A Bodkin for the Bride

by Patrice Greenwood

  PATRICE GREENWOOOD

  Evennight Books/Book View Café

  Cedar Crest, New Mexico

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A BODKIN FOR THE BRIDE

  Copyright © 2015 by Patrice Greenwood

  All rights reserved

  An Evennight Book

  Published by Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  P.O. Box 1624

  Cedar Crest, NM 87008

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Cover photo: Chris Krohn

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-495-6

  First Edition July 2015

  http://bookviewcafe.com

  Digital version: 20150716pgn

  Books by Patrice Greenwood

  Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries

  A Fatal Twist of Lemon

  A Sprig of Blossomed Thorn

  An Aria of Omens

  A Bodkin for the Bride

  in loving memory of

  Darragh Edmund Nagle

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to my wonderful publication team for their help with this novel: Sherwood Smith, Phyllis Irene Radford, Pari Noskin, and Chris Krohn; to my faithful consultants Ken and Marilyn Dusenberry; and to my colleagues in Book View Café.

  Thanks also to Mary Alice Higbie and the staff of the St. James Tearoom, for inspiring me to write this series, for making Wisteria White tea a reality, and for continuing to make me welcome.

  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

  Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

  The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

  The insolence of office, and the spurns

  That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

  When he himself might his quietus make

  With a bare bodkin?

  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Nat’s Santa Fe Chicken Salad

  Chicken in Brandy Cream Sauce

  A Note from the Author

  Sample from A Fatal Twist of Lemon

  About Book View Café

  About the Author

  1

  You sure you’ll find them here?” I asked as I walked with my aunt toward the entrance of the Tesuque Pueblo Flea Market.

  “Yes, I was here last week, and I saw the perfect buttons,” said Nat, putting on sunglasses and hefting her woven shoulder bag. “I don’t know why I didn’t just buy them then.”

  “Because you didn’t have the fabric yet?”

  “Maybe.”

  The sun pounded down from a blinding turquoise sky, already hot though it wasn’t yet nine o’clock, making me glad I’d brought my garden hat. Late September was still warm in Santa Fe. We’d always called it Indian Summer, though perhaps that was no longer an acceptable term. Still, the Indians I knew continued to refer to themselves as Indians. I had long since decided not to worry about it.

  We trudged uphill through the dusty parking lot to the market’s painted plywood entrance. Beyond the flea market, at the very top of the hill, the complicated roof of the Santa Fe Opera house peeped above the piñon trees. I paused to gaze at it, feeling a pang as I remembered the murders that had occurred there during the summer. Losing Vi Benning had broken the hearts of everyone at my tearoom, mine included. I swallowed, sending her silent well-wishes, wherever she was.

  “Ellen!”

  Nat beckoned to me from the market’s entrance, and I hurried to catch up with her. We passed through, declined the offer of a free Tesuque Pueblo Flea Market bumper sticker, and joined the strolling crowd admiring fine art, oriental rugs, imports from Mexico and Guatemala, clothing, baskets, and pottery. This was not your average flea market. Some of the booths were permanent structures complete with floors, practically usable as living space, though made of plywood. Others were tables beneath shade awnings more like what the words “flea market” would normally conjure. Some fell between these extremes: enclosed tents or booths with walls, even an old-style chrome trailer-camper with the owner’s goods spread out beneath its shade canopy. There was not much rhyme or reason to the layout.

  The market catered to the tourist crowd, but with enough good prices that the locals frequented it as well. Nat led me toward the back, where a long, tent-shaded area was reserved for whatever artisans from the Pueblo were inclined to set up. Today there were half a dozen: two jewelers, a table of knives with inlaid stone handles, a woman selling sage smudge sticks and handmade dolls of Indian women, a baker with fresh horno bread, and a potter.

  “Oh, good, he’s here,” Nat murmured, and stepped up to one of the jeweler’s tables to inspect a basket full of silver buttons. I strolled on toward the baker’s table.

  The bread was wrapped in clear plastic bags, all the loaves basically round but with different shapes made by manipulating the dough before letting it rise. Iz Naranjo, one of my servers at the Wisteria Tearoom, who came from Tesuque Pueblo, had told me how each family group had its own traditional patterns. The bread was baked communally in the beehive-shaped outdoor ovens, called hornos, that could be seen at every pueblo in New Mexico, and the shapes were how different families identified their loaves. Even villages that had gone to more modern housing still had hornos behind many of the homes.

  I picked up a loaf with four chubby points poking out of its roundness. It still felt slightly warm through the plastic; baked that morning, then. I wondered if Julio would be interested in making shaped breads—smaller versions—for the tearoom.

  A skinny guy in jeans and a plaid shirt over a t-shirt stepped up beside me and spoke in a low voice to the booth’s owner, a tall, heavy-set Pueblo man. The owner took out a loaf from beneath the table—this one decorated with some kind of knot made from two strips of dough, almost making the loaf look gift-wrapped—and handed it to his customer, then palmed the bill he was given in exchange.

