Threading the Needle

by Marie Bostwick

  “Well, those pants are making my eyes hurt,” Abigail commented. “Last time I saw orange that bright was on a traffic cone. Don’t they have people to dress her?”

  “Mary Dell doesn’t pay any attention. She likes how she looks. I think that’s part of her appeal. Mary Dell is happy being Mary Dell and it shows. Plus, she’s hilarious. Listen to this. . . .”

  Evelyn raised the volume a couple of notches as Mary Dell looked into the camera with her bright eyes and wide smile.

  “Now, here’s a little gardening tip sent in by Bernice Krueger of Moraga, California. Howard?”

  Howard cleared his throat and read from a sheet of pink stationery.

  “Dear Mary Dell and Howard: If you’re looking for a way to lighten heavy soils and shield your spouse from the full scope of your fabric habit, consider shredding your old quilt shop receipts and mixing them in with your garden compost. I’ve been doing this for years and my rose garden is the envy of the neighborhood. In fact, my ‘Mr. Lincoln’ hybrid tea roses just won fifty dollars at a local garden show. Know what I did with the prize money? I made more compost supplies. And this wall hanging.”

  As Mary Dell laughed and as Howard held up a photo, the camera came in to show Bernice Krueger’s quilted version of her award-winning rose.

  “Well, that’s a good tip, Bernice.” Mary Dell chuckled. “We’re going to send you a Quintessential Quilting T-shirt for sharing that with us.

  “You know, Howard, back when I was married to your daddy, I had that same problem. I just didn’t think it was right to burden him with complete disclosure when it came to my fabric purchases.”

  Howard nodded solemnly. “You mighta given him a hard attack.”

  “Indeed I might, honey. I sure might.” She smiled at her son’s malapropism but didn’t correct him.

  “So, for his own protection, I decided that every time I wrote a check to the quilt shop, I’d just record it in the register as having been written to the grocery store. Well, one night, Donny was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to balance the checkbook, and he was just grumbling to himself and scratching his head. So I said, ‘What’s the matter? Won’t it add up?’ And Donny said, ‘Yeah, it adds up fine, but for the life of me I cannot understand how you can be writing four checks a week for groceries when there isn’t one blessed thing to eat in this house!’ ”

  Mary Dell threw her head back and laughed at her own punch line. Howard joined in.

  “Oh, Momma! He should have known what you were up to! I would have.”

  “I know you would, darlin’, because you know how happy fabric makes me. Now that I’m older and wiser, I wouldn’t give the time of day to a man who didn’t understand that. A man who can’t appreciate a good yard of cotton, can’t appreciate me.”

  Apparently forgetting they were being filmed, Howard turned to his mother and beamed just as the Quintessential Quilting theme song began to play in the background. “Hub-Jay appreciates you and a good yard of cotton, doesn’t he, Momma? He wouldn’t have a hard attack on you!”

  Mary Dell’s smile froze on her lips. Her eyes darted away from her son’s face to the camera. “Well, Howard, it’s time for us to go. Can’t believe how the time flew! Until next time, remember, behind every good quilter . . .”

  Howard finished the line. “. . . is a great big pile of fabric!”

  “So get to it, y’all!” Mary Dell winked as the music rose up and the credits started to roll down the screen. Evelyn turned off the video. Abigail looked at her with raised brows.

  “Well, well, well,” she said. “What an interesting slipup.”

  “Were they taping that live?” I asked.

  “Definitely,” Evelyn said and walked to her sewing machine. “I called her the minute it aired. Mary Dell has a beau. Hubble James Hollander, Hub-Jay for short. He’s nice and he owns his own business. That’s all she’d tell me.”

  “A businessman,” Abigail murmured. “That sounds promising. And it sounds as if Howard approves of him.”

  “Oh, he’d have to or Mary Dell wouldn’t give him the time of day. I don’t think Mary Dell even had a date since Donny left, not until now. Howard is her whole life.”

  Abigail, who is always careful about her weight, cut one brownie in half and put it on a napkin before carrying it back to her sewing machine. “Chicks do have a habit of leaving the nest. I think it’s good that Mary Dell is doing a little something for herself at last.”

