Free Paper, Scissors, Death by Joanna Campbell Slan Page B

pretty quickly. Here, I’ll show you my work in progress.”
    I fanned out the patterns and solids I’d chosen to work with.
    “How do you know what to choose?” asked Markie. “I mean, there are scads of papers and products. How do you know where to start?”
    I explained my system for mixing and matching papers. I favor the squint method. It’s highly scientific. You select a few papers, take a step back and squint. Usually you can tell right away if the patterns are harmonious.
    I guess I dazzled them with my brilliance. Or I buffaloed them with my baloney. Either way, Sally and Markie signed up for one-on-one scrapbook lessons.
    Seeing the women ready and raring to go tickled me. They were as enthusiastic as two little girls.
    “What if we can’t do this?” asked Sally. The negative thought brought her up short. “I mean, I’m not very creative.”
    “What if we mess up?” asked Markie.
    “There are no scrapbooking police. No one is going to come to your door in the middle of the night and arrest you because you didn’t make your pages a certain way,” I said. “There is no right way to scrapbook! This is playtime for grownups. You decide what you want on your pages, and what you want your family to remember. Keep in mind, it’s only paper. You goof it up—pish—you buy another sheet. Your mistake won’t break the bank.”
    I studied the well-heeled ladies and corrected myself. Any mistakes they made wouldn’t break their banks. Unfortunately, a lot of mistakes would leave me flat broke.
    Oh, well. I continued, “In our one-on-one time, I can help you develop your own personal style.” I didn’t add I could also steer our conversation to their pal Roxanne when we were alone.
    Markie was back to worrying about choices. “But how do you know what products to use? Which papers?”
    “There’s a universe of colors and patterns that could work with any photo. There’s also a universe of design styles. Within those universes are your preferences, choices that reflect your unique self.”
    They still seemed concerned.
    “I have homework for you.” I handed each woman a sheet of questions I’d devised to get them thinking about their color and style preferences. I also handed over a sheet of sentence prompts to get going on their journaling, the written commentary vitally important to memory albums.
    A few minutes later, Dodie rang up two large sales. Both women signed up for private classes and purchased pre-made page kits to get started.
    I thanked the women for their business and told them I looked forward to our one-on-one sessions. My stomach was grumbling for lunch. The clock struck noon. But right after Sally and Markie walked out, Linda Kovaleski walked in. She asked the same questions Sally and Markie had about Snapfish. Linda, however, had trouble grasping how the website worked.
    “I’m, um, a real computer idiot,” she said. “My daughter Claire uses the Internet all the time, but I don’t get it. I mean, I kinda get it, but not really.”
    I made a mental note that we needed a one-sheet with a detailed explanation of how Snapfish and similar websites worked. We could hand it out and save ourselves a lot of time and trouble instead of answering the same questions over and over.
    “And you keep all the photos on your computer? What if they get lost? I mean, they could, couldn’t they?”
    Here was a scrapbooker as concerned about being careful with images as I was.
    “They are on Snapfish and in my computer.” I didn’t mention the duplicate CDs.
    “Snapping fish?”
    I was about to explain my system for making duplicate CDs, but the doorminder buzzed. I whipped my head around to see who was coming in. Each time I heard the door, my muscles tensed. My encounter with Roxanne had made me skittish. For some reason, I half expected her to stop by the store to continue her harassment.
    But instead of Roxanne, Bill Ballard strolled in. I nodded a quick hello and held up my index