Behind the Seams

himself Columbia.

Barry was still struggling with being a full-time parent, even though Jeffrey had been living with his father for the past couple of years after things hadn’t worked out with him living with his mother.

“Are you hungry? I was going to have some of the takeout,” I said. Jeffrey nodded and closed up his homework. I made up plates for both of us and we took them in the den. I flipped on the TV.

A repeat of the Barbara Olive Overton show was on. “I’m going to that show tomorrow,” I said. I explained about CeeCee being on the show, and when he heard what movie she was in, he was impressed. Who knew Jeffrey was a fan of Anthony, the vampire who crocheted?

Talking about Anthony reminded me of the bookstore. “Oh no,” I said suddenly, as I was gathering up the plates. I’d promised CeeCee that I’d go to the show, but I’d forgotten to discuss getting time off with my boss.

CHAPTER 2

“I’M SORRY FOR ASKING YOU AT THE LAST MINUTE,” I said to Mrs. Shedd. It was the last hour before closing and the bookstore had only a few customers. I glanced toward the bookstore cafe and saw that Bob, our barista and cookie baker, was already in the process of cleaning up the cafe. “I thought I could do some of the things I was planning to do in the morning now.” I’d come in to ask my boss for the morning off to go to the talk show and to take care of a few things.

I had invited Jeffrey to come along to the store and was surprised when he agreed. He had immediately gone off to look at the big section we had on theater arts.

“As long as you’re here by noon, it shouldn’t be a problem. Funny you should bring up the Barbara Olive Overton program. I just had a call from someone there today,” Mrs. Shedd said, putting back a copy of Caught By the Hook, which was the first of the Anthony books and the basis for the movie Caught By a Kiss. “They want to film something here for one of their background pieces. She said they would pay us a small fee and give us a promotional consideration in the credits. The mention in the credits would be nice, but I was thinking maybe we could slip something with the bookstore’s name in the shot.” Mrs. Shedd sighed. “Anything we can do to help business is a plus.” Mrs. Shedd had made some bad investments with the bookstore’s money and was doing whatever she could to make up for the losses. “The woman I spoke to said she comes in the cafe all the time and that’s why she thought of Shedd and Royal. I’m not that familiar with the cafe customers and I’m so bad with names. Hers was something Freed—maybe Rachel. Do you know her?”

I didn’t know much about the cafe customers, either, and shook my head. “Did she explain what they wanted to film?”

“More or less. They’re doing an upcoming show to coincide with the release of a book called Back from Hell. Timing wise, there won’t have been any actual book signings, so they want us to set up a fake one. Are you familiar with the author, D. J. Florian?”

Mrs. Shedd and her formerly silent partner, Mr. Royal, had been spending more time at the bookstore lately, but apparently she hadn’t paid attention to all the upcoming releases. “His book is one of those blogoirs.” Mrs. Shedd looked puzzled and I explained it was a mixture of a blog and a memoir. “He’s the one who was struggling with a drug problem and started writing a blog more to help himself, but you know how it is these days. Somehow it got caught up in the blogosphere and he got a lot of followers. What was different about him was his blog was funny and literate and not totally self-centered.” I recalled reading some interview with him where he’d talked about his life going in a downward spiral. He’d lost his place to live, his job, his friends, everything and ended up living on the street. “His turnaround was very dramatic. Something about hitting bottom and being on the street at five minutes to midnight on the last day of the year. A lot of people were inspired by his journey. He’s actually local.”

Mrs. Shedd appeared unimpressed and turned toward the display of Anthony books. “I’d rather have another hot vampire book.”

“You know, CeeCee’s niece works on the Barbara Olive Overton show,” I said.

Mrs. Shedd didn’t seem particularly surprised. The entertainment industry was woven into the everyday life of the San Fernando Valley. It was home to a number of production studios and television stations, who employed a lot of Valley residents. The area was often used for filming. It was a common sight to see a line of trucks and generators and mobile dressing rooms parked on residential streets. Actors, writers, directors and producers lived in the area, particularly in the communities nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains like Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Tarzana and Woodland Hills. It wasn’t that unusual to find yourself standing behind some soap opera actor or news anchor in the grocery store checkout line, and every dog groomer and cleaners had framed eight-by- tens of their celebrity customers. But the bookstore had never gone that route. CeeCee would have had a place of honor if we had.

“Have I met CeeCee’s niece?” Mrs. Shedd asked. She caught her reflection in the large windows that faced Ventura Boulevard and smoothed a stray blond hair back in place. Her hair was so perfect, it almost looked like a wig. Mrs. Shedd was in her late sixties without a hint of gray. The silky texture, however, suggested the blond was natural.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Her aunt is trying to get her to take up the hook and keeps dragging her to our group’s meetings.”

We were trying to make the events at the bookstore really large events. So instead of having a single author signing their latest books, we were teaming up with local business owners to put on something bigger that would attract more people and help us all. Shedd & Royal already had a reputation for their events. Let’s just say they seemed to court disaster, but in a good way. No matter what happened, they always turned out to have good book sales, so Mrs. Shedd had learned not to mind if there was a miniriot.

I noticed that Jeffrey had gone into the cafe. Bob had given him some of the end-of-the-day leftover cookies and the last of the lemonade. Bob had his laptop set up on the table and the two of them were talking. No doubt they were discussing the science-fiction screenplay Bob had been writing for as long as I’d worked at the bookstore. Maybe Jeffrey was trying to get a part in it. I’d never asked too many questions about it, but Bob was always banging away at the laptop when business was slow. He looked like somebody who would write a science-fiction screenplay, with his pale skin, light brown hair and some glob of hair growing between his chin and his mouth. It wasn’t a beard, more like a puff ball.

I was relieved Mrs. Shedd was okay about me going to the show. CeeCee had been almost panicky, and I figured I could sit in front and coach her if necessary. I took the signs for the Salute to Chocolate event I was holding and slipped them into frames. I put the biggest one near the front door and then placed the others around the bookstore. It was going to be an all-chocolate evening, with a highlight of having Alain Des Plaines, a chef on the food channel, sign his ultimate chocolate cookbook: Melts at Body Heat.

When I’d finished with the signs and put out a stack of schedules for the month, I went back to the yarn department. It was the newest addition and my favorite part of the store. We’d arranged the yarn by colors. There was a permanent wood table for the Hookers or anyone who wanted to stop by and work with yarn, along with some easy chairs. I picked up a few stray skeins and put them back where they belonged. All our yarn was high end, and Mrs. Shedd had wanted a crocheted and knitted swatch for each of the yarns we sold. Getting the crocheted ones was no problem, as Adele and the Hookers all pitched in. I’d been left to do the knitted ones and still had a lot to finish.

Mrs. Shedd and I had decided that to make our yarn department stand out, we’d let people try it before they bought it. Each bin had a skein available to cut a sample from. We’d recently gotten in some variegated wool, worsted-weight yarn from Japan. The colors went from pumpkin to deep purple, with a lot of colors in between. I was curious how the colors would look when crocheted and cut a length from the sample skein. We kept a bunch of hooks and needles for the samples, and I pulled out a K–size hook and sat down at the table.

“There you are,” a male voice said. I turned just as Mason Fields reached the table. “I called your house and your BlackBerry and got no answer. I just happened to be picking something up at Le Grande Fromage and saw your car in the store’s parking lot.”

“You called my cell phone?” I said. My purse was sitting on the table next to me. It took a while to find the black phone in the dark cavity of my purse. But when I checked it, sure enough, it showed that Mason had called