A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2) Read online

  They have two teenage daughters, Ashley and Izzy, who constantly fight about just everything: who gets to sit in the front seat of the van, who takes too long in the bathroom, who gets to eat the last bagel, and on and on. If that weren’t enough to keep Tessa up at night, she had a surprise baby boy nearly 12 years after Izzy was born. Little Joey was a dream child, in stark comparison to Izzy and Ashley, who are difficult even on their best days.

  “I’m glad to be getting out of town. The girls have been fighting like wild animals, and there are so many dirty clothes I can’t see the floor of the laundry room anymore,” Tessa said, settling into her seat and clipping her hair back. She was preparing for the wind that would hit us once we were speeding down the road with The Ladybug’s top down.

  “It’s just you and me for a weekend of beads and fun.”

  “That’s why they call it Bead Fun,” Tessa agreed with a laugh, strands of her unclipped hair dancing around her face as I accelerated onto the freeway.

  “No kids for you. No Val, her boyfriends, Gumdrop or Stanley for me.” I was going to miss Gumdrop this weekend. Even though he was an attitudinal cat most of the time, he was my attitudinal cat and had been part of my life since I lived in Miami. He’d traveled with me across the country a few years ago, and while I did drug him to get him here, all had been fine once the two of us had settled into our new home.

  “Whoo-hoo!” we cheered as we sped down the I-5 toward Oregon.

  TWO

  WITHOUT A DROP OF RAIN, it was an easy drive to Portland. We pulled into the parking lot of The Red Rose, an old hotel whose grandeur from a century ago had faded. The dilapidated sign out front read: The ed ose.

  At the reception desk, I talked with a man who looked like he was pushing 80, and was in need of some serious oral hygiene.

  “Room for Jacqueline O’Connell, please.”

  “Funny. Your name’s Jackie O? Heh, heh. Jackie O. Get it?”

  “I’ve never heard that before.” Except for a million other times from old guys like him who thought they were equally clever.

  We checked in and got our key card. “Good-bye, Jackie,” he said as I turned to leave the desk.

  “It’s Jax,” I grumbled to myself. It had been Jax since I was eight, when my little brother Andy hadn’t been able to say “Jacqueline” and decided “Jax” was close enough. It stuck, and I’ve been Jax ever since. I was too much of a tomboy to be a Jackie. I like the name Jax; it has always felt like it fit me. My father refuses to call me anything but Jacqueline—he says it’s the most beautiful name in the world for the most beautiful girl in the world. I have to remind him, as I leave my mid-forties behind, I am hardly a girl anymore.

  “I’ve gotten ten texts from the girls about some new crisis,” Tessa said.

  “Ten messages—sounds like a crisis of epic proportion.”

  “It’s actually twenty texts—ten from Izzy and ten from Ashley,” Tessa corrected, as she walked, head down, reading the flurry of messages sent by her daughters, while juggling her overnight bag. Tessa was moving slowly, a few too many things weighing her down—including the weight of her daughters, who, I could tell, were going to make it difficult for Tessa to have fun this weekend.

  We entered the elevator, and I immediately felt a chill. Tessa felt it, too.

  “Wow, that’s weird,” I said.

  “You feel it, too?” Tessa asked.

  “You know, Val says this hotel is haunted.”

  “That’s just not true. Val believes all sorts of crazy things, including that the Vulcan Mind Meld really works.”

  Val was an avid science fiction fan, adoring all the Star Trek TV episodes and movies. According to her, the Vulcan Mind Meld was a way of reading someone’s mind by placing your hand on the temple and neck of the other person, and concentrating. She’d wanted to mind meld me before, but I always refused.

  Once we arrived at the sixth floor, we hustled out of the creepy elevator and down the hall. Loaded down with gear, we tumbled into the room and took a look around. It consisted of two twin beds, with pilled acrylic floral bedspreads, two matching lamps with dented shades on the bedside stands, a mini-bar, and beige carpet that looked like it had seen a little too much action.