  “That’s a pretty design,” I said as the younger man left. “How much?”

  “That was the last one,” said the owner with a smile. “Sorry. That one’s five dollars.” He gestured to the loaf in my hands.

  “Thanks,” I said, and set it down. I didn’t need an entire loaf of bread calling to me from the kitchen over the weekend. I could buy it for Nat and Manny, but they probably didn’t need to carbo-load either.

  I knew that some families kept special bread designs just for themselves. To show that I wasn’t offended by being denied the knot-decorated loaf, I paid two dollars for a small plastic bag holding half a dozen biscochitos. I tucked the cookies into my purse and ambled to the next booth, with the smudge sticks and dolls.

  The latter were in jewel-toned traditional dresses, their black yarn hair done in classic squash-blossom style, gathered into two rounded buns standing slightly away from either side of the head. A doll in a red velvet dress, very like the dress Nat and I were making for her wedding, made me smile and I picked it up.

  Both the Pueblo people and the Navajo wore such dresses: actually skirt-and-blouse sets, the long-sleeved, cuffed blouse worn over the skirt and usually belted with a concho belt. I was making one of these dresses for myself, too, since I was Nat’s maid of honor. Mine would be blue.

  “Twenty dollars,” said the wom
an behind the table, her squared black glasses at odds with her moon-shaped face. I nodded; it was a good price for a handmade doll. The detail was lovely, down to the small concho belt and squash-blossom necklace, though of course these weren’t made of silver.

  I considered getting the doll as a gift for Nat, but decided against it for now. I could always change my mind later. The wedding was a few weeks away, still.

  “Thank you,” I said, setting the doll down and moving on to the next table.

  The proprietor, a young man in a crisp denim shirt and jeans, gave me a shy glance and an almost-smile. I smiled back.

  The knives were beautiful, with inlaid strips and triangles of multicolored stone on the hilts. Turquoise, purple sugilite, coral, lapis, and others I couldn’t name made the handles into works of art, but I felt reluctant to touch them. I still had uncomfortable feelings about knives since the murders at the Opera over the summer and wasn’t inclined to buy one, however lovely. If the artist could make a belt-buckle in a similar style, it might make a nice gift for Manny. I glanced up to ask him, but he was staring toward the baker’s table.

  “Ellen, come and look at these,” Nat called.

  I joined her at the jeweler’s table. She showed me two different, round, silver buttons with stamped designs. One had a classic triple-cloud design with falling rain, the other bore a flower.

  “Which do you like?”

  “The storm clouds might not be the best omen for a harmonious marriage,” I said.

  “But it’s rain!” Nat said. “Prosperity! Besides, Manny and I don’t argue.”

  “Much.”

  “You like the flower better, then?”

  I took the second button in my hand. “It is pretty simple. Sweet-looking, though.”

  “I think I’ll go with the rain.”

  I secretly agreed with her, and when she suggested I get the flowers for my dress, I insisted on getting the rain clouds to match hers. In New Mexico, rain is almost always considered a blessing.

  Nat wouldn’t let me help with the cost of the buttons. “No, no; I’m buying all the materials. It’s the least I can do, since you’re helping me make the dresses.”

  “I like sewing,” I said as we walked away from the tent.

  “Good, because I’m barely competent to assist. I can sew these buttons on, but forget about making buttonholes.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll do the buttonholes. It’ll be fun. I haven’t made anything but curtains since I bought the house.”

  The house that had become the Wisteria Tearoom. My sanctuary, my home, my future. Prosperity would be the key to its success, and consequently my own. I thought of the rain-cloud buttons with satisfaction.

  “Did you want to look at anything else?” Nat asked.

  I shook my head. “Let’s start sewing. It would be nice to get at least one dress finished today.”

  We plodded through the dusty parking lot back to Nat’s car, and were at her house in less than five minutes. I breathed a sigh of relief as we entered the shady coolness of the old adobe building. Nat had bought it with her first husband, Uncle Stephen, gone these seven years. I wondered if Manny would move in after the wedding.

  Nat hadn’t mentioned their plans. I couldn’t imagine her leaving the house, though. So many memories. So many good times.

  “Limeade?” she offered.

  “Yes, please.”

  I went into the living room, where Nat had set up one of the long tables she used for the occasional big barbecue parties she and Manny threw. Bags of fabric and notions sat on it, along with the patterns.

  My portable sewing machine sat on a smaller card table nearby. I unpacked it and set it up, plugging it into a surge-protected power strip I’d brought along as insurance against the sometimes-unreliable ancient wiring of Nat’s house. Then I fished a spool of dark red thread out of the fabric store bags and sat down to wind a bobbin.

  “I sent out the invitations,” Nat said, setting an icy glass beside me. “You should get yours in a day or two.”

  I took a sip, enjoying the cold, sweet, puckery lime. “Thanks.”

  “You going to bring your boyfriend to the wedding?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  Nat raised an eyebrow and I could feel myself blushing. She had been there the day Tony kissed me in front of the whole tearoom staff.

