Anna Maria Junus

If you travel north – or actually northwest, because traveling straight north will land you in the ocean - on the main highway of Vancouver Island and drive past Nanaimo, you will eventually come upon the tourist town of Marina Colleen. It was here in 1899 that Douglas McTavish, a big, burly, black-haired Scotsman with a long history of royalty and privilege in his family tree, settled with his Irish wife Colleen. She had been a classic auburn-tressed beauty whose quick wit and fierce independence, a result of having been raised in the upstairs of a pub and having to fend off drunken men, had intoxicated Douglas McTavish more than any ale had ever done. He built the one hundred room castle on the hill for her, complete with an extensive library, secret rooms, and an army of servants. It was originally intended as the family home but his overzealous gift had depleted his finances and Colleen, who was not afraid of hard work, nor too proud to do it, decided that it should become a hotel and the McTavishes have been running it as such ever since.

 

The town itself was born as a result of the popularity of McTavish's castle and sports the usual assortment of shops that towns have. The post office, the hardware store, several banks, the dry cleaner's, Penny's coffee shop, the library, the police and fire stations and the houses, an assortment of Victorians, post war bungalows and fake Tudors, make up the downtown district.

 

At about eight o’clock every morning except Sundays I leave my house on Ronan Avenue, named after one of Douglas and Colleen's sons, and head through my neighborhood towards the ocean. You see that cute little pony-tailed blonde in the jogging shorts just leaving the big Georgian? That's not me. I'm the middle-aged pudgy woman leaving the small two story Victorian with the large front porch decorated with gingerbread details and the totem pole in the front yard.  The totem pole came with the house. I do not claim any native ancestry.

 

I am not jogging. I try and maintain a brisk walk, at least I think it is until little old ladies with canes pass by me. As I go  by the neighbor’s house, a modest cape cod,  Tilly the Scottish terrier, wearing her little tartan coat comes yapping to her front fence and follows me along until she crashes into the holly hedge. Her yaps turn into yelps as Mrs. Hodges comes to rescue her little darling, glaring at me as if it were my fault. This happens every morning and sometimes in the evenings if Tilly is out when I come home.

 

Every morning Ben Thomas comes out of his cottage in his bathrobe to grab his paper. He waves at me. I'm never sure if he intends to flash me or not. Telling him might result in either embarrassing him or encouraging him. Neither outcome appeals to me.

 

“Katherine!”

 

Lacey McKenzie runs up to me. She's a tall, gawky, ten year old who has befriended me, or I've befriended her. I'm not sure which of us benefits the most.

 

“See what I made with the floss you gave me!” She holds up her arm and I take a close look at the intricately braided pink and purple friendship bracelet.

 

“It's lovely,” I say as she walks beside me. Okay, I don't say “it's lovely”. I say, “It's really cool,” because for some reason I talk like a teenager instead of the grown elegant woman I'm supposed to be.

 

“Can I have some more? Now that I know how to do it I have some other ideas,” she says, being careful to step over the cracks on the sidewalk.

 

“Come down to the shop anytime.” I barely get this out before a boy on a bike whooshes past us narrowly missing Lacey.

 

“That's Billy. He's so dumb. Aren't boys dumb?”

 

I nod. “They get that way when they're about ten, and they get much worse before they get better. But they never fully recover from dumbness.”

 

“Never?”

 

“Well, we women keep believing, and hoping and dreaming that they will. We read love stories, and watch romantic movies, and imagine knights in shining armor but no, they never really recover from becoming dumb.”

 

Lacey sighed, “I think I already knew that.”

 

“Secretly, we all know it.”

 

“Lacey! Come see this!” a group of girls wave to her, and Lacey turns to me.

 

“Go ahead,” I tell her. She smiles and dashes off and I watch as she joins the others, her laughter and squeals ring out as they show her something on someone's cell phone and I remember what it was like to be ten and have no worries although when I was ten there was no such thing as cell phones for anyone, never mind ten-year-olds.

