Wreath (27 page)

“It’s me, Julia Watson,” she yelled.

Her student Law Rogers opened the door, a piece of gold Christmas garland draped around his neck. He had a fresh black eye, the bruise still red and just beginning to purple.

“Is Mrs. Durham here?” Julia asked, holding up the pie and looking past the boy to where Mitch stood on a ladder with a staple gun, while Wreath smiled and nodded.

“She’s not working today,” Law said, “but we can take that pie off your hands.”

Wreath, wearing a strip of garland around her braided hair, waved and gave an order to Mitch, who appeared cheerfully to comply.

“I hope we weren’t making too much noise, Miss Watson,” Wreath said. “The guys are helping decorate.”

The look of pleasure on the girl’s face gave Julia a feeling of gratitude that mirrored the spirit of the day. The store had a fresh look. “Did you do this?” She stepped inside and looked around.

“She designed all of it, Miss Watson,” Law said, pride in his voice. “Doesn’t it look great?”

“It’s nothing really,” Wreath said. “We scrounged around and used what we had. Lots of good stuff was going to waste.”

Law spoke up again. “Wreath says most people don’t realize what you can do with what you’ve got.”

As Julia walked back to her apartment, she thought Wreath had the right idea. Julia needed to do more with what she had.

Chapter 25

T
he busy workday was over, and Faye’s feet hurt as she walked into her house. She was eager to slip on her house shoes, eat a frozen dinner, and crawl into bed.

Maybe she’d finally finish the paperback she’d started weeks ago, but more than likely she’d fall right to sleep.

Wreath’s research had been correct. This was the busiest time of year for the store, and the number of daily shoppers had increased dramatically. The week since Thanksgiving had flown by, busy with customers who oohed and aahed over the old Christmas ornaments and snapped up every one that was for sale. They also bought outdated vases filled with fresh pine and holly branches covered with red berries that Wreath picked somewhere near her house.

Faye was astounded at how much people were willing to pay for the arrangements, and she had even stopped at a garage sale or two to pick up extra containers. She had watched over her shoulders as she paid a dollar for vases they would clean up and sell for twenty times that.

She felt a little guilty and even downright embarrassed, but buying the discarded items was … fun. Each time she found a bargain, she wanted to rush to the store and tell Wreath, as though she’d done something special. As though Wreath were her boss and not the other way around.

She leaned against the kitchen counter and wondered what was happening to her. She used to breeze through stores in Lafayette or Alexandria, buying whatever caught her eye, no matter the price. Now she was getting a thrill when she found a piece of glassware without a chip and figured out how to sell it. She knew she owed most of her new happiness to a part-time teenage employee.

Wreath got such a kick out of whatever Faye brought in that she’d taken to going through her closets, relieved to get rid of an expensive accumulation of nonsense and make money in the process.

Sitting on the fancy tufted stool in her pink-tiled bathroom, Faye looked at herself in the mirror. She was not an old woman, although she lived like one. She fingered the costume-jewelry angel Wreath had pinned on her jacket and made a decision. Wearing her pajamas and robe, she held her breath and shoved open the door to her sewing room. A blast of warm air hit her in the face, and a sweet, stale smell tickled her nose. The sewing room looked as familiar as if she’d walked in yesterday.

Pieces of material lay sorted on the daybed, and the iron was still plugged in, the spray starch can sitting next to it. The wall hanging she’d been stitching when Billy had his heart attack almost a year ago was still in the machine.

She walked over and touched the sewing chair, where she had been sitting when Billy had stumbled in, clutching his chest. His face, always pale, had been a chalky white, and his eyes had bulged with fear. “Call 911,” he had said and plunged to the floor.

For six days she had sat in the Intensive Care Unit waiting room, surrounded by dozens of people who cared for them both. On the seventh day, the doctor had walked out, shaken his head, and her thirty-five-year marriage was over. The afternoon of Billy’s funeral she pulled the door to her sewing room shut and had not gone in since.

The hobby that had gained her a reputation as “quite a seamstress” seemed pointless. The gifts she’d made for women at church or her bridge club were frivolous.

But Wreath had told her today they needed to order more throw pillows, and Faye couldn’t bear to pay good money for cheap designs that felt like cardboard covered with low-quality cloth.

Faye had yards of unused material sorted in plastic bins, bought when she had money. She and Nadine spent hours at their favorite fabric stores in Lafayette and Baton Rouge, sometimes making an overnight trip of it. Just walking into the stores made her want to start sewing, and she always had a project under way.

