A Thread of Truth

by Marie Bostwick

  “No. It’s okay, Gina. You did the right thing. By ten o’clock tomorrow morning, half the town will have read this and the other half will want to. That means I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do tonight.” I looked at Charlie. “What am I going to do?”

  His face was as red as a poker that’s been left in the fire. “You’re not going to do anything! I told you. I’m going to hunt him down and kick him into next week!”

  “Charlie, be serious. You can’t do that.”

  “Oh, can’t I? Watch me.” In one infuriated motion, he pushed away his salad, slid from the booth, and leapt to his feet.

  “Gina, you stay here with Evelyn and keep an eye on the restaurant. I’m going to go out and find that sniveling, putrid excuse for a man who was belched up from the bowels of Beverly Hills and beat him senseless. And then…”

  “Charlie, sit down. Be reasonable. I’m touched that you want to defend my honor and all, but you can’t just go out looking for Dale Barrows and challenge him to a duel.”

  “Well,” said Gina, looking toward the front of the restaurant, “if he does, he won’t have to look very long.”

  Sure enough, Dale Barrows, Porter Moss, and Lydia Moss came through the door, laughing and shaking the rain off their coats.

  “Charlie, don’t.” I leaned out to grab his arm but I was too late. With an expression as roiling as the storm outside, he grabbed the long black pepper mill from off our table and, brandishing it like a club, strode toward the mâitre d’ station where Dale Barrows and company were talking to Matt.

  “Ah! The innkeeper himself!” Barrows boomed. “Just the man I wanted to see. This young fellow tells me that the kitchen closed at 9:30, but I’ve assured him that, for frequent customers like ourselves, Maurice won’t mind staying a few minutes longer. We can order right away, can’t we, gang?” He looked at the Mosses, who nodded.

  Charlie wasted no words.

  “Get out! Get out, the lot of you, and don’t come back!”

  Porter Moss smiled and took a step forward, holding his palms out in a conciliatory gesture. “Hey, Charlie. Come on now. Surely you can keep the kitchen open an extra five minutes, can’t you? What’s the big deal? After all, we’re old friends. You voted for me in the last election.”

  “A decision I have lived to regret.” Charlie gripped the pepper mill so tightly his knuckles went white.

  I decided I’d better get up there before he did something we’d both regret later. There are certain things it is never wise to do. Frying bacon in the nude is one; clubbing an elected official with a pepper mill in front of a restaurant filled with witnesses is another. I came up and stood next to Charlie, gently pressing my hand on his arm so he’d drop it to his side.

  “Hello, Porter,” I said, before acknowledging the others. “Lydia. Dale. How are you? Charlie and I were just sitting here reading tomorrow’s paper.” Unblinking, I turned my gaze on Dale and was gratified to see him blush. At least he had some sense of shame, though I could tell from the way he jutted his chin out that he wasn’t planning on apologizing.

  “Hello, Evelyn. I take it you read my letter to the editor?”

  “I did.”

  “Well, I’m sorry if it offends you, but…”

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “But you should be.”

  Lydia gave Porter a nudge in the ribs. He stepped forward. “I saw that letter, Evelyn, and for what it’s worth, I thought it was out of line. Dale has some gripes with you, but he shouldn’t have sent that in and I told him so.”

  I believed him. Porter wasn’t necessarily somebody I wanted to make my new best friend, but he was okay and he worked hard at a fairly thankless job. “Thank you, Porter.”

  He cleared his throat. “Maybe we should all sit down and talk this thing out.”

  Charlie jumped in before I could respond. “Not tonight, you’re not! And not in my restaurant! Out!”

  Porter gave Lydia a sidelong glance and tilted his head toward the door. She took the hint and left. Porter was right behind her. “Good night, Charlie. We’ll come back another time.”

  Dale spun around to watch the Mosses retreat. “Wait a minute! Come back here! We’re not putting up with this! We should demand to be seated and served!” But when Porter ignored him, he turned back to Charlie and stuck his chin out so far that you could have used it to open cans.

