Threading the Needle

by Marie Bostwick

“Well, why not come work for me part-time? I mean it,” she insisted, reading the doubt on my face. “I can’t call on Jake to help me anymore. I never should have in the first place. And with this wedding coming up, I could really use an extra pair of hands.”

  “You don’t want me,” I protested. “I don’t know anything about innkeeping.”

  “That’s a relief. On my budget I can’t afford to hire someone with experience.

  “Seriously, Tessa. I’m going to have to hire somebody, why not you? The hours could be flexible, so you could help Lee when he needed it. More importantly, it’d give you a chance to think out what you want to do with For the Love of Lavender.”

  “What do you mean, what I want to do with it?” I frowned. “That dream’s over. It died at five o’clock, after I rang up my last sale and locked the front door.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “I don’t think so. You were doing what you love, creating products you love, that other people could enjoy. You had the right idea. I just think you chose the wrong way to execute it. For the Love of Lavender isn’t dead, just on hiatus. You just need to find another way to do what you love, Tessa. You need a Plan B.”

  “I see.”

  I appreciated Madelyn’s attempts to buoy my spirits, but her newfound optimism and insistence on refusing to do what I’d done, acknowledge my failure and accept the consequences, was a little irritating.

  “Where will I find this Plan B? How long will it take to find it? A month? A year? Ten years?”

  “I don’t know. But why not leave the door open to the possibility? Come work with me for a little bit and see what happens next. What do you say?”

  I wasn’t sure if it was a great idea to work for my friend. But I had to do something, and Madelyn’s offer was tempting. Maybe she couldn’t pay me much but, these days, who could? Especially for part-time work with flexible scheduling? And even if I could find a job, I really didn’t want to start at the bottom in some new company filled with new people, not now.

  “All right,” I said and stuck out my hand. “I accept. Thanks, Madelyn.”

  “Yeah?” Madelyn’s face lit up as she grabbed my outstretched hand to seal the bargain. “That’s great! It’s fun, you’ll see. Most of the time, I don’t even think of it as work.” She lifted her hand, adding a caveat. “Except when I’m dealing with a clogged toilet or a demanding guest. That’s definitely work. But most of the time it just feels like . . . life.... Like living a satisfying life, more satisfying than the life I lived in New York and much less tiring.

  “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to pretend to like people you don’t, who are also pretending to like you? What a waste of time and energy. Since coming to New Bern, I’ve worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life. But when I flop into bed at night, I feel like I’ve accomplished something.”

  Madelyn paused to take a sip of wine. “I had a sweet couple stay with me a couple of weekends ago. They were celebrating their anniversary, so, as a surprise, I decided to bake them a cake. They must have thanked me ten times.”

  “Well,” I said, inclining my head toward the half-eaten birthday cake, summoning my willpower to keep from taking another slice, “if it was half as good as this one, I can understand their gratitude. That was smart, Madelyn. I bet you made them customers for life.”

  Madelyn nodded. “You’re probably right, but that wasn’t why I did it. I was trying to make their visit special. And I did. And it felt great. Of course, I was happy to have that room occupied—I needed the money. But that money is already gone. However, the image of that couple sitting in my dining room, holding hands across the table as they blew out the candles on their cake, will stay with me for a long time. It made me happy to see them so happy.

  “And I guess that’s my point. I had everything backward. When I was only thinking about money and myself and how to get more money for myself, I couldn’t buy happiness at any price. Now that my first focus is on making other people happy, happiness has fallen into my lap like a ripe apple.”

  “Speaking of happiness,” I said, throwing willpower to the four winds as I reached for the knife, “how about another piece of cake?”

  “Why not? I have a theory that calories consumed on your birthday don’t count toward annual totals.”

  “My birthday isn’t for two days yet and yours is two days after that.”

  She shrugged and held out her plate. “Birthday week. Close enough. Wait a minute!” she cried. “I almost forgot your present!”

