A Life of Bright Ideas (15 page)

I stepped forward and rummaged for a Simplicity pattern I knew was there. A simple, empire-style dress with full sheer sleeves gathered into a cuff. I pulled it and held it out. “Maybe something like this?”

Cindy took the pattern and wrinkles lifted her nose. “This
still looks too
weddingy
. The sleeves. I don’t like sleeves with cuffs. That’s something a pirate would wear. I want ones like hers.”

“But this
is
a wedding,” Cindy’s mother said. She looked at me, and huffed. “First she insists on carrying her grandma’s Bible instead of a bouquet, now this.”

Winnalee snatched the pattern, then tossed it on the desk. “Hold on a sec,” she said. She headed outside, while Mrs. Jamison and Cindy argued under their breaths. Through the gauzy curtains, I saw Winnalee leap out of her van with an oblong pouch and her curled sketch pad. When she came back in, she started drawing a gown with a thick leaded pencil, the skirt of the dress swirling as if the faceless model was in the middle of a spin. The angel-sleeves were rather wide and fluttering like wings over naked arms. The bodice was softly gathered and cinched underneath the bust, empire-style. “Like this?” she asked. And Cindy cried, “Yes!”

Winnalee ran her pencil softly across the high waist. “And this could be a wide, ivory ribbon, or a ribbon the same color as the bridesmaids’ dresses.”

“It’s so plain,” Mrs. Jamison complained.

“You could have crystal doohickeys glued on the ribbon to make it look more
bridal
if you wanted to,” Winnalee said.

“I don’t know …,” Mrs. Jamison said. “It just doesn’t look like something a bride—”

“Oh, but wait!” Winnalee flipped the paper over and started sketching the back of the dress. “Check this out,” she said, as if the dress were already made in her mind, even though I knew she was making this all up as she went along.

She swirled her pencil into who knew what, but something big and bunched like a bouquet at the middle of the bride’s back. Then she drew wide strands of ribbons hanging down the length of the dress and spilling over a slight train.

“Chiffon would be beautiful for this dress,” I said. “Very
flowy
.” And Winnalee added, “Yeah, and if you let your hair hang loose, curl it maybe, you could wear a crown of flowers, with those … those … little sprigs of tiny white flowers … what’s that shit called?”

“Baby’s breath,” I said, cringing because she’d cursed in front of customers.

“Yeah, baby’s breath,” Winnalee said. “It would beat having to wear one of those geeky veils, wouldn’t it?”

Cindy was grinning from ear to ear, but her mother was not. “No veil?”

“You could have a narrow band of tulle hanging from the back of the crown,” I suggested.

“Look, Mrs. Jamison,” Winnalee said. “If you want a wedding disaster on your hands, stuff Cindy in a dress that looks like a wedding cake. She’d make the whole wedding a living hell for everybody. Trust me, I know her type. I’m one of them.”

I stiffened. You don’t say things like
that
to customers you’re trying to please!

“I would, too,” said Cindy, her chin jutting as she tried to look like a true rebel, though I doubted she was anything more than a spoiled whiner.

“But what about the bridesmaids’ dresses?” Mrs. Jamison asked.

“Same style,” Winnalee said. “But maybe midi-length. And just a plain bow at the back of their dresses. All in some far-out material, maybe tie-dyed. Pale, soft colors, I suppose, because it
is
still a wedding. Wait …”

Winnalee dug in her pouch and pulled out a handful of pastels, some used down to stubs. She tossed her hair to her back and started drafting a less dramatic version of Cindy’s dress. Then she used her pastels to color it, blending pinks and turquoises and yellows into a muted tie-dyed
pattern. Cindy watched over her shoulder, muttering excited little
oooohs
.

“Winnalee,” I said quietly, “I don’t know how we’d find material just like that, or even similar. Flower prints and Swiss dots are what’s in.”

Winnalee finished the dress, handed the pad to Cindy, and said, “Then we’ll dye it ourselves.”

I’d never dyed anything, but for a pair of old kitchen curtains that I was determined to take from a yellowed white to bright pink. When I was through with them, they were the color of spawning salmon with jaundice.

