Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing (9 page)

T
he Monday after Thanksgiving arrived. Hadley and Mary Theresa still hadn’t gotten past the trauma of the record-breaking incident.

All this grief over music,
she thought.
How immature of her husband.
Sure they had a list of conflicts to resolve, but acting like a selfish teen wouldn’t help. The worst part was that the holiday season was in full swing, which meant family events at every turn. Mary Theresa refused to let on about their marital mishaps and therefore would pretend her home life was as endearing as the Cosbys’.

She had never been more grateful for her office job—a haven from the emotional carnage of home. The thirty-minute commute allowed her to peacefully separate her personal business from professional. She knew that people who mixed the two were in for a world of migraines.

Maybe Hadley didn’t appreciate her qualities, but her superiors at Deltran Computronics Corporation did. Once her Easy Spirit pumps hit the carpet in her corner office, she ruled. No one dared to question or doubt her reasoning and experience. As a team leader, she squeezed the maximum amount of energy out of her staff, and to date had set the highest productivity rate in the company’s history.

Her current challenge involved informing her crew that December did not translate into party month. Mary Theresa grew up as a God-fearing Catholic. She embraced the true essence of Christmas and blocked herself from insipid cover songs and tacky, dollar-store garlands like the kind that hung about the office. What really irked her were the heart-clogging snacks. She wondered who in the name of Baby Jesus thought of the idea of stuffing a Hershey’s Kiss inside a peanut butter cookie? Pure gluttony.

Every day her team paraded in with green-cellophane-covered paper plates and set them at the corner of their desks. And every hour, her staff strolled from cubicle to cubicle to nibble. They knew full well it was against policy to commune outside the designated nondenominational company Holiday Hoopla, which was the third Friday of December. From her assistant to her lead programmer, they gnawed on candy canes at what seemed like every opportunity.

The disrespect appalled her. So the previous week, she kept track of who left their desks to eat holiday goodies—and then she wrote them up. Each employee who broke the rule would be greeted with a yellow insubordination slip. “Discipline is a means to an end” is what her parents always told her.

However, that morning, Mary Theresa had broken her own rule and spent her brainpower on Hadley, not work. Her conclusion was, as usual, to be the bigger person and apologize. Crediting the debit would be as simple as buying him a new record album—so she thought. After a bit of research, she learned that the Coltrane record was only available on CD. The album version had become a collectable. No wonder he stormed out that night. Frantic about the crack in her plan, she spent the morning on the phone until she hunted down an authentic copy at a small Glendale record shop.

Her lunch hour turned into a game of Beat the Clock as she weaved in and out of freeway traffic, ran yellow lights, and made it to the store. Once she stepped inside, she cringed. The hole-in-the-wall retail outlet looked like it hadn’t seen Mr. Clean in decades. Dirty posters hung from the ceiling, crooked record bins were covered with glittered paper that peeled at the corners, and the tacky wall mosaics made from guitar picks were not her idea of a classy place to shop. She reminded herself she was there to save her marriage, and that involved sacrifice. Thank goodness she had a travel bottle of hand sanitizer in the car.

Ultimately, she didn’t curse the hassle, because the excursion ended on an unexpected high note.

While she waited for the record to be gift-wrapped by the store’s punk-rock attendant, Mary Theresa spied a mannequin in the corner of the store.

Wait
, she thought,
it’s a real person—a petite and exquisite one at that.
Mary Theresa marveled at her outfit from afar—a red, sparkly and swirly brocade knee-length shirtcoat, definitely vintage, over black leggings with velvet flats. Her hair was fiery red and pinned back at the crown like Rita Hayworth in one of those old black-and-white films. Before Mary Theresa could look away, the young woman noticed her, walked over, and introduced herself as if they were high school friends, finally reuniting.

“I love your hair color; it reminds me of Natalie Wood’s. I have friends who would kill for that shade of chestnut. I’m Scarlet Santana, by the way. My friend owns this place,” Scarlet said in full glee, admiring Mary Theresa’s head.

