Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing (11 page)

No more! Chant with me!
No more!

I saw a clip of an interview Daisy did on the
Dinah!
show in the early ’70s. She talked about “Little Victories”—an exercise she practiced every December. I’ve adopted it, given it a Miss Scarlet makeover, and am now presenting it to you! It helps, really it does.

Take a stack of colored construction paper, colored markers (fruit-scented = yummy!), ribbons, stickers, glitter, glue, etc.

Think of twelve things you did in the past year that you loved and accomplished.

Write one on each of the papers and decorate them juicier than a triple-layered birthday cake. Now do something with them—sew them together in a book, hang them as a banner, make a hat out of them! Leave them up all month long and admire them as a way to appreciate all the good things you did.

But here is the catch: On New Year’s Eve, take a lighted match to them. Oooh, you’re thinking, “Whoa, Miss Scarlet is going all
Towering Inferno
on us!”

I’m serious! Set them aflame! Make a little ceremony out of the ritual. Toss them in your fireplace and send them off with blessings from your heart. This is how Daisy described it. She said it’s wonderful to reflect on
what we did in the past, but we must not dwell on them so much that they hold us back from accepting new trials. By burning them, you are releasing that good energy into the universe to make room for the new.

(I personally cut each paper into the shape of a heart before I toss it into the fireplace, but that’s just me.)

Tomorrow is the first day of my patternless sewing class. You know, the one I’ve been planning for and bragging about since summer?

It didn’t come together as I originally envisioned, but it all worked out thanks to a friend (hug). I hope Miss Scarlet’s School of Patternless Sewing is as magical and wonderful as I envision it. I may not be using patterns, but I can feel that all our collective threads will find their way to our fates!

S
carlet’s eyelids fluttered open Saturday like freshly minted butterfly wings to greet the morning. As she did every day, she wiggled her toes and fingers to ensure they were in working order, and thanked the universe. If all else failed in the forthcoming hours, at least she had a sharp mind and working limbs to be cheerful for.

She dedicated her morning ritual to her first class of Miss Scarlet’s School of Patternless Sewing. She had left home at eight thirty a.m. and stopped by La Purisima Bakery on the way to Vega’s Vicious Vinyl to choose a dozen of the finest Mexican pastries. Her students were more than credit-card-paying clients—they were her guests. Not only would she offer them an education of simplified sewing, but comfort and sweets too. If it weren’t for their enrollment, she wouldn’t have the funds to make it to New York come summer.

Her pulse doubled in speed when she pulled into the parking lot, right next to Marco’s no-nonsense gold Pathfinder, and saw him climbing out of it. Like a true gentleman, he came around and helped her unload her luggage and a box of pine garland and tinsel.

“What’s with the suitcase and decorations, you moving in?
Now I
will
have to charge you rent.” His tone may have been drier than sandpaper, but his eyes gleamed.

“It’s our class supplies,” she replied in a flirty, singsong voice that took even herself off guard. “Rolling luggage sure beats schlepping around boxes. Hey, would you mind if I spruced up the room a little? It’s bursting with personality the way it is, but I thought pretty embroidered tablecloths would give it a more homey feel. And it’s December! We have to have Christmas cheer!”

Marco raised an eyebrow. “Follow me.”

He unlocked the back door and they made their way to the new sewing room.

Before her toe even touched the concrete floor, she gasped.

Apparently Marco had done a bit of decorating too. He must have spent hours reenergizing the accommodations from the baseboards to the windowsills. The ’80s music posters were replaced with mod fabric wall coverings from the ’60s. Six chandeliers hung down from the ceiling to ensure proper lighting for the students, and in the center of the room were professional worktables. The front housed a giant metallic pink wall complete with a TV set, music console, and speaker system. All of it paled in comparison to the showpiece housed by the window—an eight-foot-tall Noble Fir Christmas tree trimmed in colored lightbulbs, silver tinsel, and antique glass ornaments.

“Marco, this is too much…,” she said, still in shock at the makeover. She ran to the entryway and peeked out, and then semi-sprinted to the storefront window. “Is this for a hidden TV show? Are we on camera?” She spun around just as Marco handed her a sealed card.

“What’s this?”

He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and
shrugged. “You have secret investor, I guess. All of this stuff arrived yesterday with a crew to set it up. I wish I could take credit, but…”

She threw her arms around him. “You’ve done so much already. You deserve more credit than anyone.” The two of them then sat on the edge of the windowsill and read the card.

To Scarlet,

Your little victories are big inspirations to your fans.

Keep up the great work.

It had to be from her parents. They must have remembered about her class. Maybe they even read her blog! Scarlet excused herself from Marco and stepped outside the record store to phone them.

“Scarlet,” her mom answered with a burst of relief. “Thank goodness, I just tried to call you at home. Eliza needs her dry cleaning picked up by noon. She has that big holiday shindig for work tonight and she’s getting her hair straightened. The party is outside and you know what the open winter air does to our kind of curls—”

“Mom, slow down,” Scarlet interrupted. “I can’t. I have my first sewing class today, remember? By any chance, were you and Dad the ones who sent me—”

“Sewing class? Why are you taking a sewing class now? I thought you knew how to sew. Oh, Scarlet, what’s happened to you? You’re regressing.”

