Inked Up

by Terri Thayer

  Back at Deana’s, April made her way downstairs to the Hudock Community Room, used for funeral dinners and stamping meetings. Mary Lou waved hello, and Rocky raised her glue stick to her in greeting. Suzi was leafing through the latest issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine. She pointed out an article to Rocky. April wondered if Rocky had ever been published. She was certainly good enough.

  Deana came in from the hall, carrying a large box of Stamping Sisters ink pads. “Got ’em?” she asked when she saw April had arrived. April held up the box as proof, hoping it was enough to earn her friend’s forgiveness.

  Deana said, “Good. Your mother dropped off the addresses earlier. We should be able to get all the envelopes done tonight.”

  April stopped by Rocky, who was spreading glitter glue on the vellum overlay. The floor around her sparkled.

  Mary Lou waved her over and pulled out a chair next to her. She patted the seat.

  “What’s this I hear about new stamps you designed?” Mary Lou asked. “I want to make a scrapbook page for my niece. She just got back from a soccer tournament in California and she loved it.”

  “Soccer balls and sporty things? I don’t have anything like that,” April said.

  “No, your San Francisco ones,” Mary Lou said.

  April caught Deana’s eye. Had she told them about the debacle with Trish? April didn’t like that idea. Deana shook her head quickly.

  “I was just telling the girls that you’re creating your own line of stamps,” Deana said.

  Mary Lou was still going on about her niece. “She fell in love with the city when the soccer team went there on a field trip. Fisherman’s Wharf, Coit Tower. She’s already looking into colleges there.”

  April pulled out the selection of stamps she’d shown Trish yesterday. Mary Lou fell on them, exclaiming. Suzi joined her to see what the excitement was all about.

  “Ahh. Look at the sea lion,” Suzi said. “Can I use this?”

  “Of course,” April said, pleased that the stampers liked her work.

  Deana laid out the invitations they’d made at the last session. Mary Lou had printed the vellum with the information about the wedding.

  April picked one up. “These look great,” she said. “I love the font.”

  The wording was simple. “Bonnie Buchert and Clive Pierce invite you to their nuptials. Wednesday, November 18 at 7 p.m. at the Aldenville Country Club.”

  No mention of Homeland Security or the real reason for the wedding. April held the fragile piece of paper in her hand. Her mother was getting remarried. Wow.

  April felt her eyes mist. Deana saw and came over to give her a squeeze. April knew Deana would always be there for her.

  The group settled into the business at hand: addressing envelopes. Deana had the list of Bonnie’s invitees. Each of the stampers claimed a few of the names and a stack of envelopes, and began.

  “Suzi, did you have your Pumpkin Express meeting?” Deana asked after a few moments of silence.

  “Tomorrow,” Suzi said. She gnawed a cuticle. “They’re meeting tonight without me. Deciding if I can come back.”

  “They might keep you out because of Xenia’s murder?” Rocky asked.

  Suzi shrugged. She could use a little Wonder Woman magic right about now.

  Rocky went on. “Everyone’s been affected. Mitch needs to raise more money, too. Right now my brother doesn’t have a pot to pee in. He remortgaged his own house to buy the land from Aunt Barbara that he’s building the houses on.”

  “I thought she gave it to him,” April said.

  Rocky answered, “No, he had to pay her. And she wouldn’t let him pay it off gradually, either. She wanted all of the money up front.”

  The stakes were much higher than April had realized. Mitch was in danger of losing his house as well as the unfinished Hope houses.

  April’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud voice coming from upstairs. The group turned as one. Two voices. Mark, Deana’s husband, and someone else. A female.

  “Is Bonnie coming?” April said, straining to hear if it was her mother. She wanted to see her face when she saw the finished invitation.

  “Not that I know of,” Deana said.

  The voices grew louder, the feminine one prevailing. All of the stampers had stopped working and were watching the stairs. A minute later, the clatter of heels was heard and April could see two-tone spectator pumps leading the way. Whoever it was, she moved quickly, like an aerobics instructor with no time to spare.

