.

  He gave Barry a cursory nod and turned all his attention toward me. “I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m filling in at that new restaurant that opened up in the Village Walk.” Samuel was a musician waiting for his big break. In the meantime, he was a barista at a local coffee place and took whatever gigs he could get. He picked up his guitar case and headed toward the door.

  Barry made a noise as Samuel left. Something along the lines of a displeased grunt. You didn’t have to be an expert to pick up on the undercurrent of hostility between Barry and Samuel. Barry didn’t think I should have let Samuel move back in when he lost the place he was sharing with a bunch of guys. And Samu
el was still getting over his father’s death and wasn’t comfortable with someone taking Charlie’s place in my life.

  It put me smack in the middle. I would always be Samuel’s mother and this was still his home when needed. But I could understand Barry’s point of view, too. I was Barry’s whatever—if I didn’t like the term boyfriend, being referred to as a girlfriend really didn’t work for me—and he was part of my life now and had a right not to be treated like an invader.

  “There’s Thai takeout in the refrigerator,” Barry said. I’d been too busy helping CeeCee with her demo to do anything more than taste the Apple Bumble Crumble and was definitely hungry. I checked the fridge and saw the line of white cartons. He’d even gotten my favorite pad thai vegetables.

  I went back to the dining room to thank him, but he was on his cell phone. I could tell by the serious set of his mouth and his measured tone that it was work. I watched him go from building Barry to detective Barry right before my eyes. He hugged me with one arm as he headed toward the living room. I nuzzled closer, drinking in the scent that was just his.

  “I’ve got to get Jeffrey,” Barry said before sticking his head in the doorway of the den. He didn’t have to say anything. As soon as his son saw him, he sighed and started to gather up his homework.

  “Yeah, we gotta go. So what else is new?” Jeffrey said in a fourteen-year-old’s version of a world-weary voice.

  “He can stay,” I said and gestured for Jeffrey to stop packing up. “He can sleep here and I’ll get him to school.” Barry’s work face disappeared and his eyes softened as he hugged me closer.

  “You’re the best. It’s good to have somebody watching my back.” Barry pulled free and headed for the door, almost at a sprint. No matter the long hours, the interrupting calls, Barry loved his job.

  This wasn’t the first time Jeffrey had stayed over. I’d taken the bedroom I’d used as an office and moved the computer and desk into the overcrowded crochet room and made a room for Jeffrey.

  There was something old school about him. Jeffrey was polite and nice to talk to. He wasn’t hostile or sullen the way some boys his age were. He was still soft around the edges and tried to look more manly by gelling his brown hair into a spiky style. His clothing choice wasn’t typical, either. He wore a lot of suit jackets with jeans. Did I mention that Jeffrey wanted to be an actor, was an actor already, if you counted school plays and that he’d gone on some auditions for commercials. Barry didn’t like the idea, and disliked it even more when Jeffrey started calling himself Columbia.

  Barry was still struggling with being a full-time parent, even though Jeffrey had been living with his father for the past couple of years after things hadn’t worked out with him living with his mother.

  “Are you hungry? I was going to have some of the takeout,” I said. Jeffrey nodded and closed up his homework. I made up plates for both of us and we took them in the den. I flipped on the TV.

  A repeat of the Barbara Olive Overton show was on. “I’m going to that show tomorrow,” I said. I explained about CeeCee being on the show, and when he heard what movie she was in, he was impressed. Who knew Jeffrey was a fan of Anthony, the vampire who crocheted?

  Talking about Anthony reminded me of the bookstore. “Oh no,” I said suddenly, as I was gathering up the plates. I’d promised CeeCee that I’d go to the show, but I’d forgotten to discuss getting time off with my boss.

  CHAPTER 2

  “I’M SORRY FOR ASKING YOU AT THE LAST MINUTE,” I said to Mrs. Shedd. It was the last hour before closing and the bookstore had only a few customers. I glanced toward the bookstore café and saw that Bob, our barista and cookie baker, was already in the process of cleaning up the café. “I thought I could do some of the things I was planning to do in the morning now.” I’d come in to ask my boss for the morning off to go to the talk show and to take care of a few things.

  I had invited Jeffrey to come along to the store and was surprised when he agreed. He had immediately gone off to look at the big section we had on theater arts.

  “As long as you’re here by noon, it shouldn’t be a problem. Funny you should bring up the Barbara Olive Overton program. I just had a call from someone there today,” Mrs. Shedd said, putting back a copy of Caught By the Hook, which was the first of the Anthony books and the basis for the movie Caught By a Kiss. “They want to film something here for one of their background pieces. She said they would pay us a small fee and give us a promotional consideration in the credits. The mention in the credits would be nice, but I was thinking maybe we could slip something with the bookstore’s name in the shot.” Mrs. Shedd sighed. “Anything we can do to help business is a plus.” Mrs. Shedd had made some bad investments with the bookstore’s money and was doing whatever she could to make up for the losses. “The woman I spoke to said she comes in the café all the time and that’s why she thought of Shedd and Royal. I’m not that familiar with the café customers and I’m so bad with names. Hers was something Freed—maybe Rachel. Do you know her?”

