Between Heaven and Texas (20 page)

C
HAPTER 35

D
espite its elegant name, Waterson's Dry Goods Emporium was really just a fabric and notions store, and not a very fancy one at that.

The two-story building, dating from 1891, was the first brick structure built in Too Much and one of the few commercial buildings in the downtown area that was not owned by some branch of the Benton family. That they'd made no attempt to do so in this instance was evidence of the fact that Waterson's Dry Goods Emporium was far from a going concern.

Mary Dell's stated purpose in stopping by Waterson's, to look for new and inspiring fabric, was delivered tongue in cheek. Much of the material in the store pre-dated Mary Dell's birth, and the new fabric that did come in was usually far from trend-setting. Mr. Waterson bought much of his stock from liquidation auctions and going-out-of-business sales of stores that couldn't stay afloat, so most of the fabric he sold was out of date and out of style from the minute it arrived.

And the mediocre quality of the goods in Waterson's was not helped by the way it was presented. To start with, there was the lighting. The sparsely spaced collection of fluorescent fixtures gave off light that was dim to begin with and grew dimmer every year.

Mr. Waterson was what Aunt Velvet would have called a typical Too Much male: affable, handsome—or had been in his prime—and utterly lacking in ambition. On top of that he had a bad back, and as he grew older, he found climbing up ladders to change bulbs too strenuous to do very often. He applied the same principle to sweeping, dusting, rearranging stock, or changing the window display. It was all too much work. Mr. Waterson tended to dump fabric bolts wherever he found room for them with no thought of arranging them by color, weight, or purpose. There they sat month after month and year after year, collecting a thin coating of dust that was only disturbed by the occasional movements of the occasional customers who wanted to buy a yard or two of whatever it was that Waterson's was selling.

The only reason Mr. Waterson had managed to eke out a modest living in the dry goods business was that his store was the only place to purchase fabric for thirty miles in any direction, and the women of Too Much had to buy their dress goods somewhere. At least they had, back when most women made their own clothes. The advent of cheap, ready-made clothing meant that it didn't pay to sew your own now, and so most people gave it up.

Only real sewing enthusiasts, people like Mary Dell and Grandma Silky, came to Waterson's anymore. And because Mary Dell hadn't been in since before Howard was born, Mr. Waterson was especially happy to see her. And Mary Dell, who loved looking at fabric no matter how out of style it might be, was happy to be seen.

“Well, well, well!” Mr. Waterson exclaimed, clapping his hands together when Mary Dell passed over the threshold. “Look who's here! I was beginning to think you'd sold your sewing machine.”

“Oh, I'd never do that, Mr. Waterson. But I've been a little busy lately,” Mary Dell replied, holding Howard out to the storekeeper.

“Yes, I can see that. Let me see that big boy. Oh, no, honey. Just hold him up for me. My back's been giving me fits this week. I'm too old to tote young 'uns anymore. My! But he's a handsome thing,” Mr. Waterson said, smiling and wiggling his fingers in front of Howard's face. “Looks a lot like Donny.”

Mary Dell's smile faded a little. “You know Donny walked out on us.”

“Yes,” the old man said solemnly, “I heard about that. Heard something was wrong with the baby too, but that can't be right. He looks as fine as cream gravy.”

Mary Dell blanched a little at the storekeeper's frankness, irritated to know that people in town had been talking about Howard. But, she reminded herself, how could they not? Too Much was a small town that offered few entertainments besides talking about other people's business. She'd been guilty of it herself from time to time. No matter how she felt about it, people
were
going to talk about her and Donny and the baby, at least until some newer and more interesting gossip came along. Best way to deal with it was to meet it head-on.

“Howard has Down syndrome, Mr. Waterson.”

“Does he? Well, he's a big, handsome boy. Is he healthy?”

“Very,” Mary Dell confirmed. “We just came from Dr. Nystrom's.”

“Looks happy too. Is he?”

