Monkey Wrench (3 page)

I opened my laptop. It was already connected to the screen. I clicked the mouse, but nothing happened. I checked the connections and clicked again.

Still nothing. Several committee members looked at the blank screen, then back at me. Barb V cleared her throat significantly. I glanced at the wall clock. Five minutes.

I had to wing it. I closed the laptop and tried to remember Vangie’s highlights. “Twitter is a free service. A tweet is a short message that goes out to all your followers. We can get a lot of free advertising, tweeting ahead of time about the Crawl.”

Summer said, “We’ve been doing that already.”

I nodded. “Me, too. But—I’d like to do something very special the days of the Crawl.”

I stopped, trying to gauge how much of this was getting across. Summer and Roberta were nodding, but the two Barbaras had their mouths in a straight line. Barb V had crossed her arms across her chest for good measure.

The rest of the owners looked confused.

“I’d like to target four shops each day during a special Twitter promotion. We would do one in the north and south, morning and afternoon. I would tweet the location of the shop and encourage the Crawlers to get over there within the hour.”

Gwen, the quilt shop owner from Half Moon Bay, was a weathered woman in a red vest and orange T-shirt. The dirt under her fingernails never seemed to go away. At least I hoped it was dirt. Freddy said she had a sheep farm.

She asked, “Why would we promote one particular shop? What would happen to the others?”

Barbara the Damp chimed in, “I don’t want all my customers leaving and going somewhere else. That’s not the point of the Crawl. The object here is to give everyone an equal chance.”

I nodded, feeling my mouth go dry. This had made sense when Vangie and I had hashed it out. Vangie’s presentation would explain all this. If only I could get it to work.

I pulled my eyes off the laptop, dragging myself away from the technology that wasn’t helping. “Umm … shop hops like this one have become pretty common. We need to give the quilters an extra reason to come out to ours.”

Roberta said, “My granddaughter uses Twitter all the time to plan events. One moment she’s sitting at the kitchen table looking at her phone, the next minute, she’s off to a party.”

Barbara V frowned. “Maybe you should keep better track of her.”

Roberta flushed, her chubby cheeks turning bright red. She added, “Another time a bunch of her friends got together and cleaned out a neighbor’s basement and painted her kitchen. Planned it on the spot,” she said proudly. Her pigeon chest expanded.

Cookie put in, “The Twitter alerts
could
add some excitement. Lots of people have smart phones these days. If the customers get online and tell their friends, we’ll attract even more participants. Isn’t that what we want to do?”

Cookie ran a very popular quilt shop in Aptos. She was a businesswoman first, and quilter second. I had been hoping she would understand.

Barbara the Damp wiped her hands on a crochet-trimmed handkerchief she pulled out of her sleeve. “We
have
been losing participants …” she began. Her voice faded out as she caught a glare from Barb V.

I broke in. “You’ve been telling us that there are two kinds of Crawlers. Ones who shop and the others who rush in only to get their stamp. This would be a chance to get those customers to stay a bit longer. And spend money.”

“What would happen at the tweeter shop?” Barb V asked.

I ignored her mangling of the word. “We would award a special prize basket to one of the customers who got there during the allotted hour,” I said. “You’d have to be present to win, so—”

Half Moon Bay threw up her hands. “Where am I supposed to get the money for more prizes?”

Others joined in. Barb V held up her pen for silence, and they ceased their chatter.

She said, “Dewey, you know that we have strict budgets for giveaways. You remember how difficult it was to negotiate a figure that everyone could afford.”

I looked behind me. I thought I’d heard the back door open. I was so hoping Vangie would appear and get me out of this mess. But it was only a customer who moved on through to the front. My heart sank. I had two minutes to convince this group that my Twitter idea would work.

“It won’t cost you anything. I’ll get the prizes donated and put together a special basket for each shop. The days of the Crawl, I’ll handle the tweeting. All you will have to do is greet the extra customers who come to your shop.”

“And take their money,” Freddy said.

“Time is up,” Barb V said. “This meeting is over.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I whispered to Freddy.

“
Vamonos
,” he replied.

_____

Freddy stayed behind to help me clean up. We cleared the table of used cups and plates. Most of the bagels were gone.

“I guess that was a success, even though now I have two major new tasks. I have to set up a Twitter account for the Quilters Crawl
and
track down free stuff to give away, I said.”

I cracked my neck to the right and then to the left, in an effort to relieve some of the tension I was feeling. “Can you help?”

“I’ll call Lark and get her to give us some of her books,” Freddy said.

