Wild Goose Chase (2 page)

Kym turned to me, her face suddenly twisted. “Why’d you have to set up that ugly computer this year? You’ve spoiled any chance I had of winning.”

I bit back nastier words. “So I should forego accuracy so you can win a hundred-dollar prize?”

I stripped the cover off and started the computer again. The familiar whirrs of the hard drive booting up soothed my frayed nerves. I clicked on the icon, a smiling woman in a patchwork vest, to open the sales software. I entered the password and was rewarded with the bells that meant the system was open. To be sure, I started a sale under my name and scanned the packaging from the cutter Kym had opened. A satisfactory ping chimed and the SKU number popped into place on the screen. I canceled the test sale, put the packaging in my backpack to take to the store for the tax board report, and pushed the backpack under the table with my toe.

“Okay, Kym, the computer is ready to go. Do you remember what I showed you?”

“Never mind that contraption, Dewey, come here. Someone wants to meet you.”

I turned to see a man standing next to Kym. His hooded green eyes were locked on her ample breasts, which were emphasized by her prissy long-sleeved blouse and apron.

He was dressed in a Nehru-type jacket, made of red, shiny fabric, a style that had never been in and so couldn’t be considered retro-chic now. The brown hair on top of his head was thinning, strained by the straggly ponytail he’d pulled the strands into. He was no taller than me, probably about 5’9”.

Was this her idea of the right man for me? Kym thought being single was only one step away from being dead. She never believed me when I said I was happy on my own.

She identified him as Freddy Roman of Freddy’s Fine Fabrics in Los Angeles. He finally tore his eyes from Kym’s bust and turned to look at me, first taking a quick detour at my chest. When he found it lacking and looked up at my face, I saw his eyes flash.

“Oh, my god, you scared me. You look so much like your mother, I thought I was seeing a younger, prettier ghost.”

____

I didn’t notice the hot tears spilling from my eyes until one hit my hand. By that time, I was well away from the booth and Freddy’s spirit sighting, heading blindly for the nearest exit. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest.

I’d prepared myself for the possibility that people here would compare me to my mother. She had been a vendor at the first Extravaganza and made friends with many of the people who returned year after year. I’d thought I was ready to handle her grief-stricken colleagues.

Then, faced with the very first person to mention Mom, all I could do was bolt. I felt like a fool. My stomach tightened, and the tears dripped freely.

I needed air. My nose began to run, and I wiped my face on my sleeve. I kept my eyes straight ahead, ignoring the looks I was garnering from other vendors making last-minute adjustments to their displays.

I moved over one aisle and into a row of hanging quilts, maybe thirty total. Ignoring the colorful display, I spotted light through the glass transom over a row of exit doors and headed that direction.

I pushed open the door and found myself in a glass-walled two-story atrium. I was nearly bowled over by the crush of women on the other side. Their bleating voices echoed off the steel rafters. I covered my ears to protect myself from the din.

I was stunned by the size of the crowd. Were all these people here to see quilts? A mass of middle-aged women filled the space and disappeared down the hall. I couldn’t see the end of the queue.

I took a step forward and the door closed behind me. People looked at me expectantly as I came out of the place they wanted to be.

This mob was between me and fresh air. There was no way I was going to get to the outdoors.

Static crackled, and I heard Eve’s voice come over a loudspeaker. The crowd quieted and tensed like swimmers at a diving block.

“Okay, quilters, the Seventeenth Annual Northern California Quilt Extravaganza is officially open. Step this way to pay the entrance fee and get your hand stamped. Fifteen dollars, exact change very welcome.”

A security guard moved the crowd back so he could open the door. The women began to move toward him.

I took a deep breath. I was feeling better. Freddy had probably gone to his own booth by now, and I felt ready to face the shoppers and Mom’s friends. I started through the door, but was stopped by a skinny arm.

“Your ID badge?” the security guard, dressed in faux police blues with shiny buttons, asked. He was blocking the door I’d come through.

I realized I’d never put on my vendor badge. Kym’s gloating face hovered in front of me. “I don’t have it with me.”

He gave me a pained look. “No entrance without a hand stamp or vendor ID.”

“You just watched me come out that door,” I said.

The security guard waved through a woman in a tie-dyed mini-dress holding up her badge. “Next.” He made a come-forward motion, cupping his hand and closing his fist like a Caltrans flag guy in a cone zone.

The line of people began to move slowly through the door as the pimply security guard checked hands. I looked around for help. Halfway across the atrium, Eve and Justine were collecting fees and stamping hands. I couldn’t get their attention.

A gray-haired woman in a pink and purple patchwork vest decorated with three-dimensional Easter eggs shook her arm at me triumphantly as she entered the show. I fought down panic as the crush of people closed around me.