“Most of the time, except when he's hungry or wet. And he makes me happy.”

“Well, then. That's all that matters.”

“Yes, sir. You're right about that.”

Mary Dell browsed around the store, trying to see if there was anything worth buying.

She picked up a box of silk pins and two spools of ecru thread and put them on the counter. She almost asked Mr. Waterson to cut her a yard of puce-and-olive-green plaid cotton from a bolt she found tucked in a corner with a bunch of corduroys, but Howard started to howl as soon as she pulled it out. When she put it down on the floor so she could pat his back, he stopped.

“That young fella has pretty definite taste in fabric.” Mr. Waterson chuckled.

“He must have had a little gas bubble or something,” Mary Dell said.

But when she picked up the bolt of plaid a second time, and a third, Howard began to cry again, so Mary Dell put it aside for good. When she pulled a bolt of pickle-green paisley off the shelf, Howard made no sound, so she carried it to the counter and asked Mr. Waterson to cut her a half yard.

“I'm sure glad you came in today,” Mr. Waterson said, squinting to find the eighteen-inch mark on the cutting table. “I was worried I might not get to see you before we leave town.”

“Leave town? Did somebody leave you a legacy, Mr. Waterson?” she teased. “Are you finally going on that trip to Hawaii you're always talking about?”

“Hawaii? Bah! That was the missus's idea. I don't like the idea of flying over water. Don't like the idea of flying period.”

He picked up a pair of heavy, black-handled scissors and cut through the fabric.

“Nope, I don't need to go to Hawaii now or ever. Except for my time in the service, I lived my whole life in Texas, and I intend to die in Texas, but we are leaving town. We're moving to Houston to be closer to the grandchildren just as soon as I can find somebody to buy the store. Of course, things being the way they are, that might not be for some time. People aren't exactly chomping at the bit to go into the dry goods business. Can't blame 'em. It's tougher every year. That's why I want to sell now, while I still can. Don't expect it'll bring much, but hopefully it'll be enough for me and Mabel to retire.”

Mary Dell's eyes went wide. “Mr. Waterson, you're really going to sell the store? Who to?”

The old man shrugged as he folded the green paisley into a tidy square and placed it in a brown paper bag. “To whoever's crazy enough to buy it, I guess.”

“How about me?”

“You?” He waved her off dismissively. “Mary Dell, you don't want it. You don't.”

“How do you know?” she protested.

“Because I do. I'm not asking much, but trust me, it's still too much by half. People have stopped sewing clothes.”

“You're not a very good salesman, Mr. Waterson. Maybe that's your problem. Maybe I could do better. Besides, you've got to sell it to somebody.”

“I know I do,” Waterson said irritably. “But I was hoping to sell it to somebody I don't know. Or at least somebody I don't like. This isn't for you, Mary Dell. This store is a dead end. It'll break your heart and empty your bank account.”

“How much do you want for it?”

The old man frowned and scratched his ear. He didn't like talking about money, especially with women. But Mary Dell had this look on her face, a steely expression he recognized, the same expression his missus wore when she'd told him that she didn't care what he thought, that her mother
was
coming to live with them, and if he didn't like it he could just bed down on the sofa for the duration. It was the immovable expression of a stubborn woman with a bee in her bonnet. Oh, yes, he knew it well. There were plenty of stubborn women in Too Much. More per capita, he reckoned, than any town in Texas, and that was saying a lot. Hopefully, Houston would be better.

Mr. Waterson opened the drawer of the practically empty cash register, took out a piece of paper and a pencil, licked the end of it, scribbled a figure, and slid the piece of paper across the counter.

Mary Dell bent her head down so she could read the number. It wasn't as much as she'd feared. Of course, she'd need some extra money to buy new stock and make improvements and . . . well, probably a whole lot of other things she had no way of anticipating. Maybe she could get a loan. How did you go about doing that anyway?

