myself that by this time next year, we’ll be living in a place of our own. Nothing like the house we left in Pennsylvania, I’m sure, but someplace nice. Maybe with a little yard and room to plant flowers.
But when my car broke down, I had no choice but to take money out of savings to have it fixed. It just about killed me to spend that money, but what could I do? I had to get to work. I wrote out the check and hoped that when Larry, the mechanic, promised I wouldn’t have any more problems with it, he was telling the truth.
Now, just a few days after taking a deep breath and writing that enormous check, I sat behind the wheel of my stalled car and yelled, “You’re a big liar! You know that, Larry? A big, ugly, grease monkey of a liar!”
Larry’s garage was miles out of earshot, but I didn’t care. It might not have been dignified, but it made me feel better, at least for the time being.
I climbed out from behind the wheel, slammed the door shut, and, after taking a quick look at my watch, started jogging the mile to the bus stop. If I was lucky, I’d be able to catch the 9:11 bus to downtown New Bern and make it to work on time.
I wasn’t lucky.
Having run up to the bus stop just in time to see the back of the 9:11 expel a black belch of exhaust from its tailpipe and pull away, I got to cool my heels for another twenty minutes before the next bus arrived.
When I got to downtown New Bern, I took a shortcut down the alley to the delivery entrance rather than go through the front door of the shop. I was twenty-six minutes late. No one saw me come in, and I was glad. I could hear Evelyn, Garrett, and some other people talking in the front of the store. They were probably too involved in their own work to hear the back door open and close and wouldn’t realize I was behind schedule.
Not that Evelyn would have given me a hard time for being late if I told her about what happened, but I didn’t like the idea of her cutting me slack because of my situation. Evelyn had taken a chance in hiring me and I wanted to show her that she hadn’t made a mistake.
On my lunch break, I would call Karen, the woman who lives in the apartment next to mine, and ask her if she would mind picking up Bobby and Bethany from day care when she came to get her little boy and taking them back to her apartment until I got home so I could make up the time I’d missed. That’s another thing about living at the Stanton Center—they offer subsidized child care at a very good day care. The program won’t end when I leave the Center but will continue for a full year after. Then the subsidy will gradually decline over a period of two more years. Another good reason to stay in New Bern. Without that subsidy, most of my earnings would have gone for child care. But, even with this kind of help, the life of a working mother isn’t easy. When an unexpected problem arose, like today, it was important to be connected to other moms who could help out. Karen would take care of my kids today. Another time, I’d do the same for her.
And if I was careful, no one would be the wiser. I opened the delivery door quietly, crept into the back room, grabbed the pile of order forms that were sitting in my in-box, and looked them over. It was going to be a busy day.
Besides the usual requests for yardage, patterns, and various notions, there were six orders for the pink and green fabric medleys Liza had put together for our weekly special. Those would be easy to do because they were all just fat quarters and we had plenty of fabric upstairs in the workroom. But there were also four orders for block-of-the-month kits. Those would take more time because they included eleven different fabric cuts, all of varying sizes, and I already had nine other kits on backorder because we’d run out of some fabrics. Fortunately, the delivery came in late the day before and the bolts I needed to finish the kits were sitting on the counter.
I loaded my arms up with several bolts of fabric, and then piled the day’s order forms on top, keeping the papers from falling by anchoring them to the bolts with my chin.
Keeping my head down and being careful to steer clear of the squeaky tread on the stairs, I carried my load to the workroom, hoping I’d be lucky enough to avoid having my tardy ascent upstairs noticed by Evelyn or any of the other employees.
I wasn’t being sneaky exactly. I just figured that since I was going to stay late to make up the time, why draw attention to my tardiness? But, if I could do it all over again, I would have walked in the front door, told Evelyn exactly why I was late, made my apologies, and gone to work. If I had, things would have been so much easier.
5
Evelyn Dixon
Having finished seating and soothing a party of four who were miffed that they couldn’t get a booth in the front even though they’d walked in without a reservation, Charlie returned to the table where I was sitting with Mary Dell, her producer, Sandy, and the cameraman, Ben. Charlie pulled up a chair and poured the last drops of a second bottle of pinot noir into my glass.
“Now, wait a minute. Tell me again so I make sure I’ve got this right. It took you three hours, three hours to film a sixty-second promotional spot?”
“Don’t laugh,” I grumbled as I took a gulp of wine. “I got nervous, that’s all. Being on television is not as easy as it looks. I’d like to see you try it.”
“Mmmm,” Charlie murmured in a tone that was supposed to pass for sympathy but didn’t.
“Wipe that smile off your face,” I demanded. “I’ve had a miserable day and there you sit, enjoying my humiliation.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said innocently. “Was I smiling?”
I didn’t answer. He knew exactly what he’d been doing.
Charlie said contritely, “Come on now, Evelyn. I was just teasing you. Don’t take it so hard. I’m sure it is harder than it looks. I’m sure there are lots of people who’ve had…how many takes was it she needed to film this sixty-second spot, Ben?”
Ben, the big bear of a cameraman, looked up from his plate and, with his mouth full of New York strip steak, answered, “Fifty-six.” At which point, everyone but me started laughing uproariously.
“I hate you all,” I said. “You’re evil and I despise you and that is all there is to it.” I put down my wineglass and buried my head in my hands.
“Mary Dell! Why did I let you talk me into this? When you called last month and told me about your great idea to do the show live from Cobbled Court to publicize Quilt Pink, you made it sound so easy. I didn’t realize that the second Ben turned on the camera I’d start feeling like I might throw up.”
“Actually,” Sandy said to Charlie, “she did throw up. Three times. Any chance you’re coming down with something, Evelyn?”
“I don’t know,” I said glumly. “Is stage fright viral? What am I going to do? If this is what happens when we’re filming the promotional spot, how am I going to get through an entire broadcast? Live? How will it look if, right in the middle of talking about how to miter a binding corner, I have to excuse myself and run to the bathroom to toss my lunch?”
“A whole lot better than it’ll look if you don’t excuse yourself,” Ben deadpanned, which set the rest of the group to howling again.
“This is serious!” I wailed. “Maybe we should just call this off while we still can.”
Sandy made a dismissive face and shook her head. “You’ll