Moving backward, I found an open piece of floor near the restroom door. How was I going to get in? Kym had my phone in her damned apron pocket, I had no money on me to buy a ticket, and it was impossible to get Justine or Eve’s attention. I was screwed.

We’d picked up four badges yesterday. Kym and I had two, and I’d left the others at the store for the staff working in the booth. My employees, Jenn and Ina, were due to start work soon. They could be in this line. I’d have to intercept one of them and have them bring me my badge. I leaned heavily against a pillar and searched the crowd, hoping to see one of them. Looking for two women, one silver-haired, one blond pony-tailed, in this crowd? Talk about a needle in a haystack.

“Problem?”

I turned to see Claire Armstrong, the grande dame of the quilt world, addressing me. Even I recognized her grandmotherly face from the covers of countless quilting magazines. We carried a dozen of her how-to books at the shop. She’d developed patterns to be used with the rotary cutter before anyone else realized the tool’s potential. Like all superstars, she was known by her first name. Bono. Sting. Oprah.

Claire.

The crowd stilled. Friends nudged each other and pointed. A low buzz began as the quilters realized they were in the presence of a true celebrity.

“The guard won’t let me in,” I whispered. “I don’t have my ID badge. I’m a vendor, Quilter Paradiso. I came out to get some air, and he won’t let me back in.”

“Follow me,” she said.

A thin woman in a blue suit at Claire’s elbow spoke up. “We can’t go in there. We need to prepare for our class.”

Claire answered in a tone that brooked no discussion. “You won’t be coming with us. Go up to the room, Myra. Make sure we have enough handouts. I don’t want a repeat of last year. I have some business with Miss Pellicano.”

Claire knew my name. Another friend of Mom’s, no doubt. I straightened up. I could handle this. The tears had dried on my cheeks.

“Stay with me. I’ll get you into the show,” she said.

I coasted in Claire’s wake as she glided through the crowd imperiously, head held high, leading with her pillowy bosom like the figurehead
of a ship. The crowd parted and murmured, but Claire didn’t acknowledge anyone. Her head bobbed slightly, so I knew she heard the sighs and greetings, but she kept her eyes averted.

From behind, her white hair barely concealed a pinkish scalp. She was dressed in a rose-colored polyester pantsuit with sensible shoes. An overly large purse dangled from her elbow. She smelled like violet dusting powder.

Claire bestowed a nod on the security guard. The guard glared at me but let me pass. Once inside, I thanked Claire and started for the QP booth. I could see my mother’s calico banner with Quilter Paradiso on it one aisle over. Claire stopped me with a hand on my elbow and led me to an unoccupied space beneath a row of wall hangings.

“Dewey, isn’t it?” She tapped me; her nails were short with pink polish, matching her pearl earrings and necklace. She had a puppet’s face; her jaw was hinged with deep lines, and her cheeks were apple dumplings.

I nodded.

“I want to talk to you,” Claire said. “Before she died, your mother had agreed to sell Quilter Paradiso to me.”

I took a step
backward, nearly colliding with an impatient shopper in jeans and a poncho. Claire put a hand out to steady me. I shook her off. I didn’t need her help.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard,” I said. “QP was my mother’s life. She would never sell.”

Claire was looking at me closely. “You didn’t know?”

“Know?”

“Your mother and I had reached a verbal agreement about the shop last October, right around Quilt Market in Houston.”

Just before my mother had been killed. Could this be true? I’d been busy getting the inventory and store accounts online. Did I miss hints my mother left? Had she discussed selling with Dad? Oh, God, with Kym?

People eddied around us. The line in the atrium must be diminishing, as the aisles were getting more crowded. I could barely see the booth now. The idea that Mom would sell the shop, her connection to her quilting and her friends, was crazy.

I looked at Claire, who was waiting for a reply. “She never told me, and then …” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I heard she was hit by a drunk,” Claire said.

“The driver’s never been caught.” I let the subject drop, not wanting to talk about my mother’s accident.

We stepped aside to let a woman using a motorized cart pass. The back of her plus-size T-shirt said, “Old quilters don’t die; they just go to pieces.”

“I wonder why she wanted to sell,” I said, my voice squeaking. I suddenly felt like a child, trying to grasp the unknowable grown-up world.

Claire’s voice turned gentle. “Do you want me to tell you what I think? The shop had grown larger than your mother was comfortable with.”

“But that was her heritage …” I stopped when I heard myself using Kym’s word. But it was true.

