Home to Sparrow Lake

She didn’t want to think about the man who had been so miserable to her in the middle of her crisis, anyway, Kristen told herself. She would concentrate on business. She went to the rear of the store—the “office” area—and sat at the desk. She started the computer, thinking to pick up where she’d left off at one in the morning.

Aunt Margaret had asked her to familiarize herself with Sew Fine and see if she had any ideas on how to grow the business.

Three years ago, with a newly earned MBA, she’d gotten a position in marketing with Chicago Lifestyle, a small sporting goods company. In less than a year, she’d been promoted to director of marketing and had helped double sales. But when the economy had taken another dip the following year, the company had “reorganized” and she had been out of a job.

Doing Aunt Margaret’s bidding was actually her kind of thing and allowed her to keep her talents sharp while looking for a real job.

The store itself was huge. Bolts of fabric and notions took up one side of the space. On the other side of the aisle were a dozen long tables with sewing machines, doubled to face each other, so women taking classes could chat. Sample quilts and smaller quilted pieces hung on both walls, making the store warm and inviting.

Working that long day yesterday had given Kristen a pretty good overview of how the business worked.

Sew Fine was open six days a week with late hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays for quilting classes. And there were two classes on Saturdays, one for kids, the other for teens. Training them to be lifelong customers, she thought. Great long-tail marketing idea there.

The store seemed to be doing a comfortable business for the number of people employed. Heather was the only full-time employee. Gloria Vega and Louise Powell each worked twenty hours a week, and Kristen’s brother Brian ran errands and cleaned up in the store two or three hours a day. The advanced quilting class was taught by Aunt Margaret. Kristen wondered if she would continue teaching now that she wanted to retire, or if they would need to find someone to replace her.

The profit after paying the staff definitely could be better for Aunt Margaret. She would get a pension from the university, of course, but that huge house of hers probably chewed up her cash on a regular basis. She’d used the money Donald had left her to pay off the mortgage and the exorbitant taxes. And as Kristen had already realized, the house needed work.

No doubt this was the reason her aunt wanted some ideas about growing the business. Aunt Margaret might fear she would have to sell the house if she couldn’t raise the store’s income. Having lost her own home to the economy, Kristen wasn’t about to let that happen to someone she loved, a senior citizen who deserved to retire in comfort and security.

The first thing she could do was to get a better sales system in place for customers who called in orders. Now, whoever answered the phone wrote the customer’s name and what she wanted on a piece of paper. Kristen looked through the box of scraps that held unfulfilled orders. An archaic and fallible system. She would start by installing a simple computer program so the person taking the order could enter the details. Then someone should be assigned to checking orders and fulfilling them on a specific day every week. Regular customers would be on file, as well, and their information automatically brought up via a database. The same database could be used for mailings.

“Aren’t your eyes crossing from being on that computer so many hours yesterday?”

Kristen started. Both customers had left the store, and Heather was standing over her. “They are a bit tired.” Having managed little more than six hours sleep, she was tired. No late night, working or otherwise, for her today.

“So take a break. We’ve hardly had a chance to talk since you got here.”

“It’s not like we haven’t talked in ages,” Kristen said, thinking of their weekly Sunday-night phone calls.

“But now I can see you.”

“Okay, okay.” Kristen smothered a yawn. “I need coffee anyway.”

Heather poured two cups. “You seem to be taking to working here.”

Kristen didn’t want to get her sister’s hopes up. “It’s only temporary, you know. Until I get on my feet.” She took her mug from Heather. “Then I’m going to start job hunting again.”

That was the agreement she’d made with Aunt Margaret. She would work here while sending out her résumé and driving into Chicago for interviews. If she could get them.

“You’re going to look for a job in Chicago?” Heather asked, her voice filled with disappointment.

“That is my home.”

“Not anymore.”

“You mean, not at the moment.” Kristen sipped her coffee, willing it to give her extra energy to get through the day.

She was hoping to be back in a new job and a new Chicago apartment before winter. Surely that would give her enough time to help grow Sew Fine into a more viable business.

“What have you got against living here?” Heather demanded. “I miss you. Aunt Margaret misses you. And now that Brian is back, he would miss you if you left again.”

“Wait a minute. Isn’t Brian supposed to be working this morning?” Kristen had thought he could sweep up the broken glass.

“Brian doesn’t always keep to schedule.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Heather was the manager, after all, Kristen thought.

“He is very helpful, Kristen. He’ll do anything I ask of him.”

“When he’s here.”

“So I give him a break. He’s had a hard couple of years since Mom remarried and moved to California.”

“Losing his friends in the middle of his freshman year of high school must have been difficult,” Kristen admitted.

“Not to mention he lost his job. Mom used to call him the man of the house. You remember that, don’t you? Even as a little kid, he took on a lot of responsibility, so he wouldn’t let her down. Well, maybe you don’t really know, because you went away to college so soon after Dad left. Mom was so proud of Brian. Mom thought it was great that he didn’t have to keep that responsibility anymore when she married Mike, but I’m not so sure.”

Kristen understood completely. “Brian lost his identity.” He must have felt as if he had failed their mother. Just as Kristen had failed at the career she’d so wanted.

Now Kristen felt even worse about Brian than she had before. Their kid brother could probably barely remember having a father in his life, and then when their mother had remarried, he hadn’t taken to his stepfather. According to Mom, Mike and Brian had been continually at odds. No doubt Brian resented having a man tell him what to do if he’d considered himself the man of the house all his young life. Her mother had mentioned increasing problems with Brian and decided the only way to make the kid happy was to let him go to college in Wisconsin.

According to Aunt Margaret, Brian could do no wrong. The change in address had seemingly made the difference. Now if only he would get to work on time.

And if only she would get a new job even better than the one she’d had.

Kristen said, “You can all come down to Chicago to see me for more than a day or two, you know. And I can come back here more weekends than I did before. It’s not that I don’t like Sparrow Lake, because I do, but there’s no opportunity here for me to prove myself.”

“You always had more drive than anyone I know. Except for Mom, if in a different way. She was always working, too.”

“To support us,” Kristen reminded her. “You know Mom didn’t have a choice. She didn’t have a career when Dad left. She had to take whatever job she could get.”

Which for years had been two and three part-time jobs all at once to make ends meet. Kristen had vowed then to get an education that would provide her with enough security so she never had to scrape by. She would never be a failure like her father, who couldn’t seem to succeed at anything, not even at having a family. Losing her job, then her savings and finally her home had been humiliating to someone with her work ethic.

She had to get back everything she’d lost. It was a matter of pride.

She just needed a time-out first.

“Have you heard from Jason?” Heather asked.

Okay, he was one thing she’d lost that she didn’t want back. “No, why would I?”

“You were together for nearly three years.”

“And I was fooled into thinking he loved me.” At least, that’s what he’d told her. “When you care for a person, you support them, good times or bad. He didn’t want to hear about my job search or my fear that I would lose my condo when I went through my savings. He wanted me to be the same bright, busy working woman who supported him emotionally.”

Eventually, he’d simply moved on to someone less complicated, though of course the way he put it was I’m doing this for you because you’re using me as a crutch and you need to stand on your own two feet.

Right.