Dire Threads

by Janet Bolin

  Noticing Edna nudging Opal when Smythe and Haylee traded smiles, I carefully avoided looking at any of the heartthrobby men for more than a second.

  When we were done, we had one long line of sandbags, piled two high, along my fence. We had worked for hours, and our little barricade would provide, maybe, five additional inches of protection.

  “Let’s go make more bags!” Edna hollered in glee.

  I slapped at the air in front of me with both hands, still encased in Clay’s work gloves. “No. The rain has let up, and the temperature has gone down. Water on the ground will freeze. It will stop draining into the river.” It sounded good, anyway. “We all have to work at our regular jobs tomorrow. Let’s call it a night.”

  The others protested, but I insisted. They finally agreed when I said, without really knowing, that the river seemed to have slowed its rise.

  I stayed beside my sandbags while the three pickup trucks and the SUV drove slowly away. When they were out of sight, I stepped over the row of sandbags, unlocked my gate, and went up to my apartment. The dogs barked at the sound of my key in the lock and barked even harder when they saw me. When I spoke, Sally and Tally tilted their heads comically, first one way, and then the other. They must have decided that the motley green face belonged to a friend, after all.

  I hoped that whoever had provided the plastic skirt and cape didn’t want them back. The excited dogs finished what the night’s shoveling and hauling had started, and the outfit was suitable only for a witch’s ragbag. But the hat could see service another day, and as soon as the wig finished dripping, it would be good as new. Well, almost.

  Haylee called. It must be important for her to phone me at such a late hour.

  Apparently, it was. “Willow, do you have a date for tomorrow’s . . . I mean tonight’s Fish Fry Dinner Dance?” I heard suppressed excitement in her voice.

  “No, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me guess. Smythe?”

  “Yes.” The smile came through her voice. “How’d you know?”

  “It’s obvious. Your mothers noticed.”

  She groaned. “I was afraid of that. And they’re coming to the dance. I’ll have to behave.”

  “I thought you were just looking,” I teased.

  “I am. But he sort of told me I was going with him.” She giggled. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  How like her. “He seems very nice.”

  “With my luck, though, he’ll turn out to be a murderer.” She didn’t sound worried. With a happy laugh and a promise to see me at the dance, she hung up. I bit my lip. Haylee had dated our boss, the embezzler, in NYC. Jasper was now behind bars. Her next foray into the dating world had been with the bad-tempered Mike. He’d been murdered. Her recent record with men hadn’t exactly been stellar.

  Seeing my face in the mirror, I remembered Clay, Herb, and Smythe smiling at me while we worked, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Crying seemed like a more reasonable option, but wouldn’t improve my looks any, so I set to work with water. Then soap and water. Then cold cream. Then more soap and water. What was that green glop, anyway? Wouldn’t masque have washed off, maybe even in the rain? Some of this stuff had, but the most yellow of the pigments stuck stubbornly to my skin. Very attractive. I kept scrubbing.

  When my face was passable, I dropped into bed.

  Nightmares about floods awakened me before dawn.

  The dogs and I went outside. The wind had died and a few tentative snowflakes drifted down.

  The river had risen.

  It surrounded the bases of trees with swirling, growling ice. Water snaked across the hiking trail. If the river came up two more inches, it would breach our lovingly assembled earthworks.

  24

  JAMMING MY FISTS INTO MY COAT POCKETS, I blinked down at muddy water inching toward the colorful row of sandbags. It seemed that the river was still rising, and all our middle-of-the-night efforts had been in vain. I could make and fill more sandbags, but in only a couple of hours, In Stitches would open, and I’d need to be inside, waiting on customers.

  I had to face it. A few more sandbags would not divert a flood from Blueberry Cottage.

  I raised my chin and stared across jostling ice floes to the silent forest on the far bank. Some of those trees had been there for years and would continue to thrive and grow, come ice or high water.

  Blueberry Cottage, too. I hadn’t believed Mike when he said that ice had pushed my cottage toward the river, but now I pictured ice-laden water pouring into my yard and surrounding the cottage. In its natural downhill flow, it would carry everything, including Blueberry Cottage, wherever it wanted. It could have pushed it toward the river.