“That’s big of you,” I said, hitting the sarcasm hard. Freddy could take it. “That’s a no-brainer and will take you all of about three minutes.” We both talked regularly to Lark Gordon, star of a hit quilting cable show. She was an easy touch for door prizes.

I continued, “I’m going to talk to my scissors guy in Brooklyn. He’ll be good for a dozen mini-snips. If he hasn’t already sent my order out, we’ll get them in time.”

Freddy rubbed his neck. I could see a new tattoo peeking out of his collar. It looked like the head of a tiger. He refused to act his age. “I can get a hold of embroidery designs.”

“Not everyone has a machine that can handle those,” I pointed out. I couldn’t let Freddy off the hook. He had to chip in with some help. I already had too much on my plate.

He stacked the coffee mugs precariously in the cabinet over
the sink.
I took two off the top and set them on a different shelf. “Okay, some high-quality thread, then. The big spools. And some stabilizer. Even the regular sewers can use stabilizer. Can you get Vangie to set up the Twitter account?”

I shook my head and filled the sink with soapy water. “I’ll do it. She’s got a full load at school. I want her available to work on the Crawl weekend.”

“I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

Since opening a shop nearby, Freddy had become a bit of a fixture around my place. He sold sewing machines, so we weren’t in direct competition. I sent my customers who needed a machine to him, and he sent me those looking for fabric and quilt classes. It was a good business relationship.

“Is she okay?” Freddy asked me.

I stuck my hands in the water. It was too hot but I didn’t want to back away. I didn’t want Freddy to see my face. He could tell when I was lying.

“She’s fine. Can you buy baskets for the prizes?” He nodded

Buster came in the QP kitchen as Freddy was drying the knives. He was wearing his tightest SJPD black T-shirt and black jeans. I could tell he hadn’t stopped at home yet because he was still wearing his gun. It was as if he knew Freddy was going to be here. Intimidation was the name of the game.

He said hello, and went straight to the refrigerator. His six-foot-three frame filled the open space. He peered into the interior like he was sixteen and in his mother’s kitchen. I didn’t mind the rear view but couldn’t help but fret about the electricity being wasted.

“Hi, babe,” I said. “Sorry, we’re out of Vitamin Water.”

Buster grunted and took out a quart of milk. I have three brothers, I knew what came next. I held out a glass. Buster ignored it and twisted off the top.

Freddy said, “Late night again?”

Buster turned to me. “So what, now. You talking about me?” he asked. He had a dangerous glint in his eye. He took a long drink from the container.

I shook my head. My guilt about slipping about Buster being on the drug task force found its way into my voice. “Of course not.”

Buster caught my hesitation. He tilted the milk and looked at Freddy. “She been complaining about my rotten moods? How I never have time to take her out anymore?”

“It’s pretty evident that you’re busy. The bathroom …” Freddy said. He was trying to be diplomatic. I had to give him that. That was not Freddy’s usual modus operandi.

Buster was relentless. “Since you’re over here all the time already, maybe you’d like to paint the bathroom.”

Enough. I took the milk from Buster and poured the remainder into the glass. I rinsed the container. “Buster, Freddy and I have work to do. We’re working on the Quilters Crawl together, you know that. Knock it off. You’re out of line.”

Freddy dried his hand on a paper towel. He gathered up his Quilters Crawl notebook. “We’re done for today,” he said.

He walked to the doorway and turned back, stroking his beard. His eyes sought Buster’s and held them. “Your girl has not spilled your deep dark secrets, I guarantee that.”

He managed to make it sound like just the opposite. I blushed. Buster glowered. Freddy disappeared.

I turned on Buster, with the milk container in my hand. Buster took it from me and tossed it into the recycling bin.

“Geez, Buster, that was unnecessary,” I said. “I know you’re tired
and cranky, but come on.”

“You do understand he moved up here to be near you, don’t you?” Buster said, washing his dirty glass. He could only push the caveman act so far before his natural need for order took over.

“Not at all. He wanted to be closer to his brother.”

“That’s what he tells you, maybe, but I know the real reason. He fell for you when you two were at Asilomar last year.”

I wiped down the countertop with vigor. Buster was pissing me off. “When do you get off that task force? You’re getting paranoid.”

“Think what you want. I know a smitten man when I see one.” Buster helped himself to a stale bagel from the morning Crawl meeting.

I rinsed off my sponge and took a breath, letting the running water soothe me. Buster was miserable at his job right now. He’d asked to get off Homicide because he was dissatisfied only doing computer work on cold cases, but working the drug scene was souring him. I had to cut him some slack.

