Rachel drove in something of a fog the short distance to the Rhode Island School of Design—her mind could not quite wrap around the idea that a guy who looked as good as Flynn would be talking to her. Twice. To Rachel Ellen Lear, the dough ball, the ugly duckling of the Lear sisters, the one they used to call Miss Fortune in high school.
She was a long way from high school, but still.
She walked into her class, her head still encased in fog, beaming at the seven of ten students who were still in attendance after four weeks. That was a pretty good sign, seeing as how she usually lost four or five by this point, when students realized that large-scale weaving was not easy. That always left her with the eccentric ones who had the sort of lives that attracted them to weaving medieval tapestries.
Sandy, a middle-aged hypochondriac, was showing a pattern of what she was weaving on the loom. “Sandy, that’s beautiful,” Rachel said admiringly.
“Thanks!” Sandy said proudly. “I was hoping to get a little further along before this class, but I have a touch of IBS.”
“IBS?” Mr. Gregory asked. He was an ancient old flamer who had expressed a desire to weave rugs and was doggedly determined to do it.
“Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” Sandy said without an ounce of self-consciousness.
“Oh, dear,” Mr. Gregory said, wrinkling his nose with distaste.
“Yeah, it’s not pretty.” Sandy confirmed.
“But . . . didn’t you say last week they thought it was a pelvic inflammation thing?” Lucy, one-half of Dave and Lucy, the All-Natural Couple, whispered loudly.
“I have both,” Sandy said, nodding enthusiastically as she carefully folded the pattern. “That’s probably why I had another flare-up of IBS. My doctor doesn’t really know for sure.”
Actually, if everyone just hung on, Sandy would list all her maladies before the end of the class. She was talented, but because of her raging hypochondria, Rachel had begun to keep ibuprofen and antacids in her purse for Sandy’s major flare-ups.
“My sister had that,” Lucy said, to which Dave rolled his eyes.
“IBS or pelvic inflammation?” Sandy asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“IBS,” Lucy said.
“Do we have to talk about this?” Chantal demanded of Rachel as everyone began to find their seats. Chantal had signed up with her friend Tiffinnae, who owned a hair salon and wanted to make some cool stuff for the walls to complement her hair-weave designs. Chantal was along just for grins. She had not, as far as Rachel knew, actually touched the loom.
“We do have a lot of ground to cover tonight, so if everyone could take a seat?” Rachel suggested. “I’m going to talk about yarn,” she said, wincing a little as she lifted her bag to put it on the table.
“Are you all right?” Sandy immediately asked. “Was that your shoulder? Because I had tendonitis once, and I have this cream—”
“Ah, no,” Rachel said, quickly cutting her off. “I just overdid it at the gym today.”
“Gym?” Tiffinnae said, sizing her up, one chubby girl to another.
“I’m a little out of shape.”
“Oh, she ain’t out of no shape,” Chantal said, waving a hand as she strutted to the loom she shared with Tiffinnae. “She goin’ cuz she got herself a maaaan,” she said in a singsong way, and instantly gained the class’s undivided attention.
Rachel couldn’t have been more surprised if Chantal had done a pirouette. “No! I really—”
“Yes, you do. I saw you smiling at him down at Oakley’s Grocery,” Chantal insisted as she smoothed the back of her hair. “I walked right past you and said hi and you couldn’t even take your eyes off him to say nothing in return!”
“You walked past me?” Rachel exclaimed disbelievingly.
The class suddenly erupted into laughter.
“Oh, come on, it’s not what you think,” Rachel cried.
“And he was fiiiiine,” Chantal said, and exchanged another high five with Tiffinnae.
“Actually, Chantal, I didn’t know that man,” Rachel tried again, but could feel a hot blush returning, full throttle, to her cheeks. It was a full minute before she could get the class focused on the fascinating world of looms and weaving in medieval times.
At the end of the class, when Sandy said she had to get home because of a flare-up of acid reflux. Tiffinnae and Chantal took their own sweet time packing up their things as everyone else filtered out, calling good night to Rachel. “I know when a girl’s got her eye on a man,” Chantal said loudly to Tiffinnae.
“Mmm-hmm,” Tiffinnae responded.