Craft Store Witch

Part 1 - Cheap Magic

It was kind of sad how excited I was. Saturday nights were usually for parties and dates; at least that was what movies taught me. Instead, I was getting a dose of fluorescent lighting and music that was popular when my parents were my age.

I was excited because we were designing the dress. My cousin Abigail was getting married, which meant getting dressed up. My parents had moral objections to store fashion, so we tended to get clothes second hand or make them from scratch. Normally that would be a drag, but tonight I wasn't alone. I had Sue with me. The master.

"Millie, hold still for a second," Sue said.

She held up some kind of fabric to my arm, cocked her head, then started rifling through shelves full of lace. Once she found the right one she held it against the fabric.

"These two together will work. The fabric is the salad, but the lace is the dressing."

"You're on it tonight," I said.

"We just need the right kind of thread to hold it all together."

Sue moved through Ester Plath's Arts and Crafts like a shark zeroing in on blood. People got out of her way as she walked, leaving me to hurry along behind her. We reached the thread aisle and Sue began scanning through all the options. After a few rows she stopped and looked at me.

"I just realized I never asked how long I have to work on this."

"The wedding is in two weeks."

"Ok." I could see the numbers being crunched in Sue's head. "I'll make it happen."

"Thanks again for doing this; I know it's not how you normally spend a Saturday night."

"Don't worry about it. Hector has soccer practice anyway. Besides, It's not every day I get to make a whole dress."

Hector was a lanky soccer player who shared biology class with Sue. They must have bonded over a mutual love of cutting frogs open, because as of last month they were an item. Of course, Sue was my friend so I was happy for her.

We passed by a window on our way to check out. I stopped and looked out into the parking lot. Someone familiar had caught my eye.

It was past the time when people normally went shopping, so the cars were few and far between. Under an orange street lamp was a tall boy in a varsity jacket. I'd never seen him play any sport for our school, and to top it off it wasn't even our school's jacket. He was an upperclassman though, one year above Sue and I.

I gave Sue a nudge. "Guess who's here," I said.

Sue turned to look out the window. "No way! I thought he'd be out spray painting walls again."

"Didn't he get suspended for that?"

"I don't think they could pin it on him. He had that excuse about using spray paint during art class, and that was why it was all over his sleeves."

"That had to have been a lie. He barely shows up to class."

The object of our focus was a minor celebrity at our school. August Moore's name was read over the loudspeakers at least once a week. While the teacher's grumbled in the lounge about how he was driving them into an early retirement, the students were less sure about him. Half of the guys liked him for making the school day more interesting. The other half didn't like him because he was a popular topic among the girls. That was no surprise because he had B-list actor looks combined with a scar over one eyebrow. I guess some of the girls were into that kind of thing.

"Maybe we should go out the back. I don't want to end up on his radar," I said.

Sue looked at me. "Millie, I love you, but you're being a pushover."