Ada Unraveled

by Barbara Sullivan

  “Okay, let me help you. How about we start with the first mystery woman on the couch?”

  The blond giggled then shrank down in her seat, making me realize she was very young. Where were those old quilters when you needed them? They would surely have developed social graces. I wasn’t in a doctor’s office; I was a substitute teacher taking on a sixth grade class.

  And then the third young woman, the one with black hair, put her index finger to her lips to shush me, and then pointed to the darkness beyond her. But it was too late.

  A third low lamp clicked on in the darkness beyond the couch and a navy blue dress hanging over fat legs, wearing knee high stockings rolled down to the ankles and sensible black leather walking shoes, came into view. Also visible now was one gnarled hand gripping a fluffy yellow pillow in the navy blue lap. Visions of Stephen King’s Gramma popped into my head. The pillow growled.

  Two more fluffy pillows sped into the room around my ankles and took up stations on either side of the sensible shoes where they proceeded to yip violently.

  The headless shadow-form said, “Stop it! Hush, children. The three of you are being rude.” My eyes slid involuntarily toward the three on the couch, but then the dogs quieted.

  “I’m sorry. I was resting my eyes for the bee, which is why the lights are low. You must be Rachel.” It was a woman’s voice but coarse and slurring, perhaps belonging to the matriarch I’d found mentioned online—Victoria Stowall.

  “Yes, I’m Rachel. I didn’t realize you were over there.” I tentatively answered.

  She introduced herself, and leaned forward revealing her face fully for the first time in meager lamplight.

  “Welcome to our sewing bee.”

  My eyes finally found the whole body from which the ancient voice emitted and she was indeed old. Way into her eighties was my guess. The yellow pillow-dog in her lap was wriggling hysterically. The fluffs at her feet—one black and one white--were building up steam for another outburst too. Finally the black one charged forward baring its tiny teeth and screech-barked loudly at me. I took a step back.

  I’m not afraid of dogs. I have a huge one of my own at home, I reminded myself. The really dangerous kind, a shepherd. But small dogs were…quicker. Like spiders.

  Deciding to take charge, I bent and picked up the snarling fur ball and cradled it gently in my arms, cooing and smiling. It struggled for half a second, and settled down to lick the skin off my chin.

  The white miniature raced over to have some of that. Grateful for something to do beside feel uncomfortable and disrespected, I leaned down and patted it…her…on the head. The black one escaped my arms and off they ran to sit guard at Gramma’s feet once more.

  Note of caution to self: stop thinking of her as Gramma now! You might actually call her that.

  At least I’d found something to break the conversational logjam.

  “My granddaughter Jasmine has one of these. The yellow one is a Maltipoo, isn’t it? A Maltese and poodle combo?”

  “Yup. The white one is named Snowflake, for obvious reasons. Bet you can’t guess what the other two are named?” The blond giggled.

  “Well, the black one’s a Cockapoo, right? Cocker spaniel and poodle? Is that a Charger logo on his sweater?”

  The very young blond said, “Right! Charger is his name, ‘cause V like’s the team.”

  She couldn’t be much more than twelve. Her darkening blond hair was loosely tied at her neck.

  The final lapdog version of whateverpoo leaped into the air from his mistress’s lap and raced up to me, but veered sideways last minute to join her sister and brother now on the couch, nestled around the two youngest girls.

  “Not whateverpoo, Dashapoo. Combination dachshund and poodle.” Startled, I followed the voice back to the doorway where a skinny, elderly woman had appeared—probably Hannah’s mom—Ruth.

  That was odd. Wasn’t I just thinking whateverpoo? But another thought finally came to me, and I said, “Can I help you carry things, Ruth?”

  “Sure, I could use some help.” I quickly headed for the door so I could catch up with her.

  Carrying trays of calorie-laden snacks, I followed Ruth’s lead through the twisting hallways back to the poorly lit, enormous space that Victoria and the young women were inhabiting. I hoped they would light the entire room soon, to improve the mood and the conversation.

  After placing my load of covered dishes on what I was now coming to think of as a groaning table, I stepped further into the oversized room and peered into the darker half. In vain.

