“You didn’t come to win her back?”
“No.”
“So why did you punch Marc?”
“He said some really crass things about her. It made me mad.”
“How mad?”
“Look,” I heard Ryan say, “it wasn’t like he was taking my girlfriend. She wasn’t my girlfriend anymore. And that was my choice.”
Jesse stopped the tape. “I’m sorry. But you seemed to want to know the truth.”
I felt a ball form in the center of my stomach and tears well up behind my eyes. I wanted to run into the bathroom and cry, but I didn’t want Jesse to see me fall apart. “He didn’t want you to think he had a motive,” I said.
“That’s possible. He could have lied about why he came up here. Just liked he lied about being with you in the store.”
I nodded. “I think he was nervous. And maybe he didn’t know at that moment that he wanted me back.”
“You’re playing one hell of a tennis game with yourself,” he said. Jesse pointed to the blue box at my feet. “Do you still want those?”
I picked them up and started to walk toward the door, hoping I’d get out before I burst into tears.
“If you need to talk . . . ,” he said quietly as I opened the door. I nodded, but I didn’t answer him.
CHAPTER 51
Though it was a Wednesday, the entire Friday Night Quilt Club was at Eleanor’s house when I got home. I was in no mood for quilt wisdom or the kind words of women I had pretty much acquilt wisdom or the kind words of women I had pretty much accused of murder, so I walked past the activity and headed upstairs. I dumped the invitations on my bed and was about to lie down when Barney came in the room.
“Hey there, fellow.” I patted his head lightly. I could hear the activity in full swing down below and I knew he had come to me for an escape, but he wasn’t going to get it. I suddenly realized I didn’t feel like examining my conflicted feelings for Ryan. I’d spent enough time doing that already, and it was getting a little old. “Sorry, boy. We have a quilt to make.”
Barney reluctantly followed me out the door and down the stairs, and when we walked into the dining room, I could see why he needed a break. There were three sewing machines set up, with Carrie, Eleanor and Natalie each manning one. The rest of the women were furiously cutting fabrics. Nancy was in the middle of it all, arranging sewn blocks on a long piece of white flannel that looked as if it had been stapled to the wall.
“The fabric sticks to the flannel without having to pin,” she said when I went over to check out the progress.
“Everything looks great,” I offered. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Ladies, we have a volunteer,” shouted Susanne.
“I’ll put you to work right here,” Maggie said. “Each of these blocks needs to be pressed very carefully before you give them to Nancy. And watch out, the iron is hot.”
“Sounds easy enough.” I picked up a block and ran the iron across it, nearly giving Maggie a stroke.
“No, dear,” she said. “We don’t iron a block. We press it.” She held the iron and moved it onto a spot on the block, held it there for a moment, then picked it up and placed it on another spot. “It’s simple.”
“I know there’s a difference,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But what is it?”
“If you iron back and forth, you might distort the block, stretch out the fibers,” Maggie said, sounding patient and soft toward me for the first time. “It’s a mistake we all make, dear.”
I took the second block and carefully placed the iron on it for a few seconds. Maggie nodded her approval and left me alone to the task.
“How’s the progress at the shop?” Bernie asked me. “Are we ahead or is he?”
“It’s hard to say. He’s got the place painted and the shelves are up. He still needs to put in the countertop and a few other things.”
“It’ll be a tight race,” said Eleanor.
“Then we need reinforcements.” Bernie smiled and walked out of the room, returning a few minutes later with a plastic container full of fudge.
I grabbed a piece, even though I wasn’t sure if Maggie would approve of my eating and ironing. “This is amazing.”
“I’ll give you the recipe.”
“Hand it here, Bernie,” Maggie said with a smile. Apparently quilting and chocolate did mix. Maggie grabbed herself several hunks of fudge and tossed a piece to Natalie, who barely caught it, making both women laugh.