 

Walking down Main Street... yes, it is called Main Street although why I don't know because I'm sure there are enough McTavishes to name another street after and I'm also equally sure that there were no McTavishes named Main... where was I...oh yes... I pass all the shops, nod to Suzy the letter carrier who is due to have a baby in the next couple of months but still does her job because she likes the exercise, Matt the grocer who claims that his tomatoes are better than the supermarket's on the highway, and Evan the owner of the laundromat who is convinced that if he's persistent enough he will win the lottery. There on the right side going northeast is the marina where I've promised myself to one day have a sailboat just as soon as I learn how to swim and sail a boat. There's also the Marina Colleen Yacht Club where dances are held and people with money eat lunch.  About a mile from town I walk through the gates of The Orchards. The Orchards were once fruit orchards owned by the Pritchard family. When Thomas Pritchard inherited the Orchards he chose not to grow fruit anymore and turned the land into an outdoor mall which doesn't surprise me. I went to school with Tom and he was always complaining about the work involved with the orchards. I also remember him pelting me with apples when I was ten and giving me my first kiss under the cherry trees when I was fourteen.

 

In the center of The Orchards is a pond where geese and ducks swim. A bridge provides a short cut from one side of the pond to the other. Surrounding the pond and extending beyond it, are streets filled with various houses that are the specialty shops and in one section close to the beach, there’s a playground for the children. The Orchards are fairly quiet right now except for the bakery and coffee shop which open up before anything else does.

 

I move down Cherry Pie Lane past Piccolo’s, the music store owned by the Jakes family where I hear fourth daughter Francesca playing the violin. She plays with a lovely light touch and it’s a nice treat rather than later in the evening when her students come to make their instruments scream, test the hearing of dogs, and make noises that instruments were never designed to make.

 

I turn onto Peach Cobbler Avenue and stroll past the Gingerbread Haus, a brown stucco cottage decorated with white trim and brightly colored circles that look like M&M’s. The aroma of fresh bread circles under my nose and I stand there a moment wondering if I should go in or follow my diet which I had just started that morning for the two hundredth time. My diet loses.

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The bell tinkled and Gretchen a slightly heavy older woman beamed at me. “I have fresh cinnamon buns,” she said in her heavy Dutch accent.

 

I sighed and looked at the other offerings in the display case. Cake donuts, cherry tarts and sugar cookies tempted me. I dared not look at the cinnamon buns. “I’ll have a bagel with cream cheese.”

 

“Toasted?”

 

“Of course.”

 

The shop has pale pink walls and pastel colored tables and chairs. It looks like a gingerbread house on the outside and a birthday cake on the inside.

 

“Have you seen what that crazy man has done now?” Gretchen popped the bagel into a toaster. “Take a look!”

 

I went over to the blue gingham cafe curtains and looked out the window across the pond to Apricot Dumpling Street.

 

The crazy man is Gary Bales, a leftover from the hippy days when so many of them came up from the states to escape the draft. He now had a shop where he demonstrated and sold his blown glass. He is truly a gifted artist and he milked it by giving in to the gifted artist stereotype of being a little eccentric.

 

Now in front of the window of Prisms he had erected a display of glass figurines and a large hand lettered cardboard sign.

 

“I don’t see what the problem is,” I said. “Other than the sign is ugly.”

 

“You can’t read it?” Gretchen asked walking over to the window. “No I guess you can’t. I went over and took a look this morning before opening.”

 

“What did it say?”

 

“He has a bunch of glass dead soldiers and civilians, even colored them with red and the sign says ‘Stop the war in Iraq’.”

 

I laughed. “How do you know they're dead?”

 

“Because some of them are decapitated and some are cut in half and some have bullet wounds that go straight through. No one can survive that.”

 

“I guess not,” I shook my head. “He can’t do that. It’s against the Orchard rules.”

 

“Ya, ya, section thirty six. No political statements can be displayed. Hasn’t stopped him.” She shook her gray haired head and went back behind the counter where she took my bagel out of the toaster. “What kind of cream cheese you want?”