  “Good evening,” the voice said. A face appeared, bending down to be seen through the slats of the railing.

  It was Trish. April shrank back in her chair. For crying out loud. If Deana had known Trish was coming, why didn’t she ask her to bring the envelopes? April knew she was being petty, but she resented being made into a delivery service.

  She glanced at Deana, who shrugged.

  That thought led to another. She still hadn’t found Xenia’s sister to give her the rest of the orders that needed delivery. If Trish knew the box was still in April’s car, she would blow her stack. April decided she’d best stay out of Trish’s periphery. She got busy spreading glitter on the vellum.

  Deana looked surprised, and somewhat wary, to see Trish in her home. Deana’s eyes strayed to the materials on the table. Most of it was not the official Stamping Sisters brand. Was Trish in the habit of checking up on her salespeople? April wouldn’t put it past Trish to have some kind of noncompetitor clause in her contract.

  Trish waved a hand at the group and made a beeline for Suzi. “I’ve got the prizes for the Pumpkin Express in my car. I brought a full set of Bella cosmetics, the fall Sparkle stamping line and the Honk if You Love the Holidays stamps.”

  “Thank you,” Suzi said, backing away from Trish’s aggressive approach. “I’ll let the committee know about your generosity.”

  Suzi sounded wooden, insincere, like someone who was wondering if Trish’s generosity was worth the price she seemed to demand—undying thanks.

  Deana said, “Mark will unload the car. Let me tell him.”

  Trish fluffed her hair, pulling it off her neck and letting it fall back down. “I already charmed him into doing it. That man is easy. One flutter of my lashes was all it took.”

  April saw Deana swallow a comment. Mark was a polite, helpful guy—not a hapless fool swayed by a woman’s manipulations.

  “Can you stay?” Deana asked, just barely managing to mask what April suspected was hope for a negative answer.

  “Not too long,” she said. “I’m on my way home from an affair in Lynwood.”

  Deana put on her best hostess face. “Well, have a seat. We’re addressing invitations for April’s mother’s wedding.”

  “So you said on the phone,” Trish said. “I see you got the envelopes. I didn’t realize you were stamping, too.”

  They were using stamps to add color to the envelopes. The lattice was not a Stamping Sisters product. Neither were the inks they were using.

  Trish turned away, and Deana swept a pile of store-bought stamps into the trash at her feet.

  Trish pretended not to care. “Suzi, how are things at your nursery? Recovering from finding a body there?”

  Suzi, stricken by the comment, looked around the table for help.

  Trish continued. “Of course, it’s a very sad ending for Xenia. She was one of my salespeople. I’ll miss her.”

  “We all will. I’m determined not to let her be forgotten,” April said, looking at Deana, not Trish.

  “I get that,” Deana said. She touched April’s shoulder and smiled at her. “I totally get that.”

  April felt as though she’d been blessed by the pope. Life was so much nicer when Deana was not mad at her.

  But Trish wasn’t feeling the love in the air. Her brow would have been furrowed but for the Botox. “I thought you were having a Stamping Sisters meeting?” Trish said. “Isn’t this your usual time for that?”

  “Well, yes, but . . .” Deana
began. “Bonnie’s wedding . . .”

  “Stamping Sisters has a wonderful line of wedding stamps,” Trish said. “With doves and bells. Even the invitation matches. I don’t see those here.”

  April had seen those stamps, suitable for a twenty-year-old bride.

  “My mother has particular tastes,” April said.

  Deana was still straightening the table, but each of the stampers had her own equipment and a range of supplies from different manufacturers in front of them. Deana couldn’t sweep it all into the garbage.

  April remembered what Trish had said on Monday about Deana underperforming. Would Trish take her Stamping Sisters away from her?

  Trish glanced at the lineup of Suzi, Mary Lou and Rocky, who were all watching her intently, like birds on a telephone wire.

  “Pardon me for the interruption, but this is my business,” Trish said tightly.