After I finished with the pressing, I was put on one of the machines.I think it was more to amuse the rest of the group than to teach me sewing, but I did a pretty good job sewing a straight line. As it turned out, it wasn’t that hard. It just took a little coordination.
“Piecing a top,” Bernie said, referring to sewing the top of the quilt, I had figured out, “can be pretty easy if you choose a simple pattern.”
I took a deep breath and kept sewing. I felt an odd satisfaction in taking the separate pieces of fabric and making them one. After twenty minutes of steadily sewing block after block, I looked up for my next piece.
“Let me see,” Maggie said. “Not bad,” she said as she examined my work. “Let’s look at it.” She handed the quilt top to Nancy, who put it on the wall. Then Nancy placed long pieces of mottled purple fabric on each side of the quilt.
We all stepped back and took a first look at what the quilt would look like. The effect was mesmerizing. Alone the blocks had seemed like a jumble of multicolored squares, but put together it was like an impressionist garden.
“I hope the shop is as nice as this quilt,” Natalie said, and we all agreed. Bottles of wine were opened, toasts were made and everyone sat around feeling pretty good—and a little high on the strangely satisfying combination of white wine and fudge.
“Well, you’re not a virgin anymore.” Bernie poured me a second glass of wine.
“Honestly, Bernadette,” Maggie said, “you have the oddest way of putting things.”
“It’s okay,” I laughed. “I guess I’m a quilter now.”
“Well, you hang out with the wrong crowd and you’re going to pick up some bad habits.” Nancy patted me on the shoulder.
I looked over at my grandmother sitting on a chair, her broken leg propped up. She smiled at me and I smiled back. I could finally see what had brought her to quilting. It was creative, it was practical and it was tradition. Passed down from one generation of women to the next going back hundreds of years, no matter the circumstance. From the slaves in the pre-Civil War South, who sewed scraps to warm themselves and celebrate their individuality . . . to Victorian-day women who showed off their high social station by making elaborate embroidered pieces on silks and satins to display both their wealth and the amount of leisure time they had . . . to the Amish women who even today use bright colors and elaborate stitching to showcase their abilities, while still remaining humble . . . to the women in this room with their unique styles, often strange personalities and strong friendships. I was proud to be considered one of them, even if only for one night.
“Isn’t there still a lot of work to do?” I finally asked.
“Tomorrow,” Nancy laughed. “Unless you can figure out a way to stall Tom.”
“I guess I should get home to the baby,” Natalie sighed.
“Oh, yeah. Children,” Carrie said. “I should go too.”
Nancy and Bernie agreed to stay behind and clean up the dining room so it would be ready for customers in the morning. I walked Barney, who had spent most of the evening in the kitchen.
“What is his problem?” I asked Eleanor, who was making herself tea when I got back to the house.
“He’s not used to so many people, all day long,” she said as Barney dropped into his dog bed. “I think the poor thing is petted out.”
I petted him anyway, and he did his best to ignore me. And then I did the dishes.
“Well, you’ve put that one to work, haven’t you,” Bernie said to Eleanor as she
walked in the kitchen.
“She has,” I admitted. “And I’ve got the dishpan hands to prove it.” I held up my dry hands in kind of show-and-tell.
Bernie reached into her purse and took out a small jar. “Try this,” she said, and tossed it to me. “It’s quilter’s hand wax.”
“What makes it for quilters?”
“It’s not specifically,” Eleanor said. “It’s just a great waxy moisturizer that softens hands but won’t get greasy and ruin fabric, so you can use it while you’re sewing.”
I opened the jar and smelled it. It didn’t smell like anything. I dipped in. It was, as described, waxy. I spread a little on my hands and rubbed it in. My hands felt softer, but she was right—there was no greasiness. I put my finger back in the jar and took a little more. It seemed familiar. It seemed like the same stuff that had been on the stairs in the shop—the stairs Eleanor and I had both slipped on.
“Where did you get this, Bernie?” I asked.
“At the shop. Your grandmother sells it by the truckload.” Eleanor nodded.
