I, on the other hand, have been telling her everything I’m feeling, which isn’t like me either. It’s like our roles are reversed. Regardless, it’s been so nice to be able to tell her about how much I regret losing Riggs, and how I don’t think I’ll ever find someone like him again, and how it isn’t getting any easier. She doesn’t offer any advice. She just listens, which is what I need most. Thank God for our friendship.
Without Rhonda at the fabric store, I was on my own, so I got in touch with Elsie to see what my options were. Together, we came up with a game plan. It started with me hiring two girls. Only three people responded to my job postings, and one of them was fifteen, so it wasn’t much of a choice. Regardless, I got lucky. Stacy and Jennifer, both in their twenties, have been real lifesavers. In no time, they learned how to run the place. That’s left me with some spare time to try something I’ve been considering for a while.
It started when I was altering Riggs’s pants. There are a lot of farms and ranches around here and men like Zane Shackler are just as hard on their clothes as Riggs and Ash. That got me thinking. With Chelsea’s help, I made a pair of pants and a few T-shirts for Zane. For the pants, I looked at hundreds of samples before I chose a heavy denim, 100% cotton with a twill weave. I triple-stitched everything and added a second layer of fabric to the front of the thighs and a little past the knees. It took more than a few attempts to make the added layer look stylish, but I was pleased with how it finally came out. Like Riggs’s pants, I lined the tops of all the pockets with thin strips of leather.I also added a cell phone pocket on the side of the right leg. And to finish it off, I embroidered a simple pattern across the back pockets. It was something I sketched, tweaked, erased, and resketched until it was just right.
I decided to go with an extra-heavy 100% organic cotton for the shirts. Like the pants, all the hems were triple-stitched—not that it was needed, but it gave the shirts a real rugged look. The most important feature was the fit, especially the length and around the neckline. I also put a lot of effort into making a shirt that hung straight and didn’t blouse out at the bottom. I made three shirts for Zane—one black, one army-green, and one khaki.
Chelsea said Zane loved everything and wanted to know how much it would cost to make more. That’s when I decided to go for it. I rearranged the shop to add a couple of display racks. Then I made several pairs of pants in the most popular sizes and did the same with the shirts. To my delight, and utter surprise, they sold out the first day. That was exciting.
After that, I did some research to determine how to scale up, not that I’m ready for that. I don’t have the funds for a laser cutter or anything a commercial production line would have, and I don’t have the space for big equipment anyway, but I did have an idea.
I went to the Busy Beaver, the hardware store in Sweetbriar. Gerald Guthrie, the older man who owns the place, special-ordered a roll of rubber floor mat for me.
I used it to make all my patterns, so now I can lay the thick pieces of rubber on the fabric and trace them with my rotary cutter. It’s made cutting all the patterns a lot faster.
During the first week, the pants and shirts sold as fast as I could make them. By the second week, the demand was more than I could keep up with, so I reached out to some women in town who are good with a sewing machine and asked if they wanted to make a little extra money working from home. They did, so I ordered more rolls of rubber, and we made more patterns.
Then something unexpected happened. Guys from Portland started showing up. They said they saw photos on Instagram. And these were regular guys who didn’t need extra-durable clothes for work. They just liked how our stuff looked.
Now I have six women making clothes to sell in the shop. Since the fabric was purchased through the shop, and my time is paid for through the shop, I don’t know if I can still consider it a side hustle. To me it is, but what if Elsie doesn’t see it that way? I don’t want to take a chance on ruining a good thing, so I’m treating new sales like they’re an addition to the store’s revenue, which means profits are way up. Besides, Elsie is paying me more than I made before—a lot more—so I can easily meet all of my personal obligations, like rent and groceries, and with the added sales from clothing, I’m getting closer to owning the shop outright.
When I got back from New Zealand, Elsie said I could buy the shop from her for two hundred thousand dollars, and that includes the building. I keep wondering what Elsie paid for it. When you consider it’s commercial property, it had to be more than that, probably a lot more, but she’s been so nice and insists she’s not losing money. I don’t know if I believe her, but either way, it’s an exceptionally generous offer, and one I couldn’t bring myself to turn down, even ifthere was a bit of charity to it. If I had to guess, I have her brother to thank for the low price. Sometimes I have to pinch myself because I still can’t believe I’m going to own the businessandthe building. It only makes me appreciate Riggs even more.
And speaking of Riggs, I have lunch with Keegan and Josh at least once a week now. They’ve apologized for how they treated me several times, and now it’s water under the bridge. So far, they’re paying themselves a livable wage and still turning a profit. They won’t tell me about the deal they made with Riggs to buy him out, only that it was a better offer than they could have hoped for. Riggs made them promise not to discuss it with me.
None of us has seen or heard from Dad. Keegan found out the house is going into foreclosure. I doubt Dad can get any roofing jobs now that his sons are giving him competition. But it’s not like he was running his business anyway, so he only has himself to blame.
As usual, I have a lot on my plate. I still get tons of requests for dresses. With the new men’s clothing line, I don’t have time, so I need to find someone to pass the torch to. There’s a girl I keep hearing about, a student studying fashion at the community college, and it sounds like she makes some pretty amazing dresses. I’m going to try to reach out to her today. Besides that, I have a fabric store to run, which means ordering inventory, processing returns, paying bills, and trying to re-establish the sewing classes I’ve been neglecting. I think maybe Stacy would be a good fit to start the classes up again.
I’m in Ms. Southerby’s old office at the back of the shop, looking over the bills and wondering why the power company keepsraising its rates when my phone rings. I look at the screen to see it’s Elsie. I sent her my weekly report this morning. I hope there isn’t a problem with it.
“Hello.”
“Maddie, how are you?”
“I’m good. Did you get my report?”
“I did. That’s why I’m calling. I’m wondering if these numbers are correct.”
My chest tightens. What did I miss? “I think so. Why?”
“I crunched the numbers, and they don’t seem to add up.”
“I don’t understand.” A knot the size of a sewing machine forms in my stomach. What could I have done wrong? I was so careful to make sure I got everything right.
“We invest in a lot of businesses,” she says. “Each month we do an evaluation, and the first thing we look at is growth rates. If I see an annual growth rate of five to seven percent, I’m thrilled. If I see a drop, I get concerned. If I see anything higher than fifteen percent, I want to know more. If it’s higher than twenty-five percent, I get suspicious, because that’s unheard of. Do you know what your percentage is?”
I feel like I should know this, but I don’t. “No, but it can’t be down. The store is doing really well.”
She laughs. “Maddie, it’s up 236%! Numbers like this need an explanation.”
My heart is racing, and not in a good way. Are there expenses I wasn’t aware of? Is that why it seems like business is so good? I’m pretty sure I’ve been paying everything, so that seems unlikely. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the clothes we’ve been selling. I didn’t knowhow to list them on the report, so I just put them down as fabric we sold.”
“Clothes?”
“Yeah, I got the idea when I was altering some things for Riggs.”
“Okay, I’m looking at your spreadsheets. Are the denim and cotton fabrics the clothes? There’s a huge spike in the profit margins there.”
