Kerrigan Byrne & Cynthia St. Aubin's Townsend Harbor

Bazaar Girls

Gemma McKendrick rushed around her cozy but cluttered craft boutique, fluffing pillows, swiping dust from the knickknacks, and jamming a mental knitting needle into the balloon of panic swelling against her ribs. Twice already, she'd had to swap out her sweater as damp rings darkened the pits. Hyperhidrosis—just another of ADHD's delightful bonus body betrayals.
In exactly twelve minutes, the bi-weekly Stitch n' Bitch club would commence, and she was running late.
Per usual.
The detailed list of necessary preparations she'd gone to the extra trouble neatly typing out in a burst of rare and blessed motivation at the asscrack of dawn this morning sat languishing on her counter at home. Most likely marked with a coffee ring from one of the mugs that tended gather in herds on every available horizontal surface of her kitchen. The mental checklist she'd hastily assembled in its stead bore only a marginal resemblance.
1. Hide-y up. Shove everything in the store that resembled extraneous clutter in any available hiding place.
2. Charcutercheat: put out the pre-assembled trays she'd bought because she'd run out of time after having watched two hours of TikTok tutorials and dirtied every champagne glass she owned attempting to make sheet of cured meats into perfect pork roses
3. Maid of Dishonor: quickly scan the magazines Cady left over a week ago and weigh in on the centerpieces she'd helpfully marked with an elaborately color-coded system of sticky notes.
With the googly-eyed cat clock behind her fabric cutting counter conspicuously counting down the seconds, Gemma realized item three was a no-go. Better to risk her best friend's always-gentle censure by asking for just one more day (again) than to half-ass her responsibilities.
Just once in her life, she'd love to be serenely standing next to the vintage Chesterfield that ate up a good third of Bazaar Girls' wood-floored lounge area, welcoming the attendees in a soothing Martha Stewart-esque monotone, a tray of hors d'oeuvres that didn't already look half-masticated balanced on one perfectly manicured hand.
Instead, she was blotting the sheen of sweat from up her upper lip and railing the ice-bucket with a bottle of Prosecco when the front door swung open to reveal the first attendees.