Be Still My Beading Heart Read online

  When I moved to Seattle, I left behind more than the sunshine and my parents. I’d broken up with my boyfriend Jerry. He was more interested in watching sports, drinking a little too heavily, and eating take-out food than he was in having a meaningful relationship with me. He was upset when I left, but like he’d lost a nice watch, rather than a partner. I was not bitter. Okay, I was bitter, but only in a good, healthy way.

  I’d left my job at Clorox, too. It was there I’d met Jerry, a scientific glass blower, who was the first person to show me how to work with molten glass. When my department needed a special glass part for an experiment, we would call our in-house glass blower, and he’d make a vacuum tube, or condenser, or even custom test tubes. The best part of my job was going into his workshop in the basement of the building, with its enormous lathe and the soft hum of the ventilation system. Jerry showed me it’s possible to make fancy glass components for experiments, but he also taught me how to make beautiful things in the flame by melting glass. He shaped it in all sorts of ways while it was still molten: slender tubes, perfect spheres, and complex containers. Even after our relationship had fizzled, my love of glass continued burning strong.

  Val and I settled down at the old oak kitchen table and filled our glasses. “What are your big plans for this weekend?” Val asked.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow for a bead bazaar in Portland,” I said, with probably too many chips in my mouth to be considered polite.

  “Oh, that sounds like fun—or is it just bizarre?”

  “Bazaar, Val, not bizarre. It’s going to be terrific. It’s like a flea market, you know, with people selling their beads and jewelry in booths and at tables. I’m going to stop and pick up Tessa on the way. We’re rooming together at The Red Rose Hotel where the bead sale is being held. It should be fun.”

  “The Red Rose Hotel?”

  “It’s the only Red Rose Hotel I’m aware of. Why?”

  “It’s supposed to be haunted,” Val said, knitting her perfectly-plucked eyebrows. “I’ve heard perfume will keep ghosts away. Do you want to borrow some of mine?”

  “No, Val. No. I’m sure it’s not haunted.” Where did Val get these ideas? I scooped up some guacamole on a chip and popped it in my mouth. Having tried some pretty terrible dishes from Val’s kitchen in the past, I’m usually wary of her concoctions, but I could always count on her for excellent Mexican food. “Val, your guac is the best I’ve ever tasted,” I said, swiping another chip through the bowl.

  “Thanks, doll. I’ve been working really hard to become a better cook,” Val said, pouring herself the last margarita. “You and Tessa are going to have fun. Maybe you’ll meet a guy.”

  “I seriously doubt that. These shows are full of bead ladies, and even the guys are bead ladies, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I definitely do not know what you mean.”

  “The guys who are into beads are usually frumpy. They’re definitely not boyfriend material. And besides, the men are few and far between. I guess I should get into model airplanes or boxing if I want to meet some men.”

  “Or you could just call that hot Seattle police detective—what’s his name?”

  “Zachary Grant,” I told her, because if I didn’t, she wouldn’t stop pestering me until I did, so I just skipped over the part where she pleaded with me.

  “Oh, yes. Zach.”

  “No, apparently he doesn’t like to be called Zach, only Zachary.”

  “He seemed okay when I called him Zach last week when he stopped by.”

  “What? He was here?” I was surprised the serious detective had come to see me. During the time I’d known him, he’d been stern with me and had only shown signs of kindness in my last conversation with him a few months ago.

  “Oh, yes. I left you a note. Didn’t you get it?”

  “No, Val, I didn’t.”

  “He said he was in the neighborhood,” Val said, looking me up and down. “And Jax, you’re looking good today in that V-neck T-shirt. It shows off your ta-tas.”

  “Thanks,” I said, looking down at the front of my shirt and trying to brush off some cat hair.

  “Soon you’ll be asking to borrow one of my stretchy wrap around tops.”

  “You know I can’t wear fabric like that in the studio, only natural fibers. You don’t want me going up in flames, do you? You don’t want polyester melting onto me like molten lava, right? But I’m glad you like the top,” I said. Val had done a lot to help me embrace, or at least accept, my curviness. “In fact, you’ll never guess what I found in my cleavage just a little while ago.”

  “I do not want to know what was in between your boobs,” Val said with a grimace. She spotted the stack of bead trays and bags in the hallway. “Are you almost ready to go?”

