The New Man

Helen loved this sense of community she and Kathleen had found among other artists and craftspeople. There was gossip and jealousy, of course, but mostly they had met with generosity and friendship. All for one and one for all, as Kathleen had put it. On a good weekend, everyone profited. On a bad one, they all packed home the goods they had hoped to sell.

“Who’s in the next booth?” Helen asked, nodding to the one east of hers.

“Shannon Palmer. Have you met her?” Lucinda shook out a tablecloth. “Stained glass?”

Helen pursed her lips. “I think so. Wasn’t she in Anacortes last summer?”

“Probably.” Lucinda paused, apparently scanning Commercial Street in Anacortes in her mind’s eye. “Wait. Yes!” she exclaimed in triumph. “She was just past what’s-his-name with the flying elephants!”

“Oh, right,” Helen agreed. “He got mad when her rack collapsed.”

“He gets mad if he thinks one of your tables pushes the tent wall two inches into his space. Try not to get stuck next to him if you can help it.” Lucinda shook her head. “I never can remember his name,” she muttered. Hands on her hips, she contemplated her progress. “I’m starving. Will you keep an eye on my stuff?”

“Of course.”

“Can I bring you anything?”

“I packed a sandwich,” Helen said, “but thanks.”

The other woman picked up a bar of soap and sniffed. “Nice. What is it?”

“Tarragon and geranium.”

“You guys use the most peculiar combinations.” Lucinda grinned and headed down the grassy aisle. “See you,” she called, with a flap of her hand.

Enjoying the warm early-summer evening, Helen continued arranging their wares. Baskets, spray-painted and decorated by her, brimmed with selections of soap and oils and gels. Bars of soap, clear and shimmering with color or milky and dark-flecked, went into labeled bins. Carefully constructed stacks of soap went on pedestals and tables, along with bottles of soapwort shampoo and herbal hair rinses and wintergreen-scented bath oil.

New this year were the pet shampoo, the herbal bath bags and the gritty bars of soap for gardeners or mechanics. Helen expected them all to be successful. She was amazed at Kathleen’s creativity. Lucinda was right: the oddest combinations of herbs and essential oils sometimes produced heavenly scents.

She felt incredibly lucky to be Kathleen Carr’s partner. It hardly seemed fair that she should be an equal partner, considering Kathleen made all the soap. Helen had been the one to suggest that her housemate turn a hobby into a business, however, and she had taken over the task of selling the wonderfully fragrant bars. The packaging was hers—she continually tinkered to improve it—and she was the one who girded herself and approached store owners and buyers to try to persuade them to carry Kathleen’s Soaps.

She helped as much as she could when Kathleen went into a frenzy of soap making. Helen did cleanup and stirred and sometimes added pre-measured oils to the bubbling brew when Kathleen told her to. She unmolded bars that had cured with designs imprinted in them and carved into bars glycerine soaps that had been made into long loaves.

But in fact Helen was the business partner, Kathleen the creative one. Extraordinarily, in only their second year Kathleen’s Soaps was taking off. Dozens of retailers, from small gift shops to health food stores and co-ops, carried their soap now. And in a good weekend at a big craft show like this one, they would sell most of the stock Helen had hauled down.

Both Helen and Kathleen still held other jobs, but now worked only part-time. Last summer, the craft fairs had involved a nightmarish juggling of schedules, with everyone else they knew called in to help when both had to be at their other, more mundane, jobs. Even Kathleen’s teenage daughter, Emma, had manned booths alone.

On a day like this, with the sun shining and plenty of time to set up, Helen felt more relaxed and…happier than she had in years. Since before Ben’s cancer was diagnosed.

How amazing! she thought, pausing for a moment. She’d never expected to be happy again.

“Hello,” a man said behind her.

Her reverie interrupted, Helen lifted a basket from the tailgate and turned with a pleasant, “Hi.”