I faced him. “Freddy is not the problem. You need sleep, and lots of it.”

He nodded reluctantly. “I’m sorry. I’m just upset at how long this is taking. If it was up to my superiors at SJPD, we’d have made arrests already. But they have to answer to the FBI and the DEA. Those guys are dragging their feet. Meanwhile, there are so many kids on campus becoming addicted to pills, it makes me sick.”

“But it’s out of your hands.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier when I know the amount of painkillers and Prozac that’s being ingested. Those kids need help. And those dealers need to be locked up.”

I dried my hands on the towel he was holding and reached for Buster. He came into my arms and let me stroke his lush hair. He’d been out all night again. I felt how weary he was as he sagged against me.

“When are we going to get our life back?” I asked.

Buster shook his head. He pulled away, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He looked so tired and vulnerable, I forgave him everything, even drinking from the milk carton.

“HQ’s not telling me anything,” he said. He fought off a yawn. “I’m going to go home and sleep.”

“You’re working again tonight?” I asked. Ugh. More hours in front of HGTV. I was even tiring of Josh Temple.

He grabbed his leather jacket. “Yup. Going in at seven.”

“I’ll come home early and make dinner,” I said. That would be our only time together.

“Thanks,” he said. His eyes were getting heavy. He started down the hall to QP’s back door.

“Okay if I invite Freddy?” I called after him.

He didn’t turn around, just flipped me off without looking back.

Three

I logged onto Twitter
and started an account in the Quilters Crawl name. I tried to import the Quilters Crawl logo, a sea otter draped incongruously in a patchwork quilt. The file was the wrong size. I could not get the picture to appear next to the Quilters Crawl name.

Frustrated, I gave up. I could be here for hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. This was exactly the kind of thing Vangie could do in three minutes. I gave up and wrote a note to ask her to fix my mistake. I hadn’t seen her since the day I picked up Pearl, but she often came in late at night after I was gone.

For now, I would concentrate on finding followers. I tweeted from QP’s account about the promotion and urged my followers to join the Quilters Crawl feed. I sent an email to the quilt guild and our mailing list. I put a note on QP’s Facebook wall. I wasn’t sure we’d get enough people online by the beginning of the Crawl, but I was going to give it a try.

I had a bright idea. I could slip a note onto the new maps when we got them. Vangie had brightly colored stickers somewhere. I found them in her bottom drawer under her extra set of car keys and an expired coupon for Hot Diggety Dog.

I wrote
Follow the Quilters Crawl on Twitter for special prizes.
I printed this out and left a note for Ursula to attach them to the brochures before she handed them out. That might attract a few more people.

Flipping over to Twitter, I saw we’d gained a dozen people. Not so bad for an afternoon’s work.

That was all I could do for now. The growth now would come from within the social media community. Word of mouth, so to speak.

I turned my attention to prizes. I’d gotten an email from Felix in Brooklyn saying he would send a dozen extra scissors in my regular order, early next week. One prize down. Only a dozen more to go.

_____

The store was empty. Ursula was thumbing through a magazine. It was the latest edition of the
Ten Best Quilt Shops
. Every owner wanted their place featured in the magazine’s biannual issue. I was no different. I let myself imagine QP on the cover. Some people wanted to be on the cover of the
Rolling Stone
, I’d rather be on this one.

“Hey, boss,” she said. “Been kind of quiet around here.”

“No worries. Any display ideas we can steal?”

Ursula shook her head. “Not unless you want to feature deer antlers?” She held up the page for me to see. A shop in Montana seemed to be using Bambi as design inspiration.

“Whatever works. Of course, our idea of a wild animal around here is a geek separated from his iPhone.”

Ursula laughed. “Horrors. I hear they can get might testy.”

Ursula had a great booming laugh. I hadn’t heard it until she’d been working for QP for about four months, but now she let loose all the time. Each guffaw reminded me how lucky we’d been to find each other.

Ursula looked prettier than she had a year ago. The death of her abusive husband had released her and freedom was better than a hundred Botox treatments. Her forehead was unlined now and her eyes were clear and bright. Watching her blossom had been like watching someone get off drugs. She’d had to detox from the stress of her old life, but once she did, she radiated good health, except for some lingering injuries courtesy of her ex-husband.

“How’s your shoulder today?” I asked.

Ursula had been absent-mindedly rubbing her upper arm. Legacy of having her shoulder disconnected too many times.

With her working at QP, my business had grown. She was great with customers, a natural salesperson who could suggest tools and extra rotary blades without being pushy. She always remembered to ask the customer if she needed thread before completing the
sale. And my customers left feeling happy, secure that they had
everything they needed to make their new project.