While she could barely remember where she and Nadine ate lunch or what they talked about, she remembered the way the outings felt.

She wanted that feeling again.

She could get Wreath to watch the store one Saturday—or when the Christmas rush slowed down, she’d close and invite her to go with them.

Within ten minutes she found the green- and wine-colored velveteen and bags of polyester batting she had bought on sale last year. She rubbed the fabric against her cheek and tried to summon the feelings she’d had the day it was chosen, a day when she had not known her life was about to change forever, that Billy was about to die.

Memories haunted her, and she stood and headed for the door. “Coward,” she said aloud, stopping. She had to make a choice. She could give up and live in the past, or she could buck up and move forward.

She thought of the fierce teenager pedaling to work, scrimping, coming up with one idea after another to try to save the store, friends who kept reaching out.

She would go forward.

Suddenly Faye could hardly wait to sit down at the high-dollar sewing machine Billy had bought her for Christmas two years ago.

Hurrying back to the table, she drew patterns on freezer paper and made a rectangular pillow. She scavenged through her supplies to find buttons to add in the shape of a geometric Christmas tree. She liked the design so much that she made a pillow in the shape of the tree. On a round cushion, she added fringe that had been garish a few years ago but now was all the rage. She made a big square pillow lined with bright green rickrack that she knew Wreath would love.

Threading her machine over and over, she unknotted the bobbin and started on another sample. When her upper back began to throb, she went to the kitchen for a cup of tea and was astonished to see that it was nearly 3:00 a.m. She hadn’t stayed up that late since she and Billy were newlyweds and went to a New Year’s Eve party at a fancy hotel in New Orleans.

Stashing the dozen pillows in a large plastic bag, she couldn’t wait to show Wreath.

“No way!” Wreath squealed, sounding like an ordinary high school student instead of her usual serious self. “You did not! These are gorgeous.”

Faye took a step back as the girl touched each cushion and reverently lined them on a sofa, as though she’d never seen a throw pillow before. “You made these yourself?”

“I did,” Faye said, ridiculously pleased. “I can sew as many as we need.”

Perhaps she had overestimated her abilities, she thought two weeks later, suddenly a pillow-machine. Certain designs flew out the door headed for homes all over the country, and custom orders began to arrive. Wreath suggested free gift-wrapping and shipping for a modest fee, and customers practically played tug-of-war over the most popular designs.

The teenager tracked which sold best and made suggestions on color and trim, and ordered labels that said “Faye’s Fine Pillows.” On slower afternoons, she shooed Faye out the door to sew more.

When the demand exceeded Faye’s ability to keep up, Wreath volunteered to stuff cushions after the store closed. On those days, Faye drove Wreath to the cutoff road out north of town and dropped her off. She always refused to let Faye go farther but clearly appreciated the ride.

On the way to work one morning, Faye stopped at the library, bringing a look of delight to the face of her old friend Jim Nelson.

“Well, Faye Durham, does this mean you’ve started reading again?” he teased. “Nadine said you’d be back one of these days.”

“I don’t have time to read,” she said. “I’m too busy sewing. I need to see any new crafts books you have, plus I want to peruse the home décor section.”

“That helper of yours dashed in two days ago asking for the same things,” he said.

“I should have known. Wreath keeps me on my toes.”

“Apparently she has that effect on everyone,” he said. “My grandson won’t admit it, but he’s crazy about her. Even if she did give him a black eye.”

Faye smiled. “I think Wreath’s a little sweet on Law, too, but she’d never confess. He stops by the store once in a while, and she lights up like a Christmas tree.”

***

Durham’s Fine Furnishings became a gathering spot for Faye’s former bridge partners and church members, who came by to drink coffee and acted like the cushions were art objects from a fancy designer.

“We’ve never had anything like this in Landry,” Nadine said, lingering late one morning. “I always knew my best friend was talented, but now the rest of the world will know, too.”

That afternoon as she and Wreath scurried around, filling empty spots in displays, doubt washed over Faye. “You don’t think they’re just buying things to be nice, do you?”

“People don’t spend money to be nice,” Wreath said. “They buy your designs because they’re original and beautiful.”

Faye realized it was Wreath who was original and beautiful. “You might be a little biased,” she said to Wreath, who danced around the store with one of the pillows.

“Could be.” Wreath grinned. “But this town ain’t seen nothing yet. We’re going to put this store on the map.”

Chapter 26