Hats Off

For the Writers Cramp contest. Prompt is: write about making a hat to wear to a party

“What are you doing?” Kaitlyn said as she plopped down at the head of the cluttered dining room table, a bowl of popcorn in her hands. “It looks like you’ve been dissecting Muppets.”

I took a breath in through my nose as I set down the square of pink felt in my hands. “Believe it or not, I’m making a hat,” I said as lightly as I could.

My sister snorted. “You, a hat,” she smirked. “Gwennie, I adore you, but there was a reason Mrs. Gray took away your paste in Kindergarten. You don’t craft. No, wait,” she smiled. “Scratch that. You can’t craft.”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” I grumbled. “For the record, it happened in first grade, and it wasn’t paste. It was a crayon.”

“And why did that happen?” Kaitlyn mumbled around a mouthful of popcorn.

“Because I threw it at Jimmy Butler for saying that my picture of a dog looked like a dead elephant.”

Kaitlyn chewed for a moment, swallowed, then asked, “Didn’t he go to prom with that really mean girl, whatshername? The one who got kicked out of graduation?”

“No, that was Cathy Spencer. Jimmy went with Kathy Sawyer. Funny thing is, I now work with Jimmy at the college, and he’s still a jerk.”

Kaitlyn put another handful of popcorn in her mouth and chewed while I tried once again to get that piece of pink felt to go on the wire form.

“This hat you’re making,” Kaitlyn said as she picked her teeth. “Is that wire thingie like the base?’

I looked at the conglomerate of wires I had spent the afternoon bending and twisting together. “Yes,” I replied. “You then take these felt pieces –” I nodded to the still-untouched pile of “petals” I had cut out earlier, “ and tuck them in here and here so that they overlap, and then you thread some ribbon around the edges, stick in some feathers or flowers here and,” I took a breath, “you have a hat.”

Kaitlyn was quiet for a moment, her eyebrows scrunching together as she thought.

Finally, she said, “So that wire thingie goes on your head?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“And the felt goes on it?”

“Yes again.”

“And it’s going to fit on your whole head?” she asked.

“Well, it’s more like a fascinator,” I said. “Would you like to see the picture?” I handed her my phone.

Kaitlyn looked at the screen, then at the wire base, then back at the screen, and then at me.

“Is that bandaid on your knuckle from building the base?” she asked.

“I had a hard time getting the wire cutters out of the package,” I said.

“And that blister on your thumb, hot glue gun?”

“That was from twisting the wire, actually,” I muttered.

“And that red mark on your cheek?”

“Okay, that was the hot glue gun,” I snatched my phone away. “Look, I admit I’m not the artistic one in the family, okay? I can’t draw or sculpt or carry a tune, forget my dancing, but I am going to make this stupid hat!”

I didn’t realize I had been clenching the base in my left hand until a wire snapped with a shockingly loud POP, sending a flash of pain into my left palm. Kaitlyn was already at my side as I carefully opened my hand.

“Yup, let’s get this cleaned up,” she said gently as she grabbed that piece of pink felt and pressed into the surprisingly large pool of blood forming in my cupped hand.

Kaitlyn had me seated on the edge of the bathtub as she pulled out the bag she called her "On-the-Go Surgical Kit." As she finished scrubbing her hands and reached for the gloves, she asked, “Why are you making this thing, anyway?”

I winced as she lifted the soaked felt and tenderly felt the wound. “We’re having this get-together after classes on Monday. Each of us is making a hat and doing a presentation on it. Symbolism and meaning, blah blah blah. It’s a stupid team-building exercise.”

“It’s not as deep as I feared, and it’s clean,” she said, “but I think a stitch is in order.” She tore open a pack of gauze squares and waited for me to take them with my uninjured hand. “Your tetanus is up to date? Good. Keep pressure on it while I get ready.”

“I’m sorry,” I said as she measured a dose of local anesthesia into the syringe. “I know I should have just bought a baseball cap and glued on some beads or whatnot. I guess I just wanted to impress everyone.”

“I know it’s been hard on you, losing Mike, moving back, and everything,” Kaitlyn looked me in the eye. “This is going to sting.”

“Nobody tells you that you lose friends when you become a widow,” I said. “I feel a little lost. It’s been like being that new but definitely uncool kid in middle school.”

“Which you never were. Your hand is going to be out of commission for this weekend. So no more hatmaking.”

“Doctor’s orders, I guess,” I mumbled.

“Exactly, but I have a solution. I have this beanie I knit in college. I was proud of it, so I gave it to a guy I had a crush on. Jerk returned it. Let’s stick stuff on it and make it symbolic and stuff.”

I looked down. In the middle of my palm was one perfect stitch.

She shrugged. “Besides, do you really think some of your Language Arts department colleagues are working so hard on their hats that they need their twin sister, the local vet, to stitch them up?”

I guffawed at that. “Probably not.” Then I stood up and hugged her. “Thanks.”

Kaitlyn kissed my forehead. “Just be you, okay? Quirky, klutzy, determined you. Then, like always, the friendships will happen.”

“Who was the jerk, the one who gave back the hat?” I asked.

Kaitlyn smiled. “Why, dear old Jimmy Butler, of course.”


Word count: 999