Crazy as a Quilt (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 8)

by Arlene Sachitano

  “That’s what I’m talking about. We didn’t even bother to know that. Steve brought you to a dinner one day, and all we knew is you weren’t from Oakland. I’m not making excuses, but where we went to school, we were the minorities.

  “Except for Niko—about a third of our school was Asian—but less than ten percent of our school was Caucasian. Most of the white parents had the money to send their kids to private schools. Ours didn’t. We had to stick together. Jason was bullied by some of the other kids, and that brought us closer than we already were. After that, it was us against the world.”

  “Steve told me about your group. Frankly, he was getting tired of it.” Sharon started to say something, but Harriet held her hand up. “He was clear that he still liked his friends. He was just tired of doing everything as a group. He felt like a traitor if he went to a baseball game with his coworkers instead of the gang.”

  The kettle whistled, and Harriet poured water into their mugs and carried them to the kitchen table.

  “I know Steve used me as an excuse to do things apart from the group, and I didn’t mind because, like I said, I was never going to fit in the group. I mostly grew up in Europe. My schools didn’t have a baseball team or a football team, because football is really soccer there, and most of the schools I went to didn’t have boys. Every now and then, I’d be sent to stay here with my aunt. She taught me to quilt, but I didn’t make any friends here. Just about the time I’d meet someone my age, my parents would ship me off somewhere else.”

  “It sounds glamorous.” Sharon attempted a smile.

  “It wasn’t. I had some amazing experiences, to be sure. I met the Queen of England and the Emperor of Japan, Queen Margrethe of Denmark and a bunch of lesser dignitaries. My parents are internationally renowned scientists. My job was always to be seen but not heard, while maintaining a suitable list of accomplishments for them to recite when the subject came up. Their great disappointment was that, after graduating college with the required degree in physics, I switched to studying textiles.”

  “Pretty impressive, if you ask me.”

  Harriet dunked her teabag up and down in her mug then plopped it on an empty saucer she’d put on the table for that purpose.

  “Not really. I wasn’t always able to come back to Foggy Point, so I spent a lot of holidays with paid employees while everyone else in my school went home to their families.” She sipped her tea. “Enough about my pathetic past. I’m grown up now and have a great life. If you aren’t here to punish me about Steve, why are you here?”

  “I’m here because of you, but not because of Steve’s death. I’ll admit it was easy to blame you at first. Eventually, we—or I should say some of us—realized that if we’d been the friends we always pretended to be maybe Steve would have felt comfortable getting treatment. We knew he had a health condition, but no one realized how serious it was.

  “After my accident, I realized just how much we’d picked at other peoples flaws growing up. Hours of therapy later, I know it was a defense mechanism on our part. If we pretended we were cooler than everybody else, the bullies left us alone. We had safety in numbers. But, Steve must have thought we’d turn on him if he had a weakness.”

  “That all sounds rather dramatic. I can believe that was the case in high school, but you all went off to different colleges, didn’t you?” Harriet spooned a glob of honey into her cup and stirred. “I think it’s much simpler than all that. Steve was in denial. He didn’t want the condition, and if he didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t exist.”

  “Maybe I’m giving us too much credit.”

  Harriet tasted her tea. She’d added too much honey, but she took another long sip, hoping Sharon would reveal why she was really sitting opposite her at the kitchen table.

  “Since my accident, not very many modeling jobs are coming my way. I can do hand modeling, but those calls are few and far between. I majored in partying in school and then quit after two years to model in Europe.”

  Harriet waited in silence for her to complete a sip-tea stalling maneuver.

  “You probably don’t remember, but Rick and I came over for dinner one night, and your quilting friends were just leaving. One of them had a beautiful quilt draped over her arm, and you were putting away some pretty quilt pieces. I didn’t think too much of it then, but while I was in the hospital I had a lot of time to think. It really hit me—I don’t create anything.

  “I was always totally dependent on my looks, which I know now are only too fleeting. I thought about those quilts. Your family will have them forever, no matter what happens to you. I know that sounds morbid, but I was in the hospital on drugs.

  “I realized I want that. I want to make something…anything. I may turn out to be a wretched quilter, but I at least want to try. Besides, you and your friends seemed so happy. I’m not sure I know what that word means anymore.”

  Harriet folded her hands in her lap.

  “Okay,” she finally said. “Have you ever quilted before?”

  The other woman’s shoulders sagged.

  “Have you sewn anything?”

  Sharon brightened. “I can hem pants with a stapler.”

  “It’s a start,” Harriet said with a laugh.

  They sipped their tea.

  “Let’s go into my studio. I have a couple of books on beginning quilting. Maybe you can page through them tonight before you go to bed. That will at least help you get familiar with the terminology.”

  “That sounds great. I’m actually a pretty quick learner.”

  Harriet took their cups to the sink then led the way to her studio. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  Chapter 9

  A fine sheen of sweat frosted Marine’s brow as she and Harriet left their classroom in the basement of the Methodist church. Jessica came up behind them and put her hand on Marine’s arm.

