time. Whatever she’d read must have been about plants because she was all in bright green, from the tights to the long tunic with crocheted leaves sewn on the long sleeves. When she got to the table, I saw that she had something on her head.
“What’s that?” Rhoda barked, pointing at the tiny green top hat sitting toward the front of her head on an angle.
Adele set down her tote bag and touched the mini hat. “It’s called a fascinator. Of course, I made it,” she said.
“For you or Kermit the Frog?” Rhoda said punctuating her comment with a laugh.
“I’ll have you know they’re all the rage now,” Adele said indignantly. “You people have no imagination, no umph in the style department. I made several and Eric thinks they’re adorable,” she said, her voice brimming with pride.
Sheila had been watching it all while continuing to crochet. She swallowed a few times before she spoke up. “We got a couple of fascinators in the other day. They are one of a kind and fit in perfectly with the kind of things Luxe sells,” she said. Though the ones in the lifestyle store were a little more elaborate than Adele’s. Sheila said something about one looking like a red rose with a bit of red veil and that the other had a bunch of feathers on it. Adele appeared stricken that something might be more showy than her tiny top hat.
Now that the group seemed to be coming to order, Sheila set down the rectangular shawl she was making in her signature colors of greens, blues and lavenders. The large hook she was using gave it a lacy appearance. She rolled up the completed portion of the shawl around the yarn and put it in the large tote on the chair next to her. “We’re working on things for Jungle Days, right?” she said looking through the contents of her bag.
“Yes, and we better get our hooks moving,” CeeCee said. “The street fair is in a couple of weeks and last time I looked in the collection box, I had a pretty clear view of the bottom. Ladies, this is the Tarzana street fair and we are the Tarzana Hookers. We don’t want to look bad to our fellow Tarzanians.” CeeCee hadn’t been hanging around the table as much as the rest of the group. Between the taping of Making Amends, and meetings she was having about a sequel to Caught by a Kiss, and thanks to the hum of Oscar buzz, she’d been pretty busy lately.
“What do you think of this look?” CeeCee said turning around so we could all see what her stylist had come up with now. The linen pants and long shirt were pale shades of peach. Rhoda shook her head. “It’s better than the mint outfit you had on the other day, but it still looks kind of blah. I wish I could say the same for the makeup.”
“What do you mean, dear?” CeeCee said, pulling out a small mirror. When she caught sight of herself, she looked a little stunned. “My, it is a little heavy isn’t it.” A little heavy was an understatement. What the outfit lacked in color had been more than made up by the makeup. The foundation made her face look too flawless, which didn’t go with the color or condition of her neck. The eyeliner was too thick and the eye shadow too much for daytime. The red lipstick was the final blow. CeeCee pulled out a tissue and wiped off the lipstick. Then she thanked the group. “What would I do without this group to keep me real. Now to get back on topic, I suppose we could ask Kelly’s husband for the things she made.” She glanced over the rest of us. “Or would that be bad form under the circumstances?”
I looked at Dinah and we both turned toward Adele expecting her to jump into the middle of the conversation and insist she had it under control and already had Kelly’s things. But Adele avoided our gazes and was strangely silent until Rhoda stepped in.
“Adele, you were making such a fuss about her being a crochet pretender. Didn’t you go over to her house to see if she had really made anything?” All eyes turned to Adele. She set down the ring of apricot yarn she was working on, took out a stack of completed cotton cowls in a rainbow of colors, and pushed them across the table toward