"What's Audra getting her this year?" Nick asked hoping for an inspiration
Jarrod thought. "She's making her a robe... and before you ask. I think Michelle is crocheting something."
"Maybe that's what we should do," Heath suggested.
"Have Audra and Michelle make her something," Nick said.
Jarrod raised his eyebrows. "I think what he means, brother Nick is that we should make her something, which is an idea. She's made us many things over the years."
"Make what?" Nick asked sarcastically. "Do either of you KNOW how to make anything?"
"I suppose we could try to make a new riding blouse," Heath offered.
"You mean sew?" Jarrod had never even replaced a button.
"How hard can it be." Heath had done some basic mending in his years alone.
Jarrod had work to finish so he slapped his hands on the desk and said, "Well, the blouse it is! You two go to the store and buy what we need...and don't forget some instructions."
Later that afternoon the brothers sat in the study sorting through an array of sewing supplies, material and accessories. Michelle and Audra watched the spectacle.
"You're seriously going to MAKE a blouse?" Michelle said knowing full well that her male cousins could barely BUY a blouse."
"Why not," Jarrod told her. "Heath got everything we need..."
Michelle glanced through the items. "Where's the tailor's paper?"
They looked at her blankly.
"To make the pattern," she said. "Or did you buy a pattern?"
Jarrod looked at Nick and Heath.
"We got this book." Heath handed his cousin the soft bound book.
Michelle took it and showed it to Audra. "Hattie's How to Sew in Ten Easy Lessons."
Audra laughed. "Are you sure you wouldn't like us to help you?"
"Yes. At least let us make you a proper pattern."
Jarrod dropped a hand on his cousin's shoulder. "I think we can manage."
Michelle looked again at the book in her hand. "Ten easy lessons," she repeated. "You only have two days."
"That's five lessons a day," Audra put in.
"I know it's hard to accept," Jarrod began, "but this is one time we don't need you."
Michelle thrust the book into his hand. "Maybe you don't need me. But you're going to need a pattern."
Jarrod turned to his brothers. "Heath, go get one of Mother's blouses..."
Michelle and Audra looked at each other and laughed as Heath left the study.
Jarrod continued. "We'll simply lay it across the fabric, pin it and cut."
Nick's eyes widened. "Brilliant!" he said. "Absolutely, brilliant!"
Heath returned with a blouse in his hands. "Now we should be all set."
Michelle tried again. "I really think that..."
Jarrod finished the sentence, "that you and Audra should leave and let us get to work." He laid a hand on her back and one on Audra's and guided them to the door. He escorted them through and closed the door. Michelle stood there and folded her arms, humming to pass time.
"Are you just going to stand here?"
Michelle nodded.
"Jarrod said they didn't need any help."
"Oh, we'll hear the cry soon."
"What cry?"
"YOWWWW!!! */#@~/#*@"
"That one." Michelle entered the room followed by Audra.
Jarrod was sitting in a chair teeth clenched, holding his thigh and rocking from pain. The fabric was draped across his lap and a large straight pin held Victoria's old blouse and the fabric to his leg. Nick and Heath were trying to assist. But Jarrod was saying, "Don't touch me. Don't touch me!" to them.
Michelle folded her arms. "That's a good one, Jarrod. In all my years of sewing. I not once used my thigh for a pin cushion. Very inventive." She and Audra couldn't hide their amusement.
"It was my fault," Nick said. "He had the material in his lap and told me to pin the blouse to it."
Jarrod glared. "I meant to the material not my lap." He turned to Michelle. "Well, are you just going to stand there? Get this thing out of me."
"I thought this was one time you didn't need my help," she said trying not to laugh.
Jarrod was talking through clenched teeth. "Just...get it out."
"Audra, get me the tweezers...and some alcohol." Audra left the room.
Jarrod looked at Michelle. "Don't say anything."
With the offending object removed Jarrod had new resolve. "Alright, ladies, I think we have everything under control." He made a shooing gesture with his hand.
"Suit yourself. Audra and I will be putting the finishing touches to our gifts if you need us."
"We won't," Nick said confidently.
The women retreated.
They had been working in the living room for fifteen minutes, Michelle putting fringe to the afghan she had made, Audra embroidering a border on the robe, when Heath emerged and headed for the door.
"Forget something, Heath?" Audra asked.
Heath stopped. "I'm not supposed to tell you but I have to get more cloth. We kind of cut the other wrong." He went for the door.
"Buy a pattern!" Michelle called to him as he left.
Heath returned two hours later with a bolt of fabric and no pattern. They proceeded with the project as though it were a top secret mission. Every once in a while Audra or Michelle would listen at the door, hear some fumbling, then one of them saying, "Get away from that door." The whole thing was finally put under lock and key until the next day.
