Old Maid's Puzzle (15 page)

I should be able to finish checking in the notions before my date with Buster tonight. Once I got those entered into the inventory, I would have Jenn or Kym tag them and put them out for sale. I wanted to be sure that the customers could easily find what they needed during the sale.

My step got lighter as I got closer to the store. I'd had an idea that might earn me a few brownie points with my newest customers.

I walked in through the back door. Vangie was in the hall, breaking down boxes and bundling the cardboard cores that fabric came wound on. Each one represented a bolt of fabric sold, and that was a good thing, but it also meant a never-ending recycling battle.

I checked the classroom. Pearl and Ina were working on the Old Maid's Puzzle quilt. The quilt frame was up and the two women sat on either side of it, hand quilting. They looked a little lost as the frame was big enough to seat at least six people, and they were the only two there. I'd look in on them in a minute.

I handed Vangie a piece of cardboard that had fallen. "Need help?"

Vangie shook her head. "Last load. Did you get the cashier's check?"

I patted my back pocket, then held up the bag of zucchini. "But I ran into Gussie at the bank, and, long story short, I missed the deadline to mail it at the post office."

She glanced at the clock. "It's too late to call them now. Too bad, these New Yorkers already think all Californians are weirdos. Now we go and flake on them. I told them I'd have the check to them by eleven tomorrow."

This wasn't Vangie's fault. It was on me. I held my hands up. I laid the bag on her desk. She made a great ratatouille. "I'm sorry. I know I screwed up. I'll make it right."

I took the check out of my pocket and put it in the safe.

Vangie said, "Zorn's here." She motioned with her head toward the kitchen. "He's in there. Mrs. Unites nabbed him on the way in." She bumped the back door open with her hip and headed for the dumpster.

Pearl called to me from inside the classroom. "Dewey, come here."

I poked my head in and told her I'd be right back. "I've got to do this one thing."

I gathered a dozen fat quarters, those cute little bundles of fabric that quitters loved, picking the latest fabrics in an array of colors. Kym watched me carefully. There were no customers in the store, and she was busily inspecting her fingernails for chipped polish.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Customer relations. I'm giving a free fat quarter to everyone whose car got stuck here overnight."

She tossed her hair back. "Aren't they all locked?"

"I assume so, which is why I'm going to stick them under a windshield wiper."

Kym watched as I pulled the barcodes off and stuck them on a spare piece of paper. I'd have to write these off as promotions, and I needed the barcodes to do that. I gathered some business cards and tossed her the feather duster from the hook behind the cash register.

"As long as you're not doing anything..." I said. She caught the bright pink thing like it was a tadpole and reluctantly flicked it over the nearest shelf.

Outside, I tucked a fat quarter on each windshield in the back parking lot. I wasn't even sure they were all from the class last night but it couldn't hurt. I attached a Quitter Paradiso card and hoped it would be enough to waylay any hard feelings.

The big van was last. There was no sign of Tim Shore. I didn't really want to leave him a gift, but I couldn't skip him. Good customer service didn't get talked about, but bad always did.

His windshield wiper was out of my reach. I stepped on the black rubber step by the driver's door and grabbed the door handle to hoist myself up. The door swung open, nearly dumping me on the ground.

I brushed myself off and laid the fabric on the front seat, then thought better of it. He might just sit on it, without noticing my goodwill gesture. I decided to move it to the console. A stack of coffee-stained mail was sitting there. The van smelled as though someone lived in it. I looked around. The back seat had been taken out and the back equipped with a bed. The Shore family obviously liked to camp.

I dropped the fat quarter, knocking over the pile of mail. The entire stack fell next to the passenger seat. I had to climb farther in to reach them. I felt ridiculous, half in and half out of the van. If Shore saw me or worse, Zorn, I'd be mortified.

Straightening out the pile of bills, I noticed the address on the PG&E bill. It had been sent to an address in Milpitas.

That asshole. He'd taken enough taxi money from me last night to get him the twenty-five miles to Santa Cruz, when he really lived less than five miles away in Milpitas. My face flamed. He had sixty dollars of mine. I hoped I was around when he came back for his van, so I could give him a piece of my mind. For free.