Mary Theresa wished she had an ounce of Scarlet’s radiance as she shyly ran her fingers down her own bangs and over the back of her thick ponytail. She wasn’t used to being complimented out of the blue like that and had never considered her hair to be “chestnut.” Just plain, old, boring dark brown. Hadley
often remarked about how much he loved her wavy locks, but Mary Theresa assumed he was being polite and brushed him off. Maybe he really meant it. Why didn’t she pay more attention to those moments? Maybe she would get one tonight after he opened her gift and listened to her apology.

She smiled back at Scarlet and praised her head-turning ensemble. Turns out, Scarlet had made it from scratch, without even using a pattern! They struck up a conversation about sewing. Back in high school, Mary Theresa loved to sew all her own clothes. Scarlet told her about a new “patternless sewing” class she was going to teach there at the record store. Mary Theresa concluded that patternless sewing definitely qualified as a “free-form” art workshop for her marriage counseling assignment.

Mary Theresa left the store with a copy of John Coltrane’s
A Love Supreme
in one hand and a $500 receipt for the sewing class in the other. Gritty or not, she planned to revisit Vega’s Vicious Vinyl once a week.

And this is going to fix my marriage. Go figure,
she thought.

Mary Theresa impressed herself with her multitasking skills. Only five minutes late from lunch! If only Hadley would open his mind, he could learn a tip or two from her. She proceeded to her desk, where she released a confident sigh and placed her belongings in the bottom drawer of her desk. Just as she was about to check her e-mail, she saw it—a note from Sandra, her supervisor, asking for Mary Theresa to stop by her office ASAP. Assuming it had to with the yellow slips, Mary Theresa picked up her notepad to head over. As she walked down the gray-carpeted hall, she passed Jay, the new college intern.

“Enjoy your holiday. See you next year!” he chirped.

What an odd thing to say,
Mary Theresa thought as she saluted him with two fingers to her forehead. She’d better mention it to Sandra. The kid obviously had a loose screw in that head.

Mary Theresa had barely entered the office when Sandra asked—no,
instructed
—her to close the door.

“I hope I didn’t get anyone in too much trouble,” Mary Theresa said as she let go of the door handle. “I only wanted to send a clear message that just because it is the holiday season, it doesn’t mean—”

“Sit down, please,” Sandra said bluntly. The woman’s plus-size figure matched her plus-size attitude.

An odd feeling of displacement overtook Mary Theresa’s nerves.

“How are things at home? You seem a little stretched these days.”

Her sharp tone reminded Mary Theresa of the way she talked to the kids before an oncoming meltdown: slowly, calmly, and slightly high-pitched. She rushed to answer.

“Wonderful. The kids love first grade, Hadley is embracing the Mr. Mom role. We’re extremely content.”

“Glad to hear that.” Sandra paused for half a second, then leaned forward, resting her chubby elbows on the wrinkled, coffee-stained desk blotter. “Mary Theresa, I discarded the yellow tickets.”

“Excuse me?”

Sandra relaxed in her chair and slipped a pencil behind her ear. “I know you meant to save the company money, but with your salary rate, you actually cost us more by filling out each lengthy form. Technically, it would have been cheaper to let the staff members eat the Peanut Butter Kiss cookies.”

“I suppose it cost more monetarily, but I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen every holiday,” Mary Theresa said in defense. Sandra launched into a lecture, but Mary Theresa’s mind drifted. She thought about the last time she’d been in Sandra’s office—to give a thirty-day probation review to an
employee. Now Mary Theresa felt as though she were the one on trial. She almost wished she could be back at the record store. The stress from the fight with Hadley had taken its toll on her last nerve. She was blowing this meeting out of proportion. Sandra probably wanted her to lighten up for the holidays. But then she heard
it.

“Can you repeat that, Sandra?”