  “Are you okay? You don’t look well.”

  Marine glared at her.

  “Do you have something that will cure what ails me?”

  “No, and if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. You know that wouldn’t help you. Are you in a program?”

  Marine jerked her arm free.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. My breakfast didn’t agree with me, that’s all.” She stormed off down the hallway and up the stairs.

  Jessica laughed. “Was it something I said?”

  Harriet shifted her tote bag up onto her shoulder.

  “Do you really think she’s using drugs?”

  “I don’t have a single doubt. She’s a user, and it looks like her supply ran out. She’ll have to make an excuse and go find something on the street.”

  “In Foggy Point?”

  “Come on, you’re not that naive. Drugs are everywhere. She might be trying to clean up, but she’s not succeeding. Not today, anyway.”

  “It must have been hard for her, sitting through this morning’s lecture on the history of crazy quilts.”

  Jessica laughed again.

  “It was hard for me, and I wasn’t coming off of anything. That lady was a really dry speaker.”

  “I thought the first part was interesting,” Harriet said. “I’d heard people say that crazy quilts were the first patterns made in America. She makes a good argument for why that isn’t true.”

  “You’re right. I hadn’t realized they were constructed on a larger piece of backing, making them not a good choice for the early settlers who didn’t have big pieces of fabric to work with.”

  “There’s also the age-old problem of no surviving samples from before the late eighteen-hundreds, at which point suddenly there are a lot of them.” Harriet pulled her smartphone from her pocket. “Lauren just sent me a text. She and my aunt and our friends Connie and Mavis are waiting for us by the front door. My roommate needs to buy a little more fabric for her afternoon session, so we thought we’d go to lunch at the sandwich place just down the block from Pins and Needles. We have two hours for lunc
h. Does that work for you?”

  “Sounds great if you have room for me.”

  “My car can take seven if the three in back are agile enough to get in,” Harriet told her as they reached the stairs and went up to join the others.

  Harriet put her phone to her ear but couldn’t hear her caller.

  “Wait a minute, I need to walk outside so I can hear.”

  Pins and Needles was full of crazy quilt students, and it sounded like they were all talking at once. Harriet stepped outside to the sidewalk.

  “Hello? Michelle, is that you?” She listened for a minute. “Yes, I still plan to have my weekly session with Lainie…Sure, I can pick her up on my way home from my afternoon class. Tell her I can be there around four-thirty…No problem. Bye.”

  “Everything okay?” Aunt Beth asked. She’d followed her niece outside.

  Harriet slid her phone back into her pocket.

  “Yeah, that was Michelle. She wanted to be sure I was still going to give Lainie her weekly quilting lesson. Since we’re on our own for dinner tonight, I said yes. I’d told her that before, but she asked if I can pick her up at Aiden’s.”

  Beth shook her head.

  “Why can’t she drive the girl herself? It is her daughter, after all.”

  “I didn’t ask, and she didn’t offer a reason. If it’s easier on Lainie for me to pick her up, I’m happy to do it.”

  “What about your roommate?”

  Harriet smiled.

  “Funny thing, that. It turns out she really does want to learn to quilt. I told her about Lainie, and she asked if she could join the lesson, too.”

  “So, all that worry about her coming here to torture you about Steve was for nothing?”

  “That may still be in play, but we’ve talked, and it would seem that things are a lot more complicated than what I was thinking.”

  Aunt Beth picked a stray thread from her jacket sleeve.

  “You just be careful. I still don’t like the way she was talking to you when she first arrived.”

  “I will, but I think she was as nervous about coming to my house as I was to have her come.”

  “It was her idea, though.”

  “Aren’t you the one who always says ‘Don’t borrow trouble’?”

  “Don’t you throw my words back at me, Missy,” Aunt Beth said and then laughed. “I hope you’re right is all I’m going to say about it.”

  Music came from Harriet’s pocket, and she pulled her phone out and tapped the face.

  “We better round up our crews. That was our twenty-minute warning.” She slid the phone into her pocket and followed her aunt back into the store.

  Aiden got out of his vintage Bronco and walked over to Harriet’s SUV.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She turned her engine off and opened her door.

  “I came to pick up Lainie for our quilting lesson.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Aiden pushed Harriet’s door closed behind her. “Lainie called me and asked if I could take her to your place. Michelle’s car is in the shop.”

  “Michelle had already asked me to come pick her up.”

  Aiden’s jaw tightened. “My sister must have forgotten to tell her daughter what the plan was. I’m not surprised. She’s not the most organized person. We’re really slammed at the clinic. I only came because it was Lainie asking.”

  “You can go back. I’ve got it covered.”

  He looked at his car and then toward the house.

  “I better go in and at least say hello and tell Lainie it isn’t her fault. She’s a sensitive kid and will be upset if she thinks she took me away from something important.”

  “Uh, she did take you away from something important.”

  “I know, but she doesn’t need to know that.” He took a deep breath and looked at her. “Okay, I’m calm, cool and collected. No stress here at all.”

  Harriet shook her head.