 

“Herb and garlic, please,” I said.

 

“You want garlic before you serve customers?” she asked.

 

I sighed. I loved herb and garlic cream cheese. “No I supposed not. Do you have strawberry?”

 

“I’m going to call,” she said as she spread the cream cheese. “People come here to get away from trouble. You want me to bag it or you want it in your hand?”

 

“I’ll just take it like that,” I said handing her the money.

 

She brought out a white bag and stuck a cinnamon bun inside. “For later,” she said. “My treat. It’s not like we’re at war, it’s those Americans.”

 

“We have troops there too,” I said.

 

“But we have not declared war, we’re peace keeping. He should go home.”

 

“He’s lived here for almost forty years now. This is home.” I took my bagel and the bag she handed me popping the bag in my oversized purse. “Are you going to come by today? I have some new magazines in.”

 

“Don’t you tempt me. I spend too much money there.”

 

“And I gain too much weight here,” I said as I went through the door.

 

I walked past several other shops, pausing to look in the window of Ebenezer's, a Christmas store. I always felt overwhelmed when I went in there. I wanted everything in sight and because I couldn't make a decision I usually walked out with nothing. There was a new display in the window. Carol – yes Carol which is a fitting name for an owner of a Christmas shop – had put out several sets of angels from different manufacturers. They weren't just Christmas angels and I could see how she might sell some now that weddings, graduations and family reunions were at the forefront of everyone's mind. There was a patchwork angel that appealed to me and I promised myself that I would get it soon. I went to the shop beside it and opened the door to Java the Hut. The interior here was warm, dark and cozy with soft wood paneling and leather couches and chairs.

 

“Did you see what he’s done now?” Tony the owner, a typical tall dark and handsome type, greeted me. “What would you like to try today?”

 

I looked up at the blackboard where the menu was, silently ticking off the ones I had tried this past month. I noticed a new one. “Kumodo Dragon Blend. That sounds interesting.”

 

Tony nodded and put the coffee beans in the grinder. “Remember last year when he streaked through the children’s park in protest of the war?”

 

“Yeah, it’s a good thing there weren’t any kids there, he would have been arrested as a pedophile,” Tony’s pretty dark haired wife, Nina, said, coming suddenly from the back carrying a tray of biscotti.

 

Tony handed me my coffee. “He’s not, he’s just politically…”

 

“Crazy,” Nina said. The shop bell tinkled. “He’s going to lose his shop if he keeps this up.”

 

“Who’s going to lose his shop?” Bettina asked as she stepped in. Bettina was about my age, in her mid forties and wore her hair short and gray. It suited her. I wasn’t ready to go gray and honestly had only enough gray hairs to warrant a Miss Clairol every few weeks. She owned the quilt store 'Bits and Pieces', next to my cottage.

 

“You have to ask?” Nina said.

 

“Oh, Gary. Harmless guy.” Bettina said. “Actually he can be a hoot, livens things up around here. Remember the time he brought the goat to cut the grass?”

 

“And it found its way into Maren’s shop and ate her yarns,” I said.

 

“It licked her yarns, it didn’t actually eat them,” Bettina replied.

 

“No it was too full from gorging on Gretchen’s cream buns,” Nina added. “The usual Bettina?”

 

Bettina nodded and I took that moment to leave the shop.

 

I stopped in front of Bits and Pieces and admired the quilt in Bettina’s front window. This one was a Baltimore sampler and I liked the soft pinks and purples. It actually gave me an idea for a cross-stitch design. I glanced over at Gary’s shop and then looked at my watch. I really needed to get to work so I resisted the temptation to walk over and see what the commotion was about. Besides he liked to go on tirades and I didn’t have the time.

 

I walked up to my cheery blue cottage with white trim and pink morning glories that twined themselves around the veranda and climbed the front steps. I admired the display in one window and decided that I needed a few more pieces. The theme was foreign places and I knew just who I could call up to display her work. The other window had a lace curtain that let the sunshine through so my stitchers could sit on the sofas in front of it, taking advantage of the natural light.