  Madelyn put down her plate and started rummaging around the bottom of the picnic basket before pulling out a small package wrapped with turquoise tissue paper and handing it to me.

  “Open it!”

  I tore through the layers of tissue and gasped as I spied a glint of silver and aquamarine glass.

  “The bracelets! Our friendship bracelets! I can’t believe you kept them all these years.”

  “I didn’t,” she said as she reached over to place one of the bracelets on my wrist. “I smashed those to smithereens years ago. I salvaged the beads from jewelry I found at tag sales and thrift shops while I was doing the remodeling, and restrung them, so these are new. Well, old-new. Like our friendship.

  “And this time,” she said as she put on her own bracelet, “I strung them on silver-plated beading wire instead of fishing line, so it’s virtually unbreakable—also like our friendship.”

  I held up my arm in the candlelight and twisted my wrist back and forth, making aquamarine shadows dance on the walls and ceiling. “I love it. I just love it. Happy birthday, Madelyn.”

  “Happy birthday, Tessa.”

  45

  Madelyn

  May

  Icame down the back stairs into the kitchen, carrying a laundry basket piled so high with sheets and towels that I didn’t see Tessa was on the phone.

  “Tessa? When I reorganized the supply closet, do you remember where I put the lightbulbs? A bulb burnt out in Room Four. At least, I think it’s just a bulb,” I mumbled to myself. “It better be. I’m tired of writing checks to the electrician.”

  I plunked the basket down on top of the dryer and turned to see Tessa with the phone to her ear, her eyes screwed shut, and her hand held out flat toward me, indicating that this was not a convenient time to talk.

  “I’m sorry, but we’re full that weekend. We’ve got vacancies every other weekend in June. I’d be happy to book you for any of those,” Tessa said hopefully, then nodded in silent acquiescence as whoever was on the other end of the line spoke.

  “I see. Well, I know the other inns are full too. It’s a very popular weekend. You might try calling Barbara Jansen at the Goshen Chamber of Commerce. I think she’s working on some sort of waiting list for vacancies. You’re welcome. Hope you find something. And if you’re ever back in the area, I hope you’ll come stay with us.”

  Tessa hung up the phone and sighed.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “They wanted a room during the Dylan Tyler concert?”

  “You got it.”

  Three weeks previously, it had been announced that Dylan Tyler, the legendary singer who rose to fame in 1968 with the release of his Starlight at Midnight album and had been releasing hits ever since, proving that there were still many beautiful songs to be sung with nothing more than an acoustic guitar for accompaniment, would be giving an outdoor benefit concert in Goshen. The concert tickets sold out within three hours. Every hotel room in a fifty-mile radius sold out within six hours.

  I growled and shoved the sheets into the washer while Tessa pulled towels out of the dryer and started folding. “Why did it have to be that weekend? The one weekend we’re full? And why does the wedding have to be at the same time as the concert? We could have booked those rooms ten times over.”

  “Look on the bright side. We’re at sixty percent occupancy for the last two weekends in June and we’ve got at least forty percent occupancy for every weekend in July. So you’re going to break even for
June and July. Not bad.”

  “Uh, not quite,” I admitted. “I just hired Chico’s brother-in-law to tear out the old walkway and put in a new brick one.”

  “And how much is that going to cost?” Tessa tucked a bath towel under her chin and folded it into thirds. “Four hundred?”

  “Five,” I admitted. “And fifteen hundred more for the arbor in the garden and to replace the picket fence and garden gate in front.”

  Tessa stopped folding. “I don’t know why you decided to do all that right now. Couldn’t it wait?”

  “I want everything looking great for the wedding pictures,” I said defensively. “It’s an investment. If we could start doing a lot of wedding business, we’d be set. Wipe that look off your face. I was going to do it eventually anyway. You’re such a worrywart.”

  “I know. It just seems like a lot of money.”

  Sometimes it felt like I’d hired a loving but scolding older sister rather than a part-time assistant, but it was all right. Tessa worried because she cared—and because she couldn’t help it. Some people are born cautious just as others are born reckless. And if you have to think very hard to decide which of us is which, you haven’t been paying attention.

