“Susan’s one of our superstars,” Jennifer explained. “You know, the ones with such huge client lists they never have to bunk in with their friends and wind up sleeping on the sofa with a Rottweiler.”
Kelly laughed softly, as did Tracy. “Well, I’m glad you decided to drop by for a visit. Jennifer says you’re taking classes at the university. What are you studying?”
“Chemistry. I’m one of those science geeks, I guess. I can only afford two courses a semester, so it’s taking forever. But I’m finally into my major courses now.”
“Good for you. It’s worth it, Tracy. Hang in there,” Kelly advised. “It sounds like you need knitting to relax like the rest of us do. I’m a CPA, and I escape over here regularly. Whenever the numbers start crossing in front of my eyes.”
Mimi bustled into the room then, her arms filled with fluffy billowing bunches of yarns. Fuschia, cherry red, and bubblegum pink. “Hello, girls,” she greeted. “Don’t forget the class tomorrow night.”
Kelly reached out and sank her hand into a frothy pink billow. Soft, soft. “Are you kidding, Mimi? This is the reason I’m taking the class. I want to see how you create such gorgeous colors.”
“Mimi, meet Tracy. She’s a knitter from my office, and I’ve been telling her about the shop for weeks,” Jennifer said, gesturing to her friend. “Tracy . . . uh, Tracy? . . . Uh-oh. I think we’ve lost her. Fiber trance.”
Kelly chuckled, watching Tracy stare wide-eyed at the seductive billows of froth in Mimi’s arms. “Mimi, this is Tracy, and she’s under the spell.”
“Welcome, Tracy, I’m so glad you came to see us,” Mimi said, holding the froth closer. “Go ahead and touch if you want.”
Tracy sank both hands deep into the billows, delight registering on her face. “Wow . . . this is so . . . so gorgeous. Do you make this yourself?”
“Well, we buy the fleeces and often spin them ourselves, but yes, we do a lot of the dyeing. That’s how we get such yummy colors.” Mimi beamed with pride. “I think I’ll call this one ‘Christmas Candy.’ What do you think, girls?”
“Please don’t remind me of the holidays. I’m still losing weight from that party,” Jennifer complained, fingering the fibers.
“You dyed this?” Tracy peered into Mimi’s face. “How? I mean, what chemicals do you use?”
Mimi laughed lightly. “Oh, we use lots of chemicals, trust me. That’s what I’m teaching in that class tomorrow night.”
“Hey, Tracy, you should join us,” Kelly suggested. “I mean, you’re a chemistry major, after all. This stuff will be right up your alley.”
Tracy stared into the billowing fibers as her hands caressed the froth. “Boy, I wish I could.”
"C’mon, join us,” Jennifer said.
“It would be wonderful to have a real chemist in the class,” Mimi added. “You could teach us a lot, I’m sure.”
Tracy looked up with a shy smile. “I’m far from a chemist, believe me. You’d be teaching me.” She stroked the candy colors again. “I sure wish I could.”
Kelly noticed a wistful expression crossing Tracy’s face and sensed that her hesitation stemmed from a common condition of college students—lack of funds. An inspired suggestion came to mind, and Kelly spoke without thinking.
“Tracy, I can tell you’d like to take the class, and you’d enjoy it even more than we would. If it’s money that’s holding you back, don’t worry about it. The shop has scholarships for special cases. Right, Mimi?” Kelly deliberately caught Mimi’s gaze.
Mimi quickly followed her lead. “That’s right, Tracy. And you’re definitely a special person, what with your chemistry background and all. Why, you would bring a lot to our class. Please come.”
Tracy looked to Mimi in surprise. “Really?” she exclaimed softly, almost as if she didn’t believe it. “Oh . . . oh, that’s wonderful! Thank you! Thank you! You are so sweet to do that, Mimi.”
“You’re welcome, dear,” Mimi said with her maternal smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Five o’clock. We’ll look forward to creating new colors together.”
“Oh, yes,” Tracy breathed, clearly still excited, face flushed with pleasure. “I can’t wait. In fact, I’d better run back to my apartment right now and do all my homework tonight, so I’ll have tomorrow night completely free. See you then.” Tracy turned and sped from the shop without waiting for their good-byes.