  “I do too,” Evelyn said and took another brownie for herself, a whole one, and brought it to the ironing board. “She sounded really happy. Hey, Madelyn, when you get a moment can you give me some help with my borders? I was just going to repeat the one I did around the center medallion, but now I’m thinking it looks a little dull. I’d like to find something a little more daring.”

  “Sure. Be there in a minute.”

  Madelyn thrust a glass of something sweet and bubbly—pros-ecco, I think—into my left hand and a plate piled with dense, gooey brownies into my right. I took a sip of my drink and then, since my left hand was occupied, bent my head down to the brownie plate and took a bite, sighing with satisfaction.

  “Fabulous. Definitely made my night. What do you put into these things anyway? And don’t go telling me a pinch of this and a pinch of that. You’ve got some strange secret ingredient in there. What is it?”

  Madelyn glanced over her shoulder. Everyone else was hard at work. The steady hum of sewing machines and steamy hiss of Evelyn’s iron made it impossible for anyone to overhear our conversation. “It’s not my recipe, it’s one of Edna’s. I found it in her recipe file. I won’t tell you the ingredients but I will tell you what she called them—but only if you promise not to tell Virginia.”

  Before I could ask why Virginia would care about what the recipe’s title was, Madelyn whispered, “Bourbon Street brownies.”

  “There’s liquor in there?”

  “Kentucky bourbon,” Madelyn affirmed. “Finest kind.”

  I fought to keep from laughing. “You’re right. We can’t tell Virginia. She’s a teetotaler.”

  “So was Edna—that was her story anyway. Did I tell you I found a whole case of empty bottles of ‘tonic’ in the cellar?” Madelyn said with a conspiratorial grin.

  “Well, that explains a lot of things.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” Madelyn said. “Anyway, don’t tell Virginia. There’s no actual alcohol in there, it burns off in the baking, but I wouldn’t want to upset her. Even Jake said he could have some if he wanted, but he prefers my peach raspberry muffins. I swear I’m going to have to start calling him Muffin Man. He gobbles down at least three every time he comes over. And never gains an ounce. Irritates the heck out of me,” she said with a smile that belied her words.

  “So,” I said slowly, “how often is he over at your place?”

  “A couple of times a week,” she said casually. “Three or four. If it snows he comes over with the truck to plow my driveway and stays for breakfast. And if I’ve got guests and need to get out to run errands, he’ll come watch the phones for me. And we get together for sushi every other Wednesday.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh, stop it, Tessa. Don’t look at me like that. We’re not dating. We’re friends. I like it that way and so does Jake.”

  “You sure? I don’t know too many men who plow somebody else’s driveway out of friendship.”

  “I’m sure, so let’s talk about something else. Like you. When you came in you looked like you’d lost your best friend, which,” Madelyn said as she reached for the bottle of bubbly and refilled my glass and her own, “we both know is impossible. You’re stuck with me for life.”

  She touched the rim of her glass to mine before we took another sip. “So, really? How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  Madelyn tilted her head to the side. “You’re going to have to rehearse that a few more times. Not a convincing performance.”

  “I don’t want to talk about
it. I came here to eat brownies, quilt, and forget my problems. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Madelyn said.

  An old friend knows when you’re lying but also knows when to let it lie.

  “But when you’re ready to talk, you know I’m always ready to listen. Right?”

  “Right,” I said with a little smile, knowing it was true.

  Madelyn nodded and let it lie. “Until then, I have a little project that might interest you.” She walked across the room to the coat-rack, picked up a Cobbled Court Quilts shopping bag from the floor, and carried it to the table.

  “Actually,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I’m hoping this will interest a couple of you. Remember Angela? She came to stay with me when the inn first opened?”

  “The basketball player’s wife?” Virginia clucked her tongue. “Poor thing. Somebody ought to take some dull scissors and do surgery on that husband of hers.” No one disagreed.

  “Her baby is due soon,” Madelyn said, “and I was wondering if I might talk some of you into making a baby quilt for her.”