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her learning to be considerate of other people, but what do I know.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Come on, back me up here.”

  “Lead the way.”

  They found Lainie with her mother, brother and Marine. Their houseguest had either gotten over her illness or found something to cure what ailed her. The group was clustered around a book that lay open on the dining room table.

  “Look, Uncle Aiden,” Lainie called out. “Here’s your picture with Marine at the prom.” She spun the book around so he could see the picture.

  Aiden smiled, but it looked more than a little forced to Harriet.

  “That was a long time ago.”

  Lainie grinned. “You looked really handsome, Uncle Aiden.”

  “I looked handsome?” he said with mock horror. “You mean I’m not the most handsome guy you know now?”

  Lainie’s face turned crimson, and she looked to her mother for help.

  Marine seemed to be somewhere else.

  “We did look good didn’t we?” she said to no one in particular.

  “Don’t worry, Lainie,” Harriet said. “Uncle Aiden in teasing you. Do you have your quilting bag ready?”

  Lainie glanced at her with obvious relief.

  “My bag is by the front door, I’ll go get it.”

  She hurried out of the dining room, followed by her brother. Harriet watched until the dining room door closed then looked at Aiden.

  “I didn’t realize you two were an item.”

  “They were more than an item,” Michelle said before Aiden could answer. “She was the love of his life. They went steady for most of high school.”

  Aiden turned abruptly. “I’ve got patients to see.”

  Harriet watched as he strode across the dining room and into the kitchen. The nerves of her spine bristled. She took a deep breath and reminded herself most people had dramatic teen romances that didn’t stand the test of time.

  “I’m going to go lay down,” Marine said. She left through the door Lainie had used.

  Michelle closed the yearbook.

  “Marine and I were having a little trip down memory lane. If I’d known he was coming, I would never have gotten the book out. She broke his heart when she went to LA after high school. Everyone, including Aiden thought she was going to go to the community college near here until he graduated and then they were going to go off to university together. I know my mom thought they would eventually get married. We all did.

  “I think Mom thought there was still hope when Marine came back from LA and stayed with her, but Aiden had just left for his research trip to Africa for three years. But you know all that.” She picked the book up. “Why was he here, anyway?”

  “Lainie called him to take her to my house.”

  “I’ll have to talk to her. I told her you were coming to get her.”

  Harriet was ready for this conversation to be over before Michelle dropped any more revelations about Aiden that he’d not chosen to share with her.

  “Speaking of Lainie and her lesson, we better get going. My houseguest is waiting for us.”

  “Lainie,” Michelle screeched. “Come on, you’re making Harriet wait after she’s been so nice, coming and getting you.”

  As if on cue, Lainie returned, her bag clutched to her chest.

  “I’ll feed her dinner,” Harriet told Michelle as she followed Lainie out to the car before Michelle could reply.

  Lainie shivered.

  “I don’t like Marine. Madame du Cloutier says we’re not supposed to talk about people unless it’s something nice, but she’s really weird.”

  Harriet backed up and then turned down the driveway.

  “Weird how?”

  “Well, she gets sweaty when it’s cold in the house. And she smells a lot of the time. She wears a lot of perfume to cover it up, but that makes it worse. She talks to herself.”

  “What does she say?”

  Lainie puffed her chest out and deepe
ned her voice.

  “You can do this, Marine, it’s just dinner. You just have to make it through dinner.” Lainie’s voice returned to normal, and she relaxed her shoulders. “Stuff like that. It seems like she’s always giving herself a pep talk. She doesn’t really seem to like quilting, either.”

  “Well, now, that’s downright sacrilegious.”

  Lainie’s brows pulled toward each other and furrows formed between them.

  “Is it really?”

  “Honey, no. That’s just a figure of speech.” What sort of education were these poor children getting with their French tutor and nanny? Harriet wondered. Her own education was largely European, but she’d still learned English, including slang and idioms.

  Lainie’s cheeks turned pink.

  “Sweetie, it’s okay. Every language has figures of speech that don’t make sense. Let’s get back to Marine. Is there anything else that makes you uneasy? She hasn’t said anything inappropriate to you or your brother, has she?”

  Lainie shook her head. “She ignores us, just like everyone else in that house, except our nanny and tutor. Our nanny says we are to be seen but not heard.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  The girl chewed on her lower lip.

  Harriet thought for a moment. Her desire for information was at war with her desire to protect Aiden’s niece.

  “Tell you what. You listen to what Marine says—to herself or to others. If she says anything you think is weird, or even just a little off, you can tell me at our next lesson. If it’s something big, you can call me on my cell phone. I’ll give you the number when we get to my house. I think you’re very smart, and I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

  Lainie smiled.

  A few minutes later, they pulled into Harriet’s driveway.

  “Can I take Scooter out when we get there?” Lainie asked.

  “I think he’d like that.”

  Sharon lay her four-patch block beside Lainie’s on Harriet’s cutting table. Carla had picked Lainie up after Harriet had fed everyone a simple stir-fry with rice. She shook her head.

  “Hers looks so much better than mine.”