“Ack!” Gina cried. “I’m never going to get this.”
“Yes, you are,” I said, trying not to cringe at her wobbly stitches. “It’s just a little tricky because the book we’re making is so small. When we start on the journals, you’ll have an easier time.”
“I hope so,” she said, unconvinced.
“Don’t forget, you need to link each new stitch to the previous section’s stitches.”
“Oh, God, whatever that means,” she moaned.
I went over to my bag and pulled out a thick manila file folder of reference material. After a quick riffling, I found what I was looking for: a close-up photograph of someone’s hand, sewing the stitch.
“Oh,” she said when I showed her the photo. “That’s what it’s supposed to look like?”
“Yes.” Exactly as I’d showed everyone twenty minutes ago, but I didn’t say that. For a lot of people, this was complicated stuff. I handed her the photo to use as a guide.
“It’s pretty.” She stared at the picture. “This helps a lot.”
“Good. Hold on to that for as long as you need it.”
“Thanks.”
There was a low-level buzz and Cynthia Hardesty grabbed her cell phone. “I’ve got to take a quick break,” she said, staring at her smart phone as she pushed her fingers across the screen. “I need to take care of some personal business.”
Except she called it bidness. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe she thought it sounded cool, but it really didn’t. One thing that bothered me was that she didn’t seem to take the class seriously. She was much too busy with her bidness.
“Would you mind if I ran out for a minute, too?” Alice said. “I’ve finished my sewing and I’m afraid Stuart might be asleep if I wait much longer.”
“No problem,” I said, taking a quick look at her stitching job. “You’re doing really well.”
“Thanks,” she said, with a note of pride. “Be right back.”
“Oh, can I be excused, too?” Whitney asked, her arm bobbing up like an overeager student’s. She nudged Gina. “I need to make those reservations, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Gina said, and winked at me. “She’s got a hot date Friday night.”
“Shh, don’t jinx it,” Whitney said.
“Go ahead,” I said, checking my watch. “I need to talk to someone down the hall. But I should be right back.”
“Are we taking a break?” Marianne asked, looking up for the first time.
“We’ll be taking an official thirty-minute dinner break in a while, but if anyone needs a minute right now, go ahead. For those staying, please continue to work on sewing your signature pages.”
“Before you go,” Jennifer said, “can you show me how that loopy knot thing works again? I’m all thumbs.”
“Yes.” I stopped at her station and demonstrated the weaver’s knot again, pointing out the importance of kinking the linen thread. Then I went around the room and showed each student the kink in the thread, just to be sure everyone was on base.
After Jennifer assured me she could do it on her own, I left the room and headed for Layla’s office. For the last hour, my mind had been fretting about our argument over the Oliver Twist. I’d appreciated her making nice when she brought Alice into the class, but I was still anxious.
I’d formed a plan. I would ask her if I could buy back the book. Or, if that didn’t appeal to her, I could call Ian McCullough, the Covington Library’s head curator and an old college friend of my brother Austin—and my ex-fiancé. And when I say fiancé, I mean we liked each other a lot and tried to pretend it was love, but we both knew it wasn’t. We’re still great friends. Ian might have had a way of tracking down an actual true first edition of Oliver Twist. If he was successful, the Covington might consider it good publicity to donate the book to the Twisted festival auction. It went against the grain to help Layla Fontaine, but the last thing I needed was to have her blackball me in the book arts community because, God forbid, I had too many scruples.
Scruples. How boring!
I skirted the gallery, dark now except for the few pin spots illuminating the wood-block prints and a faint stream of moonlight seeping through the skylight.
From across the wide space, I saw a figure silhouetted against the window of the front door. It was probably one of my students making her phone call, but I couldn’t tell which one. I didn’t see any of the others who’d taken a break. They might’ve gone outside or down to the mudroom for some privacy. It seemed awfully quiet in here, even with two classes in session. Naomi’s pop-up book display created odd shadows on the lower gallery wall. I shivered and wondered why they didn’t turn up the heat a little.