Chapter 43
When Sheila woke up the next day, she was surprised to find that she’d fallen asleep in her evening gown. After spending half the day shopping in Grand Caymen and the evening at the awards banquet, she’d stretched out on her bed to unwind before getting ready for bed. Hmmm. And here she was. Completely dressed and made up. She struggled to get out of bed and glanced at herself in the mirror, laughing out loud. What a mess!
And last night she’d looked the prettiest she had ever looked, except for maybe her wedding day.
She had sat at the head table with all of the big designers and talked about design, trends, paper versus digital, and how many exciting changes were happening in their field. When the time for the award came, Sheila’s heart had raced. She’d be speaking in front of two thousand people, those in the huge dining room and those in the other dining rooms who watched from monitors.
“We have a very special guest this evening. Sheila Rogers, who is the winner of our Creative Spirit Award, has been scrapbooking for thirty years. She has a successful home-based scrapbooking business and, I might add, she maintains a weekly crop along with running her household. Did I mention she has four children?” Grace had said.
The audience had applauded.
“We’ve already told you about her design skill. You all know how talented she is. She’s being honored tonight for those impressive skills, yes, but also her passion and determination. Thanks for coming aboard, Sheila!”
When Sheila stepped onto the small stage, after adjusting to the lights and the camera, she glimpsed herself on some big screens in the back of the room. She beamed. She cut a fine figure for a woman in her midforties. She blew a kiss at the crowd and they roared.
“Thank you all, thank you!” she said. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” She was glistening in her dress and happier than she could remember. But the tears started then—and she’d never been a pretty crier. Soon, mascara was running down her cheeks and she became a snotty mess as she was whisked away by one of the nice young servers.
Now, she glanced at the clock. Did she have time for a run? She didn’t have to meet the others for another two hours. She reached for her workout clothes. She would at least try.
Coming back from her run, she passed by Henry’s room, which had a huge plastic sheet draped over the door. A person in a white suit with strange-looking head gear passed by her and entered the room. They must have found the source of the poison in Harold’s room! That was sort of a relief.
After her shower, Sheila headed to the breakfast buffet, where all of her crew were already waiting. Some had plates already piled high with food. Randy’s plate had huge Belgian waffles with whipped cream and strawberries. Goodness, the man could eat.
“Where’ve you been?” Paige asked.
“I’m only a few minutes late. I went for a run,” Sheila said.
“Trip over anything?” Paige asked with a grin.
“Not this time—thanks for asking,” Sheila shot back at her.
“You feeling okay?” Vera said, coming up to the table with a plate with an omelet and hash browns on it.
Sheila shrugged. “Not quite one hundred percent, but I’m getting there. You?”
Paige made a wavy hand gesture indicating she was so-so.
Sheila surveyed all the food and couldn’t help but think of the poison possibilities. She told the others what she’d noticed earlier.
“I was hanging out in the kitchen last night,” Randy said. “Turns out there was a lot of investigating and testing the food that we didn’t know about. At least the food is perfectly safe. They knew within hours that it wasn’t food poisoning.”
“How did they know that?” Vera asked.
“They have a safety inspection team on board. The food testing is rigorous.”
“Where did the poison come from then?” Paige asked.
“Evidently something in Harold’s room,” Sheila said, and turned her attention to the buffet. Suddenly she was ravenous.
“We were just talking about the crop before you arrived. It’s going to be so much fun!” Randy said, then took a huge bite of waffle.
“I love Christmas-themed scrapbooking,” Vera said, and sighed. “And I love Christmas since Elizabeth has come along. It’s so much fun playing Santa.”
“Love those dolls you bought her yesterday,” Paige said.
“I want to capture each moment,” Vera said wistfully. “Like my mama says, it’s futile to try to stop time. But I say I can try to at least savor it.”
“You can,” Sheila said. “That’s what we scrappers do.”
Later, when the group entered the cropping room, it was like walking into a Christmas wonderland, complete with a Santa and elves. A live string quartet was playing Christmas music and there was fake glittering snow strewn about the room. Sheila was seized by a pang of homesickness. Backdrops displayed quaint little towns decorated for the holidays. Cumberland Creek could have been one of those places. The cruise had created a winter Christmas scene for everybody here when Vera and the others already had the real thing at home waiting for them. Sheila shook it off as they arrived at their tables and set eyes on all of the wonderful crop goodies waiting for them.
“Welcome to the Scrap Your Christmas Crop,” said the woman in the front of the room. “Do you know what one of the biggest challenges to scrapbooking your Christmas is? That’s right. Someone said it over there.” She pointed off to the left. “It’s time. Well, we have a few pointers for you today as you scrapbook. Just a reminder, folks. I know some of you came from breakfast, but we have Christmas goodies at the food table. The tables will be full all day long.”
Sheila had known that immediately, as when she walked into the room the scent of gingerbread, chocolate, and mint greeted her. But good Lord, she couldn’t eat another bite after that breakfast.
“I think I’ll spew if I eat one more thing,” Vera said. She was already at work on a page. She was using one of the freebie papers, which was crimson, patterned with Christmas stars.
“You and me both,” Sheila said. “Oh, I love this mulberry paper.” She ran her fingers over the textured paper. She reached into her mini file folder and pulled out a photo of all four of her kids sitting in front of the Christmas tree and felt the gnawing of missing them.
“The first thing to do is decide what kind of scrapbooking you want to do. Are you adding a page or two every year to a Christmas scrapbook, or are you scrapbooking the entire season leading up to it?” their instructor said as people studied their photos and papers, some of them plunging into their layouts already.
“Okay, so that would be a bit mad,” Paige said. “To scrapbook the whole season? Who has the time for that? I’m lucky to get done my two or three pages every year.”
“I always thought it would be a fun challenge,” Sheila said. “There are several bloggers out there who offer classes starting December first every year. They send you prompts and other fun stuff.”
“I guess if you told yourself ‘I’m going to sit down every day and do this,’ it might work out,” Vera said, holding up a glittering card stock snowflake and placing it on her page.
“If you’re going to scrapbook the entire season, you need to be organized by December first. That means you have all of your supplies gathered and you have an idea of what time every day you’ll give yourself to accomplish your goal,” the teacher said over the speaker.
Paige groaned. “Who are these people? Do they not have lives? Jobs?”
Sheila placed her photo on green cardstock. Yes, she liked the green as a background color for the photo. She sliced the card stock and glued the photo to it. Now, what kind of paper would work best? She sorted through the new paper they were given and found an interesting red paper with a wreath pattern on it. She placed the photo in the middle of the page and then sorted through all of the embellishments they were given. Buttons. Snowflakes. Candy canes. Stickers. Card stock.
“Can I get you some coffee or hot chocolate?” a server asked.
Sheila looked up at a server dressed as an elf. “Coffee, please,” she said, then noticed something odd about the table where the creepy guy had sat for every crop. It was completely empty. An irrational shiver traveled through Sheila.