  The dogs discovered that, by pawing at thin ice on puddles, they could break through and enjoy long, noisy drinks. Splashing around, they churned up mud, then wrestled in this latest water feature. I finally coaxed them up to the apartment. At the rate they were going through their personalized towels, I would need to embroider more. That thought made me feel a little better.

  After my shower, breakfast, and coffee, I was almost ready to tackle the day, even if the day included ice dislodging Blueberry Cottage and the river carrying it to the lake to join possibly fictitious ice-fishing palaces in the depths.

  I went upstairs to my shop, lit the woodstove, and set a pot of cider on it. As the spicy aromas warmed the atmosphere, I fingered bolts of linen I’d hoped to sell. The cloth was expensive, but losing Blueberry Cottage would be even more expensive. I was about to rip into a bolt of midweight linen when the phone rang.

  “I found more fabrics we can use for sandbags,” Haylee said. “And Naomi, Opal, and Edna are all in their own shops, making sandbags while they wait for today’s customers. Want me to bring you a bolt or two?”

  “I’ll be right over.” I thanked her and ran outside. Brushing past piqué, seersucker, and chambray, I jogged toward a sewing machine humming in Haylee’s classroom.

  She had already completed a dozen new sandbags. She pointed to a corner. “Why not start with that roll of plaid? No one bought even a quarter yard of it.”

  The metallic gold and red in the plaid could have made it Christmassy, but the orange and black gave it a Halloween look. The fuchsia simply clashed. “Why did you buy it?” And more importantly why had she kept it?

  “Online, it didn’t look so bad. Now, I order a swatch before committing to an entire bolt. I’m glad we have the perfect use for it. How’s the water level this morning? Dropping?”

  I tried to smile, but the corners of my mouth drooped. “I’m not sure. It rose during the night, but maybe it’s about to go down. I’ll go rip and sew this. Thanks! I owe you.”

  “No, you don’t. The denizens of Threadville swim or sink together, and you’re helping draw textile tourists to town. Besides, you’re my best friend. You’d do the same for me and you know it.” She rubbed at her face. “Naomi’s going to help me remove the rest of this makeup later.”

  “How come her masque is so hard to remove?” I asked.

  When Haylee stopped laughing, she told me we hadn’t been wearing Naomi’s expensive facial masque. “She had us put on theatrical makeup left over from Halloween. We probably all have green and yellow splotches on our faces this morning.”

  “Yours are hardly noticeable,” I consoled her. “I used soap and water and cold cream.”

  “You didn’t get it all off, either.” Her wicked grin said she was teasing. At least I hoped she was.

  I thanked her for the fabric and dashed back to In Stitches.

  A hundred sandbags would raise our impromptu dam approximately two inches. I ripped twenty strips from the gaudy plaid, sat at my fastest machine, and stitched. Sea glass tinkled, and the day’s first browsers shuffled in—Rhonda and Aunt Betty. They didn’t seem interested in anything besides the view out my rear windows. Keeping an eye on them, I continued making bags.

  Loud rumbling out on Lake Street made us all turn
around. A large yellow earth mover rolled toward the beach.

  “What the . . . ?” Aunt Betty asked.

  “Call your husband,” Rhonda urged in nasal excitement. “Someone’s probably breaking a law.”

  They went back to looking out my windows and guessing how soon my cottage would drift off down the river.

  “A day or two,” Aunt Betty said.

  Rhonda snorted breathily, her version of laughter. “Tonight.”

  What encouraging visitors. I bent my head over my sewing machine and stitched.

  A bus stopped in front of the store. Its doors opened, and women I recognized as our usual Threadville tourists disembarked. On a Sunday?

  Men came out of the bus, too, and shuffled their feet on the sidewalk as if they couldn’t figure out what to do next.

  The Threadville tourists were not as reticent. Carrying grocery bags overflowing with remnants, women trotted into In Stitches. My Elderberry Bay students, Susannah and Georgina, came in with them. “Willow,” Susannah shouted. “We’re here to make sandbags for you, and some of the ladies from Erie brought their husbands along to fill them.”