  Sometimes you just have to go with your instincts. And I had a feeling about this wedding. Something was going to happen, something big. It wasn’t anything I could name, just a sense that the weekend was terribly important, that my future and the future of the inn hung in the balance. But I didn’t say that to Tessa.

  “It’s not that much.”

  “You’re the boss.” She shrugged, piling the freshly folded towels in her arms. “I’ll go put these up and replace that lightbulb before I leave. Anything else you need?”

  “No, that should do it,” I said as I measured out detergent and poured it into the washer. “How’re things at the farm?”

  “Good. Today we’re transplanting tomatoes, making goat cheese, and picking the first strawberries. Since it’s so early in the season, Lee thinks we can get six dollars a pint for them at the farmers’ market. Oh! Speaking of that, I saw Evelyn at the farmers’ market on Saturday and she told me that her friend Mary Dell is coming up for a week. We’ll finally get to meet her.”

  “Really? What’s the occasion?”

  Tessa grinned. “What else? She’s got tickets to Dylan Tyler.”

  “Of course she does,” I said. “Doesn’t everybody? It’ll be nice to meet her, though. I wonder if we should have some kind of little party for her here at the inn? I couldn’t do it on the weekend since I’ll be too busy with the wedding. But if she’s here for a week . . . Maybe a tea? Can you ask Evelyn when you see her on Friday?”

  “Aren’t you coming? You could ask Evelyn yourself.”

  “Can’t. They’re not checking out until Saturday morning,” I said, casting a quick glance toward the ceiling and the general location of my currently occupied guest room. “Somebody has to stay on duty.”

  “Why not me? That’s part of the reason you hired me, isn’t it? So you could get out every now and then? Have a life? You’ve been collecting quotes from caterers, photographers, and florists, contacting the justice of the peace, even booking airline tickets for Kerry’s relatives from California. What are you? A travel agent? And I can’t believe Angela talked you into baking the wedding cake too.”

  “I volunteered to do that,” I corrected her. “I like baking. It’s not a huge cake. There will only be twenty-five guests.”

  “Well, I think Angela’s getting a bargain, hiring you to do the wedding coordination. Go to the quilt circle on Friday. You need a break.”

  “So do you,” I countered. “You’re working two jobs. You’ve got as much claim on exhaustion as I do.”

  “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we flip a coin? The winner gets to go to the quilt shop and the loser stays here and mans the office. Then, next time we’ve got guests on Friday, we’ll take turns.”

  Before I could agree or disagree, Tessa fished a quarter from the pocket of her jeans and, still balancing the stack of towels in one hand, tossed it into the air.

  “Call it!” she called out.

  Without thinking, I claimed heads. The quarter hit the wooden floor and rolled a couple of feet before tipping over with Washington’s face blinking upward.

  “You win,” Tessa said.

  “That wasn’t fair,” I said. “The coin rolled. And I never agreed to a toss anyway.”

  “You called it,” Tessa replied, as if this settled everything, and then climbed the stairs.

  “I don’t feel right about you missing the fun on my account.”

  “Can’t hear you!” Tessa trilled from the top of the stairs.

  “Yes, you can,” I protested. “No kidding, Tessa. I don’t feel right about it.”

  “Get over it. We flipped. You won. End of story.” She walked off without waiting for me to respond, her footsteps echoing on the floorboards over my head.

  “What’s the point of being the boss if nobody listens to you?” I mumbled to myself. The telephone rang. I interrupted my grumbling to answer it.

  “Beecher Cottage Inn. May I help you?”

  A deep male voice said, “Yes. Do you have availability on Wednesday night?”

  “This coming Wednesday?” I opened the reservations book and saw nothing but empty space for that day. “Yes. Yes, we do.”

  “Good,” the voice said, rising to a timbre and tone I recognized. “Then meet me for dinner at the Japanese place at six.”

