Dolly Departed - By Deb Baker Page 0,15
casting long shadows on the sidewalk. By six it will be dark.
Her daughter, Melany, comes out of a trading post, carrying a shopping bag, a gift for a friend. Twenty years old and talking about abandoning the family business and finding a new life someplace else. Out of the blue with no warning signs at all. Hasn't Britt groomed her daughter to take over for her in a few years? Perhaps it isn't the most profitable business, creating exquisite miniature dolls, but it has its own rewards. Britt works her own hours, in her nightgown if she wants to. She's her own boss, answering to nobody. And, most importantly, she has the respect of the local miniature community.
Apparently these perks aren't enough for her daughter. Let her go out in the world and slop burgers for minimum wage. That will cure her of her wanderlust. But what about this "person" she's moving out east with?
Britt knows exactly who the man is, and she doesn't like him one bit. Melany is going to "live in sin," as Britt's mother would have said in shock if she were still alive. Whatever you call the arrangement, it's still shacking up. Young people and their relationships. Who can figure them out? "Going out" they call it. Going out used to mean going on a date. Not anymore. Now it means something much more serious. What does she know?
More importantly, what will Britt tell her acquaintances?
"My daughter's attending an Ivy League school out east"?
Yale, maybe? Yes, that could work. Britt could make it sound like a wonderful opportunity. And who is she to hold her daughter back? After all, there is the scholarship. Ooh. That's good.
"One more stop." Melany scowls as though she's angry and disappears into a bookstore.
Another twenty minutes of waiting, for sure. The girl loves books.
Britt fidgets with her French twist and fluffs her bangs. Who will do the miniature faux flower arrangements if her daughter moves away? Britt feels the crevice widening between them, the enormous, cavernous divide. And the fear that she won't cope well with aloneness.
If only Charlie were here. What will she do without Charlie and Melany?
She sees someone come out of the doll shop and approach a car parked at the curb. It's the same woman who barged into the shop when she was collecting her dolls. Gretchen something. She had been spying on Britt, she was sure of it, questioning her loyalty and her right to be in Charlie's shop. The nerve!
What's she up to now?
The nosy woman has a wire hanger in her hand that she is bending to change its shape. After a furtive look back at Mini Maize, she tries to stick it in the top of the car's closed passenger window.
Breaking into someone's car? Not likely in the middle of the day right outside the shop.
No. That must be dear Gretchen's own car, and she is locked out of it. Britt smiles smugly to herself while she watches Gretchen move to the driver's window and twist and pry with the wire hanger.
No luck. The snoop tries again, both sides, determined. After the second try, she goes back inside. Harder than it looks, isn't it?
Britt cringes at the thought of strangers in the shop, rifling through Charlie's things, her things. The work she has put into her miniature dolls! She's a professional artisan, not some hack. Twenty years in this business, and she is the best there is. Sculpting all her tiny creations, no kits or premade molds for her. Firing them in her very own kiln. Then wigging and dressing the darlings to be exact replicas of anything your little heart desires. Charlie, for example, wanting those tiny dolls, each with specific requirements regarding sex, size, and age. And for what? That was the question Britt kept asking her friend. And Charlie just smiling. "You'll see."
Well, she had.
Yes, she had.
Britt's eyes try to penetrate the window. If only she could hear what is being said in the shop, and if only she had a clearer view. What do they hope to accomplish by putting a silly display back together?
The one with the pretty gray hair is familiar, she's been around before. Her name is Caroline Birch, another of Charlie's friends. She must be Gretchen's mother. Her friendship with Charlie wasn't nearly as close as the relationship Britt had with Charlie. Britt feels such physical pain at her loss.
She thinks of Ryan Maize, Charlie's drug-addicted, pathetic excuse for a son. Ryan is somewhere