I turned the jar upside down. “What are you doing?” Eleanor asked.
“I’m just trying to see if it spills. If it could have been accidentally spilled on the steps.”
“Doesn’t budge.”
“No, Grandma, it doesn’t.”
“Well, it’s a lovely science experiment, dear, but I should be going.” Bernie patted Eleanor’s arm. “Good work today, I think.”
“It was.”
Bernie walked over to me. “I almost forgot. I wrote down my fudge recipe for you.” She pulled out a piece of pink paper from her purse and handed it to me, smiling. “Maybe you’ll make it for a future meeting.”
I looked at the pink paper for a long second. That didn’t make sense. But when I looked up, Bernie was gone and Nancy had entered the kitchen to say good night.
CHAPTER 52
“Please don’t say it.” Jesse was laughing the next morning when I called him about the pink paper and the hand wax.
“It’s not impossible. Bernie told me herself that she had more lovers than she can remember.”
“Stop. Now.”
“She could have been having an affair with Marc.”
“Mrs. Avallone is a friend of my mother’s.”
“Then explain the pink paper. Explain the hand wax.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “The stationery store said that at least a dozen pads of the same paper have been sold in the last six months. And the wax comes from the quilt shop. All of those women probably have some.”
“I don’t think the paper is a coincidence.”
“I tell you what—you follow up on that lead and I’ll work on figuring out where Marc could have gotten the money. Last night I was thinking that maybe he was blackmailing someone and when the person came to pay, he or she instead decided to kill him.”
“You think he was blackmailing Bernie about their secret affair? ” I said, only half kidding.
“I don’t want to have that image in my head. Mrs. Avallone plays cards with my mother every Tuesday.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and it felt nice. “But the wax is another story. Who went up and down those stairs?”
“Everyone. The bathroom was downstairs and all the regulars at the shop had access to it.”
“So it could have been meant for someone else. Someone like you.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt me?”
“Why would anyone want to hurt Eleanor?”
I didn’t know the answer, but I promised to be careful as we hung up. My cell phone rang again and I was sure it was Jesse calling back, but when I looked at the caller ID, I saw it was Ryan. I just kept looking at the number as the phone rang until it went silent.
I went downstairs where Nancy and Eleanor were already set up for another day of quilting. Nancy was positioning and repositioning the flowers I had so carefully cut out. She tried them on the long plain strips of purple fabric that made up the borders of the quilt, but they didn’t work. Then she tried to place them in the blocks.
“No,” I said. “That’s too busy.”
“Any suggestions?” She turned to me.
“The whole quilt feels like a painting, and then when you put the flowers on it, it sort of takes away from it.” I touched the soft fabric of the quilt. “I wish you could paint flowers on the borders. That would be cool.”
“You can,” Eleanor said. “They make paints that you can put on fabric.”
“Well, I can’t,” Nancy protested. “I’m not much of a painter.”
“Nell can.” Eleanor sat up in her chair. “She used to paint all the time.”
“I don’t know if I was any good,” I protested.
Eleanor dismissed me with a wave. “Nancy, we have some fabric paints, don’t we?”
Nancy sorted through several boxes until she found what she was looking for. “I don’t know how to paint on fabric,” I said. “And I’m certainly not going to ruin this.”
“Paint flowers on the borders. That’s just plain fabric,” Nancy said. “If we hate it, we’ll just cut more fabric.”
I laid some paper on the ironing board, then put a long strip of the purple border fabric on the board and pinned it down. I was nervous enough without having the fabric move around as I painted. I ordered Nancy and Eleanor out of the room and arranged the paints. Then I stared at the fabric. I had an image in my head of how it should look, but I couldn’t figure out where to start.
“Nature isn’t perfect, you know,” Nancy said from the hallway.
“Better than me,” I sighed.
“The Amish have a tradition. They make a deliberate mistake in every quilt as a way of acknowledging that only God makes things perfect.” Nancy walked in and pushed me slightly toward the strip of fabric.