Dewey Mercantile had morphed into Dan’s Hardware, my grandfather’s store, before I was born. When I was eleven, Mom had begun Quilter Paradiso in a corner of the hardware store with a couple hundred bolts of fabric, the first quilting magazine, and a few dozen books. Hardware was phased out, Grandpa Dewey retired to Ireland, and the quilt shop took over the whole 10,000-square-foot building.

Today we had two classrooms and six thousand bolts of fabric. We sold twenty-five different quilting magazines, plus quilt books and patterns numbering in the hundreds. With annual sales of nearly a million dollars, maybe the shop had been too much for Mom to handle. It was certainly overwhelming me.

Claire’s hand on my arm brought me back to the present. “Running a shop like Quilter Paradiso is a big job.”

Was she talking about me or my mother? A long-legged woman wearing pink cowboy boots stopped next to us. She was talking loudly into a cell phone, describing the chaotic scene like a racetrack announcer. Claire glared at her.

“The cell phone is ruining polite society,” Claire said. “I’d like to speak to you in private. Would you be interested in coming up to my hotel room to continue our talk?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got to get to the booth. We’re using a new software system, and I need to be there to answer any questions.”

“Yes, your mother mentioned that,” Claire said, her voice drifting off as she saw something over my shoulder. She frowned, clearly not happy. I glanced behind me. An African-American woman dressed in an expensive suit was heading relentlessly toward us. Her business attire contrasted sharply with the colorful handmade patchwork jackets, jeans, and T-shirts that most of the show-goers were wearing.

She was focused on Claire, never slowing or noticing as people got out of her way. Trailing her were a bearded man with a shoulder TV camera and a young woman with a boom microphone.

I tried to bring Claire’s attention back to me. “I’m not interested in selling the shop.”

“Don’t make up your mind just yet.” Claire started moving away from me without taking her eyes off the approaching trio. She talked quickly. “I’m staying at the hotel for the duration of the show, room 605. Come and talk to me.”

Without waiting for an answer, Claire sped off, leaving me standing in the aisle by myself. The TV crew passed me, following in Claire’s footsteps. A logo pasted on the side of the camera read, “Lark Gordon and Her Wonderful World of Quilts.”

That was the name of an extremely popular quilting show on the cable home channel, with tie-in books that we carried. This woman must be the hostess, Lark Gordon.

Claire ignored Lark as she caught up to her. Lark grabbed her arm and pointed at the camera, obviously trying to talk Claire into being on the air. Claire kept moving, putting distance between them. Lark followed but Claire lost her in a crowd of quilters by the entrance. Finally Lark stopped and watched Claire disappear. She said something to her entourage and stalked off. The two trotted after her to keep up. As she passed me, the fierce look on her face made me wonder if the TV show was all Claire and Lark had been talking about. Seemed a bit more personal.

I dodged a stroller as big as a first-class airline seat and went to our booth. Ina and Jenn had arrived and were already waiting on customers. Ina, a long-time employee of Quilter Paradiso, was a small, wiry woman with hair the color of a chrome grill and a matching grin. She made her own clothes, favoring natural fibers in asymmetrical jackets and elastic-waist pants with wide legs. Today she was dressed in a turquoise raw-silk. Her practical sneakers were bedazzled with jewel-tone crystals.

Jenn had been at the store for several years, working part-time while her kids were in school. She was a thirty-eight-year-old soccer mom who wore her hair in a sleek ponytail. Most of her pay went toward what she called “supporting her habit.” She cashed her paycheck at the store, spending it on fabric that she made into quilts. Her usual uniform was a white blouse with khakis. Today she was dressed exactly like Kym, right down to the cameo pinned on her chest.

Kym, perched on the stool next to the checkout stand, was ringing up sales. I allowed myself a frisson of pride as she pushed a button on the keyboard and the drawer flew open, completing the sale. My hard work was paying off.

As I watched, things began to fall apart. Kym muttered under her breath and tapped a half-dozen keys. I moved up behind her.

“Trouble?”

“Dewey, don’t hover, you’re making me nervous.”

“I was ten feet away—you looked like you were having a problem.”

“I’m fine. This computer is stupid, that’s all,” Kym said.

“Can I take a look?”

The program was hanging up, most likely from Kym banging on too many keys. With two swift strokes, I closed it down and brought the program back up.

“Don’t keep pounding on the keyboard, Kym,” I said. “You’ll confuse things. Do you want me to do this for a while? You can watch me.”

“No, I can do it.” Her teeth were gritted. She was going to break a cap if she wasn’t careful. That would be my fault, too.

“Okay,” I said, as the system came back up. I smiled at the waiting customer and entered the password. “Try not to hit two keys at once. Call me when you get frustrated. I’m right here.”