  Overwhelmed, I went to help with their coats. “How did you know?” I asked.

  Georgina shrugged out of her lovely handmade fleece-lined jacket. She was dressed all in apricot. “We guessed you might be in trouble, so we started a chain of phone calls, and here we are. We went through our stashes and brought stuff we’d never use.”

  Women from the village and women from Erie had been phoning each other and sorting through stashes at a hideously early hour. For me. I couldn’t speak.

  Susannah clutched the bag of scraps to her chest. “It’s a great way to discover we’re running out of fabrics—”

  Grinning fiendishly, Georgina finished Susannah’s sentence. “—And need to buy more.”

  Susannah agreed. “We can never let our stashes get too low. You never know when a rainy day might come.”

  I didn’t have enough sewing machines, so I sent several women across the street to The Stash. Considering that these helpful women were gearing themselves up to buy new fabrics, I didn’t think Haylee would mind.

  Rosemary came up onto my porch, opened the front door, and beckoned me closer so she could keep her boots on. She was wearing the scarf she’d embroidered in my class on Friday. “I’ll bus the men, shovels, and empty bags to the beach. We’ll fill the bags. Can I drive my bus on that trail behind your place?”

  I explained that I wouldn’t let her endanger herself and her bus on the submerged trail. “We’ll have to carry the bags down from my front gate,” I decided, not wanting to force all these good people, many of whom were probably grandparents, to do all that hauling and carrying.

  I should have known that Rosemary would be optimistic. Smiling, she drove off with her passengers and cargo.

  Seconds later, Clay and Smythe appeared in their pickup trucks. Not caring if my face was green or purple or red plaid, I ran out to the sidewalk to thank them again for last night’s work. They opened their tailgates and unloaded wheelbarrows.

  “We can’t drive on the trail,” Clay explained. “We’ll leave these in your yard and go down to the beach to fill sandbags.”

  I told them about the men already down there planning to bring sandbags back on the Threadville tour bus.

  Smythe tossed me one of his sweet smiles. “Loading our pickup trucks will be easier.” Pulling his yellow and black bee-stinger stocking cap over his curls, he got into his truck and tore off toward the beach. He was enjoying this. I supposed that running a lavender farm could get lonely during the winter when his bees must be sound asleep.

  Clay asked me if I was all right.

  Either that was the only thing he could ever think of saying to me, or Haylee hadn’t been teasing about the vestiges of makeup on my face. “Sure, but please be careful, Clay. If it’s too dangerous, please don’t go anywhere near that river. And stop others, too. Blueberry Cottage isn’t worth risking lives for.”

  Susannah thrust an armload of empty bags at him. He accepted the bags, gave her a huge smile, then strode to his truck and drove off toward the beach.

  I was curious about Aunt Betty’s and Rhonda’s reactions to the way our fellow villagers were helping me, but Aunt Betty and Rhonda had disappeared. They probably hated being around cheerful people and had marched outside in hopes of seeing ice crunch Blueberry Cottage into matchsticks.

  The Threadville tourists and local women in my shop had a great morning gossiping, sewing bags, helping themselves to cider and cookies, taking empty bags and treats to whichever of the workers appeared at the front door, and watching Clay and Smythe roll wheelbarrows of sandbags down the hill.

  I felt like I should feed lunch to all these volunteers, but they took turns going off to Pier 42, and Susannah brought lunch back for me. Sisters-in-thread were some of the most wonderful people I’d ever met.

  While they sewed, I took the two dogs out into the backyard. I kept them leashed since both gates were open. Planting his work boots carefully, Herb strained to prevent a wheelbarrow full of sandbags from flying down the hill on its own.

  Sally and Tally backed away from him. Because of the wheelbarrow? Or because of something that they knew or guessed about him?

  No one could maneuver a wheelbarrow full of sandbags down a steep, rutted hill if both of his arms weren’t strong, and Herb was using his right arm just as well as his left.