  “This is a free country with a free press,” he declared. “And I’ve got a right to express my opinion.”

  “That may be,” Charlie said, “but this is a privately held restaurant and as you were told before, the kitchen is closed. And even if it weren’t, it sure as hell would be to the likes of you. Now get out!”

  Charlie raised the pepper mill, stabbed it into Dale’s chest like a swordsman preparing to run his enemy through, and forced the sputtering Barrows to back out the door into the rainy street and then clicked the deadbolt into the lock position with a flourish.

  The restaurant had been silent as the diners watched the drama unfold, but now one of the regulars quipped, “Gee, Charlie, I was going to ask to see the dessert menu, but now I’m having second thoughts. Too risky.”

  A round of tentative laughter rippled through the dining room.

  Charlie pasted a grin on his face and turned toward his customers. “Well, Jim, if you’d been adding extra notches to your belts the way I have lately, I wouldn’t recommend it. However, you seem fit enough. I think you can chance it.”

  “All right, Charlie. But let me ask you something first: Can I get mine without pepper?”

  Tensions eased and the wave of laughter that followed was full-throated and long.

  “Matt!” Charlie shouted jovially. “Bring Mr. Snelling an order of chocolate bread pudding, on the house—no pepper. While you’re at it, offer everyone a dessert with my compliments. Enjoy your evening, everyone!”

  There was a murmur of appreciation as waiters began bringing dessert menus to the tables. Charlie kept smiling as he took my arm to guide me back to our table in the back corner of the room. When we sat down, his stormy expression returned.

  I was just as upset as he was, more so. After all, I was the one whose name and reputation was being disparaged in the local paper, not Charlie’s. But nursing grievances wouldn’t do me any good and getting sucked into a public squabble with Dale Barrows could only make things worse. It was time for cooler heads to prevail.

  I squeezed Charlie’s arm affectionately, pried the pepper mill from his grip, and placed it back on the table.

  “That was very gallant of you, Charlie,” I said breezily. “A little insane, but gallant. I may be the only woman in history who has had her honor defended with a kitchen gadget.”

  As I’d intended, Charlie was momentarily distracted from thoughts of Dale Barrows. His eyes bulged, incredulous and insulted.

  “Gadget? Did you just call my brand new three-hundred-dollar Peugeot pepper mill, crafted from genuine olive wood with a steel mechanism that adjusts from coarse to fine grind, a gadget?”

  “Yes, I did. Like I said, it was very gallant of you. Thank heavens Dale backed down or things could have gotten dangerous—blenders at fifty paces.” I picked up my fork and resumed eating my abandoned salad.

  “This is good, but it needs something.” I feigned a moment of deep concentration, then reached for the pepper mill and ground some onto my salad.

  “You’re trying to make me laugh. It won’t work. Just wait until I get my hands on that…”

  Obviously, he was not going to be humored out of this mood. I cut him off. “Charlie, I appreciate your willingness to commit battery on my part, really, but right now we both need to calm down and think.”

  “What’s there to think about? That slime-ball Barrows is dragging your good name through the dirt!”

  “Yes, I’d noticed that,” I snapped. “Charlie, calm down and listen to me. Aside from those years in Dallas, I’ve lived my whole life in small towns and so have you. We know that in smal
l towns, a little squabble like this can blow up into a full-fledged feud if it’s not nipped in the bud.” I pushed the salad plate away, my appetite spoiled, and rested my chin on my hand.

  “And the thing is,” I mused, “Dale may not be entirely wrong.”

  “Are you kidding? How can you say that?”

  I sighed heavily, a bit weary of Charlie’s indignation on my behalf. “Look, his methods were wrong, no question about that. Not to mention underhanded, but I shouldn’t have been so quick to shun his ideas and offers to help. And if I wasn’t feeling so overwhelmed by everything, the broadcast, this huge surge in business, Ivy’s divorce, and Franklin’s heart attack, I might have realized that sooner.

  “That doesn’t mean I have to let Dale and Porter turn this into some kind of three-ring circus, but he has a point. This is a big deal—especially in a town this size. Naturally, people want to be part of it. If I don’t figure out some way to include them, they’re going to resent me for it. I’ll be persona non grata in every home and business in town.”

