“Luke!”
He looked over his shoulder. “I’ll put this in my truck for now. Good luck!”
It didn’t seem right, letting him leave without saying a proper thank you. I scooped Maisie up in my arms and started after him. As soon as I did a woman with big sunglasses and blond braids stepped right in front of me, blocking my path.
She looked me up and down, pulled off her glasses, then squealed and clutched at my skirt. “Gina!” she cried, looking over her shoulder. “Holy crap! Gina! Come over here and look at this!”
Gina, who, apart from having brunette braids instead of blond, could have been the other woman’s twin, stuck her head out of a nearby booth selling diffusers for essential oils.
“What?” she asked, her voice bored.
Her friend pointed toward my dress, making big, stabbing motions with her index finger. When Gina pulled off her own sunglasses, her jaw dropped. She immediately left the diffuser booth and walked toward me, mouth open, like she was being drawn by some invisible tractor beam.
“O. M. G. Is that not the cutest thing ever? Love this. So retro. And look!” Gina gasped. “The puppy has a matching outfit! Seriously, Aria? How stinkin’ cute is that?”
“Too cute,” Aria said. “Cutest dress ever. And the cherries. And the rickrack on the pockets. How fun is that?”
“So fun. But you know what my favorite part is? The skirt.” Gina pulled the fabric out wide from my body. “Look how it moves.”
Aria nodded deeply. “And with that fabric and the fitted waist, it’d really hide your butt.”
“Exactly. Shows off your curves.” Gina picked up her head, as if finally realizing I was a person instead of a mannequin, and said, “Where did you buy this?”
“I didn’t buy it. I made it.”
“You made it?” Their mouths dropped open again, simultaneously.
I nodded. “My booth is right over there. Would you like to take a look?”
* * *
If somebody asked me how to make a success in your first attempt selling stuff at a craft fair, I’d tell them to have an adorable animal model their product and, if at all possible, have two sisters visiting from New Jersey with voices that really, really carry be the first customers of the day.
Gina and Aria bought two dresses, two skirts, two dog jackets, and took two of the business cards I’d thought to have printed only the day before.
“Would you do mail order to New Jersey?” they asked anxiously.
“Sure,” I said. “I mean . . . I guess so. Shoot me an e-mail.”
“Oh, we will,” Gina said earnestly, as another customer tapped me on the shoulder, asking if the medium would fit a size twelve, only to be interrupted by still another customer who wanted to know if I had the cherry print available in extra large.
Luke came back to check on me around one o’clock, bringing a chicken wrap and a lemonade for my lunch. I didn’t have time to eat it, or to deal with the steady stream of customers who kept pouring into my booth. By the time he arrived, I’d already sold fourteen dog jackets, eight skirts, thirteen dresses, and taken full-payment deposits for three more dresses with matching dog jackets. If I’d had more help and more stock, I’m sure I would have sold even more.
Seeing my predicament, Luke jumped in and gave me a hand—making change, bagging up product, and answering questions. It was pretty funny, hearing him launch into his sales pitch.
“That’s the thing about this dress—it looks good on any body shape, but especially women with curves. The fabrics are all one hundred percent cotton, so you can toss them right into the washing machine. And they’re really fun to wear. Hey, Grace?” he’d call out. “Do that thing you do.”
Then I would smile and spin around in a circle, making my skirt flutter and twirl, and he’d look back at the customer and say, “See? Fun, right?”
“So fun,” they’d answer, and hand him their money.
Three times that day customers looked at Luke, then me, and asked, “Is he your husband?”
“Just my friend.”
“Really?” they said, looking impressed. “Nice friend.”
* * *
When the market closed at five, my unsold stock included fourteen dog jackets, nine dresses, and zero skirts—we’d sold every one of them. In addition to that, I had eight special orders that needed to be filled. It didn’t take nearly as long to pack up as it had to set up. When we were done, Luke and I went to a nearby bistro with dog-friendly, outdoor seating for souvlaki, beer, and a post-market briefing.
“Okay,” Luke said, after tossing a bit of lamb down to Maisie, who gobbled it down and looked up at him, hoping for more. “Here’s what we learned today. One—you need to rig up some kind of curtain in the corner so people can try on the dresses. Two—you need a full-length mirror so they can see how they look. Three—you need more ones and fives in the cash box so you can make change—”
“And a system for accepting credit cards,” I added.
“Right,” he said. “Four—everything I told you about starting small and going slow was completely wrong.”
He shook his head slowly, as if he was still trying to wrap his brain around everything that had happened that day. I didn’t blame him, I was feeling the same—excited but overwhelmed and a little bit dazed.
“You can’t do this part-time, Grace. No way can you work for Monica and run Twirl and Whirl. This is a full-time job and then some. In fact, you need to hire some help and soon. There’s no way you can do all the sewing by yourself.”
“Hire