Kym turned back to the computer with a scowl. I knew she was not trying very hard to learn the system. My job today would be to stay close and make sure she learned. A customer thrust her credit card at Jenn, who was helping Kym finish the sale.

“Think they can do it?” Ina whispered, as I joined her. “Kym is so resistant. And Jenn will follow her lead.”

“It’s pretty foolproof. The system is designed so you don’t have to be computer-literate to use it. They’d have to try hard to screw it up.”

“Don’t underestimate Kym’s determination to stay out of the modern age. Look at our booth, for crying out loud. Did you know she wanted me to wear a snood?” Ina said.

Whatever a snood was, the idea of wearing one was pissing Ina off. I didn’t want that. I made some soothing noises.

“I saw you talking with Claire Armstrong earlier,” she said. “What did she want?”

Ina’s question sounded casual, but her lips were tight. I looked at her face, trying to read her emotions behind the question. Did she dislike Claire? Did she know about Mom selling?

Before I could ask Ina what she knew about Mom and Claire, we were interrupted by a customer looking for an Indonesian batik. Ina went off with her and two women in matching lime-green Delta Quilters Guild T-shirts requested Lark Gordon’s latest book from me.

Customers steadily entered the booth. I cut fabric, recommended patterns, and demonstrated notions with Ina and Jenn. I kept a watchful eye on Kym.

Two hours later, when the first rush of customers ebbed, Kym came down off her stool. She stretched her hands over her head and bent from the waist several times.

“Been a good morning for sales,” she said. “I’ve taken in probably a thousand dollars.”

I didn’t dare ask if the computer was making the sales go smoother; she’d never admit if it was. “I can run a report right now if you want to know the exact amount,” I said, heading for the computer.

Kym shrugged as though she didn’t care. “I’m going to take a break,” she said, her body humming with tension.

“Okay,” I said. “Jenn, want to go with her? Ina and I can handle things.”

Kym was already in the aisle. “That’s okay,” she shot back. “I need to be alone for a while.”

Working at the computer must have stressed her more than I realized. I shrugged at Jenn who glared at me and stalked over to man the cash register.

“I thought those two went everywhere together,” I whispered to Ina.

“Usually they do. Maybe Kym has an assignation,” she said with a phony French accent. She clamped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I forgot for a moment that she’s married to your brother. I didn’t mean …”

“No problem. Sometimes I wish she would find another man and let my brother go.”

I slapped my cheek as Ina giggled. “Did I say that out loud?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll never tell,” Ina said.

I straightened the fat quarters that had gotten messy from the morning’s groping. A hoot of laughter came from my left. In the convention center, the atmosphere was like a street fair. Booths of colorful merchandise lined the aisle. A man walking and juggling what looked like pin cushions cut off a trio of women in colorful saris. A neon sign over a booth across the aisle read, “Quilt Naked—Free Your Mind.”

I had never understood my mother’s need to make quilts, but I was here, in the middle of the West Coast’s biggest quilt show, with entries from the most famous names in the business. Whatever drew my mother to quilting was here at this show. Maybe all I had to do was free my mind.

As a kid, I’d steered clear of Quilter Paradiso. To my three brothers, sewing was for sissies. They were always poised to catch me doing anything girly and exploit it as a sign of perceived weakness, taunting me mercilessly. One pot holder crocheted on a spool when I was six earned me the nickname of “Knitting Nincompoop” that stuck until I was eleven. Consequently, I’d spent much of my childhood proving I could kick the ball, take a punch, and give a wedgie like a boy. I left my mother to her feminine pastimes and mastered the soccer field instead of a sewing machine. My chosen career was in a man’s world, computer programming. Lately, I had begun to wonder if I had cheated myself.

Kym tapped Ina on the shoulder when she returned and took over the computer duties. I watched from a safe distance. The computer beeped irritably as Kym tried to push items through the scanner too quickly. I heard another beep as Kym tried a function that wasn’t open. In the hour she’d been gone, she seemed to have forgotten how the system worked.

I moved closer. The drawer was not opening. Kym tapped on the keyboard. A white-haired lady with dangling purple earrings and two circles of rouge approximately on her cheeks was waiting to pay.

“I think you forgot to hit the total button.” I tried to insert myself in a non-threatening manner, but Kym turned on me, eyes flashing.

“I’ve got it,” she snarled. She pressed the correct key, and the drawer flew open.

I backed off.

Finding a lighted seam ripper for a smiling Japanese woman with minimal English grabbed my attention for the next few minutes. Her friend wanted the latest ruler. That led to a stilted, half-spoken, half-signed discussion about which ruler was easier to read, the clear or the yellow. I was rubbing my fingernail along the rough surface on the back of the clear ruler to illustrate its usefulness when I noticed a line forming near the register.