  “Elizabeth, why don’t you introduce our newest member to everyone,” Victoria said.

  My attention slid to the dark haired young woman at the far end of the couch as she turned to look at me briefly. She stood for the first time and I saw she was startlingly beautiful and statuesque. And now at last I had another name.

  But she was saying, “Elixchel. My name is Elixchel now, Miss Vicky.”

  Then she returned her attention to me. Her almond-colored, almond-shaped eyes met mine. Behind her, the pixie covered a grin with a small hand and hunched her shoulders, as if someone had just made a terrible but amusing social error.

  Elixchel’s black, shoulder-length hair swung around her face with every movement like heavy strands of silk. She had the cocoa-colored skin I used to try to attain on the beach. Easily six feet tall, model-thin, and with facial bone structure to die for, she moved panther-like toward me. Like an athlete whose body was in perfect balance. Like a wild thing slipping gracefully through jungle shadows.

  Surely this stunning young woman was a model.

  “Victoria refuses to accept that I’ve changed my name. I’m Elixchel Chavez.”

  “Nope. Just a bookkeeper,” the elderly teacup-bearer said as she passed behind me toward the door—returning to the kitchen.

  The phrase cue-tip jumped into my mind, not just because Ruth’s head was topped with white hair but because she kept giving me cues and tips.

  I stared after Hannah’s mother, connecting the uncanny bookkeeper remark with my internal thoughts. Very odd.

  The tall beauty reclaimed my attention by switching her position so that we stood side by side, looking at the others.

  “Ruth is Hannah’s mother,” she said and smiled knowingly, as if that explained everything.

  A flash of light and a loud crack filled the western side of the room with a teaser view of a mystery grouping—stern looking ladder backed chairs.

  And now all three dogs were sitting in Victoria’s lap.

  “Ruth’s correct. I’m a bookkeeper at one of the ubiquitous area casinos. I live and work in Escondido. I’ve been with them for seven years now.”

  “That long?” Victoria murmured from her seat by the fireplace.

  “I remember when you were just thirteen like Abigail…when we first took you in. After your parents were killed.” Her aged voice faded away.

  Elixchel’s parents were killed? The old woman settled back into her thoughts and her chair.

  “By the way Rachel, don’t call my adoptive mom Miss Vicky unless you’re mad at her, because she really hates it,” Elixchel conspired softly in my ear. “And none of us should be mad at her now.” She straightened her spine as if correcting herself.

  “I heard that,” Miss Vicky said, making Elixchel smile. “And I don’t like your new name. I like Elizabeth, what I’ve always called you.”

  Elixchel explained. “My mother named me Elizabeth, but I changed it. I combined Elizabeth with Ixchel. She’s the Mayan jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine.

  “I’m training as a midwife…and I’m proud of my heritage, thus the name change,” she stated with a defiant tilt of her chin.

  Sounded reasonable to me. Elixchel it was. Her Mayan heritage was obvious now, although she was very tall. But midwife, that was more of a stretch. I was still seeing model. Her height of course, but also her patrician nose and broad forehead.

  “Eliksel is hard to say,” the
redhead complained. I thought she had deliberately mispronounced the name with a harsh k and sibilant s, instead of the soft sh it should have been.

  “No it’s not,” the young blond interjected, rising indignantly from her slouch. “I think it’s beautiful.”

  “And that’s not the only reason you changed your name.” The edgy pixie said mysteriously.

  “Moving on, shall I introduce our two children, Andrea and Abigail?” Elixchel said, acerbically.

  “Cute, Elz-a-beth.”

  “The fire-breathing redhead is Andrea Kelly. She lives in Hillrise, down near San Diego near the park. She’s a good artist who spends altogether too much time painting her own body instead of a canvas. Her latest body art is her hair.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Andrea snapped, but didn’t elaborate.

  Andrea’s dark ruby hair was chopped in an unruly combination of long and short tufts some of which ended in hot pink and some in lavender. She looked like one of those Penguin Club Puffle toys my grandkids loved, only with three different colors. She wore a black sweatshirt with hood over a white Stanley Kowalski style undershirt and desert camouflage pants—the ones with half a dozen pockets sewn on them.