“Mary Theresa, I said I put off this conversation, hoping things would change, especially after last month’s managers retreat. But I’ve been instructed by Human Resources that I have to handle this today.”

“Handle what?”

“Unfortunately I have a stack of
new
complaints. About you.”

Mary Theresa gasped. “That can’t be. I practice every guiding principle, every day. Number One: Do what is right. Number Two: To get results. Number Three: Do it as a team. Number—”

Sandra patted the air in front of her. “I know you have all the guiding principles memorized, which is admirable. The problem is, while your overall performance output is quite impressive, when it comes to leadership…”

“I
know
I’m a qualified team leader. A team leader must possess the following qualities—” Before she could count them off on her fingers, Sandra cut her off.

Sandra rubbed her thick neck and stared directly into Mary Theresa’s eyes. “You’re stressing everyone out. There, I said it. We don’t use micromanagement methods here. I told you that when I promoted you. The work is tedious; we need to keep the employees loyal and stimulated. Sixty percent of your staff has either requested a transfer or resigned. We have to make adjustments.”

“ ‘Adjustments’?” Mary Theresa asked, holding back a choke. From the corner of her view, she noticed Trudy and Jay peering through Sandra’s office window. Mary Theresa gave them stink eye until they scrammed.

“Am I fired?”

“We’re not letting you go,” Sandra assured her, “at this time. But as of tomorrow, we’re moving you to the NorWest Mortgage project.”

“NorWest?” Mary Theresa repeated, shocked. “That’s part-time. And it’s telecommuting… from home.”

“Exactly,” Sandra said. “Home.”

*   *   *

With dinner completed, Mary Theresa volunteered to clean the kitchen so Hadley could relax for the night. She snapped the lid over the bowl of diced strawberries and tugged open the refrigerator door. As usual, the front had her family checklist taped to it (she didn’t trust magnets).

As she wiped down the counters, Mary Theresa thought about Sandra’s words. Did she really micromanage? She only wanted the best results, whether developing a banking software program or raising her children.

It occurred to her that she’d have to find a second job. Not only for the income, but also because the Cotorro household functioned more efficiently when she wasn’t around. She had arranged the perfect blueprint for her family to follow, and despite all their differences, it worked. Plus, she didn’t think Hadley could tolerate her day in and day out.

As soon as she polished the faucet and hung the dishtowels to dry, she’d tell him about her job and then present him with the make-up gift. She’d apologize for her inexcusable outburst, and the whole event would blow over like always. She was loading
the last of the plates into the dishwasher when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Oh, honey, I didn’t see you there. Do you need me to get you something?” she asked as sweetly as possible. She hoped he recognized that her edges had been softened a few grades.

“Let’s talk, Mary Theresa.”

“I’m going to one-up you—I have a gift for you!” she said, closing the dishwasher door and reaching across the counter for her bag. She retrieved the wrapped album and handed it to him as if it were on a platter. He didn’t accept it fast enough, and that made her nervous, so she ripped it open for him to see.

“I thought it was my gift,” he said. “Why did you open it?”

“It’s that John Coltrane album. I know how much you liked it. I chased this copy down all over town.” Her bottom lip began to quiver. It had been almost seven years since she’d felt nervous enough for that to happen. It was when she’d informed Hadley of her pregnancy. She had waited with bated breath for his response, and he had kissed her and told her he would move back in by dinnertime.

Now the lip quivers were for different reasons.

“I… I can’t read you anymore,” she said, standing against the kitchen aisle. “I don’t know what you want me to do. Can’t we please get past this? I’m trying really hard here.”

“I’ve tried really hard too,” he replied. “It’s not working. We need a change.”

Mary Theresa approached him. “I think so too. I know it is still November, but I’m starting my New Year’s resolution now. I want to change, to be nicer. Remember when you used to think I looked like J. Lo in that
Wedding Planner
movie? Remember when you said you loved the color of my hair? I want us to be like that again.” The trembles moved to her chin, and she fought back a sob. “Something happened at work today….”