Page 43 of A Light in the Dark
“I have two bolts of navy blue, one bolt of white, and one bolt of pale blue.”
With a disheartened cry, Joel placed his backpack on the ground, threw himself down, and wailed his dismay for the world to hear.
I stared at him with wide eyes. “Is he okay?”
“Next you’re going to tell me that you have bolts of Two’s, and my life will be over.”
“Dark gray, white, and emerald green. We have four bolts of the white.”
I checked the time on my phone, and after ten minutes of Joel writhing on the floor as though the woman stabbed him through the chest, he played dead. “Maybe we should just finish paying for mine before we try to deal with him.”
“He’ll get over it.” Grinning Yolana swiped my debit card before saying, “Log into your online banking. You should have a notification in your mailbox with the invoice and a button to confirm the payment. You’ll have to do your security verification for the purchase.”
I did as told, sighed at the thirty-seven thousand dollar bill, and pressed the button, reminding myself that I deserved to buy something that wasn’t just books or bargain bin hobby supplies. After answering all three of my security questions and confirming for a second time, I glanced up from my phone with wide eyes. “Did that actually work?”
Yolana checked her register, smiled, and nodded. “The payment has been confirmed as on route. The funds will beremoved from your account within the next thirty minutes, and we’ll receive the funds tomorrow, but you are as good as paid.”
I nudged Joel with my foot. “You either need to buy your silk bolts or cry your way to the SUV. We need lunch, and then we need to buy vegetables, flowers, and herbs for my garden. We’re skipping the bookstore for the moment because I need to come to terms with how much money I just spent.”
“Oh, you came to town for the Earth roses?”
I laughed and nodded. “I just recently started growing roses. I have a bunch from the local store, but Joel invited me to come to the store here because of the Earth roses. This is just a truly expensive detour.”
Yolana leaned over the counter. “How many bolts do you want to buy, Joel?”
“All of them. I want all the bolts from Two and Three.”
Yolana sighed. “Joel, you can’t buy all their bolts.”
“Why not?”
“Three has six other colors in stock on top of the four I told you about.”
“I don’t care. I want them.”
“Two has twenty.”
Joel heaved a heartbroken sigh. “In what colors?”
“Joel, you can’t buy that many bolts of silk. You have to save some silk for others.”
“No, I really don’t.”
The pair glared at each other.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I went over to Shifter Two’s rack, went through the bolts of silk, and found the ones meant for clothing. I gave the material a rub,understanding why he might want to wear the material all the time. “These are at least fifty-eight inches wide?”
“They’re seventy,” Yolana informed me.
“Joel, with this much silk, you could make fifty jackets with one bolt. You do not need fifty suit jackets.”
“The slacks have to come from the bolts, too,” he reminded me.
“At most you’d need four yards per suit. That’s twenty-five suits. That’s ridiculous, Joel. One bolt of each color is sensible.”
“But I want them all,” he complained.
“You cannot have them all. You can have one of each, and only if you can afford it without murdering your bank account.”