 

I unlocked the front door and the bell rang as I entered Thimble Fingers.

 

I admittedly decorated it with florals and checks. English country garden I thought although my understanding was that the style was out of fashion. It didn’t matter. I liked how the pastel green set off the pictures on the walls and the floral couches were reminiscent of an era when it was respectable for a lady to take time to do her needlework. Now it was a guilty pleasure. I sighed in contentment at my store. A cabinet painted with vines and flowers near the back of the store by the cutting table held bolts of fabrics. Needlework pictures, mostly done by myself, but many by customers who received free goods for allowing me to display them, hung on the walls, the patterns close by so that customers could find them easily. I had a wall of embroidery thread on the right side of my store as you come in, and racks of beads and embellishments. Throughout the store were display cases of patterns divided according to designer rather than subject. My customers preferred it that way and I knew my stock well enough to help someone who was looking for a specific kind of pattern. Baskets of cut fabrics and kits were scattered in any available spot and in the center stood my display case counter where I kept antique and reproduction sewing tools. On top of the counter was the computer and till.

 

My favorite part of my store was on the left side as you come in. Several chairs, two couches, and footstools surrounded a fireplace that I lit when the weather got nippy. There was a window seat in the bay window and a fake evergreen tree in the corner that I decorated according to the upcoming holiday. A coffee table stood in the center and side tables offered good lamps and a place to rest a cup. It was here that my customers came to stitch and chat, or where I held classes. And it was here that I spent many an afternoon or evening stitching in front of the window where I could watch the goings on.

 

Right now, with summer vacation coming, the tree was decorated to celebrate travel, like the front window.

 

I went to my computer behind the counter and checked to see if there were any orders. Most of my business was through the internet and my website. It took a lot of hours to keep the website up to date but it’s where my bread and butter came from. I had customers from all over the world.

 

I was pleased to see there were some orders so I gathered supplies, ran the credit card numbers, boxed up the orders, and then emailed the customers. I had already made money and I wasn’t even open for business yet.

 

With the coffee pot percolating merrily, I unlocked the front door.

 

Jenny came in just moments later. “Did you see what that crazy old guy has in front of his store?” she asked as she put her purse in the back room.

 

“I heard,” I said. Jenny came back out with a purple feather duster that we had sent away for from Flylady, and proceeded to dust the pictures on the walls.

 

“I thought you weren’t allowed to do that here,” she said, efficiently moving through the store, picking up a stray pattern or a skein of embroidery floss and putting them where they belonged. Her motions weren't wasted as she dusted. I would have been stopping all the time to look at patterns or to reflect on lunch. Not Jenny. Her blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, her makeup was meticulous yet didn't look made up, her white shirt was tucked neatly into crisp jeans and her slim figure told no tales of three children. She moved smoothly from one task to another, never stopping as she talked. I don't know how she did it because when I talk I have to stop and look at a person and wave my arms about like I'm conducting a symphony.  “Remember when you wanted to put up flyers for Rosie Douglas when she was running for mayor?” she asked as she straightened out the contents of a basket.

 

“I know. He’s breaking section thirty six of The Orchards contract.”

 

“You didn’t get away with it, why should he?”

 

“He won’t. The owners will hear about it soon enough if they haven’t heard now and he’ll be forced to take it all down. He knows that too, but he wants to make a point before it happens.”

 

“Aren’t you mad?” Jenny moved some of the ornaments on the tree, stepping back to look at the effect. She never said anything about the way I did things, like decorating the tree, she just looked at me as if I did things all wrong and then redid them. I would be annoyed, but most of the time she improved things.

 

“No. Why should I be? He’s only making a statement. It won’t last long. He’s getting the attention he wants. There are more important things than what Gary’s up to.”

 

“Nothing ruffles you, does it?” Jenny commented as she went to the front door to shake the dust off the duster.

 

I said nothing. The statement couldn't be further from the truth. The reality was that I had this little shop because things did ruffle me. Or things had ruffled me, a great deal, until life forced me to rethink things.

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