The next morning started with Heath going for more fabric but no one would say why. He returned with two bolts (just to be on the safe side) and no pattern.
Michelle took her post at the door again. Audra approached. "They're just going to tell you to get away."
"I know. But I'm afraid they're going to hurt themselves."
THUMP! CRASH!
Michelle burst into the room. "What was that?"
"Nothing," Jarrod said.
"But we can fix it," Nick added without thinking.
While struggling with a bolt of cloth it had knocked a vase from the desk. It lay shattered on the rug.
Michelle bent to retrieve the pieces.
"You know if you used the sewing room upstairs you'd have much more room," Audra told them.
"We're doing just fine," Jarrod said. He was determined not to let a little sewing get the better of him.
Michelle held up the shards. "I can see that."
"Speaking of seeing. Can we see what you've done so far?" Audra was genuinely interested.
"You'll see tomorrow when we give it to mother," Jarrod told her.
"But why..."
"Audra," Michelle began. "The reason they don't want us to see it now is that when your mother opens it tomorrow WE won't know what it was suppose to have been." They left the room again.
"Boy howdy, maybe Michelle was right," Heath observed holding up a very mangled piece of fabric.
Nick was counting buttons. "About what?"
"Us needing help. This sewing stuff sure looks a lot easier when they do it."
Nick gulped. "Oh, no."
Jarrod rose from his seat. "What's the matter."
"I swallowed it."
"Swallowed what?" Jarrod asked him.
"The button."
Michelle heard her name being yelled across the house. She arrived in the study to see Heath and Jarrod pounding Nick on the back.
"He swallowed a button." Jarrod thumped Nick on the back again.
"So you're beating him?"
They stopped the pummeling. "You're not going to get the button out," she told them. "And you know what? I'm not even going to ask how he swallowed it in the first place." She turned to leave."
"Ask her," Heath said. Both Jarrod and Nick held up their hands and shook their heads. "Okay, fine, well I for one am not too proud. Michelle, we need some help."
Michelle turned back to them. "Do you all feel that way?"
"We sure don't." Jarrod was now taking this personally.
She shrugged and left.
Heath was agitated. "Why did you let her leave? You both know darn well all we have is an abundance of rags." He indicated a pile of mutilated fabric which was hidden behind the desk. "Not to mention we ruined the blouse we were using." He held up the shirt to make his point.
Nick snatched it from him. "Details. She'll have a better one than this when we're through."
A half an hour later Heath went to buy more fabric.
"A wonder what lesson they're on," Audra quipped.
When Heath returned Michelle ducked out of the house. "If they ask, I went for a ride," she told Audra. Which wasn't exactly a lie. But she had to work fast. She returned two hours later undetected with packages that she took upstairs to her room.
A few hours later Audra opened Michelle's door. "How's it going?" she asked.
Michelle looked up from what she was doing. "I'm working as fast as I can. I may be up all night."
"I'll bring you a sandwich," Audra said and closed the door.
The hour was late and in the study the brothers surveyed the room. It looked like a cyclone had struck. Pins, and thread and material everywhere. And nothing presentable enough to give to their mother. The closest they had come was something with only one sleeve and it was five feet long.
Nick leaned against the desk. "Well, now what do we do?"
Heath was busy picking up pins from the floor. "I told you we should have asked Michelle."
Nick stood. "Maybe we still can."
Jarrod shook his head. "No. Not after the way I treated her..."
"WE treated her," Nick corrected.
Jarrod sighed, "We'll just have to salvage something from the wreckage."
An hour later Audra entered to find them wrapping a square of cloth, about twelve inches by twelve inches. "What is it?"
"A handkerchief," Jarrod said matter-of-factly. He was trying to maintain any dignity in the situation that he possibly had left.
"Let me take it and put it with the other presents," Audra offered when it was wrapped. She disappeared with the box and they did not see it again until after dinner the next night when it was time to give Victoria her gifts.
She had already opened Audra's robe and Michelle's afghan.
Michelle retrieved the gift box that held the brothers' gift. "Your sons got together and made you something," she told her aunt.
Jarrod, Nick and Heath looked at each other. Was she mocking them?
"It's beautiful!" They heard their mother exclaim. They looked up to see that what she had taken from the box was not a last resort handkerchief but a riding blouse, beige with tailored cuffs. "Oh, you must've worked for weeks," she continued gushing.
"We had help," Jarrod admitted when he found his voice. But he really did not know what to say. He steered his cousin to the side. "Why did you do it?"
"I wanted Aunt Victoria to have the gift you had in your hearts to give her," Michelle told her slightly embarrassed cousin. "No matter how stubborn you three were being."
"How can we ever thank you?"
"By never trying to sew anything ever again," she stated firmly.
Jarrod laughed as he dropped a hand on her shoulder. "That is a deal!"
THE END