Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing (27 page)

Scarlet softly kicked the floor with her shoe. “On the drive over here I decided that I’m going to sell my nana’s car. And possibly have an estate sale to declutter my house. I could do it this weekend and probably make enough to cover all my expenses.”

“No,” Marco moaned. “Bad decision.”

Mary Theresa agreed. “That’s extremely drastic, Scarlet. All those beautiful memories, you can’t just sell them off. Did you at least talk to your nana about it?”

“I know if I asked, she would give me her blessing because she knows I have no other way to get to New York. She’s the only one in my family who wants to see me succeed.”

Marco stared down at the sewing machine and flicked a scrap of material off the table. “Funny way you have of showing her thanks. Just last night you were saying how guilty you felt that you haven’t taken her for a ride in it all month, you know—the Sunday lunch thing?”

“I know it sounds awful, but they are just material things,” Scarlet said. “Daisy once said—”

“Sell your Daisy collectibles or, at least, the jar of lucky buttons,” Rosa interjected. “There are enough Daisy de la Flora antiquaries out there who will pay more than what you need.”

It figures Rosa would say that,
Scarlet thought. Sometimes she swore the woman thought of Daisy as a rival.

Mary Theresa clapped her hands once. “She’s correct. We can write up a press release, send it out to build buzz, and then post them on eBay. You might even get some good publicity for your website.”

“No way! I wouldn’t sell those buttons if I was dying of starvation. They were Carmen Miranda’s and she gave them to Daisy as a gift. I’m taking them to Johnny Scissors.”

Rosa huffed, propped herself up from the seat next to Marco, and shook her hands at the sides of her head. The usually calm and reasonable senior citizen had transformed into an angry tigress.

“They were important to
Daisy
—not you,” she pointed and shouted at Scarlet. “You’re willing to sell all your grandmother’s personal things—the woman who taught you to sew, the woman who stands by your side—instead of a jar of cheap wood buttons from a vieja you never even met? If you do it Scarlet, you will not be the woman I thought you were.”

Rosa swung her coat around her shoulders. “Marco, will you please walk me outside? Joseph is waiting for me in the car.”

Scarlet ran to stop her. “Please don’t go, Rosa, you don’t understand. It’s my last resort. You don’t know my nana; she won’t mind.”

All of them were shocked to see Rosa break down in tears. They didn’t understand why Scarlet’s words struck such a nerve.

“You really are just like her or no. Even worse. You are just like
Johnny
! Selling out!” she cried. “I thought you were stronger, but no. You’re making the wrong choices, forgetting about what is really important.”

“I am strong,” Scarlet said, holding on to Rosa’s elbow. “I’m going after what I’ve always wanted. Why is that wrong?”

Rosa pulled an embroidered hanky from her jacket pocket and dabbed her eyes. “If you don’t get it after all this time, Scarlet, you never will.”

Marco patted the air with his hand to suggest that Scarlet back down, and then guided a still-sniffling Rosa out the door.

Scarlet let her head drop back and paced around the door a moment before running outside after them. She caught a quick glimpse of Rosa and Joseph pulling out into the street. She chased after their car and hollered, “I’m sorry! I love you, Rosa!”

Marco put his arms around her and led her back toward the shop. “It’ll be all right. She looked really tired. I don’t think she meant to get so emotional. We’ll see her later after she gets some rest. Let’s go inside, it’s freezing.”

They stepped back into the record store, still huddling from the cold, just as Mary Theresa was leaving. “I’m going to get home too,” she said with a sigh. “Please sleep on this decision, Scarlet. To be honest, I’m jealous that you still
have
a nana,
much less her mementos. I’d give anything to have something from mine. Promise you won’t do anything yet, OK?”

Scarlet nodded in agreement, “I promise.” When Marco excused himself to help Nadine with a customer, she added quietly, “I’m worried about Rosa.”

“She’ll be fine once she rests up this week. By the way, I’m happy for you and Marco.”

“Thanks… I’m so happy I met you, Mary Theresa. You’re a good friend,” Scarlet said before giving her a hug. “When Hadley comes back, all four of us will go out dancing. You’ll love it, trust me.”

“It won’t be any time soon, but I’ll take you up on that—maybe for Valentine’s Day,” Mary Theresa said. “I forgot to tell you—I bought a pair of original Daisy boots on eBay! That will be the perfect time to wear them”

They said their good-byes and Marco returned to check on Scarlet. Seeing the worried expression still on her face, he took her hand and led her back into the sewing room.

“Here, sit down and sew. Forget about everything that’s happened today.”

Scarlet dropped her head in her hands. “For the first time I can think of, the last thing I want to do is sew. Can we go to your house and just… talk?”

I
t had been a Cotorro tradition ever since the birth of Rocky and Lucy: both Mary Theresa’s and Hadley’s families descended upon the Cotorros’ otherwise quiet house on the first Saturday evening of the new year.

To Hadley’s credit she supposed, he factored in the stress of Mary Theresa’s workload and knew she wouldn’t be up for entertaining a group of eight nitpicky relatives. If it were up to Mary Theresa, she’d make reservations at the Cheesecake Factory and be done with it. But no, every year, Hadley insisted on cooking an extensive five-course meal to show off his culinary skills. Before the soup even reached the lips of his mother and sisters, they purred as if it were liquid gold that Hadley created. Mary Theresa played along. She appreciated the free meal, and the fact that her mother stayed to dry and put away every last dish while Mary Theresa went back to work in the home office.