  She pulled a pile of fabric out of the bag, a collection of green, cream, blue, and yellow cottons patterned with stripes, stars, checks, and polka dots that complemented the anchor fabric, featuring a picnic of smiling, pajama-clad teddy bears flying kites on a background of sea-glass green. I was sure that these fabrics weren’t part of a manufacturer’s collection, but they went together perfectly, in a combination more interesting than any planned collection could ever have been.

  How was she able to do that? I’d tried to pull off that bold, scrappy look when buying fabric for my most recent project, spending over an hour pulling bolts and piling them on the table only to chicken out at the last moment and replace the scrappy patterns with a yawn-inducing collection of safe solids. Maybe I should have asked Madelyn to choose my fabrics. She could play Howard to my Mary Dell.

  The moment Madelyn spread out her fabrics, everyone abandoned their sewing and gathered round. The sight of a new fabric attracts quilters as surely as a magnet attracts steel.

  “Oh, that teddy bear fabric is so sweet!” Margot exclaimed. “Is it new?”

  Evelyn nodded. “Just came in on Monday. But I didn’t know we’d sold any yet.”

  “Madelyn bought it while you were at lunch with Charlie,” Virginia replied. “I was sort of hoping she’d decided to start quilting after all. But this is the next best thing. Who wants to help?”

  Margot ran her hand over the yardage and said, “I love making baby quilts.”

  Poor Margot. She was bright, beautiful, cheerful, and, nearing her fortieth birthday, single. She loves children and wants a family of her own, but there seems to be no sign of a husband or babies on her horizon. I remembered what that felt like to want a baby so badly but be afraid you’d never have one of your own.

  The wistful tone in Margot’s voice pulled me up short. My mom always used to say, “Enjoy the little things in life, Tessa. One day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” I was so lucky to have Josh. And Lee. And friends.

  “I’ll help with Angela’s quilt,” I said.

  “Me too,” Margot said in a deliberately cheerful voice.

  The others echoed her and, in less time than it takes to unsew a seam, were chattering about the fabric, sketching out patterns, and having a wonderful time. Even me. I told Madelyn that I’d come to the quilt shop to quilt, eat, and forget my problems, and that’s exactly what happened.

  Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you realize that the little things are really the big things. Or, as Lee might say, “Broke I may be. Poor I am not.”

  42

  Madelyn

  March

  It was March 20, the first day of spring. I wonder if Tessa realized that when she chose that date to close For the Love of Lavender? There was a certain irony, even poetry, to closing a shop devoted to all things herbal just as the earth was stirring, waking to a season of growth. With all she had on her mind, I doubt she’d given much thought to the significance of the date or the fact that our birthdays were coming up later in the week. It didn’t matter. I had memory enough for us both.

  It was a Saturday morning and two of my rooms were filled—the first time I’d ever had more than one room occupied at a time. At the moment, the most notable feature in my reservation book was a lot of white space, but I hoped warmer temperatures would change that.

  So far, I’d experienced a few bumps on the road—the occasional leaking toilet or burned breakfast, a broken coffeepot, the guest who ignored the prominently placed sign on the hearth stating that the fireplace was only ornamental but, using several rolled-up magazines for fuel, tried to light a fire anyway, another who stayed out until two in the morning, lost his key, and was nearly arrested when a neighbor caught him trying to jimmy open a back window and called the police. But those few missteps aside, things were going well. My guest book was filled with praise from my customers as well as promises to come back soon and spread the word. I hoped they were telling the truth.

  The easiest way to reach my target audience would be to advertise, preferably in the New York Times. But that was way, way beyond my means. Instead, I had to settle for a sixth of a page display ad in Passport magazine, which was distributed free of charge at restaurants, museums, boutiques, and anywhere else tourists might frequent—the same magazine my guest had used as fuel for the forbidden fire. Evelyn’s son, Garrett, had designed a basic website for me, offering information, pretty pictures, and a phone number to call for reservations. Other than that, I had to rely on luck, word of mouth, and my new brochures, which had just arrived from the printer.

  After feeding my guests, doing the dishes, cleaning the rooms, and changing the sheets, I planned to drop off a stack of brochures at the visitor information booth on the Green, then stop in at For the Love of Lavender to give Tessa her birthday present and a big dose of moral support. Jake said he’d stop by around noon to watch the office for me. The moment I could afford it, I had to hire some part-time help. I couldn’t keep imposing on Jake.

