Crewel Yule (2 page)

The e-mail explained that while the International Needlework Retailers Guild normally held a cash-and-carry market every February, this year there was a glitch. Because of an error on the hotel’s part, INRG had lost its February reservation. The Consulate Hotel was offering a free night to the sellers and buyers of needlework materials—if they could come in December. Betsy had a reservation for February; would she be able to make the change?

No, December was impossible. Betsy clicked on Reply—and then changed her mind. The Nashville Market was very important. Shop-owners from across the country, including Betsy’s rival shops in the Twin Cities, would be there, buying the newest patterns, the latest fabrics and threads, the most innovative gadgets. Regular customers might be disappointed if Betsy didn’t go, and look elsewhere for consolation.

She asked her shop manager about it.

Godwin was adamant. “You have to go.”

“I’d like to,” Betsy said, “but you know as well as I do, December is the worst possible month for a buying trip.”

At noon, her favorite employee, Shelly Donohue, came in. She was a school teacher who only worked full-time in the summer, but she was an expert counted cross-stitcher, and a patient, friendly sales clerk. Godwin would have gone out to lunch, but he took a few minutes to tell her about the change in dates for Nashville.

“Oh, rats, December is impossible!”

“See?” said Betsy to Godwin. “I told you we can’t go.”

Shelly said, “No,
I
can’t go. Winter break from school won’t have started, and I can’t change the arrangements I made to take a long weekend in February.” Betsy, having never gone to a market, had promised to take Shelly along when she signed up for Nashville Market.

“Well, how about taking me?” said Godwin. “This will be almost as much fun as NNA in January.”

“Wait a second!” said Shelly. “That’s not fair! You can’t go to
two
markets!” Godwin had already agreed that he should go to the National Needlepoint Association Market in San Diego because he was an expert on needlepoint; counted cross-stitch was the focus in Nashville, Shelly’s area of expertise.

He yielded gracefully. “You’re right. So how about, just this once, we trade. We’ve both worked here long enough to know what our customers like in either kind.”

“Hold on, you two,” Betsy said. “I haven’t said I’d go to Nashville yet. Adding thousands of dollars to inventory just before tax time is crazy.”

“So don’t open the boxes,” said Shelly.

Betsy blinked at her. “I don’t understand.”

“A long time ago, Margot ordered a whole lot of stuff from a supplier going out of business. She placed the order somewhere in the third week of December, thinking it would
maybe
arrive before the end of January. Well, UPS pulled up December 29. So she just stacked the boxes in her apartment and didn’t bring them down until after inventory in January was finished.” Betsy’s sister Margot had been Crewel World’s previous owner.

“Is that legal?” asked Godwin.

“I don’t know,” shrugged Shelly. “But Margot got the idea from another shop-owner who did the same thing. Neither one got into trouble over it with the IRS.”

“That’s probably because no one told the IRS about it,” noted Godwin.

“And which of us three is going to say a word to the IRS?” demanded Shelly, staring hard at Godwin.

“Are you talking to
me,
girlfriend?” said Godwin, placing an outraged spread of fingers on his chest. He turned to his boss. “Not a word shall escape my lips.”

Shelly said, “So see?”

Before the discussion could continue, the door went
bing,
announcing a customer, and they quickly put on pleasant faces as they turned to greet her.

“Hi, Jill!” said Betsy cheerfully—Jill was a close friend as well as a skilled needleworker. “Those Madeira silks you wanted came in this morning, I was going to call you.”

Sergeant Jill Cross Larson, tall and athletic in her summer-weight blue uniform, stood still a moment, inhaling the conditioned air as if hunting down a scent—or perhaps merely enjoying the coolness of it. The police building was a few blocks away, and it was very hot and humid outdoors. She had a habit of standing with her chin lifted and her eyebrows raised, a pose that always seemed to express mild doubt about the situation presented to her. It was probably mere habit, but it tended to make miscreants think twice about lying to her.