  “How are you, Jake? It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “Bored. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Moira Swanson lately.”

  I’d heard that. There aren’t many bachelors in New Bern, especially good-looking ones with real jobs, and there are five single women for every man who could be considered even remotely datable. When news of the tear in my relationship with Jake spread through the grapevine, you could practically hear the cheers of New Bern’s single female population, only to be followed by a collective moan about three weeks later, when he was seen escorting a preening Moira Swanson to dinner at the Grill on the Green.

  “Oh really,” I said, feigning ignorance. “Moira seems nice.”

  “She is,” said Jake. “As long as you don’t want to talk about anything but Moira. So, how about it? Would you like to meet me for dinner?”

  Hearing his voice made me realize how much I’d missed talking to him. I did want to have dinner with him, but not if it meant confusing him about our relationship. The fight had been my fault, at least initially, because I let myself get carried away. I wanted to make the ground rules clear—for both our sakes.

  “It can’t be a date, Jake.”

  “Yeah,” he snapped. “I know that. Did you hear the part where I said we’d meet at the restaurant? If this were a date I’d pick you up. And before you bring it up, we’re going dutch, just like we always did. And I won’t so much as kiss you hello or good-bye. We’ll shake hands. Soberly. I promise not to make any sudden moves or slip anything into your drink. I just want to have dinner with someone who doesn’t consider People magazine her primary news source. Okay? Now, are you coming or not?”

  “I’d love to, but not this week. There’s just too much to do for the wedding, but how about the Wednesday after?”

  “All right. I guess I can wait a week, if I have to.”

  “Good. I’ll see you then. Six o’clock. If you arrive first, order me a California roll. Extra wasabi and pickled ginger on the side.”

  “How’re things coming with the wedding? Do you need help with anything?”

  “No,” I answered. I would not impose on our friendship again. “We’re in good shape. But thanks for asking, Jake.”

  46

  Madelyn

  “What do you mean, no brownies?” Virginia put her hands on her hips and stared at me through the thick lenses of her glasses, glaring at me as if I’d just announced that Christmas would be canceled this year.


  “I figured everybody was tired of them by now,” I said, setting my basket down on the refreshment table. “You’re the one who’s always saying that we should try new things, that variety and experimentation is the best weapon for fighting off old age and stodginess.”

  “I was talking about you, not me,” Virginia said. “I’ve lost the battle against old age. Save yourself. Besides, I get enough culinary experimentation from that son-in-law of mine.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Evelyn said. “You’re not fooling anyone. You’ve loved every new recipe Charlie has made for you.”

  “Not the oysters,” Virginia said darkly.

  “Okay, except for the oysters,” Evelyn admitted.

  “All I’m saying is, if something’s not broken, why fix it?”

  “Your brownies are pretty amazing,” Margot said, looking a little apologetic for siding with Virginia.

  “Give me a chance, all right? If you don’t like what I’ve brought at least as much as the brownies, then I promise never to make it again. Deal?”

  “Deal,” they echoed, but doubtfully.

  After I passed around home-baked strawberry shortcakes topped with real whipped cream jazzed with a touch of Cointreau and sweet early strawberries from Woodruff Farms, sprinkled with a touch of fresh mint for looks, the doubts were silenced. Everyone had seconds and a couple of people (including me) went back for thirds. If this kept up, I was going to have to take up jogging or something.

  But it was worth it—not just for the pleasure of eating them but the pleasure of seeing my friends enjoy them. Isn’t it strange that it took me so long to realize how much I enjoyed cooking and baking? If I’d had even a clue about that as a teenager, my whole life might have been different. Of course, if I’d had a clue about nearly anything as a teenager, my whole life might have been different.

  I felt a little guilty for coming to the quilt shop while Tessa was minding the store in my place, but not so guilty that I didn’t enjoy myself. The workroom was littered with yards of fabric and half-sewn quilt blocks, but the group was in such a talkative mood, I don’t think anyone got much quilting done.