Maybe this wasn't a good idea. After all, she didn't know much about business. No, that wasn't true. She didn't know
anything
about business. She never figured she'd have to. Up until now, Donny had always taken care of everything.

But she could learn, couldn't she? Howard had shown her that. Between her high school graduation and his birth, she'd barely cracked a book, and even when she was in school, she hadn't cracked very many. It just didn't seem that important to her at the time. But Howard was important and since his birth, she'd read a whole shelf of books, many of them very dull and very thick, filled with scientific words and phrases as long as her arm. Sometimes it took her an hour just to read one page because she had to look up every other word, but she'd done it. If she could learn about Down syndrome, she could learn about business.

And she knew all about sewing. No. Quilting. Because Mr. Waterson was right; people had stopped sewing clothes. It wasn't worth the trouble when you could go to the Walmart and buy an outfit for less than you'd have paid for the fabric to make it yourself. These days, people didn't need to sew clothes.

But quilting was more art than necessity, and its popularity was on the upswing. She remembered reading an article about that in
Quilt Treasures
magazine a few years back, talking about how interest in quilting had been steadily gaining momentum since the early sixties, but saying the bicentennial had brought about a big surge of interest in all kinds of home crafts, especially quilting.

That was about the same time Mary Dell had become more interested in quilting than garment construction too, though her transformation had been motivated not by patriotic fervor but by the realization that making a name for herself as a clothing designer and the proprietor of her fantasy boutique, Too Cute Creations, was just as much of a pipe dream as Grandma Silky saying she could turn herself into a quilting legend.

But she did love quilting more than she'd ever loved making clothes. She loved that every quilt she made was different than any quilt she'd ever made before. And she loved the way it worked her brain. She loved looking at an old quilt, mentally deconstructing it and figuring out in her mind how it had gone together. And she loved the thrill of examining a particularly difficult pattern, figuring out a way to do it better, faster, easier, and then passing that knowledge on to her students, seeing their excitement when they finished creating a beautiful quilt that they'd formerly believed was beyond them. For her, that was the real joy of quilting, the satisfaction she gained from offering this piece of herself to others, her knowledge and skill, seeing them make it on their own, sometimes even passing it on to their friends or family, adding another link in the chain. It extended her somehow, made her life larger and more meaningful. Maybe that was it—quilting connected her to people.

And there had been so many advances in the quilting world since she'd taken it up. Now the magazines were filled with advertisements and articles about all kinds of inventions that purported to make quilting easier and give better results. Oh, and all the new fabrics that were coming out! So beautiful, in so many colors and patterns, and made just for quilting—100 percent cotton with not so much as a thread of polyester.

But you couldn't get that gorgeous fabric in Waterson's. You had to drive all the way to Waco to find decent cotton, and even then, the selection was limited. The Suck 'n' Sew Center in Waco, so named because it sold vacuum cleaners as well as sewing machines, had only one small section of quilt fabric. Wouldn't it be wonderful to run a whole shop devoted exclusively to quilts and quilting? And she knew just what she'd call it . . .

“Too Cute Quilts!”

“Pardon?” Mr. Waterson cupped his ear. “What was that?”

Mary Dell blushed, embarrassed by her unintentional outburst.

“Nothing, Mr. Waterson. I was just thinking.”

He glanced down at the paper with the purchase price written on it.

“So? You interested? I don't recommend it, and don't say I didn't warn you, but if you're really determined, I guess I might as well sell to you as anybody else.”

“I'm interested, Mr. Waterson, but I need a little time. Can you give me a week?”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “It's not like people are beating down my door, fighting each other for the opportunity to throw good money down a rat hole. Take a week, if you like. Take two. Don't matter to me.”

“One is enough. I just need to talk to some people.”

“Like who?”

“Like the bank,” she said. “I'll need a loan.”

The old man shook his head. “Doubt they'll give it to you. Money's tight. That whole savings-and-loan crisis has bankers scared. Even successful, experienced businessmen can't get loans these days, let alone a woman who's never held a real job.”