  “Not at the Grill, you won’t,” Charlie declared righteously.

  “Thank you, my love, but don’t you see? If this thing goes any further, it’ll hurt you and the Grill, too. That’s the blessing and curse of living in a small town; nobody is anonymous. Everyone knows everyone’s business and, when there’s a controversy, everyone takes sides. Everybody knows you and I are a couple. A boycott of Cobbled Court Quilts could easily spread to the Grill and damage both businesses.”

  Charlie grunted, a grudging admission that I might be right.

  “More importantly, it could end up hurting the town. I don’t want to be responsible for that. No matter what Dale Barrows says, I love New Bern as much as anybody. This is my home. If eating a little crow is the price I have to pay for living in peace with my neighbors, so be it.”

  I got up from the table and kissed Charlie on the top of the head. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What I should have done from the beginning. I’m going to call Mary Dell.”

  28

  Evelyn Dixon

  “The front page? Really?” Mary Dell drawled.

  I tucked the telephone receiver in tighter under my ear so I could hold that morning’s edition of the New Bern Herald in both hands. “Yup, above the fold, no less. The headline says QUILT PINK DAY: NEW BERN TRADITION HITS TV AIRWAVES. There’s a picture of Howard and your lovely self standing by a sewing machine…”

  “That’s the publicity photo. Sandy sent one to the reporter.”

  “And then there’s a picture of Dale Barrows, Porter Moss, and me with a caption saying, ‘Co-chairs for the upcoming Quilt Pink Day to benefit breast cancer research discuss plans for this year’s celebration and live cable television broadcast.’ There’s a big pink quilt in the background and we’re all looking at the clipboard I’m holding and we’re grinning like the best of friends. Dale even has his arm draped over my shoulder.”

  “Honey, you may have overdone it. What does the article say?”

  “It starts out telling all about how I’d decided to host our first Quilt Pink event soon after opening the shop only to be diagnosed with breast cancer myself the day before the event. Then it talks about you, how we were friends in Texas before you became a great big, huge, glamorous television star,” I teased.

  “Oh, hush up with all that. Did Barrows apologize like he said he would?”

  “More or less. Hold on a second.” I scanned the page searching for Dale’s quote.

  “Here it is. ‘After some initial misunderstanding regarding her plans for Quilt Pink Day, I’m honored and delighted that Evelyn Dixon, Porter Moss, and I are working together. This will be a proud day in New Bern’s history; one that will be instrumental in finding the cure for breast cancer and in raising breast cancer awareness across the country. Of course, I’m happy to lend my talents in support of this worthy cause, but most of the credit has to go to Evelyn. She’s a real asset to our community.’”

  Mary Dell let out a peal of laughter as deep and booming as brass bells. “Well, what’d I tell you, honey? You want to get people to cooperate, just give ’em a title and put their picture in the paper.”

  “Well, I think that conference call you organized might have helped a little bit, don’t you? You charmed the pants off old Porter and Dale.”

  “There’s a mental image I could sure live without, ’specially right after breakfast.”

  “Really, they were absolutely starstruck. After you hung up, they couldn’t stop talking about you.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she puffed. “Dale worked in Hollywood all through the seventies and eighties. He’s not impressed by any little old D-list celebrity cable quilt show host. That man knows some real stars and has directed plenty of them, even if most of his movies were lousy.”

  “Maybe, but he still likes you an awful lot.”

  “And I like him. Once you two kissed and made up and he got that chip off his shoulder, he turned out to be all right. You know, I don’t think he really is a bad director; he just got handed bad scripts to work with. The best director on earth couldn’t have turned Disco Drive-In into Oscar material. He’ll do a great job shooting the montage.”