  THREE

  “I’M HEADING DOWN to set up the table for the sale,” I said. Tessa didn’t answer, her head down, reading the never-ending stream of texts from Izzy and Ashley. “Tessa?”

  Still no answer.

  “Bye. And don’t let the ghosts get ya,” I joked, poking her in the ribs as I walked by. Gathering my show gear, I headed out the door.

  “Got it,” Tessa said, typing frantically on her phone, and clearly not listening to my warning.

  I picked up my badge from the exhibitor desk in the lobby. At the door to the ballroom, a middle-aged blond security guard with a beet-red face and a beet-sized nose to match was checking badges as vendors entered. Only vendors were allowed to enter before the bazaar started.

  On the show floor, everyone was busy setting up. The convention center’s ballroom was full of booths, with a different vendor at each one. Some booths were just simple tables like mine. Other sellers set up little stores with several display areas, and some booths even had mini-classrooms for impromptu demonstrations. Bead Fun was a giant sale of all things beady. People were selling all sorts of beads and jewelry: Thai silver, pressed glass beads from the Czech Republic, tiny seed beads, African trade beads, semi-precious stones sold by importers from around the world, metal findings such as clasps, antique and collectable jewelry, buttons, chains, and, of course, handmade glass beads. If it had to do with personal adornment, someone here probably sold it. It was a bazaar in the best sense—a swirl of colors, textures, and vendors hawking their wares. I have always found these sales to be overwhelming—so much to see that I get lost and lock up from too much visual stimulation.

  About the only thing you didn’t have in a sale like this was street food. It was too bad someone hadn’t thought to park some food trucks in front of the hotel. Food trucks in Portland were no longer “roach coaches.” These days you could get almost every type of delicious cuisine from one of these mobile kitchens. Instead, we had a greasy little snack bar tucked in the back of the ballroom, its door propped open to release the smell of burnt hot dogs and day-old buns.

  This was only my second show as a vendor. My first show was in the spring at Aztec Beads when I had scored a big wholesale order with one of the top designers in the country. Given the success at that sale, I was excited and a little scared about what would happen at this show. I wanted buyers to like—and buy—what I made. Great Aunt Rita’s gift from beyond the grave ensured that no rent was due on the first of the month, but I still had food to buy. After all, I’ve been used to eating all these years, so why stop now?

  And I wanted to make things I loved, so I could be satisfied with what I was doing in my life. I’d given up a lot when I left my job and moved to Seattle. I traded a forty-hour-a-week job with a regular paycheck for an artist’s life that required countless hours of work with no promise of a paycheck. I reminded myself from time to time why I chose this path: to make beautiful things, to enjoy my life, and to share it with people I care about.

  Walking down the aisle to my booth, I saw The Twins. They were covering their table with huge pieces of gray cheesecloth. Lara and Sara always dressed the same, and it was impossible to tell who was who. Both had long straight black hair, and they wore Doc Martens, long black skirts, and black everything else. Their designs were edgy and somber—black beads with crimson spiders, ivory skulls, and deep purple iridescent hearts with a pale white cobweb effect. I hoped to own one of their beads some day. Although I didn’t think I’d ever wear one of their beads, I would love to add one to my ever-growing bead collection.

  “Nice new look for the table,” I told them. Both young women looked up from their work with dark, smudged eyes.

  “We thought we should change up the color—get rid of th
e black net and get gray instead. It gives the entire montage a little more visual impact,” Lara, or perhaps Sara, said in her most pretentious voice.

  “Have a good show,” I said, as I hurried along, to avoid hearing how no one understood their work, that they were intellectually superior to everyone in the room, and that they had been treated badly. I would probably hear it from them at some point this weekend.

  I saw Indigo one row over and gave her a wave. Indigo was a beautiful black woman wearing Birkenstocks, a batik-printed skirt, and a tie-dyed T-shirt. She made gorgeous beads—sculptural leaves and flowers and glass spheres full of natural imagery. Indigo didn’t believe she should actually have to sell her beads and instead, was working on a barter system in which she would simply trade her beads for food and clothing. Her biggest problem was that landlords didn’t want to receive their monthly rent payment in beads—they all seemed to want cold, hard cash. For this reason, Indigo would show up at the occasional bead sale to try and make some money—and sleep in her van at night when she didn’t have enough for a hotel room during a bazaar. I felt for her, knowing how hard she must have it, trying to make ends meet on an artist’s income.