However, the situation changed this year. Hadley bailed, and neither he nor Mary Theresa had the courage to inform their parents of the truth about why he was in Palm Springs. Their lives were stressful enough without lectures, cross-examinations, and speculation. Of course Rocky and Lucy made keeping
the secret a little more challenging. The first time Mary Theresa’s mother picked them up to babysit, the precocious twins announced, “Daddy left us.” Their grandmother screeched the wheels of her Nissan Maxima, made a sharp U-turn, and interrogated her daughter on the front lawn. It took a whole two weeks for Mary Theresa to convince her that Hadley’s brother needed him at the hotel.

And now, a week into the new year and still no Hadley. How would she explain that a father of twins could not find a way to come home for the holidays? Mary Theresa attempted to cancel the annual event, but neither set of parents would hear of it. As a buffer, she invited all the sewing class to join in the celebration.

Mary Theresa manned up and prepared to cook, even though all the family, neighbors, the kids’ schoolteachers, and even grocery-store clerks knew kitchen work was not her strong suit. She knew Hadley’s folks likely expected her to serve Oscar Meyer mini-weenies on Ritz crackers… with spray cheese in a can.

She’d show them. Mary Theresa would channel her inner Scarlet and impress them to tears.

Mary Theresa ordered menudo from Sylvia’s La Canasta, lasagna from Streets of New York, and seafood salad from the Fish Market. She also picked up a tray of icebox cookies from AJ’s Pastry Palace. She’d transfer them to her dishware; no one would know the difference.

To make sure the next day’s operation would be error-free, Mary Theresa decided to conduct a trial run twenty-four hours before the official event. She had picked up small portions of her menu choices—and even added her own special touch to each dish. That way she wouldn’t be lying when she’d say, “I made it myself!” She also figured she’d score extra brownie
points from Hadley and their marriage therapist for her “freestyling” efforts.

First, she added a bag of frozen Swedish meatballs to the menudo. Next she coated the top of the lasagna with cubed French bread and tomato sauce. The seafood salad came last—she mixed in red seedless grapes. Her only trouble spot? The darn vinaigrette.

She printed off a recipe online, but it tasted a bit bland, therefore she added a splash of apple vinegar and tasted it. The tartness made her wince. Rachael Ray loved olive oil, so Mary Theresa would love it too! She turned the bottle upside down over the mixture.

“This is going great, actually. I definitely can see the benefits of freestyling,” she said aloud. She dipped her pinkie in for a taste. Her entire body shuddered. It needed one more topper….

Seasoning!
She thought.

Mary Theresa stepped in front of Hadley’s prized six-level spice rack and analyzed it as if she were trying to defuse a bomb. She didn’t know how to begin. She didn’t want one taste to overpower the dressing. Maybe they had an “all-in-one” kind of spice that delivered every “must-have” flavor sensation. She searched through all the cabinets until…

“Aha! Creole seasoning!” she said with confidence and read the ingredients. “Salt, red pepper, garlic. Perfect!”

She shook the can a good ten times to provide the dressing with much-needed zip. She dragged her fingertip through the thick liquid and felt one eye squint uncontrollably. Without wasting an instant, she opened the refrigerator, grabbed a handful of shredded cheddar from a plastic Ziploc bag and mixed it in.

She added the dressing to the salad and served three plates.

“Lucy… Rocky…,” she shouted from the bottom of the stairs. “Come downstairs for breakfast!”

*   *   *

Three hours later, damage control had arrived to clean up Mary Theresa’s mess.

“Now, what in the
hell
did that woman put in this food?” Olivia asked, disgusted as she poked the lasagna with a spatula. “What is that on top of this? Soggy tomato-soaked garlic bread? And she put grapes in the seafood salad! No wonder they all got the runs!”

“Dump it all,” Scarlet said, rushing back into the kitchen with a bottle of Pepto-Bismol in one hand and a box of Imodium AD in the other. “Thank God the kids only nibbled, but Mary Theresa is down for the count. I need to clean this kitchen and get cooking. Her parents and in-laws are coming.”

Olivia scraped the lasagna into the trash, followed by everything else. Scarlet scribbled out a shopping list and slapped it and a hundred-dollar bill in Olivia’s hand so she could race to the store for fresh groceries.

Scarlet knew how much the gathering meant to Mary Theresa. She had told her all about it earlier in the week when they got together for a spontaneous sewing therapy session. When Mary Theresa mentioned her lack of culinary skills, Scarlet thought she was joking. She should have taken it at face value; Mary Theresa rarely exercised her funny bone.

Sure enough, the inedible concoctions Scarlet and Olivia witnessed that afternoon were proof—for the sake of her children, marriage, and mankind, Mary Theresa should order out.

When Mary Theresa had called an hour earlier and explained her dilemma, Scarlet immediately rang the other members of the group to help clean the house, tend to the kids, and remake
the next day’s meals. It would be the first time the group would be together since the fainting fiasco.

Doom lingered on Scarlet’s spirit. She had tried to call Rosa several times over the past week and a half but had only gotten through to Joseph, who told her Rosa had the flu. Scarlet had whipped up a batch of homemade chicken soup yesterday and tried to deliver it. When no one answered, she tried the door, but this time it was locked. And then today when Scarlet called again, the line had been disconnected. It wasn’t like Rosa to disappear like that. Even Mary Theresa hadn’t heard from her. Scarlet worried that Nexa from
Fashion Faire Weekly
had called Rosa before Scarlet had a chance to explain, which she fully intended to do.

Marco had a mystery game going on as well. He hadn’t returned Scarlet’s calls for a couple of days, which threw her off guard because up until then, they had become joined at the hip. Literally. In his bedroom, his living room, kitchen. And her house too—even in her sacred sewing room that she had been neglecting. She had no idea why he would avoid her now. She hadn’t mentioned the topic of the car or sale. In fact, she was going to share some exciting news with everyone.