Zorn was still monopolizing the kitchen when I went back in.

I went into the classroom where Pearl and Ina were quilting at the frame. I'd promised Gussie not to tell her friends about her huge withdrawal. As for Celeste's breakup with Larry, that was her news to tell, not mine. She would never forgive me if word got out before she was ready.

But I was concerned about Gussie. Maybe I could leave the money out of the discussion, but still find out if Gussie's house looked like a train wreck normally.

"I ran into Gussie," I said as an opening gambit after greeting Pearl and Ina. "She took me home with her. The place was such a mess, I was thinking of asking Officer Wong to check on her."

Pearl was aghast. "You would call the pigs on Gussie?" Pearl was a veteran protester.

"Come on, Pearl. Have you seen her house?"

Pearl and Ina glanced at each other, and laughed.

"That's what set you off?" Ina said. "How did it look? Piles of magazines? Fabric and yarn everywhere?"

I nodded.

Ina took off her red reading glasses and waved a dismissive hand. "That's Gussie in the middle of a project. She hates to pick up after herself-thinks it interferes with her creativity."

"It would be ridiculous to report her to the police, Dewey," Pearl said. "They would assign her a social worker, who might decide she's not capable of being on her own. Once you put someone in the system, it's impossible to get out."

I didn't mean to open such a can of worms. "Never mind, I won't tell him then. I'm sorry. I was a little worried. I thought she'd been robbed."

They laughed again. I wanted to ask them if she was growing pot, but I wasn't going to risk being humiliated again.

"What about Larry? Have you seen him today? Gussie was looking for him," I said.

Pearl said, "Leave the old ladies be, Dewey. We're perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves."

Ina said, in her best school teacher voice, "This is a great time for you to catch up on last night's lesson."

I headed for the door. "No way. I've got a million things to do."

Pearl stopped me, and twirled me around. She said, "Oh, but look. It's right there on the whiteboard."

Sure enough, someone had written on the bottom of the To-do list: #26. Quilting lesson. It was underlined in red and followed by several exclamation points.

I looked from one to the other. They were very pleased with themselves. "Very funny."

Ina giggled, and Pearl laughed. "Come on, Dewey. I've already set up the sewing machine."

My grandmother's shiny black Featherweight sewing machine with the ornate scrollwork was plugged in and ready to go. They'd gotten out my fabric and cut several pieces from last night's lesson.

"Mark a line at a quarter-inch on all the pieces, Dewey," Ina said. "You're going to sew only to that mark, and then stop and pivot."

I wasn't sure I could do that. I whined, "Pivoting sounds hard."

Ina shot me a look. "You're making it harder."

I said to Pearl, "Do you know how to do this, sew these fancy seams?"

"I do," she said. "I choose not to. I make art now, not quilts. Seam allowances and mitered corners are meaningless."

"Why can't I do it like that?" I said to Ina, piteously.

"You've got to learn the rules to break the rules," she said. She bent to break a thread with her teeth. Taking advantage of Ina being out of sight, Pearl shook her head and mouthed, "no you don't." I laughed and ducked my head down so Ina wouldn't see.

But Ina knew something was up. She had teacher radar that told her when someone was goofing off in class. And she wasn't happy. She pointed a thimbled finger at me. "Listen, you asked me to teach you how to quilt. That's what I'm teaching you. If you want to learn something else, then stop wasting my time."

"Okay, okay," I said. I hated to have her mad at me. Now there was no way I could get back to the work waiting for me in my office without spending a few minutes sewing, just to appease Ina.

I carefully lined up the two pieces of fabric and put them under the needle. I lowered the presser foot. The unfamiliar action made me nervous. It wasn't that I didn't like quilting, I just felt like a real klutz. I was always sure I was going to sew over my finger.

Pearl and Ina were quilting quietly. After a few minutes, I realized this was a good opportunity to find out more about Gussie's grandson. Having his contact information might not be a bad thing. If Larry wasn't going to take the money to Jeremy, the kid would have to come and get it.

"Whatever happened to Gussie's daughter, Donna? I remember when she dropped out of high school to have a baby."

Ina looked up, surprised. "You do? But she's what-five, six years older than you?"

