The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed earlier than I would have liked -- eight AM, so I could go bead shopping with Isabel. I walked next door to her house and she opened the door, coffee in hand, and grunted, motioning for me to go inside. After she’d finished two cups of coffee, we went up to her bedroom to look at the dress. She snagged a dress that was hanging on the back of the door and held it up to her.
"What do you think?" she asked. The dress was black, with black sequins, seed beads, and bugles decorating it.
"Beautiful! Let me get a good look at those beads. Maybe I can match them." She sat down on the bed and motioned for me to sit next to her. She held the front of the chest up for me, and I leaned in to get a better look at the beading.
"There was a package of extra beads," she said.
"Oh, get that! I think I know what kind of bead to get but it’ll save time if we bring that -- then I can hold them up to the extra beads for comparison."
Isa hung up the dress and grabbed the bead package. We were at the store less than ten minutes later. I made quick work of the shopping, grabbing a package of stainless steel French wire hooks, a spool of beading wire, and packages of black beads and bugles that matched her dress’ beads, silver beads, and several pairs of larger crystal teardrops and spheres for the focus of the earrings. I was planning to hold up the different focus beads to decide which ones looked best. On the way back to the pad, we stopped at a bait shop and I got a spool of five pound fishing line for the loops of beads. I’d found that fishing line worked well for loose loops of beads and strings of love beads since it was virtually unbreakable but still thin enough for beads to be strung on.
I had told the guys I’d be at Isa’s most of the day, "helping with an article" to keep the earrings a secret. In fact, Mike didn’t even know he was going out for a romantic dinner that evening!
"I have to go to the paper to get my new assignment but I’ll be back in a couple hours. Make yourself at home, help yourself to what’s in the fridge, and I’ll see you soon," Isa told me as she headed out the door. I just nodded, involved in cutting lengths of fishing wire for the beaded loops.
By the time she returned at noon, with a pizza for our lunch, I had both sets of beaded loops strung and tied together. She forced me to take a break to eat.
"Those beads look beautiful so far! But the knots . . . those won’t be visible, will they?" she asked worriedly.
"Nope. That’s why I got those large black round beads -- the knots will be slid into those. Trust me, these will look great! And they’ll look even better on you!"
At two, I walked over to Isabel’s desk, where she was hard at work typing up an article on the manual typewriter. "All done," I whispered in her ear.
"You are? Let me see!" I held up the completed earrings. I’d snuck into the bathroom to put some rubbing alcohol on the posts, an old habit of mine. First thing always I did after making a pair of earrings was to put rubbing alcohol on them, to disinfect them.
"Oh, Lenora, they’re perfect!" She ran into the front hallway and put the earrings in her ears, squealing with delight as she looked at her reflection in the hall mirror.
I walked up behind her and tucked her hair behind her ears. "Like I said, they’re the perfect style for you."
"Now, to get my date ready. Romeo doesn’t know he’s taking Juliet out . . . yet. I think it’s time he finds out."
"What’s the plan?"
Last updated 13 OCT 98
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