Jill was very fair. When she took off her six-pointed hat she revealed long cornsilk hair pulled up into a flat coronet of braid.

“Hello, Shelly, Goddy. Betsy, I want some more of that cherry-red wool, too.” She started toward the triple row of wooden pegs on the long wall that held the thin skeins of needlepoint wool, then, identifying the scent, paused to look again at the trio and said, “What’s the problem here?”

“Oh, the Nashville Market lost its site for next February and they’ve moved it back to this December. We’ve been talking about whether we’ll go or not,” Betsy said.

“No,” said Godwin. “We’re talking about who gets to go with Betsy, me or Shelly.”

“No, that’s settled,” said Shelly. “I’m going to San Diego, you’re going to Nashville. Gosh, California in January!” Betsy could almost see the Pacific waves rolling and crashing in Shelly’s eyes.

Jill said, “When in December?”

“When in December what?” Betsy asked.

“What dates in December are you going to Nashville?”

“
If
I go, the fourteenth through the seventeenth. Anyhow, much as I would love to have you along, no one who isn’t an owner or employee of a needlework shop can get into the Nashville Market.”

“Hey, that’s not why I’m asking,” said Jill, faintly shocked that Betsy would think she was asking for a dishonest favor. “There’s a seminar on police management in Nashville in December I’m thinking of attending. It’s the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth.”

“Hurrah!” cheered Godwin. “We can meet for an evening out. Are you anywhere near the Grand Ole Opry?”

Jill smiled and said, “This seminar is at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel.”

“Oh, my
God!
” exclaimed Godwin. “Oh, Jill, you go right back to the police station and sign up! You
don’t
want to miss this! Betsy, you have to see this place! It’s as big as the Mall of America, but it’s a
hotel!
It’s got a
river
running through the middle of it! And there’s a
jungle,
with orchids and palm trees!
Big
palm trees! And a New Orleans section, with jazz bands and—well, you just
have
to see it!”

“Looks like we’re for it, Betsy,” Jill said.

And Betsy surrendered, lifted her hands, and said, “I guess so. I’ll confirm our reservations tonight, Goddy.”

Betsy and Godwin climbed into Betsy’s big Buick with the next-to-smallest U-Haul trailer fastened behind. The trailer was there because the market was “cash-and-carry,” meaning the thousands of dollars in stock they would buy must be taken away on the spot. And because neither Godwin nor Betsy traveled light, the back seat and trunk of the car were already filled with their suitcases.

Godwin had suggested Jill ride down with him and Betsy, but Jill couldn’t spare the travel time, and so was flying down Friday morning. Which, as it turned out, was a good thing for her.

The temperature climbed as Betsy and Godwin drove south, of course, and she felt comfortable sharing the driving with Godwin. But overcast skies turned to snow in Rockford, Illinois, and then to sleet. Betsy took over the wheel as sole proprietor, and they stopped in Bloomington for the night.

The sleet froze on contact with anything on the ground. The ice closed everything for most of the next morning, then the freeways opened. They took I-74 to Champaign-Urbana, then I-57 most of the rest of the way south. The ice melted and as they started seeing signs for Carbondale, Betsy began to feel optimistic and let Godwin drive again. This lasted until the landscape started to climb. By the time they rode I-24 into the corner of Kentucky they needed to cross to enter Tennessee, the ice was back. And Betsy was driving again.

Godwin, aware Betsy was getting very tired, protested, but his car back home was a bathtub-size Miata and Betsy’s big Buick had the trailer to complicate steering and stopping. She stopped for a six-pack of Lemon Diet Pepsi, and drank deeply.

Sleet turned back to snow. Cars filled the ditches and tangled messily on the highways. Betsy, a good winter driver, managed to avoid having an accident, but the delay was vexing. It was late Friday afternoon before they came into Nashville, and though the precipitation had turned back to rain, she was still driving and worn to a frazzle.