  I use a back corner of the kitchen for my office. That’s where Jake found me when he arrived. He greeted me and grabbed one of the leftover breakfast muffins from a platter on the countertop.

  “You’re going to get fat if you keep that up.”

  “Think so?” he asked, glancing down at his stomach with a grin.

  I laughed. “You are so irritating.”

  The phone rang. It was Angela Radnovich, calling to thank me for the baby quilt.

  “You’re welcome, Angela. But you should be thanking the women over at Cobbled Court. They did all the work. I just bought the fabric.”

  “I’m sending two thank-you notes, one for you and one to your friends. I love the quilt. It’s already in the crib, ready for the big day.”

  “It’ll be here before you know it. How are you feeling?”

  “As well as can be expected, considering my husband’s publicist just sent out a press release announcing his wedding to the next Mrs. Radnovich. Their timing is good, mid-May. The baby will just avoid being born illegitimate.”

  “What? How can he do that? Your divorce isn’t final yet, is it?”

  “It will be at the end of April. Mike wants this wedding to go forward on schedule. He accepted my first settlement offer without batting an eye. I get the apartment in New York, the house in Vail, two million a year in child support, and twenty-five million in cash. After all he’s put me through, I should have asked for fifty,” she said in a voice dripping with loathing.

  “Anyway, it’s all but done. I don’t want to talk about it. I just called to thank you and, believe it or not, to talk to you about a wedding.”

  Reading my thoughts, Angela barked out a bitter little laugh and said, “No, not mine. I’ve sworn off men forever. But my personal assistant, Kerry, just got engaged. I told her not to do it, that all men are lying sacks of scum, but she won’t listen. Anyway, I want to throw her a we
dding. . . .”

  “Angela, that is so sweet of you!”

  “No, it’s not. This is purely out of self-interest. She wanted three weeks off to go home to California for a wedding and honeymoon trip. I can’t spare her that long, not with the baby coming, so I offered to fly her family out here, pay for the wedding, plus a five-day honeymoon in Vermont. This way she won’t be gone more than a week.

  “We’ll need to book all your guest rooms,” Angela said. “We can have the ceremony out in your herb garden, assuming the weather is good, and the reception in the living room. I’m willing to pay another thousand for use of the garden and public rooms and five hundred more for helping coordinate the details. We’ll need a caterer, florist, and photographer, but I’m sure you have contacts. So? What do you say? Do you have a weekend open in May or June?”

  I wedged the telephone between my ear and shoulder and frantically flipped through the calendar, looking for a completely open weekend, mentally kicking myself for letting people book single rooms for single nights during tourist season.

  “Wait! What about the third weekend in May? We’re wide open.”

  “The same time as Mike’s wedding,” Angela said flatly. “How ironic. I’ll send a deposit. Kerry will call you on Monday.”

  I hung up the phone, clapped my hands, and stomped my feet for joy. All five rooms booked for a weekend! Plus fees for public room rentals and wedding coordination! It added up to . . . ? I was too excited to do the math, too excited to contain myself. Without stopping to think, I let out a whoop, flung myself at Jake, and kissed him on the lips.

  And Jake kissed me back.

  His lips were soft, but his kiss was hard, slow, almost lazy, and so assured. His arms rested at steep angles across the small of my back and the blades of my shoulders. He spread his fingers wide and pressed them gently but firmly to my body, as if trying to leave his imprint on my flesh and in my memory.

  It worked.

  The certainty of his touch summoned images to my mind, memories of our first date and of a young Jake running through twin columns of light spilling from the headlamps of a borrowed car to open my door; images of Jake older and wiser and handsome, waiting on my porch steps with patience and twenty gallons of paint; of Jake leaning against a wall, watching me struggle to control and conquer the floor sander, muscled arms crossed over his chest, wanting to help but holding back because he knew I wanted to do it myself; of Jake laughing, and frowning, and listening, and telling me the truth no matter what; of the way his glass eye wandered when he was tired, the way he smiled when I entered a room. The heat of his hands warmed me, made me forget myself and my need to maintain control, made me remember myself and the spark of long-dormant desire.