Bear Essentials by Mary Wine

Chapter One
     
    It couldn’t be that hard.
    Granger glared at the laughter sparkling in his sister’s
eyes and snorted at her amusement.
    “Fine. You just go and show me how it’s done.” Corey
fluttered her eyelashes at him before propping one hand onto her hip. “Get the
bear, big brother, and I’ll be suitably impressed with your resourcefulness.”
    She laughed again as she picked up her purse and headed for
the door. She stopped and turned her head to aim a hard look at him.
    “But I’m telling you that there is a waiting list for Wish
Bear and that company doesn’t budge an inch. Not for anyone.”
    Granger watched his sister leave his office as he snapped up
the brochure left behind on his desktop.
    Flipping through it, he stopped on the page that was titled
“Wish Bear”. A fluffy creation of fake fur, set with glass eyes and a nose,
stared back at him. It was a stuffed animal made by one Roslyn Gregory.
    Designer and production manager.
    Somehow, she managed to sell stuffed animals at ten times
the amount any toy store in town could. He had to admit to admiring her
business finesse, but that was as far as his good humor went. Wish Bear was the
company’s latest release in their line of custom, hand-assembled bears. It was
also the only thing his mother wanted for Valentine’s Day. Valerie Webb had smiled
sadly and told her children that it would have to wait because Wish Bear had a
waiting list and she really had everything she needed, after all. No, really,
time with her children was gift enough.
    Well, Granger wasn’t going to see his mother empty-handed on
Valentine’s Day. It was also her birthday, and since his father had passed
away, he and his sister had taken to ensuring their mother always had a
Valentine’s Day to remember. There had to be a way to get the toy. Sure, he
understood waiting lists, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a way to the front
of the line.
    He would just have to take a personal interest in it.
    * * * * *
    Roslyn stuck her tongue out at her assistant. Terry laughed
before slapping a stack of paperwork on the bench in front of her.
    “Have fun, Boss.”
    Terry verbally rolled the word “Boss” as she turned and her
heels clicked on the hallway floor. Roslyn rubbed at her forehead as she picked
up the first sheet of paper. She wanted to make animals. Instead she was
working through mountains of paperwork. She could hear the machines running and
a little music drifting into her office as the morning began. Her workers were
settling into another day of production while she was stuck making sure the
local chapter of equality for workers was satisfied with the diversity of her
work force.
    Blah.
    She hired people who could make bears. Race wasn’t part of
the interview process, threading an industrial sewing machine was. She needed
cutters who understood the value of precision and didn’t much care what ethnic
group they hailed from so long as they knew that a quarter-inch too much fabric
would cause the bear to be disproportioned. There just wasn’t much of a demand
for Quasimodo bears.
    Turning away from her workbench, she began to type up an
email that would keep her little plant open. Sure, the world needed its rules.
But she needed to keep to her production timeline too.
    Her mood soured as the morning ticked past and all she got
to place her fingers on was a keyboard. She loved working alongside her workers;
molding little bears that would brighten someone’s life. She’d happily spend
the entire day in the warehouse. It still stunned her to look around at what
her little home business had become. Selling her creations at craft fairs and
on eBay had launched her into a market that craved each new addition with a
hunger she had to scurry to feed.
    Sitting in her warehouse at night, she still looked around
in wonder at what her imagination had allowed her to build. Her people were
busy today, filling orders for Wish Bear. The prototype was sitting across