Sales were up twenty percent in the year she’d been here.

“Any sign of Vangie?” I asked.

Ursula shook her head.

“I guess I had my days mixed up. I thought she was coming to the Quilters Crawl meeting.”

“How’d that go? By the way, someone else came in asking for the map.”

I snapped my fingers. “Thanks for the reminder. I’m going to call right now and get us some more.”

I turned back to Ursula. “Let’s get out of here right at five. You can close out the drawer a little early if we don’t get any more customers.”

“Date night?” Ursula asked, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Buster promises to be home for dinner,” I said. “I plan to make the most of it.”

My step lightened as I walked away. The idea of spending even just a couple of hours with Buster made me happy. Most of the time, he came in well after midnight and crashed. Sometimes he went to his own place and skipped my house all together. I hated those days.

Why did it seem like I couldn’t have everything I wanted?
Successful quilt shop, loving boyfriend, good gal pals. QP was
booming but both my best friend and my best guy were missing in action.

At 4:45, Ursula stuck her head in my door. “Pearl’s in the classroom.”

My heart thunked. I hadn’t seen Pearl since she’d slammed her door in my face.

“Is she okay?”

Ursula’s lips thinned and she looked over her shoulder at the open door to the classroom. “She’s pretty testy. She said she wanted to work on her quilt. I told her we’d only be open for another few minutes and she told me to get lost.”

Testy. Not what I wanted to hear. “Thanks, I’ll deal with her.”

I took a deep breath and braced myself for what I’d find. She hadn’t been in the store for several months. Would her hair be combed? Would she be wearing a plaids and stripes combo again?

I thought about calling Vangie, but decided I could handle this. All I had to do was move Pearl on her way home so I could go cook dinner. I pushed open the door to the classroom. The curtains on the window wall were closed up and the room was dark.

I flipped on two sets of fluorescent lights.

Pearl was seated at a table, her back to me. She put a hand over her eyes and turned to me.

“You trying to blind me?” she said.

Testy, just like Ursula said. Or maybe a return to feisty.

She looked pretty good. She was neatly dressed in a white T-shirt and black long shorts. Her feet were in sandals and her toenails were painted bright blue. The back of her hair was smooth. All good signs. Perhaps the doctor had give her some medication.

“Whatcha up to, Pearl? I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Ursula said you were busy with the Quilters Crawl stuff,” she said, returning her attention to the task at hand. I walked over to see what she was doing.

She was beading by the light of a small daylight lamp that was plugged into the strip on the table. Her feet dangled in the office chair. She opened a prescription bottle with her teeth and spilled out the needles inside. I used a similar container to store broken sharps or bent pins. The little bottles with the tight lids were just the right size to dispose of pointy objects.

She sorted through the contents of a zipper bag. She grunted, not finding what she was looking for. Frustrated, she dumped the bag.

Hundreds of seed beads bounced off the table and hit the floor. I gasped. She didn’t seem to notice, picking up the bead she wanted and poking at the needle with clear beading thread.

I got down on my hands and knees and began picking up the tiny glass balls. I emptied the pile in my hand into her bag and went back on the floor. “Have you seen Vangie?” I asked.

“She stayed with me last night,” Pearl said. “We watched movies all night. She knows how to get that ’flix thing going. We watched all of the Toy Story movies. I cried.”

Vangie had told me about their
Toy Story
marathon. It had taken place over a week ago. Pearl was clearly confused about time.

“I loved
Toy Story 3
,” I said. “Especially—” I stopped when I realized the losses in
Toy Story
might hit too close to home for Pearl, whose own loss was not fictional, nor did it involve inanimate objects.

“Vangie been staying with you a lot?” I asked. Maybe I’d been looking for Vangie in all the wrong places.

Pearl still hadn’t managed to thread the needle. I wanted to take it from her and do it but she would hate that.

“We can’t sleep,” Pearl said. “She comes over when we’re both awake. Which is like every night.”

I doubted Vangie was there nightly but she might be sleeping there once in awhile. Vangie had had to move back home in order to afford school, so maybe she was staying more often at Pearl’s. Her parents’ house was full of younger siblings and grandparents.

Pearl pulled out a quilt. I glanced at the large clock. We had to be out of here in ten minutes.

“Pearl, I’ve got to close up in a few minutes.”

She held up the quilt. The design was pictures of her late husband that had been transferred to fabric. Pearl had colored four of them into an Andy Warhol-type arrangement. Hiro’s big smile and crinkly eyes were surprisingly lifelike.

