“You’ve come to the right place,” I said, chuckling.

Mitchell added that his sister was a librarian and she thought books and binding would be good therapy for him after the war. “She was right. I’ve got the books part down. Now I’d like to try my hand at binding.”

The next person was Cynthia Hardesty, a tall, buxom brunette who introduced both herself and her husband, Tom.

“We’ve been on the board of directors here for three years,” she said. “Layla finally insisted we take your class. She holds you in such high regard.”

“Yes, my dear, she thinks you’re a pip,” Tom said. He was tall and lean, though not quite as tall as his wife, with thinning hair and a bit of an old-world aristocracy vibe about him. I pictured him in an ascot and smoking jacket, drinking cognac with Lord Peter Wimsey or Jay Gatsby.

“Isn’t that nice to hear?” I said, even though my internal BS meter was ticking loudly, indicating an overload of crap, for sure. Especially coming from Layla. And why hadn’t I been alerted that I would have two board members in my class? It meant I would have to be on my best behavior and that was never fun.

The last two to speak were best friends, Whitney and Gina, who talked over each other as they explained that they were always looking for interesting things to do together.

“We’re newbies but we’ll try to keep up,” Gina said.

“I think it’ll be fun,” Whitney added brightly.

“I hope we’ll all have a lot of fun,” I said, then began to explain how the class would proceed each week.

On Mondays, we would start with a very brief explanation of the type of binding we’d be constructing. Each student would create a miniature version of the real thing. I held up some samples of the tiny three-inch books we’d make, and got “oohs” and “ahhs” from the women. The little books were always a big hit. By Thursday night, they would each have a larger finished journal in the same style. At the end of the three-week course, they all would’ve made six handmade books.