Godwin read the directions to the hotel off the INRG Nashville Market brochure and after bypassing most of downtown, they found themselves climbing a very steep hill in a series of switchbacks. THE CONSULATE read a sign in front of a big pink building at the top.

Betsy let Godwin out under the portico with the luggage and then very carefully chose a parking space she could pull forward out of. She’d had an embarrassing experience trying to back the trailer out of a parking space yesterday and was not anxious to see if she could make it work on a second try.

It was nearly dark on that rainy Friday evening before she pulled the key from the ignition. They were seven hours behind her most pessimistic estimated time of arrival.

The lobby of the Consulate Hotel was broad and gleaming, careful lighting marking the the check-in counter and seating areas while leaving the corners in dim, friendly shadows. Recorded guitars harmonized on “Silver Bells.”

Godwin was leaning on the shining wood counter, filling out their registration cards, a wheeled cart piled with their suitcases behind him. There were two clusters of couches nearly filled with women talking and stitching. Against the wall opposite the check-in desk was a long table behind which women were handing out name tags and packets of information about the Market. Little Christmas trees and menorahs ornamented the table, and a huge Christmas tree nearly covered one of a trio of tall doors leading to the inward spaces.

Betsy looked at the women stitchers and sighed. She and Godwin had missed all the classes. Friday was for classes on stitching techniques, finishing techniques, and staying out of the red in the needlework business. She had really wanted to attend the classes on the last topic given by Susan Greening Davis and Betsy Stinner.

She went to present her credit card. She and Godwin were sharing a suite, since the original arrangement was with Shelly, and there was not another suite available. Then they went to get the information packet and ID tags.

“I’m sorry we missed Davis and Stinner,” said Godwin.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Betsy, “I would’ve been too tired to pay attention anyhow. Is the food any good here at the hotel? I don’t want to go out again tonight.”

“You’d better stay in,” the front desk clerk said. “This rain is supposed to turn to snow, and Nashville just shuts down when it snows. Which it hardly ever does, so that’s why. But they run a very good kitchen here.”

Godwin, as parched as Betsy was hungry, said, “I’d settle for stale pretzels if they come with a beer.”

“You’re Miss Devonshire?” asked the desk clerk. “Here’s a message for you.”

It was from Jill:
Call me as soon as you get in. Let me buy you dinner here at my hotel. Goddy was right.

“Right about what?”

“The fabulousness of the Grand Ole Opry Hotel, of course,” said Godwin, suddenly looking much fresher, reading over her shoulder. “Let’s get up to our room and dial that number. Do you like Cajun food?”

Two

Marveen Harrison, night manager of the Consulate, was a tall woman of sturdy build and brisk, cheerful manner. But she blinked slowly at the cold gray light pouring in through the big windows and double doors to the portico. She could see the white shapes of snow-covered cars beyond it, and yet more snow twirling down in large, beautiful flakes, coating the leaves on the trees—some trees stayed green year round in Nashville. It was beautiful—but strange.

Marveen had been night manager for over a year, and had gotten unused to natural light at work. She should be snuggling down to sleep about now in her heavily draped bedroom. But there had been an ice storm yesterday, followed by snow last night, and it was still snowing this morning. While she had made it to work yesterday evening, barely, she wasn’t about to go out there again until the streets were clear—and, of course, the day manager had called to say there was no way he was coming in.

So pour me another cup of coffee,
she thought, with a little lift of confidence,
I can do this.
She’d sometimes wished for an emergency that would prove her value and capabilities to the Consulate’s owners. And here it was, with a vengeance. It had been busy yesterday evening with late arrivals—Midwest airports had been closed most of yesterday, delaying flights—and cancellations by guests unable to get there at all. Unfortunately, more guests managed to arrive than could leave, so she had four women camped in the big ballroom, using an old couch, a lounge chair, and two rollaway beds; and three men in the small ballroom with an inflatable mattress and two sleeping bags supplied by other guests. Fortunately, there were showers in the swimming pool complex they could use.