3 Revenge of the Crafty Corpse (3 page)

basic yo-yo

Materials

5" x 5" piece of cardboard

compass with pencil attached

scissors

fabric marker

quilting thread

sewing needle

5" x 5" piece of lightweight cotton or cotton-blend fabric

button (optional), invisible thread (optional)

Directions

Using the compass, draw a 4" circle on the cardboard. Cut out the circle. Use the circle as a template to trace a circle onto the wrong side of the fabric. Cut out the fabric circle.

Hold the fabric circle with the wrong side facing you. Fold 1/4
"
of the raw edge toward the wrong side of the fabric and using the quilting thread, hem with a running stitch. When you reach your starting point, and the circle is completely hemmed, pull the thread tight to gather the fabric. Smooth and flatten the yo-yo so the hole is in the center. This is the right side of your yo-yo. Knot the thread and snip excess.

Depending on the end use, you may want to sew a button over the center hole of some or all of the yo-yos. Use the invisible thread for projects where the yo-yos are whip stitched together.

Yo-yo Stitching Tips

Always use quilting thread. Regular sewing thread is not strong enough and will break when gathering the yo-yo.

Begin the first gathering stitch underneath the fold of the hem to hide the knot.

Use a minimal amount of stitches when sewing yo-yos together to keep the yo-yos from being pulled out of shape.

Always hand wash yo-yo projects.

Make smaller or larger yo-yos by increasing or decreasing the size of the circle template. A 4" circle template will make a 1
¾
" yo-yo, a 5" circle template will make a 2
¼
" yo-yo, and a 6" circle template will make a 2
¾
" yo-yo.

two

Kara Kennedy and I
were roommates first semester freshman year. She fell head-over-heels for some senior football jock whose name I’d long ago forgotten. When he was drafted by the Forty Niners, Kara transferred to a school in San Francisco and moved with him. We soon lost touch. I hadn’t thought about Kara Kennedy in nearly twenty-five years.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” she said. “You look exactly the way you did freshman year.”

Thanks to the
Freshman Fifteen
. Which I still hadn’t lost and probably never would. Those pounds enjoy hanging out too much with the additional ten I’d gained after the birth of each of my sons. Speaking of which, I ogled Kara’s baby bump. “And you look—”

“Pregnant?” Kara patted her tummy. “My little mid-life crisis. I woke up one day and realized I wasn’t quite ready for empty nest syndrome.”

Better her than me. I couldn’t imagine being pregnant at forty-two. “So when did you move to New Jersey?”

“Five years ago. Chad accepted a coaching position with the Giants.”

Chad. Now I remembered. Chad Kulakowski. NC-double-A All-American. Don’t ask me which position. Although I’d grown up rooting for the Mets, the lure of football escaped me. I didn’t know a tight end from a punter, and that’s after years of living with sports-obsessed teenagers and a husband who’d apparently bet on a lot more than his company’s annual Super Bowl pool. “You’re the art therapist here?” I asked.

Kara nodded. “And you’re my replacement?”

“Replacement? No. My mother-in-law is in rehab here. You’re leaving?”

“I’m on maternity leave as of the end of the day today. Sunnyside hired someone part-time, but they’re still looking for an additional person. The arts and crafts classes are an important part of the program here. Interested?”

“I have a full-time job.”

“Doing?”

“I’m the crafts editor at
American Woman
magazine.”

“Hey, I sometimes pick that up at the supermarket!” Kara cocked her head and wrinkled her brow. “I don’t ever remember seeing your name mentioned.”

“I took my husband’s last name when we married. I’m Anastasia Pollack now.”

Kara pulled a frown. “You should’ve kept Periwinkle. I always loved your name. Anastasia Periwinkle always sounded so whimsical. Anastasia Pollack?” She dismissed my name with a wrinkle of her freckle-spattered nose and a flick of her wrist. “Pedestrian.”

I didn’t remember much about Kara, but I did remember she never minced words. Apparently, she still lacked a diplomacy gene. I shrugged. “Seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time. I thought about hyphenating. For all of about ten seconds.”

“Anastasia Periwinkle-Pollack?” Kara chuckled. “I see what you mean. Quite a mouthful!” She grabbed both of my hands in hers and squeezed. “Well, you’ll always be Anastasia Periwinkle to me, and I’m so glad to see you after all these years.”

Given the blow I’d received from Karl, maybe I should have remained Anastasia Periwinkle. In more ways than one. Who knows what my life would be like had I not fallen for the drop-dead gorgeous hunk who morphed into Dead Louse of a Spouse? On the downside, I wouldn’t have Alex and Nick, but on the upside? I wouldn’t be doggie-paddling fast and furiously to keep from drowning in a sea of red ink. And I definitely wouldn’t have Lucille, the communist albatross, weighing me down.