  “Well, we don’t want to talk business right now,” Rocky said. “We’re working on a worthwhile project here. What stamps we use are nobody’s business.”

  Trish regarded Rocky. April wondered what was going on between them. After a full moment of quiet, Trish recovered. “Of course not,” she said, blinking brightly.

  April knew that this was not the end of the discussion. Deana would hear about this indiscretion later.

  Trish wandered the room, looking over Mary Lou’s shoulder, picking up the page she’d made using April’s stamps. Trish looked up at April and back down to the designs, as though she couldn’t reconcile the two.

  Suzi showed her the tag she’d made with the sea lions.

  “Aren’t these cool?” Suzi said, spreading out April’s stamps. She inked up one and stamped a line of palm trees on a piece of scrap paper. “I love April’s aesthetic, don’t you?”

  Answer that, April thought bitterly. Trish had barely looked at her designs yesterday.

  “April’s very talented, obviously,” Trish said, handing the page back to Suzi crisply. She smiled at April ingratiat ingly.

  She pulled out a chair next to April and sat down. She leaned toward her and said softly, “I feel as though we got off on the wrong foot the other day. I didn’t mean to insinuate that you needed to buy your way into my good graces.”

  April kept mum. The woman hadn’t insinuated. She wasn’t that subtle. She’d said outright that April would have to buy her way into designing stamps for the Stamping Sisters line. April folded her arms across her chest. She leaned against the back of the chair. Suzi and Rocky were across the table acting as though they were conferring about inks, but April knew they were listening.

  “I had a call after you left,” Trish said. “A client who is very interested in a travel series of stamps, based in California. Isn’t that what you’ve created?”

  April narrowed her eyes. She doubted that Trish had a new customer. April waited for her to get to the point.

  Finally Trish said, “I would like to commission you to make this the line of stamps.”

  Commission would mean no money coming to April if Trish didn’t sell any of the stamps. She looked over to Rocky. She couldn’t imagine Rocky giving any of her artistic work away. April had a right to be paid for her original ideas.

  She pulled herself upright and faced Trish. The other stampers looked over in anticipation, feeling a change in the air. “That offer is no longer on the table.”

  Trish leaned away from April, surprised to find herself in a negotiating position.

  April felt the support of the other stampers and went on. “If you want to do business with me, you will pay me an advance against sales and royalties on every stamp sold.”

  Trish’s mouth hung open unattractively. April caught a smile from Deana and a smirk from Rocky. Mary Lou slipped her hand under the table for a high five.

  Trish began, “I—”

  “I’m not finished,” April said. “The stamps will be marketed under the name ‘April Buchert,’ not Stamping Sisters. I’ll retain my name as a separate copyright.”

  Trish looked around her for support but there was none. She was surrounded by April’s friends.

  The clock on the wall ticked as the minute hand moved. No one said a thing.

  Trish stood up in one smooth move. She smiled brilliantly, as though she’d just scored the biggest deal ever. “That will work,” she said. “Come by Sunday afternoon and we’ll go over the details.”

  She waved her fingers, one at a time. “Well, ladies, have a wonderful night with your wedding project. I’ll look for my invite in the mail,” Trish said.

  Without a backward glance, Trish tapped her way out of the room. April laid her head on the table, then slowly sat upright again. “What have I done?” she said, wiping her brow dramatically.

  “You just invited Trish to your mother’s wedding,” Rocky said.

  “Never mind that. You’ve sold your first line of stamps,” Mary Lou said.

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” Deana said. “I’ll be honored to add the April Buchert line of stamps to my sales kit.”

  “Only at Stamping Sisters-sanctioned events, of course,” Rocky said with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Of course,” April and Deana said in unison.

  CHAPTER 16

  April’s work at Retro Reproductions on Thursday was held up by the electricians Ed had been so worried about, so after a futile hour of waiting around, she took off. She ran some errands, then decided to swing by Bonnie’s before her mother went to work and show her the invitations. She ran home to drop off her groceries and pick up a sample.