“I didn’t know the shop had scholarships,” Jennifer said.
Mimi smiled as she headed toward her office. “We didn’t until now.”
“That was my bright idea,” Kelly confessed. “I remember being a broke college student. By the way, Mimi, since I thought it up, put Tracy’s fee on my bill, okay?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mimi said over her shoulder. “This is my treat.”
Three
Kelly stood by her patio door and sipped her second cup of morning coffee while she stared out into the backyard, watching Carl galumph through the crusty snow. Good thing she had extra rugs waiting by the door. Four big wet dog feet made quite a mess.
Carl ran to the fence and began to bark, little white puffs of frozen dog breath floating upward in the frigid air. Squirrels were probably taunting him from the treetops, Kelly figured, as she glanced into the cottonwood trees that bordered the adjacent golf course and shaded her backyard. Sure enough, Carl’s nemesis, Saucy Squirrel, clung to one of the overhanging branches.
Kelly was about to turn away when a movement beside the trees caught her eye. What was that? Was someone standing there? She didn’t see anything, just the trees. Then she saw the outline of someone in a dark jacket edge slowly from behind a tree. He stood still, staring into the backyard.
Who the hell is that?
Kelly yanked open the glass door and raced out onto the patio. “Hey, what do you want?” she yelled at the intruder. Carl’s barking had turned furious now.
The black-hooded figure took one look at Kelly, then turned and broke into a run across the frozen golf course. All Kelly could tell in that brief glimpse was that he was tall and slender and apparently in good shape because he was running fast. She watched him glance over his shoulder once, then head for the busy street and traffic.
Her heart raced as she watched the man disappear in the distance. Was that one of the vandals? Had he come back? Why? Was he looking for something else to damage? Damn it! Why was he targeting her place? What would he do now that she had confronted him?
Carl paced back and forth atop the crusty snow, barking doggie threats into the icy air. Still agitated and frustrated, Kelly started pacing, too, ignoring the freezing cold. From the corner of her eye, she spied Steve’s big red truck heading down the Lambspun driveway and pulling to a stop beside her cottage. The huge engine’s throaty rumble silenced even Carl’s barks. It was a monster truck, not your average go-to -the-mall, haul-around-garden-supplies, handyman kind of truck. Out west, trucks were serious vehicles.
Steve stepped out and slammed the door. “Hey, there,” he yelled. “Ready to head up into the canyon?”
Carl had raced to the fence the moment he saw Steve. Playmate Steve. Provider-of-golf-balls-and-toys Steve. Roll-on -the-grass-in-the-summer Steve. This time, Carl’s bark was welcoming as he stood, paws on fence, waiting for a head scratch.
Steve obliged. “Hey, boy, whatcha been doin’? Chasin’ squirrels?”
“No, he’s being a good watchdog. He was barking, and I saw a guy standing over there beside the trees.” Kelly pointed.
Steve’s smile disappeared. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were. Now I’m wondering if it was one of those vandals checking out the place again. Damn!”
“What did he look like? Did you get a good look at him?”
“Just a glimpse. He was standing beside the trees, staring into the yard. I came out and yelled at him, and he took off over the golf course, heading toward the street.” Kelly rubbed her arms, feeling the cold at last.
Steve stared
toward the snowy greens. “You know, he could have just been some kid cutting across the course, Kelly. Maybe he came over to see Carl, that’s all.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She stamped her feet as she stood beside the door. “This whole vandal thing has really gotten to me. Maybe he was just a kid, but maybe he was one of those jerks coming back to see what else he could do.”
“Go in and grab your coat. Let’s get some coffee from Pete’s and head to the canyon. We can talk about it on the way.”
Kelly stared at the empty frigid greens and let out a frustrated sigh. “Okay, here’s my mug. Tell Pete to fill ’er up. High octane.” She tossed the mug across the fence.
Steve caught it with one hand. “Hey, what’s with the underhand girly throw? Where’s that first baseman’s arm?”
“It’s frozen along with the rest of me. You won’t see it until the spring thaw.”
Kelly grasped the banister and hastened down the steps to the shop basement, following after the rest of the students in Mimi’s evening dye class. Tracy was at the front of the line.