“So I’m the deliberate mistake.”
Nancy laughed. “I think it’s kind of nice. Every time I screw up, I say I did it for God. Makes me feel better.”
“Fair enough. But you have to leave the room and stay out until I’m ready.” Nancy did as she was told and I turned back to the border.
Using Nancy’s flower template as a guide, I lightly painted flowers on one of the border sides. I made dark purple, pink, and yellow flowers, with light and dark green leaves and stems, holding my breath the entire time. When I was done, I called Nancy and Eleanor back into the room. Together we put the painted border next to the quilt.
“That was it,” Nancy said. “That was exactly what it needed.”
So I painted the other three sides while Nancy and Eleanor cleared back out of the room so, as they put it, they wouldn’t disturb an artist at work. As I finished each side of the border, I put it back on the flannel wall next to the interior of the quilt. Stepping back, I had to admit it was beautiful. The painting echoed the garden feel of the blocks without taking away from their impact.
“I’m done,” I called out.
Nancy and Eleanor came back in. Nancy praised me repeatedly, but Eleanor just leaned on her crutch and stared.
“What do you think, Grandma?”
She shook her head. “It works.”
The doorbell rang, and I knew it was time to open the makeshift quilt shop for the day. Eleanor sat in her chair and rested her leg on a small footstool while Nancy went out to great the customers.
“I should check on the shop,” I said.
Eleanor nodded; she was still staring at the quilt. “You’ll have to do something like that for the shop wall.”
“One of these days,” I said, and headed for the hallway before I got too caught up in the moment. Nancy headed me off as I reached for my coat near the front door. “I’m going to check on the shop,” I told her.
“I’m sure you like your job in the city, Nell,” Nancy said, suddenly serious. “But you have real talent. I know your grandmother said that you dabble in painting, but you should really think about getting some training. I wanted to when I was your age, but . . . well, I got a l
ittle caught up in getting married, having kids. I just didn’t get around to it. I always thought there would be time.”
I nodded. “Thanks. It’s really sweet, especially from you, with all your quilts and everything.” I hesitated because I knew it wasn’t really my business, but she had sort of opened the subject matter. “I was in New York the other day, at a gallery, and I saw your quilts.”
Nancy took my arm and led me outside. It was a cold morning and she was shivering in her turtleneck sweater. “I haven’t told Eleanor yet,” she said quietly. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“Maggie knows.”
Nancy nodded. “It’s her daughter’s shop. It doesn’t matter that you know. Everybody’s been telling me to sell my quilts, so I thought I’d give it a go.”
“I’ll bet you’re doing well.”
Nancy took a deep breath. “I haven’t sold any yet, so who knows if anything will come of it.”
“Are you kidding? Those quilts were amazing.”
She blushed. “Please don’t say anything. I want to keep it to myself for now, in case nothing happens with them. I don’t want people being disappointed for me.”
I hugged her. “Not a word.”
“Art school.” She wagged her finger at me. “There’s one in Nyack and one in Peekskill. I’ll get you brochures.”
I’d like that, I thought. Then my phone rang, and it was Ryan again. I put the phone in my pocket and headed into town.
CHAPTER 53
I stopped by the bakery for coffee and a muffin on my way to the shop. As I was walking out, I saw Carrie up the street heading toward the pharmacy. I was about to say hello when I noticed she wasn’t going into the pharmacy. She was hovering by the door that led to the apartments above it. She took a key out of her purse and unlocked the door. As she entered the building, I ran to catch her and put my foot in the door just as it was about to close. I waited for about a minute. I wanted her to be in Marc’s apartment when I walked in and caught her doing . . . I wasn’t really sure what she might be doing, but it was clear she had lied earlier.
I thought, just briefly, about calling Jesse, but I knew he would ask me to wait outside, and I was way too curious to do that. I walked up the stairs to Marc’s apartment. The door was slightly opened.
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