  But her plans were thwarted.

  A moving van was in front of the barn. April had to park to the side and walk around. The two oversize barn doors were wide open. Planks of wood had been laid on the stone steps to make a ramp. A burly kid, a few years north of being a high school linebacker, wheeled down a dolly covered with gray quilted mats.

  April could hear her father’s voice coming from inside. She hurried through the door, barely dodging a bureau she hadn’t noticed in the shadowy interior. It had been set down just over the threshold.

  “Dad?”

  April moved around a stack of boxes. Her barn, the empty space she’d been trying so hard to fill, was overflowing with old-fashioned heavy furniture, dark walnut dressers and a big bed. A coverlet made of tiny circles of fabric was covering a horsehair chair.

  Worst of all, there was a blue corduroy recliner in the middle of the room. From the looks of the worn, stained pillow that rested on the top of the back, it was well used. Somebody couldn’t live without it.

  Her father turned away from scribbling his name at the bottom of an invoice. A middle-aged man with a “Monster Movers” hat nodded at her and left. She heard the rumble of the big truck start up.

  “Dad?” she repeated.

  He mopped his head with a handkerchief. “I’m sorry, April. They had nowhere else to go. Vince’s sister flat out refused to take them.”

  “Vince’s parents are moving in?” She tried to take in the enormity of this turn of events. The barn was no longer hers.

  “I’ll have to pack some things.” April’s chest tightened. Where would she go? Deana had no extra space. Mitch’s was out of the question. Her old room at her mother’s had been turned into a craft room, and unless she wanted to take her chances stepping on a pin or a bead every time she moved, she couldn’t bunk there. Besides, they were a couple in the happy throes of prewedding jitters. Not for her.

  There was a motel out on the highway, but she couldn’t afford a prolonged stay there.

  “You don’t have to move out,” her father said. “You’ve still got the loft. We had the movers put their bed over there.” He pointed to the far side of the main floor where his office had been housed until recently.

  “A couple of their dressers for their clothes, and that’s all they need. They’re good.”

  “And the couch and the chair. A TV,” April said, unable to stop herself. She pictured
an old man in the recliner, changing the remote, tuning in ancient golf games and documentaries on the sex lives of baboons.

  “Well, you can’t expect them to sit on a futon, can you?” Ed said. He mopped his face again. She could see how tired and stressed he was.

  April winced at his tone, but it snapped her back to reality. She was acting like a spoiled brat. Her father and Vince had been letting her live in their barn, rent free, for nearly five months. The Campbells were old and had nowhere to go. That was truly sad. She hoped in her own life, she’d have her living situation straightened out by the time she turned eighty.

  She took in a deep breath. “All right, Dad. We’ll make it work. I can live in the loft. We’ll share the bathroom and kitchen.”

  The floor was littered with boxes. April picked up one. “Let me help unpack.”

  She pushed a box with hanging garments toward the closet. “Your walk-in is too big for one person anyhow. In fact, if things get really tight, I can move in there,” April said, keeping her tone light.

  She was rewarded by a smile on her father’s face. “A family of four could live in the shower, for that matter,” he said. “It’s big enough.”

  “That’s true.” April shoved her clothes to one side of the closet and hung the polyester pantsuits and men’s plaid shirts. A few hangers held khakis. There wasn’t much. She was done in a few minutes.

  She opened another box. This one held folded sweaters. “Where are the Campbells?”

  “Vince took them out to eat,” Ed said. “He’ll bring them along in an hour or so. I want to get as much done as possible before they get here. Let’s put the bed together.”

  She watched him strap on his tool belt. Ed was a hands-on guy, and April admired that he was always the first one to pitch in whenever there was work to be done.

  She sorted the screws as he laid out the rails. After a few false starts, they fell into a familiar rhythm. April had spent much of her childhood in just this position, searching through a paper bag of nuts and bolts and screws, looking for the right one, trying to hand it to him just before he knew he needed it.