“This is where we store everything. Forgive the chaos,” Mimi called out as she led her students around piles of large plastic bags filled with colorful yarns.
“I’m amazed they can find anything down here. Stuff is piled all over,” Jennifer said over her shoulder to Kelly.
That was putting it mildly, Kelly thought as Mimi led them through a rabbit warren of rooms leading to the back of the basement and the dye tubs. Since the house had been built in the 1930s, its basement was typical of that period, with a maze of small, low-ceilinged rooms opening one into another, and a huge, noisy ancient furnace. In other words—dark, spooky, and scary. Since she’d grown up in Fort Connor, Kelly remembered playing in this basement many times as a child. That was when Uncle Jim and Aunt Helen still owned the farmhouse—and were still alive.
“I’d forgotten how many rooms were down here. I haven’t been in the basement since I was a kid,” Kelly said as she peered into room after cluttered room.
Everywhere she looked, Kelly saw bags of yarn in every color imaginable. Metal shelves were stacked high with bags of fibers, fleeces, and spun yarns. Bags were on the floor, piles on top of piles. Floor-to-ceiling storage in every room.
“All right, everyone, gather around and we’ll get started. Watch your heads in the doorway,” Mimi said as she led her little troupe into the small room next door to the furnace.
Kelly ducked her head and found a spot beside Jennifer in the semicircle around Mimi. “Boy, Mimi, it’s a good thing you’re here. We need a guide to get back to the shop. I’m lost already.”
“Well, it’s certainly out of the way, I’ll say that. But that makes it really peaceful and quiet. It’s a nice place to work,” Mimi said.
“If you’re a ghost, yeah,” Jennifer said, glancing around the low-ceilinged room. “This is creepy down here. I almost expect that character from the Halloween movies to show up.”
“Thanks for creeping us all out, Jennifer,” Tracy said as laughter and nervous squeals rippled around the group. “If we have nightmares tonight, it’s your fault.”
“Hey, just making an observation.”
"O-kay!” Mimi announced in a clear voice, taking control of the class again. “Now, your handouts have all these steps in detail. Right now, I simply want you to watch what I’m doing, so you’ll remember what each step looks like.” She lifted a large billowy skein of creamy yarn and held it up. “We always start with a cleaned fleece, which has been washed, carded, then spun like this one.” She offered it around for the class to touch.
“Soft,” Kelly observed as she caressed the fibers.
“It should be. This skein is made up of fifty percent merino wool and fifty percent silk.” Turning toward the laundry tubs attached to the walls, Mimi dabbed her fingers into the water. “This skein has also been prewet and spun dry. That’s the first step. You have to prewet the yarn with a wetting agent. That’s a chemical solution we put in the water to help remove anything which would keep the yarn from taking the dye. Then we drain it, and spin it dry in the washing machine.” She dropped the skein into the water and poked at it with a metal rod beside the tub.
“What kinds of things get on the yarn?” Tracy asked.
“All sorts of things can inhibit the process. For example, sometimes commercial spinners use spinning oils. That’s why we prewet first.” Mimi poked at the skein again. “This is good and soaked, so now we can start with the dyeing.” She stirred a measuring cup of clear liquid into the dye tub. “First, we add white vinegar. Next, we dissolve the powdered dye crystals in water before adding them.”
She pulled on thick rubber gloves before opening two plastic containers. “We’ll use pink and blue for this first demonstration.”
Scooping from both containers, she sprinkled them into separate water-filled bottles, coloring the waters bright pink and vivid blue. Mimi proceeded to pour each bottle into the dye tub.
“We’re looking for variegated colors, so each skein will have pinks and blues and purples distributed throughout.”
“You don’t mix it?” Jennifer asked, watching Mimi gently poke the skein in the tub with the metal rod.
“No, because you’d lose the variegated colors we’re looking for. Instead, you’d have one solid color. It all depends on what colors you want.”
Kelly peered into the tub, noticing the skein taking color differently throughout its length. Robin’s egg blue, light pink, lavender, periwinkle. “Wow, look at the colors,” she observed. “It’s doing exactly what you said, Mimi.”