  But mostly Andrea Kelly looked malnourished. Three silver rings clung precariously to a dark red eyebrow. Her fingernails and thin lips were painted in black. She had a birthmark on her breastbone just visible above the scoop of the undershirt, some sort of lumpy tortured looking flesh.

  Most striking of all were Andrea’s eyes. They seemed capable of changing from olive green to forest green depending on the light, and from wide innocence to cool calculation depending on her mood.

  “She’s punk,” Victoria said, not unkindly. “Our punk quilter. She used to live with me, too.” Perhaps Victoria Stowall took in foster children. She certainly had the space.

  “And this is Abigail P, our newest member...before you, that is. None of us can say her last name, thus the P,” Elixchel continued.

  “Pustovoytenko. Pus-to-voy-ten-ko. What’s so hard about that? Learn it! I’m going to be famous someday.”

  “No doubt,” Elixchel agreed, smiling. “Abigail is also an artist. She lives with her mom, Gloria, who is the head nurse at Cleveland County Central ICU. She joins us once a month to further explore her artistic nature.”

  “So her mom can go man hunting,” Andrea teased.

  “NOT!” Abigail barked.

  “TRUE!” Andrea returned.

  “NOT!”

  “TRUE!”

  I was trying hard to suppress a smile when a rushing, rhythmic thrumming filled the room like a thousand muted drums. It made me look up. The rain had begun as if turned on full flow by some hand above.

  As I marveled at the downpour, Hannah and Ruth swept back into the poorly lit room with more trays of food and pots of hot tea. I didn’t see carrot sticks or fruit. It was all sugar and fat. Not good.

  “And of course you’ve met Hannah,” Elixchel finished, then slid back toward her seat on the end of the sunken couch.

  “Why on earth is it so dark in here,” Hannah exclaimed. She flipped a switch and light flooded the room, finally illuminating the rack we would quilt at. It was enormous, a cruel-looking structure, part torture device, part-creative invention.

  And now I could see the whole room. It was at least forty feet by twenty. Huge.

  “Where’s Gerry? It’s almost six-thirty,” Elixchel said. I’d been counting and I’d wondered where the eighth quilter was. There were eight chairs.

  “Out in her car waiting for the rains to slow,” Hannah answered glumly. “She got here just in time for the downpour.”

  “I’ll take an umbrella out to her,” Ruth said.

  “No, I’ll do it, mom.” Hannah sighed, and disappeared back down the dark hallway.

  I turned to Victoria, who said, “This room was used as a home-school classroom--for the youngest. Jake and I made it our master bedroom after they grew up. But I haven’t slept here for a while…. I’m down the hall now.” Her wobbly voice grew smaller and smaller as she spoke, as if it was running away from her thoughts.

  We fell to quiet again.

  I moved toward the hallway wondering if I should help Hannah retrieve the last quilter, when I heard Elixchel say, “Well, maybe you should take your meds now.”

  In response, Victoria began pulling and pushing herself up from her chair. The Mayan beauty rushed to help her and suddenly I did see a caring midwife in her.

  The two of them left the room, turning right at the door, which I assumed was toward Victoria’s bedroom, where her quilt might be stored. It was nowhere to be found in this large room.

  I moved closer to the quilt rack, in preparation to assist. A gust of wind swept rain at the nearby glass and I turned toward the windows to stare into the dark.

  I wished I could see deeper into the back yard, make sure we weren’t near any cliffs. Just in case the mud decided to slip and slide. But even the powerful lamps hanging over the rack only cast light out from the house about ten feet. The thrumming rain seemed to stamp out the light.

  The walls of this extra-large room were pine-paneled and bare except for a scattering of old photographs, presumably of Victoria’s growing children and a few ancestors. I’d noticed the same family art in the long halls that led here. Behind me the dogs began a barrage of barks and I turned to see why. All three had bounded toward our final quilter, just now entering. They were jumping madly for her to pick them up while she tried to pet them discretely on their heads. The room warmed considerably.

  I suddenly had a strange feeling that I knew this woman from somewhere. But the feeling passed.