  “I’ve got hours of work before I leave tomorrow morning,” I said, placing the pitcher and glasses in her hands. “I’ll return the rest when I get back. Thanks for the drinks, guac, and chips. They were yummy. I owe you one,” I said, shooing her toward the door.

  “Bring me back something sparkly from the show.”

  “How about one of my beads?”

  “Sorry, not sparkly enough,” she said. “Honey, when you get back, I want you to meet my new boyfriend, Bruno.”

  “Sounds like a dog’s name.”

  “Oh...yes. He is an animal, if you know what I mean,” she said with a wink. “Woof!”

  I didn’t want to know what that meant.

  “Out. Out. Don’t forget to feed Gumdrop while I’m gone. And keep him away from Stanley,” I said. In the last few months, we had made several adjustments in our lives after adopting a Bassett hound. My cat didn’t like sharing attention with Stanley, or anything else about the dog for that matter.

  “Okay, sweet cheeks, see you in a couple of days, and try to stay out of trouble. Don’t forget to take some ghost-busting perfume.”

  I packed six full trays of my best beads, including some cute ladybugs I’d been perfecting, a bunch of earrings, some seed bead kits, and a big bag of bargain beads. With the current state of the economy, the bargain beads would probably be my biggest money-maker. Renting the table at a bead bazaar was expensive, and the hotel room wasn’t cheap either, even though Tessa and I were splitting that cost. I’d need to move some inventory to break even.

  Along with beads, I had the rest of the paraphernalia needed to set up a little store for one evening and three days of sales at the bead bazaar in the hotel’s ballroom: bags, wrapping material, displays, tablecloths, and lights. I tossed it all willy-nilly into the trunk of The Ladybug, my lovely red convertible VW, and sat on the trunk’s lid to squish everything in. I hadn’t brought much to wear, but if I wore a special necklace each day, people wouldn’t notice I was wearing different combinations of the same shirts and pants all weekend long.

  It was two in the morning when I fell asleep. Gumdrop, who had finally emerged from his hiding place, had snuggled up next to me. Seven o’clock arrived mercilessly early. Gently pulling back the covers, I tried not to disturb Gumdrop, who had moved to the foot of my bed. I was thankful I’d finally taught him to stop sleeping on my head. I dragged myself out of bed and walked stiff-legged and vacant-eyed into the shower, feeling like a zombie. I needed not just a cup, but a bucket of coffee this morning.

  I picked up Tessa at Starbucks, near her house in Ballard. It’s the coffee shop on the left side of the street at the corner of NW Market Street and 22nd Avenue NW, not the one on the opposite corner. Seattle is called the Emerald City—not because of how lush the landscape is, but because of all the green Starbucks signs everywhere you look. Tessa bought my usual for me, the biggest non-fat latte Starbucks makes—a Venti—and she had her usual single shot of espresso. I’ve never understood how she can function on that little caffeine in the morning.

  Tessa has been my friend since we were in kindergarten, after s
he’d convinced me to eat a glob of paste by telling me it tasted like a mint Lifesaver. She was one of the reasons I’d decided to come to Seattle. I knew I would have at least one friend here. When I first arrived and was trying to figure out what to do with myself, Tessa invited me to her studio and there, I watched her make beads for hours. It reminded me of Jerry, and how watching him work transfixed me.

  Tessa runs the local glass studio, Fremont Fire. She has an impressive classroom full of torches and often hosts classes, inviting beadmakers from all over the world to come and teach. She also sells her own earrings and necklaces as well as the work of other jewelry designers in her shop.

  But Tessa wasn’t selling at the Bead Fun show this weekend; she was buying. She was looking for beads and supplies that she could sell at her studio, and planning to visit with friends and see what was happening in the world of beads. Since she didn’t have all her show gear, she was traveling light. She handed me my latte and tossed her bag in the back seat. I put the top down on The Ladybug, so we could take in the crisp morning air.

  “Are your kids all sorted out for the next few days?” I asked between gulps of hot coffee.

  “Craig promises to make sure everyone eats at least a couple of times a day, and that the kids don’t play in traffic.” Craig was Tessa’s husband, a big huggable guy she had met when she lived in Italy. He was not Italian but an American—he’d swept her off her feet and away from Venice to Seattle, where they were now raising three kids.

  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 w
hen 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 the 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.