“Well, let’s hope so.” Mimi poked the skein again.
“Fascinating,” Tracy said, staring wide-eyed at the process, clearly captivated by the chemistry experiment taking place before her eyes.
“Now, we’ll let this set for thirty minutes or so. It would be longer if you wanted a darker color, but we’re going after light springtime colors. Once you’ve got the colors you want, then you would drain the tub and refill to rinse the yarn thoroughly.”
“You drain all that dye water out then refill the tub?” Jennifer asked. “How hot is the water?”
“Hot enough to burn,” Mimi warned. “About one hundred seventy degrees.”
“Ouch.” Jennifer flinched.
“After you rinse the yarn, you’ll spin it to remove the excess water.” She pointed to the doorway leading into the darkened furnace room. “Then you’ll spread out the yarns on frames so the commercial fans can blow the yarn dry. There’s yarn on the frames right now. Go take a look.”
Tracy and the others headed for the room next door. Kelly followed, but noticed that Jennifer stayed put. “Don’t you want to take a look?”
“Nope. That looks too much like horror movie territory to me.”
Kelly gave her a playful punch in the arm, then glanced into the furnace room from the doorway. There were the frames with freshly dyed dark blue fibers spread out. Two large fans sat on the floor. “Those are big fans, Mimi,” she said as she returned to the dye tubs.
“And they make a big noise, too. That’s why they’re turned off right now.”
“Can you use a hair dryer?” Jennifer asked.
“Sure, if you’ve only dyed a small amount. But you’d want to use the big fans for a lot of yarn.” Mimi removed a large skein of pink yarn from a nearby shelf. “But now, I want to show you something else we do before we even rinse the yarn.” She dropped the skein of yarn into the dye tub.
“Whoa, did you mean to do that?” Kelly asked.
“I bet I know why,” Tracy said.
“I bet you do,” Mimi said with a smile.
“You’re trying to use up all the dye, right?”
“You’re right, Tracy. We always put another skein into the water in order to exhaust the dye, soak it all up. It’s also ecologically the right thing to do.”
“Give chemistry major Tracy an A,” Jennifer teased.
Kelly watched t
he pink yarn take the dye. Different colors were emerging. “Look at that. Rose pink and violet and deep lavender. New colors, entirely. That’s cool, Mimi.”
Mimi laughed softly. “We think so. Now, let’s get you girls up to your elbows in the tubs, okay?”
Four
"C’mon in, Carl. You can’t stay outside while I run. It’s too cold,” Kelly said as she held the patio door open.
Carl hesitated on the patio, staring toward the yard, as if weighing his decision. Inside and warm or outside and frozen.
Kelly zipped up her insulated running jacket and pulled her knitted hat down over her ears. “Get inside, Carl. You’ll turn into a doggie popsicle if you stay out there.” She patted her thermalwear-clad leg, beckoning him inside. Carl hurried through the door before it slammed shut.
Tugging on her guaranteed-to-twenty-below-zero gloves, Kelly headed out into the bitter cold morning. The sky was a brilliant blue, Colorado Blue, as blue as a summer’s day. Only it wasn’t. She skipped down the front steps, her breath frosting up the moment the warm air left her lips.
How can it be so pretty and still be so cold? Kelly thought as she rounded the front yard and set off for the river trail bordering the golf course. The Cache La Poudre River sliced through the city diagonally as it flowed out of the Rocky Mountains down toward the South Platte River and the flatlands of Kansas.
Sunshine reflected off the snow-covered greens. The sun was rising earlier, Kelly observed, and she was counting down the days until the vernal equinox in March. The first day of spring. She could hardly wait.
She was about to pick up her stride as she aimed for the golf course, noticing how the sun bathed the beige stucco of her cottage and garage in a reddish orange glow. In fact, the sun’s rays turned the garage sunset red, bright red, almost. . . .
Kelly jerked to a stop and stared at the garage nestled beside two tall evergreens edging the golf course. Its red-tiled roof and beige stucco matched the Spanish colonial style of the cottage and the sprawling farmhouse turned knitting shop across the driveway. Except now, the small square structure was covered in red paint.
Dyer Consequences Page 3