Definitely not my folks,
she thought.

“I’m
teaching
the class, Mom. I’ve been telling you about it for months. But I guess Eliza’s dry cleaning is more important.”

“Eliza has kids! Oh, here we go again,” Jeane whined. “Nobody loves or understands you. Grow up, Scarlet!”

“Never mind. Mom, I have to go set up for my class. I’ll come by later.”

“Wait!” Jeane said. “So… are you getting the dry cleaning for your sister or not?”

Scarlet clenched her fist, kicked the redbrick wall, and chomped the air from frustration. “Fine. I’ll pick it up for her.”

“Thank you, mija. It’s sixty dollars. Please bring it to her by three.”

After Scarlet hung up, she thought maybe Carly felt guilty about the classroom situation and was the one to donate the goods. Only one way to find out.

Carly answered on the first ring. “You’re late.”

Bad idea to call her.

“Hi, Carly,” Scarlet said, rushed. “I’m not late, I’m off. I put in a request to have Saturdays off for the next twelve weeks, remember? It’s marked on the schedule.”

“Well, then why are you calling? We’re busy now that we’re short a person.”

“I, uh, just wanted to make sure you remembered I was off on Saturdays from now on.”

“OK.”

“OK, then! See you Monday, Carly!”

“Hold on, Scarlet—you need to come in this afternoon to fit Stevie Nicks’s assistant for the Grammy Awards. I’m designing her dress. I guess she only trusts you and your goofy hugging method to measure her body. She’ll be here at four thirty.”

Scarlet kicked the wall again, but softer so she wouldn’t wear down the velvet on the tip of her shoe. She wished so badly she had never called. Why in the world would she think Carly would do her a favor? Yet Scarlet had to be on call 24/7 because she had to stay in the woman’s good graces for the pending promotion.

“Sure, I’ll be there,” Scarlet said, hiding her anger. “But I’m curious, what would you have done if I hadn’t called?”

“Why does it matter, Scarlet? See you this afternoon.”

Scarlet concluded that Marco was the secret investor, but would never admit it.

As angry as her mom and Carly made her, nothing would ruin this day. Scarlet soaked up her surroundings, from the adorable added accents, to the sewing machines on loan from her Auntie Linda’s quinceañera shop, to the quirky, antique setting of downtown Glendale that topped it off.

For the most part, this is exactly how it was supposed to be.

But Scarlet still had the challenge of raising the funds for the Johnny Scissors tuition. Last week she had called the enrolled students about the location change, and all but four dropped out. Scarlet made the mistake of using Carly’s switchboard to take the initial reservations, and suspected her fickle boss had something to do with her students’ sudden mood change.

No worries,
Scarlet thought. She made a batch of posters and fliers featuring vintage images of Daisy at her sewing machine and hung the signs around the neighborhood and in Marco’s shop. She did get one bite—Mary Theresa, a shy but adorable mom of twins who had driven all the way across town on her lunch hour to Vega’s Vicious Vinyl just to buy a John Coltrane album as a gift for her husband. Scarlet hoped maybe someday she would have that kind of love in her life.

Mary Theresa rounded out the group to five students.

If she let herself dwell on it, Scarlet would have panicked at the thought of losing out on $23,000. But $2,500 was better than nothing. The rest would come, just like the decorations did. In the meantime, she would present the best sewing workshop in the universe.

B
y the time ten a.m. arrived, every table had a student behind it. Scarlet stood on the tips of her pointy toes and opened her arms to the class.

“Hi-de-ho, my chicas, welcome! From the bottom of my heart, thank you for attending my first-ever workshop,” she said. “By the time the curtains go down on this class, your lives will have changed for the better.” She clasped her hands behind her waist, and paced about the concrete floor to continue her introductory pep talk.

She spent the next twenty minutes sharing her backstory of her love for her Mexican American culture, and how she was the only Santana in her family to inherit her great-grandfather’s red hair. She expressed her admiration for Daisy de la Flora, giving up engineering, her job at Carly’s, and her anticipation for the Johnny Scissors program.

“All right, let’s talk patterns and why we are foregoing them,” Scarlet said. “A pattern is comprised of elements that repeat in a predictable manner. The question I present is—why be predictable? Even though we are here for sewing, I believe there are deeper reasons the word “patternless” caught our attention. We all have a pattern we are working from to build the frame
work of our lives. But we can change it, enhance it, or skip it altogether.”

“What is your pattern, Miss Scarlet?” one of the students asked.

Scarlet winked. “Great question, love. Well, my pattern was crafted for me long before I ever came into the world. It’s the same pattern that all of my family used. I don’t want to
totally
disregard it. I just want to put my own mark on it—you know, to make it one of a kind. Now it’s your turn. Who wants to go next? Tell us your name and the story of your own pattern.”