  Next to Indigo was Vandal Beads. A man sat crossed-legged on the floor in front of the booth, sorting through show gear, which had spilled across the aisle. I had to swerve to avoid him and his chaotic mess. I was glad I wasn’t going to be his neighbor for the next few days.

  Down the aisle, Saundra Jameson, the self-proclaimed queen of the bead world, was talking to—no, yelling at—someone. It looked like Sal, the bead bazaar promoter who was notorious throughout the bead world as a scumbag. But he was a scumbag with a series of well-known bead bazaars across the nation that would bring in customers who were ready and willing to spend their money on beads. Saundra towered over Sal, her back curved forward as she arched over him, while he leaned backward trying to avoid cracking heads with her. I was too far away to hear what they were arguing about. Saundra shoved an envelope at Sal. He grabbed it and pushed past her without another word.

  As I arrived at my booth, marked out with silver duct tape on the floor, I made a horrifying discovery: I would be at a table next to the bead diva. I was going to be neighbors with Saundra Jameson for the next three days. Oh joy.

  Saundra bustled around her booth in a long crushed velvet skirt in deep purple, matching purple lace-up ankle boots, a form-fitting black sweater, and a sheer lavender scarf wrapped artfully around her neck, with a long necklace of beads hanging over the top of it. She was tall and thin, her long dark hair elegantly twisted into a chignon. Saundra certainly made me feel like I needed to review my clothing choices, which usually consisted of jeans and T-shirts. Even with Val’s wardrobe help, I still had a long way to go to get to elegant.

  I’d met her at Tessa’s studio last April, when she’d done a beadmaking demonstration. I didn’t think she’d remember me from that event. I knew about her, having read magazine articles and interviews over the last few years, but I didn’t feel I knew her on a personal level at all. Saundra had been making beads for about fifteen years, much longer than a relative newbie like me.

  She was a walking display of her work and would stop and tell anyone she could, in exhausting detail, about each bead and where it could be purchased. Usually, she’d throw in some information about her latest show at some gallery, press a business card into the person’s hand, and move on to the next adoring potential customer.

  Since I had to sit next to her for the next few days, it seemed smart to start things off on the right foot. When Saundra visited Tessa’s studio last spring, her giant ego had filled the room from the moment she walked in the door. Tessa told me Saundra’s attitude had been surly at best. With that in mind, I thought it best to say a quick hello and then finish setting up without too much interaction.

  “Hi, Saundra,” I said. Saundra subtly glanced at my name tag.

  “Oh, Jax, nice to see you,” Saundra said a little too sweetly, as her eyes now focused on the necklace I was wearing. It was a single tubular green and pink bead I had made a few weeks ago, on a simple silver chain. She seemed to be sizing me up, seeing if I’d be any competition for her. She extended her arms as if to offer a hug. As I reluctantly approached her, she thrust her wrist in my face.

  “This is the new Cosmos bead.”

  “Nice,” I said, slowly backing out of hugging range.

  “This design is one of the seven different beads you can learn to make in my new book, Celestial Bead Designs. No one has ever seen these designs before. I’m premiering them in this book,” she said with a flourish, as she pressed a flyer into my hands.

  “And as a special bonus, I’ve included instructions on how to make this fabulous seed bead bracelet.” At that moment, the clasp on the bracelet popped open, and the bracelet slid from Saundra’s wrist. I snatched it before it hit the ground. It was quite beautiful, with its labyrinthine swirls of color, set on the background of midnight blue, row upon row of tiny seed beads creating a cuff.

  “Glad I caught that before it hit the floor,” I said, admiring the bracelet and passing it back to her.

  “Perhaps you could learn something from the book,” she said. She was condescending, and I didn’t like it.

