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Fourteen: Jade
I attempted to keep a conversation going because I knew that Jesse tended to literally walk away from conversations. But something in my gut told me that I had blown it today. I pursed my lips. This was not good. He had gone silent, and Maria appeared to be upset with him – more so than I was, in fact.
Though his comment about my jewelry being ‘gaudy’ had cut me to the core, it appeared he had learned his lesson upon hearing that my grandmother had taught me how to make this kind of jewelry. Sure, it would be nice if he apologized, but even seeing him look chastised was a pretty big step.
“How many tables of products are we allowed to have at this fundraiser, Jesse?” I turned to him.
Perhaps keeping the conversation focused on why we were all here together would keep him engaged enough to stay until we were done.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I usually take vacation. I’m gone. I don’t attend this thing, and this will be the only time I do, most likely.”
He didn’t have to rub in the fact that he could take vacation when he wanted to if he planned it out right. I simply took a deep breath. There was no reason to get mad with him when he was clearly on edge from the earlier outburst.
“Then, I’ll have to ask someone else who’s attended before,” I said. “Maria, I think we need to make a running list of questions that Jesse’s unable to answer so that we can take them to the chief or whoever is in charge of making sure this runs properly.”
I saw a frown flicker across Jesse’s face. He was probably thinking about how the chief had specifically entrusted our table to him because he thought Jesse would do such a good job. In truth, Jesse was not particularly useful because he had absolutely no experience with the event, and it looked like he was beginning to realize that.
“Didn’t the chief give us a small packet?” Maria popped her head up from where she was behind the cash register stand. “I think it had a whole bunch of answers to those kinds of questions. Where did we put it?”
“Probably the filing cabinet in the office. I’ll get it.”
I took a deep breath and headed to the back of the store. There were not a lot of places these documents could hide, and I knew that we had stuck it in the filing cabinet. It was the only place that made sense.
It took me a couple of minutes to find it since we didn’t have any file folders in the cabinet yet. The papers were all lying loose in the cabinet, and I had to sift through them. Once I found them, I headed back into the main part of the store.
There, I found Maria just staring at the door, her face all puckered up as if someone had force-fed her a lemon. I raised an eyebrow. What had made her make that face?
Then, I noticed that Jesse wasn’t in the shop.
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know,” Maria said, clearly just as confused as me. “I turned my back on him, just for a second to put one of the purses I used in the display away. Next thing I know, I hear the door open, and he’s just gone. I think his truck pulled out of the parking lot, too.”
“Really?”
I groaned. Then, I did the smart thing. I put the papers down on the counter and walked out to the parking lot. Sure enough, the truck was gone. Only Maria’s car remained in the parking lot. This was not good.
Had Jesse forgotten that he had given me a ride to the store? Or had he decided he didn’t care?
I returned to the main area of the store. Maria raised an eyebrow.
“He’s. Gone,” I said through gritted teeth. “You must have heard his truck leave the parking lot. There’s nothing else out there but your car. We carpooled, Jesse and I.”
“I’ll give you a ride home. It’s all right,” Maria said. “Let’s see what else we can learn about our display in this packet, and then I’ll get you home.”
I nodded. At this point, I just wanted to curl up in my little office and make some more earrings. Maybe have a cup of hot chocolate at the side, just to keep things comfortable. It didn’t really matter to me what I was making right now.
It’d relax me. That’s all I cared about.
“All right. Let’s do this, then.”
With that, Maria opened the little packet. She scanned the pages, and I walked over to her as she did so. If we were going to find the answer, it might come because we were both looking at the page instead of just one of us.
“Here it is!” I smiled as I found the information we were looking for. Then, I read right from the little packet, “You’re allowed to have up to two tables that could seat up to six people for a good meal – whether round or rectangular is up to you – for the merchandise. How you store extra merchandise is up to you. There will be room behind you for more, or under your tables, or in your cars.”
“All right,” Maria said. “How many people do you think this one would sit?”
She motioned to the one that we already had for things like this. I grabbed the small chair from the office – as we had only gotten a cheap folding chair for now – and put it at the side of the table. It took up about half of the room on one side.