Alex and Nick were worth all the other grief, though. I couldn’t imagine a life without them.

“Sunnyside needs someone an additional eight to twelve hours on the weekends,” Kara continued. “Think about it.”

“I don’t know. I play catch-up on weekends. Laundry. Shopping. Bill paying.” When I have money to pay bills.

“The pay’s damn good,” she said, continuing to sell me on the idea. “And who can’t use a few extra shop-till-you-drop bucks?”

Bull’s eye. She’d found my Achilles’ heel with her first arrow. Only my shopping till I dropped centered around the supermarket sales circular these days. “Define good.”

“Thirty-five dollars an hour.”

I strained my math-challenged brain to multiply thirty-five times eight. Two hundred eighty dollars. Then thirty-five times twelve. Four hundred twenty dollars. “How long will you be out on maternity leave?”

“My insurance gives me twelve weeks, but I may decide to take a few additional weeks without pay.”

More straining of left-sided brain cells. I’d make somewhere between thirty-three hundred sixty dollars and five thousand forty dollars. Even after taxes, that was serious change that would make a serious dent in at least one of my maxed-out credit cards.

She had me at thirty-five dollars an hour, but I didn’t want to admit my financial desperation. Not to a woman who considered over seventy grand a year plus benefits
shop-till-you-drop bucks
. “I might be able to help out for twelve weeks or so.”

Kara beamed. “You always were the best, Anastasia! I’ll talk to Shirley. I’m sure she’ll love to have you, and the residents will be thrilled. They weren’t happy over the prospect of losing some of their class time. Hell, some of them won’t even be alive when I return.”

“Kara!” At least she spoke in a low enough voice that none of the women in the room heard her. They all continued with their handwork and their own chatter, oblivious to us.

“We’re talking nursing home here, sweetie. It’s a revolving door. On any given week, two or three leave by ambulance and never return. Others arrive to take their beds. Circle of life.”

“You sound so callous.”

“You have to develop calluses—no pun intended—in the geriatrics business. The key to survival is not getting too attached to any of the residents. If you do, it’s like losing a member of your own family. Who needs that grief on a weekly basis?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“Trust me, if you do take the job, don’t get attached to anyone. I speak from years of experience.”

“Lyndella Wegner, you’re full of shit!”

We both turned to the back of the room. A woman with a tight gray perm and thick, rhinestone-studded, black-framed glasses glared across the table at Lucille’s new roommate.

Kara glanced up at the wall-mounted clock. “Ten minutes without a fight breaking out between those two. I think that’s a new record.”

“Well, bless that ugly disbelieving Yankee heart of yours, Mabel! Why in heaven would I lie about such a thing?” Lyndella stood up and pointed toward me. “Ask her yourself, why don’t you? She’s standing right over there.”

“Wait. I’m confused,” said Kara. “Lyndella’s your mother-in-law?”

“My mother-in-law’s roommate.”

“Of course. That makes more sense. Lyndella goes through roommates the way I go through pantyhose.”

“What? She crafts them to death?”

Kara laughed. “Lyndella is one of our more
challenging
residents. She’s an extremely bossy, in-your-face know-it-all, disliked by all the other women, not to mention the entire staff.”

“I’ll admit, she has a very high opinion of herself, judging from our brief conversation.”

“Yes, no one does anything as well as Lyndella. According to Lyndella.”

“From what I saw, though, her bragging rights are justified.”

“True. Especially for a woman of her age, but her personality, not to mention her less-than-mainstream tastes, leave much to be desired. Shirley found it best to bunk the temp rehabs with her.”

“She sounds just like my mother-in-law. Minus the X-rated art.”

Kara laughed. “If that’s the case, they might wind up talking each other to death.”

The woman Lyndella had shouted at hoisted herself out of her chair, grabbed hold of a walker, and shuffled her way toward me. As she drew closer, I noticed both the legs and the wheels of her walker were decorated with pink rhinestones. A small wire basket, with satin ribbons and silk flowers woven through the mesh, hung from the front of the walker.

Unless there was more than one Mabel at Sunnyside, I assumed this woman was Mabel “can’t satisfy a man” Shapiro.

“Is it true?” she demanded, planting her bedazzled walker inches from my toes. “You gonna make that pain-in-everyone’s-patootie famous?”

Kara turned to me. “What’s this all about?”

“Seeing Lyndella’s work gave me an idea for a feature article on Sunnyside’s crafting residents.”