Pearl stroked the quilt. “Do you like it? I’m going to bead it. Diamonds in his dimples.”

“Great, Pearl, it’s great.”

She stood and stepped over me as I crawled under the table to get the last of the beads. “But first, I have to make sure these trans
fers are stuck really good. I hope you don’t mind me turning on your iron. I needed really high heat. You’ve got the best iron around.”

“Really, we’ve got to get a move on.”

“It won’t take long,” she said.

I poured more beads back into her zipper bag. Giving in to Pearl was easier than arguing with her. I could only hurry her along. “Okay,” I said. “But I will turn it off in five minutes, so hurry.”

She pounded the iron down in emphasis. Her little triceps bulged
from moving the heavy iron up and down. Her face was twisted in concentration.

When she set the iron back down on the board, the soleplate facing me, I gasped. The iron was black.

“Pearl, have you been using fusible web?” My throat was dry.

She looked at me and back to her piece laying on the ironing board. She nodded.

She’d been pressing on the wrong side of the fusing, transferring the sticky gluey stuff to the surface of the iron instead of her quilt.

I grabbed her quilt. Just as I feared, she’d used the iron on the front of the piece. Two of Hiro’s faces were covered in the burnt glue.

“Okay, Pearl, you’re done for today.”

She looked at me blankly, all the early animation gone from her expression. Did she comprehend what had happened?

The soleplate of my hundred-dollar iron was ruined, covered in burnt fusible web. I wasn’t sure there was enough elbow grease in the world that would get it looking like new again. Worse yet, there would be no way to salvage the top of her quilt. I couldn’t send it home with her.

“Arrgh,” Pearl said. She had picked up a needle in one hand and was poking the thread in the direction of the hole without success.

Ursula appeared in the doorway. She had her sweater on, her purse in hand. She was carrying her VTA pass, ready for the trip home.

“Okay, Pearl, shop’s closed,” I used my chirpiest voice. I held the quilt behind my back, hoping out of sight meant out of mind. I tucked it onto one of the high shelves and put the iron on a lower one. “I’ve got to meet Buster. Want me to drop you off at home?”

I gathered up her beads and needles.

Pearl said. “I have my car.”

I wasn’t sure she was okay to drive. I looked over to Ursula for her opinion.

Ursula caught on quickly. “How about you give me a lift as far as your place, Pearl? I’ll catch the bus on Fourth Street.”

“Sure, whatever,” Pearl said.

I caught Ursula’s eye and smiled. Going to Pearl’s neighborhood first would be taking her in the opposite direction of her apartment in South San Jose, but that would ensure Pearl got home safe. That was a weight off me. I grabbed Ursula’s upper arm and mouthed “thank you.”

Pearl and Ursula went out the back. I heard Pearl’s black and white Mini start up and saw it go past the window.

_____

I felt the emptiness the minute I unlocked my back door. No gurgling from the shower, no gentle snoring coming from the bedroom, no cup of tea poured for me. No Buster.

The note was on the kitchen table. “Sorry, duty calls.”

No details. I crumpled up the paper and tossed it toward the trash. I hated this job as much as Buster did. While a homicide meant late nights and intense days of non-stop investigations, they didn’t happen that often. Drugs were another story.

The Task Force Buster was on was a joint federal and state and local force coming together to crack down on prescription drugs getting into downtown San Jose. Students at the college were selling their medications. Some got the pills legally from their doctors and sold them for a huge markup. Others visited pill mills—pain clinics—where unscrupulous doctors would give painkillers and stimulants to healthy kids.

I checked my phone for messages. Nothing more from Buster, but Sonya Salazar, Barb V’s contact at State had called. Her message said she had more Quilters Crawl maps in her office at San Jose State and that she would be in before her evening class started at six.

Vangie had sent a text saying she was in the library, studying.

I saw a tweet from a Vietnamese food truck that I followed. The truck had no permanent home. Each week, they sent out tweets giving out their not-so-secret location for that night. According to this, PhoHo would be in front of the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles tonight at six.

I glanced at the date. Today was the first Friday in October. Perfect. First Fridays were a big deal at the museum and all around the arty SoFA district with exhibits in odd venues. The vibe was hip, and I’d find plenty to do.

My spirits lifted. I could go downtown and be around people. I didn’t have to remain here in my empty house, wishing Buster was home.

I started to ping Freddy to ask him to join me. I closed the screen before I entered his entire number. No point in feeding Buster’s ridiculous jealousy.