But the man standing there wasn’t one of the craftspeople she knew. In fact, he didn’t look like an artist at all, although she wasn’t quite sure why. Thick, dark hair cut a bit too short, maybe, and graying at the temples in a way that appeared distinguished rather than scruffy.

He was very handsome, with sharply drawn cheekbones and a strong, cleft chin. Despite that hint of gray, she doubted the man was over forty. In jeans and a polo shirt, he was well-built, perhaps six feet tall, with dark blue eyes that appraised her over the bow that decorated the handle of the basket she clutched.

“Alec Fraser.” He nodded at the basket. “Can I take that?”

“Oh…thank you.” Helen held it out. “I’m Helen Schaefer. Just set it anywhere over there.” She reached back to grab the next, more to give herself a moment to recover her composure than because she actually needed to keep working. She hadn’t felt any sexual reaction at all in so long she was surprised she recognized it. Maybe it wasn’t specific to this man, she comforted herself; maybe the brief flutter in her chest was related to the giddy knowledge that she had learned to be happy again.

Waiting inside her tent, Alec Fraser turned slowly to look at the displays she was setting up. He sniffed. “Smells great.”

Feeling steadier, she said, “Oh, thank you.” She was so used to the fragrance that filled their house and cars and even clung to her clothes that she scarcely noticed it anymore. “When they’re browsing, people pick up every soap and sniff it. I love watching their expressions. They’ll go from delight to ‘yuck’ in a heartbeat.”

He laughed, turning handsome into devilish and—damn it! there she went again—sexy.

“You mean, the vanilla fan doesn’t like the, uh, avocado-dill soap?” He took an experimental whiff of that one and looked torn.

Helen smiled at his expression. “Exactly. I’ve wondered whether you could generalize about character type from responses to particular scents, but I’m afraid results aren’t consistent.”

“What about you?” Alec Fraser asked, nodding toward one of the pyramids of soap, his blue eyes not leaving her face. “What’s your favorite?”

She knew she was blushing; her cheeks were warm. “Oh, I’m afraid I’m bland. I like gentle, homey scents. Vanilla and cinnamon and blueberry.”

“And yet—” he lifted a hand as if he were going to touch her auburn hair, secured in a ponytail, before he seemed to think better of it and let his arm drop “—you look as if you could be fiery.”

Fiery? The idea was laughable. A mouse like her!

“Appearances can be deceptive,” she told him, her good mood crumbling at the edges. She made her voice deliberately polite. “Do you have a booth here?”

“No, I’m with the committee putting on the fair. I’m just making the rounds to welcome everyone. I think I forgot to say thanks for coming.”

“You’re very welcome.” She made a business of returning to the truck, only to discover she’d grabbed the last basket or box within reach. Hoisting herself onto the tailgate wasn’t the most dignified performance to put on in front of a man Emma would say was “hot—for an older guy.”

“Let me,” the older guy said, and swung himself up with a fraction of the effort it would have taken her. He then very efficiently moved boxes and the few stray baskets to the tailgate, where she could reach them.

Since he seemed determined to help, Helen ferried goods into the tent as he pushed them within her reach. After a few minutes, he jumped down and helped her, the muscles in his arms flexing nicely as he lifted the heavier boxes.

“You don’t have to…really I can…” she tried to say several times only to be silenced with a glance or a firm “I want to.”

Finally Helen let him haul while she unpacked. When he set down a box and said, “Well, that’s the last.” She tilted her head to be sure she liked the display on the table in front of her, nodded in satisfaction, and turned to him.

“You were a huge help. Thank you. Do you unload for every exhibitor?”

“Ah…no. You just looked like you could use some volunteer labor.”

In other words, she thought, she had looked helpless. Weak.

He picked up a bar of soap and took the standard sniff. His expression suggested that he thought raspberry sorbet was interesting but not altogether pleasing. “Is there a Kathleen?”

“Kathleen?” She blinked, realizing she sounded like an idiot. “Oh. Yes. She’s my partner. She creates, I market.”

“A businesswoman.”

“Well…” How silly to hesitate. “I suppose I am.”