“You think her stuff is good?” asked Mabel. “Hon, you don’t know
good
. Take a look at my work. Or Berniece’s work. Or Estelle’s work. Or anyone else for that matter. The last thing we need around here is for that bitch Lyndella Wegner’s head to swell any fatter than it already is. We’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I plan to feature several crafters,” I said in my defense, “not just Mrs. Wegner.”

“See that you do,” said Mabel. “And think about editing Lyndella out. You’d be doing the rest of us a huge favor.” With that she rolled around to return to the table.

“Wow!” I said under my breath.

Kara laughed. “Welcome to Sunnyside’s version of
Jersey Shore
. I should write a book about this bunch while I’m out on maternity leave.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of taking the job?”

“Just preparing you for an interesting experience.”

“Was that Mabel Shapiro?”

“The one and only. No one likes Lyndella, but the rivalry between
her and Mabel makes the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys look like bosom buddies. When Lyndella and Mabel collide, dull moments take off for parts unknown.”

Given my life the past five months, I craved any dull moments I could snare. However, the thought of all those Benjamins nixed
the idea of turning down the Sunnyside gig before Shirley even
offered it. I needed the money far more than I needed a few dull moments. Besides, if I could deal with Lucille and Mama, I could deal with any geriatric antics Sunnyside threw my way. Bring ’em on.

By this point Mabel had made her way back to the table, and began bickering again with Lyndella. I decided now was a perfect time to cut out. “I’ve got to get to work,” I told Kara.

“We should keep in touch,” she said. “Maybe get together for dinner at some point and catch up.”

“Absolutely!” As soon as that leprechaun with the pot of gold arrives on my doorstep. The way I calculated my current finances, I might just be able to swing dinner at the Golden Arches around the time I reached Lyndella’s age.

_____

A perk to arriving nearly three hours late for work is not having to put up with bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic on Routes 24, 78, and 287, especially in an eight-year-old rattletrap of a car with temperamental air conditioning. However, by the time I arrived at work, even zipping along at this hour of the morning, I was thoroughly baked. To a crisp.

Not yet noon and less than two weeks into summer, and the mercury had already climbed into triple digits for the third day in a row and the seventh time so far this year. If this wasn’t a sign of global warming, I didn’t know what was.

American Woman
used to be headquartered in Lower Manhattan, a short train commute for me. After Trimedia forced a hostile takeover of Reynolds-Alsopp Publishing, we moved to the middle of a corn field in Morris County, New Jersey. Other companies were supposed to follow. Then the bottom fell out of the real estate market. We remain the single building in the planned business park. Our only neighbor besides the corn fields is the train station built specifically to handle the influx of commuters that never materialized.

I entered the building and made my way up to the third floor. No one seemed to have noticed my absence. I found the usually bustling halls eerily quiet. That sent a shiver coursing from my toes up to my scalp, reminding me of the last time I found myself alone in the building. Alone with a dead body hot glued to my desk chair.

I stopped and strained to hear some sounds of activity. Today was the last day of work before the Fourth of July three-day weekend, and it appeared many of my coworkers had taken a vacation day.

I was concentrating so hard on trying to hear something, that I didn’t hear Cloris come up behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin when she placed her hand on my shoulder. “Jeez! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry. You looked like you were in a trance. What’s going on?”

“It’s so quiet here. I was having a Marlys flashback.” Marlys, AKA our former fashion editor Marlys Vandenburg, AKA the aforementioned dead body.

“That would creep anyone out. Lucky for you, I’ve got just the cure.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and led me into the break room.

Cloris is the food editor at
American Woman
, but more importantly, she’s played Watson to my Sherlock twice now, helping me solve three murders among the ranks of Trimedia employees. I could always count on Cloris to have my back. And something chocolate.

She didn’t disappoint. As soon as we entered the break room, I spied today’s bounty sitting on the counter next to the coffee maker: brownies. “What kind?” I asked, helping myself to one. Cloris never featured plain old brownies in our magazine. Our food editor was the Michelangelo of baked goods, crafting decadent masterpieces, her raw materials of choice: flour, sugar, and eggs.

“Caramel Marshmallow.” She poured us coffee while I savored my first bite. “What do you think?”

I let the flavors send my taste buds into gastronomic heaven before answering. “I think you’re going to be responsible for me having to buy a new wardrobe. How many gazillion calories are in one of these suckers?”

“Let’s just say this is definitely not for one of our diet spreads.” She picked up the plate and held it under my nose. “Have another. You look like you need it.”

I didn’t argue with her, rationalizing to myself that I’d make up for all the calories by eating celery and carrot sticks all weekend.
Right
.

However, before I polished off the first brownie, my cell phone rang. “Sunnyside,” I said, frowning at the display.