Page 17 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About
The laser cutter explained the smell. “Thank you so much,” Sadie said.
She hadn’t played with small looms like this since she was a child weaving pieces on potholder looms and notched sheets of cardboard.
Maybe working with one of these tools reminiscent of childhood would give her a creative boost. She was eager to give it a try. “What’s your name?”
“Esther,” the woman said. “You’re staying at your father’s place, yes?
I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you.
Stu lets me forage for fiber plants on his land, and I didn’t want to show up unannounced and give you a fright.
Can we exchange numbers?” Esther pulled a top-of-the-line smartphone out of her hemp bag.
Despite the hippie-dippie couture, weavers could be real gadget people, looms being the original computers and all. She zapped her contact over to Sadie.
Sadie handed Esther one of her business cards.
Esther smiled widely as she studied the fabric.
Meanwhile, the woman’s comments had her remembering the fiber plants she’d gathered from the fields and forests behind her house when she was a girl.
Whenever her father sent her to collect food, she also collected the milkweed, dogbane, and rattlesnake master that grew beyond the pumpkin patch.
Stu always told her to look to the land first when she needed something.
As a kid, she thought he was being cheap, refusing to buy her yarn when the patch of yucca that stubbornly grew near the driveway would suffice. But maybe he had a point.
“Thanks again for this loom,” she said, wishing she had better words to express her gratitude.
It was funny to think of her father as part of the community, but of course he was.
In her head he was holed up on his land, tending the pumpkins and gathering from the woods, only coming out to do the economic exchanges that would keep the lights on.
This visit to Pea Blossom was forcing her to acknowledge people had different perspectives on him than she did. Maybe hers needed to change.
Mustering some of that community-minded energy, Sadie asked, “Would you like some company foraging?”
“You bet. I’ve been working on your father to donate his land to the Tulip Poplar Trust. That’s who I work for.
We’re trying to get as much privately held land as possible into the trust for it to be managed responsibly and made accessible for bird-watching and foraging and hiking and all sorts of things.
I’ll tell you all about it and maybe you can work on him, too. ”
Sadie agreed, and they made plans for the next market day, another datapoint sent over to her phone. Then Esther bade her goodbyes and wandered over toward the textiles.
Maybe she wasn’t going to yell at Josh for bringing her here and giving her feelings. She wasn’t going to thank him for these emotions welling up in her, but she would thank him for pointing her to this group.
Sadie returned to Kyaw’s table and admired the way her piece included floral motifs and eye-popping geometric-looking patterns without making them seem disjointed.
Then she studied the subtly shimmering tartan, which held to tradition while also giving the fuck you to whatever bullshit was clearly going on in Jess’s family.
These vibrant pieces made Sadie wish Brynn Bianchini had wanted to replicate some perfect shade of pink lipstick or a treasured blue gemstone instead of the ass-cheek beige she chose.
But she didn’t want vibrant; she wanted calm.
The kind of calm outrageously rich people had, where they passed the stressful things in life off to someone else, babies and finances and cleaning and decision-making.
The light in the room began to change. The skies had been clear earlier, but Midwestern weather loved a hairpin turn. It could have been a garden-variety thunderstorm blowing through, but the ominous pea green sky out the library’s windows required no meteorologist to interpret.
Another storm was gathering strength in Sadie’s chest.
Everything in the library got eerily silent.
The tornado siren went off.
A staff member from the library came into the room. “Hi, everyone. Please follow me to the basement. We’re going to shelter in the television studio down there.”
Everyone filed out of the room, carrying textiles and snacks, some people chuckling about being glad they’d brought little spinning and knitting projects they could bide their time with.
Sadie felt her heart stick in her throat.
She was simultaneously terrified of tornadoes and embarrassed of how terrified she was.
She wished she was back at home, where she could panic in peace, instead of in public.
Instead she was among all these fucking people who weren’t exactly blasé about the potential for death and destruction, but not exactly frightened either.
She struggled to breathe, gasping like a fish rudely landed on a dock.
As she started toward the stairs, she felt the rush of air as someone came up behind her. It was Josh.