  I didn’t know much about the café customers, either, and shook my head. “Did she explain what they wanted to film?”

  “More or less. They’re doing an upcoming show to coincide with the release of a book called Back from Hell. Timing wise, there won’t have been any actual book signings, so they want us to set up a fake one. Are you familiar with the author, D. J. Florian?”

  Mrs. Shedd and her formerly silent partner, Mr. Royal, had been spending more time at the bookstore lately, but apparently she hadn’t paid attention to all the upcoming releases. “His book is one of those blogoirs.” Mrs. Shedd looked puzzled and I explained it was a mixture of a blog and a memoir. “He’s the one who was struggling with a drug problem and started writing a blog more to help himself, but you know how it is these days. Somehow it got caught up in the blogosphere and he got a lot of followers. What was different about him was his blog was funny and literate and not totally self-centered.” I recalled reading some interview with him where he’d talked about his life going in a downward spiral. He’d lost his place to live, his job, his friends, everything and ended up living on the street. “His turnaround was very dramatic. Something about hitting bottom and being on the street at five minutes to midnight on the last day of the year. A lot of people were inspired by his journey. He’s actually local.”

  Mrs. Shedd appeared unimpressed and turned toward the display of Anthony books. “I’d rather have another hot vampire book.”

  “You know, CeeCee’s niece works on the Barbara Olive Overton show,” I said.

  Mrs. Shedd didn’t seem particularly surprised. The entertainment industry was woven into the everyday life of the San Fernando Valley. It was home to a number of production studios and television stations, who employed a lot of Valley residents. The area was often used for filming. It was a common sight to see a line of trucks and generators and mobile dressing rooms parked on residential streets. Actors, writers, directors and producers lived in the area, particularly in the communities nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains like Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Tarzana and Woodland Hills. It wasn’t that unusual to find yourself standing behind some soap opera actor or news anchor in the grocery store checkout line, and every dog groomer and cleaners had framed eight-by-tens of their celebrity customers. But the bookstore had never gone that route. CeeCee would have had a place of honor if we had.

  “Have I met CeeCee’s niece?” Mrs. Shedd asked. She caught her reflection in the large windows that faced Ventura Boulevard and smoothed a stray blond hair back in place. Her hair was so perfect, it almost looked like a wig. Mrs. Shedd was in her late sixties without a hint of gray. The silky texture, however, suggested the blond was natural.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Her aunt is trying to get her to take up the hook and keeps dragging her to our group’s meetings.”

  We were trying to make the events at the bookstore really large events. So instead of having a single author signing their latest
books, we were teaming up with local business owners to put on something bigger that would attract more people and help us all. Shedd & Royal already had a reputation for their events. Let’s just say they seemed to court disaster, but in a good way. No matter what happened, they always turned out to have good book sales, so Mrs. Shedd had learned not to mind if there was a miniriot.

  I noticed that Jeffrey had gone into the café. Bob had given him some of the end-of-the-day leftover cookies and the last of the lemonade. Bob had his laptop set up on the table and the two of them were talking. No doubt they were discussing the science-fiction screenplay Bob had been writing for as long as I’d worked at the bookstore. Maybe Jeffrey was trying to get a part in it. I’d never asked too many questions about it, but Bob was always banging away at the laptop when business was slow. He looked like somebody who would write a science-fiction screenplay, with his pale skin, light brown hair and some glob of hair growing between his chin and his mouth. It wasn’t a beard, more like a puff ball.

  I was relieved Mrs. Shedd was okay about me going to the show. CeeCee had been almost panicky, and I figured I could sit in front and coach her if necessary. I took the signs for the Salute to Chocolate event I was holding and slipped them into frames. I put the biggest one near the front door and then placed the others around the bookstore. It was going to be an all-chocolate evening, with a highlight of having Alain Des Plaines, a chef on the food channel, sign his ultimate chocolate cookbook: Melts at Body Heat.

  When I’d finished with the signs and put out a stack of schedules for the month, I went back to the yarn department. It was the newest addition and my favorite part of the store. We’d arranged the yarn by colors. There was a permanent wood table for the Hookers or anyone who wanted to stop by and work with yarn, along with some easy chairs. I picked up a few stray skeins and put them back where they belonged. All our yarn was high end, and Mrs. Shedd had wanted a crocheted and knitted swatch for each of the yarns we sold. Getting the crocheted ones was no problem, as Adele and the Hookers all pitched in. I’d been left to do the knitted ones and still had a lot to finish.