Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing by KATHY CANO-MURILLO Page A

are!”
    “I am not related to you,” Stephanie groaned as she tipped her hat to cover her face.
    “Whatever,” Jennifer said, gliding clear lip gloss across her lips.
    A curvy black woman wearing a teal tracksuit, also with smoothed pin curls around her face, shoved her arm in the air. “Me next! I love your blog, Scarlet. I read it every night before I go to sleep. You’re always so cheery. Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve never stitched a thing; I’ve never even threaded a needle. I’m just here to meet you in person. If that means I get to learn how to sew something for this beautiful bod of mine, all the better!”
    Scarlet immediately walked up to her new fan and put her arm around her shoulders. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. What’s your name, doll?”
    “Ohliveyah!”
    “Olivia!” Scarlet repeated. “I love that name!”
    The woman shook her finger. “Nuh-uh. Not
Olivia
. Ohliveyah!”
    “My bad. I’m sorry! How do you spell it?” Scarlet asked with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment.
    “O-L-I-V-I-A. Ohliveyah! Let me slow it down.
Oh
—as in Oh, my lord! And then
Live
—as in Lance Armstrong LIVEstrong. And then
Yah!
—as in YAH! Let’s do this!”
    “How ’bout we just call you Oli?” asked Mary Theresa.
    Olivia turned in her direction. “In this life, every mood is a choice—or rather, a pattern. I don’t know about you all, but I’d rather have more good moods—patterns, I mean—than bad.” She swiveled back toward the rest of the room. “I dated and then married a bad
pattern
with two legs and a thick head. After ten years, my divorce is my Christmas present to myself. I didn’t only change my last name, I turned my first name into an affirmation. There are lots and lots of Olivias, but there is only one Ohliveyah. I’m working on starting all over with a new pattern, and if that means no pattern at all, so be it.”
    “Right on, Olivia, my kind of chica,” Scarlet said. “What are you interested in making in the class?”
    “Anything you got,” Olivia said. “Bring it on. In fact, I’ll adopt the ‘patternless’ concept for other areas in my life as well. Loosen up that daily grind.”
    “Sounds good in theory, Olivia. But we can’t function without rules.”
    This time everyone turned to face the condescending voice from the west side of the room.
    “Mary!” Scarlet said, excited to see her again.
    “Actually, it is all one name—Mary Theresa. Not Mary. Not Theresa. Together… Mary Theresa,” she corrected.
    “I see you had a strict Catholic mom too.” Scarlet chuckled. “What kind of pattern do you have going on?”
    Mary Theresa sucked her teeth. It took every ounce of energy not to walk out of the stupid, menial class and the crusty record shop. But Hadley had mentioned on the phone that he was proud of her for following through with the assignment.
    “I have a pattern for my family, and it’s worked fine so far,” she said. “That’s about it.”
    Scarlet walked over to Mary Theresa’s table. “Did your husband like the record? That was so sweet of you to come out here and hunt it down for him.”
    “Yes, he did,” Mary Theresa said. “I really don’t want to discuss it, I just want to get the class over with.”
    Scarlet felt awful for obviously touching on a sore spot in front of everyone, and made a mental note to apologize in private. She examined Mary Theresa: the perfectly creased mom jeans, pressed navy golf shirt, and her pretty brown hair pulled in a too-tight ponytail. All visual indicators of a stressed lifestyle. If it were another time and place, Scarlet would kidnap her, send her to a spa, and give her a movie-star makeover.
    Mary Theresa kept her hands—slim fingers, trimmed,unpolished nails—clasped together. “When you said ‘patternless sewing’—you didn’t literally mean without patterns, correct?”
    Scarlet sat on top of the table next to Mary Theresa and swung her short, shapely legs. “Sweets, why did