  Odd and potentially suspicious, but Herb had been really helpful during the past eighteen hours. He couldn’t be a murderer. Still, I chewed on my bottom lip as I took the dogs inside and dried them.

  At five, Rosemary apologized because she had to round up her passengers and take them home. “We added a second line of sandbags behind the first to shore it up, and both rows are mostly five sandbags high.” She clasped her hands above her head in victory. “That should do it. Three layers of sandbags are still above the water. Someone should take a picture. That’s the most beautiful levee I’ve ever seen.”

  If these volunteers hadn’t shown up, the swollen river would be licking at Blueberry Cottage’s foundation. I thanked everyone. There was no way to pay them back.

  Rosemary placed a hand reverently over her heart. “That Fraser Construction guy. What a gem. Not only is he about the best-looking creature to ever walk this earth, he worked as hard as anyone out there, and one of his employees is down at the mouth of the river with a backhoe, breaking up the ice jam.”

  I felt myself flush. All this for me?

  After everyone left, I scrubbed at Naomi’s persistent theatrical makeup.

  The phone rang.

  “Sorry, Willow, something’s come up.” Clay sounded formal.

  I had to be smart-alecky. “The river?”

  A smile warmed his voice. “That, too. I’m afraid I may not make it to the dinner dance tonight. You won’t need to save me a dance after all.”

  Suddenly, I didn’t want to go, either. I tried to thank him for all he had done to save my cottage.

  “No problem. The village hired me to break up the ice at the end of the river. Irv was out there helping, and Uncle Allen even pitched in for a while. But more ice keeps floating downriver.”

  Was Clay planning to work all evening on flood control? I picked at a fingernail. “Don’t miss the party tonight just because of my cottage. There’s really nothing else anyone can do.”

  “I’m not. The river has supposedly crested, and the temperature’s supposed to stay below freezing for the next few days. We may get a reprieve.”

  For now. We couldn’t do this every time we had a thaw, though.

  Clay hung up. I was tired and out of sorts, and again considered staying home from the dinner dance.

  But I was also hungry. And my friends and I planned to do more sleuthing. Getting ready, I chose a black miniskirt with a V-necked blouse that seemed too dressy for day but would be fine for evening. Especially if I had even the teeniest hope of seein
g, as Rosemary had aptly described him, the best-looking creature to have walked this earth.

  Haylee was going to the dance with Smythe, and in our flurry of activity, the rest of us hadn’t arranged a carpool. I slithered down icy sidewalks to my car and drove by myself to the community center.

  The parking lot wasn’t nearly as crowded as it had been the night before. In his honey-colored pickup truck, Smythe followed me into the lot and parked beside me. Haylee smiled at me from his passenger seat. We all got out, and he offered her one arm and me the other. Laughing, we maneuvered over icy patches to the hall, where we joined Herb and Karen at a table. Two couples and me. Nothing like being the fifth wheel. I glanced around. No Clay.

  Edna bounced, birdlike, into the hall and turned to Naomi and Opal, who followed her at a more sedate pace. She pointed at our table, then all three women choose a table across the room. Either they planned to question the people at their table about Mike’s murder, or they decided to let the young folks have some time alone.

  I had fun despite my lack of a date. There were no eulogies for Mike or anyone else. The Lake Erie yellow perch and French fries were freshly cooked and delicious, the coleslaw was crunchy, and that delicious vanilla fudge was back. The music wasn’t deafening. I could hear my tablemates, and Smythe kept us laughing.

  After everyone had gone back for all the seconds and thirds they could eat, a woman climbed to the stage. Shaking her head like she hoped no one would take her suggestions, she announced a nature hike at six on Tuesday morning, and everybody was welcome whether they belonged to the nature club or not. She was president. “But you’ll need reservations,” she cautioned us.

  I sat back, stretched my legs out, and folded my arms. I had reservations, many of them, about nature hikes in cold weather, especially at dawn.

  She added that we could make our reservations tonight, in the back of the hall.

  Across the room, Edna leaned forward, cocked her head, and nodded encouragingly at me. Oh no. She expected us all to go traipsing about at that ungodly hour.