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"You guys don't usually fight." "
She shrugged and looked away. "Yeah"
"Feel pretty bad now, huh," I said.
I guess." She ground the toe of her flip-flops into the poured concrete floor.
"I bet she feels pretty bad, too. Why don't you give her a call?"
"… maybe"
"Tomorrow. After you've both slept on it a little longer"
She hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. G'night, Sophie Mae."
"'Night, Bug."
At the stairs she turned around. "Are you going to move in with Barr?"
Oh, gosh. Deep breath. "I don't know."
"Well, I hope you don't," she said. "I want you to stay here."
I could only manage a nod.
Pla
The spi
Of course, the most portable way to spin was the drop spindle, a device that looked like a stick with a perpendicular disk near one end. You stood and spun the spindle, which twisted the fiber attached to the top into yarn. Gravity provided the draw for the yarn. As the spindle neared the floor, you wrapped the yarn around the stick and began the process again. Of course, for me this was all merely theory; as fascinated as I was by the idea, Ruth hadn't taught me how to use one yet.
Expecting to find more of the natural wool I'd used to make what turned out to be a murder weapon, I opened a bag. Instead, I found a luscious rolled batt of Thea Hawke's hand-painted bamboo fiber in sunset hues-the exact thing I'd been so excited to try when I went in for my lesson and instead found Ariel. I'd mentioned how much I liked it to Ruth, and she'd remembered. What a sweetheart. I'd pay her back for it.
Oh, but how it felt, smoothly gliding through my fingers, the colors twisting together to make a gorgeous, variegated yarn that looked good enough to eat. As the spool gradually filled, the tension in my shoulders abated, my breathing deepened, and one by one the thoughts racing around in my head fell still. After awhile, I wasn't thinking about anything at all, the act of spi
When I ran out of raw fiber, I came back to myself enough to look at the clock. I'd been sitting there, pumping my foot up and down for over an hour! Better than any sleeping pill; I'd drop right off now. Plus, several yards of incredible yarn filled the spool. I'd have to find something marvelous to make with it. Heck, anything I made with it would be marvelous.
I removed the tension from the brake band and slipped the drive band off the wheel, then stood, stretching my palms up to the ceiling to work the kinks out of my back.
Oh, yes, I was addicted. I definitely needed to start shopping for a wheel of my own.
La Co
For twenty-five years, spring tourists had descended upon La Co
It was a lot of fun, granted, but I was glad the festival was over for the year and I'd only have to navigate the usual summer crowds.
Meandering through the bucolic June morning, I reviewed what I knew about Ariel so far. She was a bad artist, but didn't seem to know it. She was too lazy to get the training she needed to improve. Didn't want to deal with college because the expectations were too high, and she'd have to take classes she didn't like in order to get a degree in something she did like. She mooched money from her roommate. Jake Beagle had either a fatherly or carnal interest in her, though there was no evidence she'd been interested in him one way or the other. She wanted to marry money, but she had an affair with the husband of someone she knew.
Scott Popper was at least twenty years older than she was. I mean, that's not the worst thing in the world, but it made no sense in this situation. He wasn't rich, and his wife could have broken Ariel in half if she'd found out.
That thought gave me pause. Chris really could have, physically, strangled Ariel. And she admitted that she knew about the affair. It was a good thing both Ruth and Irene could vouch for her.
What would I have done in Chris' situation?
I frowned at a field of alfalfa and shook my head. I wouldn't want a man who didn't choose to be with me. Maybe Chris had also been unwilling to fight for Scott. Had it been the first time he'd had an affair? And never mind what Ariel got out of the affair-what about Scott? What the heck was wrong with him, to even get involved with her in the first place? Was it simply because she was so pretty?
Maybe. Men could be awfully stupid about physical beauty.
So I thought and drove and drove and thought. Traffic was light, and I made the trip in good time. In La Co
Looking at my watch, I found I'd managed to waste the whole morning. How decadent!
At a waterfront restaurant I snarfed a quick cup of clam chowder, anxious to meet Ariel's brother and his family. I got back in my pickup and gave up my early bird parking spot. The town was already filling up with day-trippers from Seattle.