her daughter Dawn Bodine, whoâd married into the Brewton Creek Bod-ines, pushed their way through the door. Shortly after that, Byrle Coopersmith, another of Carmelaâs staunch regulars, also arrived. They were all shocked to hear that the police were now eyeing Billy Cobb as a possible suspect.
âBut those latex gloves were used for stripping and shellacking,â argued Gabby. âEverybody knows that.â
âSure,â said Carmela. âEven I keep a box of latex gloves in the store. For when I work with glass paints and things. It doesnât make me a murderer.â
âDidnât you try to take over part of Bartyâs space a few months ago?â asked Baby.
âI did,â said Carmela.
Baby put a finger to her mouth. âSsshhh.â
âAll this talk about murder is making me very jumpy,â said Byrle. âCanât we just work on our projects for a while?â
âIâm making a vacation scrapbook,â piped up Dawn. She was the youngest of Babyâs daughters, youthful and vivacious, recently married and just back from a trip to Paris. Dawn was also the spitting image of her mother, only twenty-six years younger.
âWhat kind of album are you using?â Carmela asked Dawn.
Dawn held up a large square album with a plain cream-colored cover. âThis one. Momma got it for me.â She smiled at Baby, who was sitting next to her.
âHow would you ladies like a few ideas on how to create your own album covers?â asked Carmela.
âWhat fun!â exclaimed Baby, pulling out an album of her own. âWe design all these wonderful scrapbook pages and sometimes forget that our album covers can be personalized, too.â
âLet me show you one quick idea,â said Carmela. âAnd then you can improvise and do your own versions.â
âFreestyle,â joked Byrle.
âExactly,â replied Carmela as she pulled open cupboard doors, gathering the materials she needed.
âOkay, then,â said Carmela, spreading everything out around her. âIâm going to start with this Eiffel Tower rubber stamp. Using gold ink, Iâm going to stamp an Eiffel Tower image onto a three-by-three-inch square of light blue card stock.â
âYou need the colored oil crayons, too?â asked Gabby, hovering nearby.
âPlease,â said Carmela. She took the box of crayons from Gabby and pulled out a dark blue and a purple crayon. As an afterthought she grabbed a pink oil crayon, too. âNow Iâm just going to color in a little bit of the Eiffel Tower,â said Carmela, rubbing the oil crayons on the inside and around the outer edges of the Eiffel Tower image.
âPretty,â said Byrle. âNow what? You smudge it?â
âCarefully smudge it,â said Carmela. âA controlled smudge, like doing your eye shadow. To achieve a soft, almost pastel look. Then we trim the square with a deckle-edged scissors to get a nice torn-edge effect.â Carmela trimmed the image, then carefully set it down on the table. It shone like an oversized French postage stamp.
âNow,â said Carmela, âweâll take our album cover and adhere this dark blue and purple paisley paper to the right side. On the left side weâll use this light-colored cream and gold paisley paper.â Carmelaâs hands worked swiftly with the papers and adhesive and, in a few minutes, the album cover had assumed a whole new look.
âThatâs gorgeous,â said Dawn. âVery rich looking. But what about the Eiffel Tower image?â
âIâm getting to that,â said Carmela. âNow we take our deckle-edged Eiffel Tower square and paste it on. Not quite centered . . . maybe a little to the right.â The Eiffel Tower image went on, then Carmela picked up a calligraphy pen.
âTo add a finishing touch to our cover, Iâm going to do some hand-lettering across the cream and gold
Sloan Wilson
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Sherwood Smith
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Jack J. Lee
Ishmael Reed
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