  From the first, Mary Dell and Sandy, her producer, had planned on including a pre-filmed montage about New Bern as part of the broadcast. It would include a quick video tour of the town; a short interview with me to explain Cobbled Court’s first Quilt Pink Day, and my battle with breast cancer; plus a few waves and very short greetings from people around town, including all the state and local dignitaries who had been nagging me for tickets to the show. In one fell swoop, Mary Dell had solved myriad problems, appeasing not only Dale Barrows but also scores of other people I’d inadvertently offended.

  “Mary Dell, asking Dale to direct the montage was a stroke of genius.”

  “That was really Sandy’s idea. Saves her and our crew from making another trip up there to film. She was happy to have Dale do it. Don’t let those blue jeans and baseball cap fool you. Sandy’s society, Baby Girl, made her debut at the Idlewild Ball in 1997, and was crowned Miss Dallas of 1999, a real Texas belle. If she goes more than forty-eight hours without sitting down to a plate of chicken fried steak, she gets the shakes. Not that you could tell to look at her. That girl is as thin as a nun’s smile.”

  Mary Dell laughed and so did I. New Bern is my home for now and forever, but the one thing I do miss about Texas is Mary Dell. She’s the original Yellow Rose with all the warmth, humor, enthusiasm, generosity, grit, and growl that marked a true-blue Texan, the finest kind. On top of that, she has a brilliant head for business, and diplomacy. The events of the last few days had made me think she ought to run for president. Seriously.

  When our conference call began, Dale, Porter, and I were speaking, but barely. Mary Dell’s idea of getting everyone together seemed a good one, but that didn’t mean I was happy about it. I imagine Dale felt the same way. But when Mary Dell and Sandy came on the line, everything changed. Mary Dell told a few jokes, unruffled a few feathers, and within ten minutes had us all brainstorming and working together as a team.

  Besides handing off the montage filming to Dale, an idea that solved a number of problems, she had also gotten rid of my publicity headaches by getting Porter to handle calls from reporters and giving interviews, something I had no time for or interest in but which Porter loved. Sandy liked his idea of setting up a giant screen on the Green so people could see the show, and having a barbeque, and suggested they bring an additional camera crew and station them on the Green so they could do cutaway shots from time to time.

  “It’ll give the show some color, you know, a nice home-town feel as the cameras scan over the crowds. Everyone will feel like they’re part of the show.”

  “Good idea!” Mary Dell piped in and then added, in that praline sweet voice of hers, “And Porter, darlin’, would you mind if we put a microphone on you an
d have you serve as a kind of emcee for that part? Like those cheery weathermen they have on the network morning shows, you know what I’m talking about. I’ll ask you how it’s going out there, and you’ll talk about what an exciting day it is and how the wonderful citizens of New Bern have come out in full force to support Quilt Pink Day. Then you’ll tell everybody to wave and the cameras will scan the crowd. I know it’s a terrible imposition, but I think you’d be perfect for the job. Would you mind?”

  He didn’t mind at all. And, once again, Mary Dell had killed a number of birds with one stone. She’d figured out a way to appease everyone who wanted to be part of the broadcast, boosted Porter’s ego, and, most importantly, gotten him out of my quilt shop and my hair during the broadcast. Genius.

  After I’d thrown out the idea of distributing the few tickets we had for quilters inside the shop via raffle, Mary Dell suggested we set up a satellite studio in the high school gym. That way, even though we could only fit thirty quilters in the shop, anyone who wanted to could still make a quilt block. She suggested we put video monitors in the gym and station a remote camera crew there as well, just like we had on the Green, then sweetly asked if Dale would mind serving as the emcee there, reporting on the quilters’ progress and chatting with Mary Dell during the cutaway shots to the gym.

  And what do you know? Turned out Dale didn’t mind, either.

  “And Dale, darlin’, do you have any thoughts about how y’all could get a little publicity from the local paper there? Just so they know you three are the lead dogs on this hunt and all working together? I understand you know the editor.”

  Dale was sitting next to me at the conference table in Porter’s office. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.

  “Umm…well…yes. I think so. I’ll call the editor and see what I can do.”

  “Wonderful! I knew you were the man for the job! I’m just so excited that you’re part of this. Do you know I’ve seen every single one of your pictures twice?”