Page 21 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

Overenthusiastic with the scissors.

No mention of the fact that he’d written six inches on his note instead of six centimetres. It had been his mistake, not hers, and she was tempted to point that out, but there was something sweet – she’d almost say naïve – about Harry, and there was no point in embarrassing the guy any more than he already was.

‘I’m not sure we’d be able to sell those,’ said the volunteer behind the till. ‘They are very short. If they were women’s jeans, perhaps. Some women like wearing cut-offs.’

Taylor walked over, and pretended to examine the jeans. ‘Fantastic stitching though. The overzealous seamstress certainly knows what she’s doing.’ She glanced at Harry; his cheeks were scarlet now, and he avoided meeting her gaze.

‘How about I take them?’ she heard herself saying. ‘I’ll do something with them and bring them back. In fact, I’ll make them look so fabulous that you’ll not only be able to sell them, you’ll want to display them in your window. How does that sound?’

‘Sounds good to me.’ The volunteer couldn’t bundle the jeans into their plastic bag fast enough. She practically shoved it into Taylor’s hands.

‘What do you reckon, Harry? Is that okay with you?’

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Please. Be my guest.’

*

She had been worried that she’d lose clients when she moved to Hebbleswick, but word was already spreading that there was a new shop in town where you could get a new zip put in your jeans or a new lining in your coat, and she was busier than ever. She’d had a couple of enquiries about curtains too. No-one had ordered a dress though. Not yet, anyway.

The jobs were piling up. In Essendale, Taylor had relied on her memory to know which garment belonged to which customer. These days, there were so many that she couldn’t possibly keep track. She dreaded muddling up Mrs Hamilton-Jones’s peony skirt with Mrs Trueman’s poppy dress, so was meticulously writing everything in her notebook, which took even more time.

And now she had gone and landed herself with upcycling Harry’s pair of jeans. Not only upcycling them, but making them into something so special that the Oxfam shop would want to display them in the window. She loved supporting charity shops, but when she was this busy, it was a challenge she wished she hadn’t set herself. What on earth had come over her?

It wasn’t as if she fancied Harry and was trying to impress him.

‘Harry,’ she said to herself. ‘I am going to make your jeans into something wonderful. Although they’ll be rather funky, so I suspect you won’t want to wear them yourself.’

A vision was forming in her head now. She could turn the jeans into shorts, but that was too obvious; anyone could do that. Instead, she planned to make them longer by adding contrasting fabric at the bottom, and what was more, she was going to turn them into flares.

She ought to be getting on with the pile of paid work that was hanging on her clothes rail, waiting to be tackled, but the jeans were calling to her. They excited her; it was the thought of making something unique, something that said ‘Taylor’. So what if it wasn’t going to make her any money? It was in a good cause and would be fun.

She rummaged through the remnants box, looking for the right fabric to inspire her. There was striped green fabric from a client’s curtains, seashell fabric from someone’s bathroom blind and a large piece of turquoise polycotton – she couldn’t remember where that had come from. All of these would work, but none felt quite right. Then right at the bottom of the box, she found a piece of red tartan. It was printed cotton, rather than traditional woollen tartan, but that was better as the finished garment could still be machine-washed. The tartan was of a similar weight to the denim, perhaps a little lighter, but it wasn’t flimsy by any means. Yes, this was going to work.

She opened her notebook, turned to a blank page and began to sketch. When she had a design that she was happy with, she picked up the jeans and, using some tailor’s chalk, drew a line to mark where she planned to cut, then reached for the scissors.

She worked out the size and shape of the tartan panels and pinned the fabric in place to see how it looked. She wanted this garment to be perfect. She overlocked the edges of each seam for a neat, professional finish, then took extra care over the top stitching. When she’d finished, she gave the jeans a quick iron and tried them on. They were too big for her, but the new flared bottoms hung beautifully.

But they still needed an extra touch. An extra bit of magic. Taylor carefully unpicked the stitching to remove the back pockets, then, using them as a template, she created two new ones out of the tartan fabric and stitched them in place.

Once again, she tried the jeans on, gazing over her shoulder at her bottom in the mirror and admiring the new pockets. They’d look even better on someone who was the right size. In fact, they looked so good that she almost didn’t want to part with them, but she’d promised, so part with them she would.

She glanced at her watch, and was surprised to see how much time had passed. She’d been so absorbed, that she’d forgotten to eat lunch, so grabbed a couple of custard creams from the biscuit jar. Before long, it would be time for the school run. The last few hours had been so satisfying, so different from her normal working day, when she often clock-watched, longing for the minutes to pass more quickly.

As Taylor walked to Hebbleswick station a little later, her steps felt lighter. She wondered if she might upcycle something else, something she could wear. The white shirt, perhaps, that she’d bought for the flat viewing. When would she ever wear a boring white shirt again? If she made it more ‘Taylor’, she would wear it more often.

As the train trundled towards Essendale, Taylor pictured the shirt. Perhaps she could add a contrasting fabric like she had with the jeans, replacing the white fabric of the collar, cuffs and button stand with something more interesting, more colourful. As with the jeans, the key would be in selecting the right fabric.

The school gates opened, the children began to spill out, and Taylor suddenly remembered the peacock fabric left over from Mrs Jones’s curtains. She was envisaging the shirt with peacock cuffs and collar when she felt a little hand slip into hers. She’d been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed Max appear by her side.

‘Come on, Mum. Let’s get out of here.’

She didn’t need to look at his face to know he’d had another bad day; his tone of voice said it all.

They walked down the high street. As they passed the white geese, Max didn’t flinch, but instead hissed back at them, baring his teeth.

‘Bugger off,’ he said to them.

‘Max,’ Taylor warned. ‘No bad words.’