"Yeah, I was in middle school, but it was a big deal. It was the first time I'd heard about someone getting a GED."

I took my foot off the power pedal and turned the big flywheel so the needle stayed in the fabric. I said, "I remember, because I thought a GED was a venereal disease."

Pearl guffawed. Ina joined in.

"Oh, the elastic mind of an eleven-year-old," Pearl said.

"She had the baby, right?" I asked.

Pearl said, "That's Gussie's grandson, Jeremy. He was trouble right from the get-go."

Ina said, "Donna's started a new life for herself. She has two baby girls and a new husband and lives in the Central Valley somewhere. Last I heard, Jeremy's in college."

Vangie stuck her head in the classroom. "Dewey? Quick question." She talked over the noise of my sewing machine, so I kept sewing, slowly. "One of the students from Ina's class last night is here to get her car. She wants to drop out and get a refund."

Ina and I exchanged a look. I'd hoped that by the time Ina's class met again next week, this would have all blown over. There were eleven people in that class. If I offered a refund to one, I'd have to offer it to all.

Ina said, "Want me to talk to her?"

I shrugged. "Would you please?"

"I know you can persuade her to stay on," I said sweetly. "If you can talk me into quilting instead of doing my real work, you can talk anyone into anything."

Ina frowned, "Don't shine me on."

"I'm not ignoring you, Ina," I said, ducking my head.

When she got to the door that Vangie held open, Ina turned back and said. "Don't iron until I come back. I want to show you the correct way"

"YEE-Ouch," Pearl said painfully. She laid down her needle and pulled her other hand out from under the quilt top. I saw a drop of blood. She sucked on the tip of her middle finger. "This is why I hate hand quilting. It hurts."

"How come?" I asked. I moved my hands farther away from the bed of the sewing machine.

"You have to use your bottom hand to know when to push the needle back up," Pearl said. She demonstrated, poking the tiny needle into the quilt top, and slipping the injured hand underneath. "If the needle doesn't go through all three layers, you're not quilting. But if you let the needle go too far down, your stitches get big and unseemly. The only way to know if the needle has pierced all layers is to feel it with your finger."

"We carry a tape. It's padded, I think, and it's supposed to avoid that problem."

Pearl shook her head. "I've got to be able to feel the tip."

I looked at my own fingers. "So you let the needle cut your fingertip? Over and over again? Seems like a silly way to do things. You're always hurting yourself."

"It's the only way I know how," Pearl said. "You've got to feel the pain to know where you're at."

She took some more stitches, and I sewed on the machine. I stopped and rolled my arms, trying to work out the stiffness that was building.

Pearl poked her needle in the quilt top. She got up and came behind me, kneading my shoulders. "It's easy to get tense sewing," she said. "You have to make sure to take breaks."

I stopped sewing. "Thanks," I said, wriggling my back. "A little to the left, please."

She laughed, but complied. We were quiet, while she got rid of the knots in my neck. She had me in a tight grip when she said, "Why all the questions about Donna? You pregnant?"

I pulled myself out of her grasp and twisted around to see her face. She looked so disingenuous, I laughed. "That would have to be a miraculous birth," I said.

Pearl's hands flew up to her face. "Oh, sorry, I just assumed." She was flustered, a rare sight. "You and Buster have been dating, and you're not ...?"

I shook my head quickly before she could finish the rude gesture to illustrate her point. I held her hands in mine.

She pulled up the chair next to mine and leaned in, looking at me closely. "Is there something wrong with him? I mean, you know..."

I put my hands over my eyes. "Omigod, no. He just wants to take it slow."

Pearl frowned. "Slow? More like glacial. Is it a religious thing? Did you take some kind of oath?"

I started sewing, as much to drown out Pearl's question as to get finished. I watched the fabric fed into the sewing machine, feeling my ears go red. "Not exactly an oath. More like a bet. I've been trying to get him to move the deadline up, but we're having a little trouble with that."

"You are having a rough week," she said sympathetically.

Tears welled in my eyes. "It's not just Buster. It's the store. I need this sale to go well, and everything I do turns to shit. This afternoon, I blew a good opportunity to make cash. And if I don't get the e-mail notices out soon, no one will come to the sale."