Everything happened in a rush then. Cindy insisted that I sew the dresses—even though Mrs. Jamison pointed out that Hazel had sewn
her
wedding dress and she trusted her. Winnalee jumped right in, then, like she was doing me a favor, saying, “Button here’s been sewing since she was old enough to sit up. She’ll nail these dresses.” Winnalee got up and ran to the fitting room and came back with the bridesmaid’s dress we just brought in. “Look at this,” she said, lifting the plastic. “Look at the … the … well, look how good it looks. Better than store-bought.”

“But have you sewn a bridal gown before?” Mrs. Jamison asked.

“What does that matter?” Winnalee asked. “A dress is a dress, no matter what color the material is.”

So the Jamisons placed their orders—Mrs. Jamison looking only slightly sick at this point—and set up a time for Cindy and her three bridesmaids to come in to be measured. “I’m having Hazel sew
my
dress,” Mrs. Jamison said, and out the door they went.

“There,” Winnalee said. “You just got your first wedding dress order!” She sat back down and took a slow slug of her soda, looking pleased with herself.

“Winnalee, I can’t dye fabric! And that glob on the back of the bride’s dress … what is that supposed to be, anyway? A clump of bows? A bouquet of flowers? How can I make something when I don’t even know what it is?”

Winnalee yawned. “Relax, Button. I’ll help you dye the material if you can’t find anything close. I’ve tie-dyed T-shirts before. How hard can it be?”

“Oh my God,” I groaned.

“As for the thingy on the back of the dress, well, you’re on your own there.”

In so many ways, I envied Winnalee. She was liberated, and free from the burden of trying not to upset or offend anyone. She didn’t obsess about things the way I did—tugging her shirts to hide her boobs, biting her cheek to keep from saying things that might upset someone. She wasn’t afraid of new challenges, and didn’t worry about if she was good enough. She’d driven to New York and attended Woodstock all by herself, and she was brave enough to go braless in public. But me? I had trouble taking off my bra just to sleep, and I still hadn’t undressed in front of Winnalee. Nor had I found the courage to go to the Purple Haze, even though Winnalee was starting to get hurt feelings because I was blowing her off every time she asked.

I lay awake much of the night trying to figure out how I’d construct the wedding dress Winnalee sketched for Cindy. In the dead of night, with the room pitch dark and void of any sound but the soft puffs of Winnalee’s breath, I could see Ma clearly. Not the face that had been softened by Freeda’s rough touch, but her face as it was when I was small. Two worry gouges carved between her eyebrows, lips whitened with perpetual disapproval. That’s the face I saw when I closed my eyes to try to sleep, warning me not to screw up this project.

It was Saturday morning, so I hiked over to Aunt Verdella’s while the grass was still wet with dew, to help her load her things for the Community Sale, and to get Boohoo. “Hey, Evy,” Boohoo said. “Can we stay here until Cap’n Kangaroo’s over?”

I loved Boohoo in the morning when he just woke up. When his body and voice were still drowsy and he was squishy to hug. “Sure,” I told him. “If you’ll go with me to Porter and be a good boy all day.”

“What do we gotta go there for?” he asked, as I nudged him out of the way so I could slip a box of afghans onto the bed of Uncle Rudy’s truck.

“Fabric,” I said, and Boohoo scrinched his nose. Aunt Verdella ha-ha’d and added, “Ain’t he the cutest little thing when he makes that face?” He was, but he wasn’t the cutest little thing when you got him in a fabric store.

“Can we go somewhere good afterwards?” he asked, and I promised him we could go to McDonald’s afterward,
if
he was good while I shopped.

I cleaned off the breakfast table where Uncle Rudy and Aunt Verdella’s plates, and Boohoo’s half-filled bowl of Quisp were still sitting, and I did the dishes while Boohoo watched TV. He wouldn’t leave until the show ended, even if after the commercial all Cap’n was going to do was say goodbye.

The Trix commercial was on when the phone rang, and
Boohoo was laughing because, for whatever reason, he loved the Trix bunny. I picked it up.

“Button, is that you?”

“Yes?” I said, as I tugged the phone chord as far as it would go to get away from the blaring TV, in the hopes I’d hear the voice enough to recognize it.

“It’s Ada,” she said.