  “Thanks for showing me. I’ll think about it,” I said, quickly setting the flyer down on the side of my table.

  I started setting up, first laying down a long blue satin tablecloth for the sides and front of the table, then placing a piece of black velvet on the tabletop to add a little elegance. The display furniture came out next: busts to hold necklaces, fabric-covered platforms, and tree-shaped wire stands for earrings. I pulled the lights out of their boxes and placed them on the table. Having good lighting is key to selling glass beads. Customers need to see what they are buying, and the only way they can do that is if the pieces are well-lit. I set business cards and postcards in their acrylic stands. I unloaded my calculator, receipt books, and bags necessary for sales transactions, and placed them behind my table.

  I had designed the layout of my table so that the six trays of beads I’d brought would lay side-by-side in the center of the table, with stands for earrings, loose bargain beads, and kits on each end. Since I already knew where the trays would go, I would bring them down tonight before the sale started. At this point, I was about as done as I could be.

  While working, I overheard Saundra talking to a slim man in his 30s with a stack of books in his arms, who had just arrived. His hair was ruffled as if he’d just fallen out of bed, and he wore a yellow thrift-store cardigan with a black and white checkered shirt buttoned all the way to the top. When I went to high school, this guy would have been the nerd who got beat up after class. In Portland today, he was something else entirely: a hipster. He was so uncool that he was cool.

  Saundra wasn’t exactly bossing her assistant around, but in a weird way she was coercing him, herding him, so he would do what she wanted. Anytime I heard her use the word “dear,” I knew it would be followed by a demand.

  “Miles, dear,” commanded Saundra, “look at this mess behind the table. These cords are such a hazard, and why aren’t they plugged in?”

  Miles neatly placed the books he was carrying on the table beside a standing mirror. Then he scrambled behind the table to untangle the electrical cords. I watched as he plugged the lights into a black toaster-sized power box, which had been set up to provide electricity to the vendors. The units were daisy-chained together with over-sized plugs and thick cables in a line down the row, with one power box in each vendor’s booth. Vendors plugged their lights, credit card machines, and any other equipment that needed electricity during the bazaar, into these boxes. At the end of each row, even thicker cables ran to a suitcase-sized distribution box. More cables snaked from this large unit up the wall at the rear of the ballroom into a utility room.

  Most of the day, it was hard to miss the electrician buzzing around the room, setting up the equipment and heading to and
from a utility room where I assumed the building’s main power center resided. Right now he was wreaking havoc on an importer who had several tables of African tribal and trade beads. Crawling around on the floor, the electrician pulled tables this way and that, peeled long strips of black electrical tape off a roll, and wrapped them around frayed cables that were sticking out in all directions.

  The importer, who according to the sign on his booth was Mr. Mboto, tried his best to remain calm during all the chaos, and was relieved when the electrician pulled himself out from under one of the tables and bolted toward the door at the back of the ballroom to turn on the power. Suddenly, the lights for Mr. Mboto’s booth burst on, and I smelled burning plastic. The importer wasn’t the only one with a dodgy electrical setup. The whole electrical system looked unsafe.

  Miles glanced up from where he was sitting and adjusted his large tortoise-shell glasses. “Do you want me to plug in your lights too?”

  “That would be great, thanks. I’m Jax, by the way.”

  “Miles,” he said, subtly checking me out to see where I fit on the hipster spectrum. It was obvious I’d dropped off that scale years ago—if I’d ever been on it. “I guess we’re going to be neighbors.” Miles stood up and brushed the lint off his black skinny jeans.

  “Right next door to each other here on aisle four,” I said, looking down the line of tables in our row at all the other beady people setting up for the show. “Thanks for plugging in my lights.”

  “Miles, dear,” Saundra said, looking at him, and then at me, with disdain. “You can talk to your new friend on your own time.”

  “I’d better get back to work here,” Miles said, glancing at Saundra, who had grown quiet and was looking more intense than usual.

  “We’ll have time to talk this weekend, I’m sure,” I said. I flipped the switch on one of my lights. No power. I was going to have to catch the electrician next time he sprinted by.