A Farewell to Yarns

helping herself to some food. “Wow, this is terrific. It’s got little green grapes in it. Where do you suppose she gets such nice ones this time of year?“
    “Sorts them out of cans of fruit salad?“ Suzie suggested.
    Fiona rejoined them a few minutes later, looking as cool and unruffled as the proverbial cucumber. The music was still audible, but they all pretended they didn’t notice. “Albert so seldom tries to take a nap in the middle of the day. He gets positively savage when someone interrupts it,“ was her only comment. “Have some more banana bread, ladies. If you leave any, I’ll eat it all, and you’ll have to roll me out of this chair.”
    Doggedly ignoring the music—it wasn’t the single, it was the whole Richie Divine’s Greatest Hits album—they finished lunch and went back to work. Fiona got busy shifting some of the tables into better positions and draping them with the rented white tablecloths. Suzie, under Shelley’s direction, appointed herself to takeeach box to the room in which the contents would be sold. Shelley sat on the floor, making a rough sort of inventory of each item as Suzie took it away, and Jane started printing up prices on a sheet of sticky labels for the crocheted wreaths. “I think we ought to give one of these free to anybody who buys more than a certain amount,“ Jane said. “You could pin them on their coats as they go out the door.“
    “Good thinking. I’ll put half of them by the cashier, and some people may pick them up as one last thing before their stuff is rung up.“
    “Impulse buying. Right.“
    “Oh, my God, will you look at this quilt,“ Shelley said. “It’s gorgeous. And it’s already marked at—at twenty-five dollars! That’s criminal. It ought to be at least a hundred and fifty. Think how beautiful this would look in my guest room. I’m going to buy it myself for two hundred, but we’ll hang it up marked SOLD, just because it’s so pretty.”
    Jane tried hard not to give in to envy. Would she ever be able to impulsively buy anything for two hundred dollars? “Where should I put this jelly?“ she asked.
    Shelley turned on her. “Jelly?“ she asked suspiciously. “Is it from Marijo Fisher?“
    “Yes, what’s wrong with that?“
    “Oh, nothing, except it’s Marijo’s little ploy to rip us off every year. I thought I’d made clear to her that I wasn’t letting her get away with it again.“
    “I don’t get it. How does she rip us off with jelly? It looks good.“
    “Oh, it is good. It’s fantastic. She sends over four or five piddling jars, then gives people delicious samples. Of course, the four or five jars are gone in no time, but samples keep miraculously appearing, and she takes orders for about a billion more.“
    “So?“
    “Not for the bazaar fund, Jane. For herself. She earns the church ten bucks and a couple hundred later for herself. It infuriates me. Is her phone number on there? I’m going to have a word or two with her.“ She stormed off and returned a few minutes later looking like a general who’d had an unusually good day crushing invading armies. “It’s all taken care of,“ she said serenely.
    Jane was afraid to ask. - After another ten minutes, Jane said, “Is that music as annoying to you as it is to me?“
    “It isn’t that loud. Imagine if it were spring and the windows were open. Still, I wonder why nobody’s called the police to make him shut it off.”
    Fiona passed the doorway carrying a stack of linens and looking miserable.
    “I’m not going to let him do this to her,“ Jane said. She threw on her coat and slipped out the front door before Shelley could reason with her. Stomping down the long drive, along the sidewalk, and up to the house next door, she leaned on the doorbell and knocked a few times for good measure.
    Bobby came to the door wearing his usual smirk. “Yeah?“
    “I’ve come to ask you politely to turn off that music. If you don’t, however, I’m going to havethe police come and talk to you about it, Bobby.“
    “It’s a free country,“ he said as if he’d thought up the concept himself. “Don’t you like rock? Would you rather have a little Fred Waring?“ He sneered.
    “I happen to like Fred Waring. And I also like Twisted Sister, but at a reasonable level and when I want to listen to it. Right now I don’t think the whole neighborhood wants to let you make the choice for them. Turn it off!“
    “I’ll think about it,“ he said with an