  But he wasn’t my boyfriend. We had been on one actual date (other than the Opera, which had been a party), and that had ended in an argument. A couple of other times we’d gone out for a drink or a quick, impromptu meal. Those didn’t count.

  I finished winding the bobbin and started threading the machine. I liked Tony Aragón. He was undeniably attractive, but he was also a cop and that made things a bit difficult. His world was very different from mine.

  I knew that I would eventually have to make a choice. Remembering that kiss, I swallowed. There was no way to pretend that it hadn’t happened, that the potential for more wasn’t there. I felt that potential, and I knew Tony felt it too, and it wouldn’t be fair to string him along. I’d have to decide, and pretty soon, whether I wanted an intimate relationship with him.

  Not today, I told myself. I had other things to deal with today.

  The machine was ready. Time to commit. I got up and took the red velvet out of its bag, setting aside the blue. Ran my hands over the lush pile, then folded the fabric with the right sides together and spread it on the table for cutting.

  Nat had already separated the pattern pieces and ironed them. She could sew, but she had deferred to me on this project. I laid the pieces for the skirt onto the velvet and tacked them with a few pins, adding my sewing weights to make sure nothing shifted. When I was satisfied I took up my shears and looked at Nat, who was observing from an armchair, sipping limeade.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  The bite of the shears through the velvet evoked a little thrill that I remembered from my first sewing project. There was no going back from here. I was changing that lush fabric, molding it into a new shape.

  Nat offered to gather the tiers of the skirt while I pieced together the blouse and started sewing the seams. As the dress began to take shape, I pictured Nat wearing it, standing in my garden, surrounded by friends and family and Manny, her husband-to-be. Would Tony be a part of this picture? I wasn’t sure.

  He was bringing his mother and grandmother to tea at last, on Saturday. It had only taken three or four reminders to get him to book a reservation; I’d begun to wonder if he really didn’t want to bring his family into my den of Anglophilic Victoriana.

  But he’d finally set a date. I had given him a gift card that would cover tea for all of them, and Tony had asked me to join them.

  Meeting the family. A step forward. Maybe after spending some time with them all, I would know whether it was a good idea to invite Tony to the wedding.

  Nat and I worked on the dress until we got hungry, Nat pinning and me sewing, then we stopped for chicken salad and gazpacho. Whatever confidence Nat lacked in the sewing department, she more than made up for in the kitchen. The gazpacho was crisp and cold, with just the right amount of texture.

  “What’s Manny up to today?” I asked.

  “Looking for a mariachi band.”

  “Mariachis? I thought you wanted the wedding to be quiet...”

  “I do. Don’t worry, dear, we won’t blast out your neighbors with loud music. I told him an acoustic trio at most.”

  “I’m not worried about the neighbors.”

  Though the tearoom was in a Victorian house, the neighborhood had become a commercial area. Originally part of the Fort Marcy military park, it was close to Santa Fe’s plaza, and all those old houses had long since been occupied by businesses. I happened to live upstairs from mine, but I was an exception to the rule.

  The wedding would be in my garden, and the reception indoors in the tearoom. The original plan was for only a few friends, but of course the guest list had grown. Li
ke many Hispanic families, Manny’s was extensive, and he wanted to share his good fortune with a lot of them. I didn’t mind, but I was beginning to worry that the party would outgrow the tearoom’s capacity.

  Nat was philosophical about it. This was her second wedding. Her closest friends and family were invited, and she seemed happy to let Manny add as many of his friends and family as he wished.

  I finished the waistband on Nat’s skirt and stood up to shake it out. Turning it right side out, I admired the sheen of the velvet, now rippling in richly-gathered tiers. Nat stood and I held the skirt up to her waist.

  “Oh, Ellen! It’s gorgeous!”

  “Well, it’s not done. The waistband needs elastic.”

  “I’ll do that. Where’s your threader-thing?”

  I handed her the skirt and dug in my sewing box, retrieving a slender metal implement that looked like an overgrown pair of tweezers. “It’s called a bodkin.”

  “Funny word.”

  “It’s an old word. Shakespeare used it.”

  “Shakespeare used this?” She held up the bodkin.

  “No, silly. He used the word. It also means a dagger.”

  “You’re so good at history,” she said, poking through the fabric bags. “I can never remember things like that.”

  Nat found a package of elastic and sat down with the bodkin and the skirt, while I went back to work on the tunic. We kept at it until the afternoon light began to slant through the windows to the west.

  I finished a seam and stood up to stretch, then sighed. “I don’t think we’re going to get it all done today.”

  “Stay for dinner.”

  “No, I promised to get together with Gina. Movie night.” I started tidying, putting my things in my basket and shutting off the sewing machine.

  “Tomorrow?” Nat said, gathering scraps of velvet from the table. “Or are you working?”

  Mondays were theoretically my second weekend days, but more often than not I spent them getting ready for the week at the tearoom. Julio, my chef, came in for half a day most weeks.