  “Hey, it’s Yip, Yap and Yum-yum! How you doing, toys? Charger I think you’re almost big enough to be a defensive end, now boy. You can cut back on the eating a little. Wow, it’s freezing outside. Andrea, Abigail, get some logs burning, we need heat,” she ordered merrily. The two youngest got up and began making a fire.

  The newcomer looked more like she was on her way out for a casual but expensive meal. Heavily made up and dressed in leopard-print tights and matching exercise jacket, a mustard-and-brown African mask on a thin leather strap hung low on her black jersey top.

  Her hair was swept up in a haphazard do of streaked pale blond and light brown with strawberry highlights, which spilled out down the back of her head in a fountain of curls. It didn’t look as if the rain had touched it. She was holding a pair of short brown boots away from her body as if they were diseased.

  “I must go wash these off, they’re caked in mud. I’ll be right back.” She plopped an expensive looking handbag down on the couch and left as quickly as she’d arrived. I spotted the brand…yep, probably over half a grand.

  A few minutes later she returned with Hannah, who was limping more than ever.

  “That was fun. I’m soaked, and my shoes and socks are covered with mud. Did anyone bring a spare pair?” A barefoot Hannah groused.

  “I did Hannah, let me get them,” Ruth said, and scurried off once more. I thought the poor old woman would be exhausted before we ever started sewing. But she seemed to thrive on scurrying.

  “Thanks mom. Boy, that rain came in like the fires did two weeks ago, on hurricane gusts. Fool umbrella flew apart just as we reached the front porch. Gerry missed the waterfall sheeting off the front of the house, but I didn’t.”

  “Do we want to turn on a television and see if Malibu is in the ocean yet?” the redhead Andrea said from over by the fireplace.

  “No! I hear enough television at home,” Hannah said. “Thank you for making a fire. Maybe it’ll dry my clothes.”

  “You don’t even have television at home,” Abigail said. “Your children will be socially retarded.”

  “Yes we do, we just don’t have cable or dish. We have DVDs and a couple of local stations. And five computers. Believe me, we are totally wired.” Hannah pulled on the spare pair of socks Ruth brought her.

  “That’s better,” she said, s
ighing. “Thanks mom, but I don’t think the shoes will fit. Your feet are much smaller than mine. I’ll wash the socks for you.”

  Ruth waved a dismissing hand and headed back toward the table for another examination, where she said, “But you don’t have blueberry.”

  “BlackBerry, mom. They’re way too expensive.”

  “I wanted blueberry, remember? Why are blueberry any more expensive than peach?”

  “What? Oh, you mean the scones. No, they didn’t have any.”

  “Whatever.” Ruth mumbled. “Blackberries have too many seeds, anyway.”

  Andrea said, “You know the rules, Abigail. No television, no cell phones, not even a radio. Nothing is allowed to disturb our concentration. As if you have to concentrate to sew…”

  I was beginning to see them as a comedy team.

  “It’s not to concentrate, Andrea, it’s so we can talk to each other,” Ruth said.

  Gerry returned to the sewing room, sans muddy shoes.

  “Oh! There you are, Rachel. Why are you hiding over by the windows? I was thinking maybe you hadn’t made it.” The blond leopard rushed over and for a moment I thought she would grab me up in a bear hug. But instead she pushed her hand forward and we shook hands.

  “I’m Geraldine Patrone….” The Geraldine Patrone. Wife of a billionaire. I’d seen her in the society pages. Unbelievable.

  “Rhymes with provolone,” Andrea quipped.

  She grinned, and insisted I call her Gerry. “Geraldine is too formal.”

  I said, “Okay.”

  Elixchel brought Victoria back into the room and slowly got her across to the quilt rack. I tried not to watch her halting progress. It was painful and sad. At last she was seated, the empty frame before her. Elixchel rushed from the room again and returned in seconds with Victoria’s queen sized quilt folded over her arms.

  I’d researched quilting racks in all their forms, and found that there were two main types intended for group sewing, one of which was hung from a ceiling and consisted of rather flimsy frames that screwed together. Called a ceiling rack for obvious reasons, this type could be raised up out of the way when not in use.