I called the woman who put the hold on the three kits and she came in within a half an hour and bought them. She said she’d definitely be joining the Hookers. In the midst of the cheerful holiday shoppers, Adele came in out of sorts. Her eyes bulged when she saw the action with the vampire scarves. “I could have done that,” she said. “I could have made the exact same pattern.”
“But you didn’t,” I said. “Be happy for Elise; with all the downs she’s had lately, she finally has a bright spot. She’s already thinking of coming up with other vampire-related crochet kits.”
“She’s not the only one with a down,” Adele grumbled. She really didn’t seem to be her usual self. Even her clothes weren’t normal. I’d never seen Adele look so plain. The only holiday decoration that adorned the white turtleneck she wore over blue jeans was a little crocheted wreath with two red balls hanging down.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and asked what the problem was, hoping she wouldn’t give me too much information. “I’m afraid William might not be the author of the Anthony books,” she said.
I couldn’t help myself and asked what had changed her mind. “He told me he has to go out of town in a couple of days. The launch party is just around the corner. The author wouldn’t be going on a trip right before the biggest night of his life.”
“Where’s he going?” I asked, hoping I could find something reassuring in his destination. Adele was always difficult, but a depressed Adele was even worse. She tended to walk around making very loud plaintive sighs.
“It’s research for his next book. He said something about there being only a small window of time to see an exhibit in Miami. He said he wanted me to come with, but he knew I couldn’t take the time off because of the holidays and all.”
“He could still be A. J. Kowalski,” I said. “He’s going to be back by the launch party, isn’t he?” Adele nodded. “Well, there you go.” Adele suddenly brightened at my words and hugged me a little too tight.
“Pink, thanks. That’s what best friends are for.” She instantly straightened and took some more holiday decorations out of her pocket and began pinning them on her top.
Sheila must have been on a break from her job as receptionist at the gym. She was at the back working on something. Even from a distance I could see she was working in a different palette. Everything she’d made to sell before was in blues combined with greens and lavenders. Whatever she was working on today was all about red. I had a few finished swatches that needed to be hung and I went back there.
I fingered the ball of rusty red fuzzy yarn in front of her. “What’s up with the new colors?” It looked like she was working on a shawl and I could see where she’d mixed in some fun fur yarn that was red flecked with gold.
“Nicholas suggested I do something in warmer colors,” she said, continuing to crochet. “I think it’s turning out nicely.” She held it up and draped it over her shoulder.
“I think he’s onto something. At this time of year it’s nice to have bright and warm colors.” I glanced out the window. The colors of the shawl did seem to cheer up the cold gray day. Because we usually had so much sun, the dark days seemed even more dreary.
It was a pleasure to see how Sheila’s confidence had surged. She still had plenty of tense moments, but she seemed to handle them much better.
I didn’t think talking to Sheila about Nicholas interfered with my promise to Dinah to include her in my next caper. This was just about getting background.
I realized I really knew very little about him. Sure, I’d seen him a lot and had snippets of conversations, but I didn’t even know if he lived in Tarzana. It wasn’t hard to get Sheila to talk about him. After the experience she’d had selling her creations by consignment at another store, she appreciated Nicholas.
“He’s a gentleman in every sense of the word,” Sheila said. It wasn’t just that he’d been complimentary of her work and very fair about what he paid her—it was his whole manner. “Did you ever notice how he really listens to people?” she asked.
“It sounds like you have a thing for him,” I said. I’d never heard her say as much about anybody before. I regretted the comment almost as soon as I’d said it. Sheila stiffened and the color rose in her face. Her breath changed, too, and I recognized she’d gone into anxiety mode.
“It’s not like that,” she stammered. She took a deep breath and let her stomach balloon out before she expelled the breath slowly. She reached in her purse and took out a sandwich-size plastic bag she always carried with her emergency crochet kit. It held a size J hook and some cotton yarn that had been crocheted and ripped a bunch of times. She made a slipknot and began a chain. She made the loops big and loose and went back over them with single crochet stitches.
“I didn’t realize I was coming across that way,” she said with a worried look. “I hope Nicholas doesn’t think I’m coming on to him.” She kept crocheting and her stitches were all over the place, but since it didn’t matter, it began to have a calming effect. “I don’t want to mess things up with him. He’s really paying me well for my pieces.” She took some more deep breaths and moved on to another row. “I don’t think Nicholas would ever think of me that way. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, or at least he’s never mentioned one to me. I don’t know if there’s room for anything besides that store in his life. He’s there practically all the time.”
I asked her if she knew where he lived. By now she’d stopped crocheting with the cotton and ripped out all the stitches and put it away. She answered without hesitation. “He has a small apartment, but I think he barely spends any time there. He’s always at the store. I called his cell the other night about bringing over some more pieces and he had me bring them to the store. It was hours after it had closed.”
“Really?” I said. The bookstore was always open later than Luxe and I’d gone past the store lots of time after its closing and it always looked dark and deserted. When I mentioned that, she said he’d told her to knock on the glass door. She’d seen him come from the back.
“Did you ever see what was back there?” I asked, remembering how Dinah and I had wondered about the walled-off area. She shook her head.
Eduardo stepped up to the table. “Ladies,” he said in his rich deep voice. He took out several plain wool scarves to leave for the collection we were making. CeeCee and her companion, Tony, were going to bring them to a shelter on Christmas Eve. A vampire scarf in progress had gotten twisted with one of the scarves and landed on the table.
He picked it up quickly and put it back in his leather tote. “It’s for my girlfriend. She’s a big Anthony fan,” he said. “A vampire who crochets,” he said with a low laugh.
Even in jeans and a black sweater Eduardo looked like he’d stepped off the cover of some romance novel with a title like Kiss Me, Touch Me, Thrill Me. It occurred to me he probably knew more about Nicholas than I did, too. I recalled the way Nicholas had greeted him when Eduardo came into Luxe. They seemed to be friends.
I commented that we’d just been talking about Nicholas. Eduardo was generally quiet during the Hookers’ meetings. So I was surprised at how much he opened up about Nicholas. Apparently after years in advertising, Nicholas had left it behind and opened the store. It had cost him all his friends and his wife, who thought he was crazy to give up a big job to take a chance on a long shot. “The guy’s had some hard times. It’s not easy when you take a chance on something.”