Tommy’s mom sounded upset, and instantly my stomach tightened, thinking maybe something had happened to Uncle Rudy or Tommy while they were haying. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, Mrs. Bishop just called here—I’m at work. Max and her are in Ironwood, Michigan, for her uncle’s funeral, and Marls just called her because she didn’t know what to do. She’s got some bleeding, and she can’t find Brody. I wasn’t thinking until after I dialed, that, of course, Verdella would be at the sale—which explains why I couldn’t reach anybody else I tried, either. I sure am glad I got you, though. Button, could you go over to the Bishops’ and bring that poor girl to the hospital? It’s far too early for that baby to come now. I tried to talk Marls into calling an ambulance, but she doesn’t have health insurance and was afraid her in-laws would get upset if she rang up that expense.”

“Yes, of course I will,” I said. I was pacing, and caught sight of Boohoo, already coming to life and hopping in place, yarn twirling down over him.

“Thank you, honey. Let me know, okay?”

I hung up the phone. “Boohoo, shut the TV off. Now. Hurry.”

“What’s the matter, Evy?”

I didn’t know what to say to him—or what to do with him. Certainly I couldn’t bring him with me. “I have to run somebody to the hospital and—”

“Is somebody sick?” he asked, his yarn going limp against the floor.

“Yes. Hurry now.”

“Do I gotta go, too? I don’t like hospitals, I don’t think.”

“No, Winnalee will watch you,” I said, hoping it was true.

“Goody. I like Winnalee.”

“You want me to what? Watch Boohoo? What am
I
going to do with a little kid?” Winnalee mumbled when I told her.

“Just watch him.”

Winnalee propped on her elbows and forced her sleepy eyes open. “I never babysat before, Button.”

I blinked. I’d babysat the Thompson kids all through high school, and helped take care of Boohoo since his birth. Every girl I knew babysat. “There’s nothing to it,” I said as I dug through the rubble for my purse. “Just make sure he doesn’t start anything on fire, break anything, or get run over. Past that, just feed him if he gets hungry. Winnalee, I have to hurry. Marls could lose her baby. I’ve got to get her into town.”

“Lose her baby? Who?”

Winnalee must have been too groggy to absorb the opening part of the story, so I repeated it quickly.

“Okay,” she said. She sat up. “I hope she’s all right. And I hope I don’t do anything stupid.”

“You say that like you don’t have any control over what you do,” I said as I slipped on my sandals.

“Well lots of times, I
don’t
!”

I warned Boohoo to be good, and flew out the door.

Marls was in tears when I got there—but to my relief, blood wasn’t oozing down her legs and pooling to the floor. I helped her to the car, telling her over and over again that everything would be okay, and hoping it was the truth.

I didn’t know if I should drive slow—Tanner Road, where
the Bishops lived, being heaved and rough, and the Rambler didn’t have a smooth ride on the best of roads—or fast, so I could get her there more quickly. So I drove in-between. I was glad when we got on Highway 8 and I could speed up. “Are you in pain?” I asked Marls more than once, because her whimpering rose and fell like someone having pangs, but each time she told me (or shook her head) no.

“Here’s the Smithys,” I said. “So we’ve only got sixteen miles to go now.” We both cocked our heads toward the farm. “He said he was going to help hay,” Marls said, as we scoped the field. Uncle Rudy was on the green baler, and Tommy hunched over a hay bale. Uncle Rudy’s and Tommy’s trucks were the only vehicles in the driveway.

I glanced over at Marls, then watched the Smithys’ farm fade in my rearview mirror.
Brody should be with her
, rolled in my mind, and no doubt, in hers.

Marls was almost giddy with relief when the hospital came into view. “Thank you so much for bringing me,” she said. “Brody can give you some money for gas later.”

I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Don’t give that another thought. It’s what anyone would do for their neighbor.”

I left Marls in the car and hurried inside to tell the lady at the desk the situation. Then I followed two nurses and a wheelchair out. They helped Marls out of the car, and I shut the door behind her and started walking alongside them. Marls looked up, her face blotchy, her gray eyes almost colorless underneath the tears. “You don’t have to stay,” she said, but I told her I would. I didn’t want her there feeling left alone when she was so scared. I reached down and touched her hair while she answered questions at the desk, then took a seat when they wheeled her into the examining room.

After what seemed forever, I saw a gurney leave the examining room, Marls lying on her back. I was relieved to see the
mound of her belly under the green blanket, even though I knew the baby still had to be there, since births were supposed to take a long time. After they hauled her away, I waited, then went up to the desk to ask what was happening. “They’ve taken Mrs. Bishop to a room and will keep her overnight for observations. After they get her settled, you can see her.”