The Christmas Boutique

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Just as Gwen turned her attention to another table, the clatter of metal on carpet startled her. A hanging rod had fallen from the wall hooks to the floor, and a quilt lay in a heap beside it.

  “We could use an extra pair of strong arms,” said Andrew wearily from halfway up a ladder, “and a few more inches in height.”

  “Sounds like you’re describing Matt,” said Sarah, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. “Unfortunately, he’s not available.”

  Gwen and Sylvia exchanged a wary look. When Sarah started brooding about Matt’s absence, it could be very difficult to pull her out of it. “That’s all right,” said Gwen. “Jeremy’s in the kitchen, and he’s almost as tall as Matt.”

  She hurried off to summon him. When she found him still chatting happily with Anna as she chopped apples and deftly swept them from her cutting board into a mixing bowl, she suddenly understood why he was struggling to make progress on his dissertation. “Jeremy, can you give us a hand in the ballroom?” she asked. They both started, apparently so engrossed in their conversation that they had not heard her enter. “We need someone with a bit more height to hang some quilts.”

  “Sure,” he replied, rising from the table. “I could use a break.”

  To Gwen it seemed that he could use a break from taking breaks, but she needed his help, so instead of giving him a good professorial chiding, she smiled and gestured for him to follow her. “What’s Anna cooking up?” she asked as they turned down the corridor. “She seems a little jumpy today.”

  “It’s a surprise for Sylvia,” he replied. “Whatever you do, don’t mention apples to her, and try to discourage her from visiting the kitchen for the next few hours.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Gwen. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you have any plans for winter break. Are you heading upstate to visit your parents?”

  “I’m planning to stick around campus and work on my dissertation. I took the first week of December off to spend Hanukkah with my family, so they’re not really expecting me back so soon.”

  “In that case,” Gwen said as they crossed the grand front foyer, “you’ll have to come by for dinner soon. Summer and I always celebrate the solstice with a midnight feast. You’re welcome to join us.”

  As they entered the ballroom, he gave her a curious, sidelong look. “I think maybe you should check with Summer first.”

  Gwen was so surprised that she laughed, but before she could ask him to explain, Sylvia waved to them from across the room. “Jeremy to the rescue!” she called out. “And none too soon.”

  “Coming,” he called back, breaking into a jog.

  Bemused, Gwen resumed wiping down the tables while her friends hung the quilts, and she finished just in time to join them as they were hanging the last. “This is an excellent start,” Gretchen remarked, hands on her hips as she turned in place to admire the display, “but that wall is still bare, and we need more quilts to fill in these empty spaces between the windows.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any suitable quilts,” said Sarah. “I don’t know why I’ve never made a quilt from Christmas fabrics or in Christmas colors. Even the quilt I’m making for my father-in-law’s Christmas present is blue, tan, and burgundy.”

  “I might have a few more holiday quilts in the attic,” mused Sylvia. “If I had a few months to search, I might even find them.”

  “Anna said she’s planning to bring one in,” said Jeremy. “I think she called it a sampler.”

  “I have two still at home,” said Gwen. “I promise to bring them tomorrow.”

  “Including your Winter Solstice Star?” asked Sarah. “I love that quilt.”

  “Yes, that’s one of them. I don’t think any of you have seen the other.”

  “That will help,” said Gretchen, studying the walls, “but we’ll need a few more to make this a proper quilt show.”

  “How about a Hanukkah quilt?” asked Jeremy. “I have one you could borrow.”

  Sarah’s eyebrows rose. “Since when have you become a quilter?”

  “You’ve been holding out on us,” Sylvia teased. “If we had known, we would have put you on our substitute teacher list.”

  Jeremy grinned. “I didn’t make it. It was a Hanukkah gift from Anna. It’s really amazing, all these blue-and-gold six-pointed stars.”

  Now that he mentioned it, Gwen remembered seeing Anna cutting stout rhombuses from blue and gold fabrics on the Friday after Thanksgiving, during the Elm Creek Quilters’ holiday quilting bee that had turned into an overnight stay, thanks to an unexpected blizzard. A handmade quilt was quite an impressive gift, even for someone that Anna often referred to as her best friend. If memory served, not even Summer had ever made Jeremy a quilt.

  Gwen felt a faint stir of unease. Jeremy’s quilt, his odd response to her dinner invitation, Anna’s nervous behavior whenever Gwen came upon her and Jeremy together—

  “We’d love to borrow your Hanukkah quilt, Jeremy,” Sylvia declared. “Supporting the food pantry is an ecumenical enterprise, and all faiths are welcome at Elm Creek Manor.”

  Sarah threw Gwen a teasing grin. “This is where you usually add a remark about honoring the goddess.”

  “Diane isn’t here,” said Gwen. “What’s the point, if I can’t offend her?”

  But even if no one else noticed, she thought her jollity sounded forced. Were Summer and Jeremy having problems? Long-distance relationships were challenging, of course, but Gwen assumed things were fine between them, since Summer had not said otherwise.

  Wouldn’t she have told Gwen if things were otherwise?

  She knew Summer and Jeremy were in touch, because occasionally each passed along a bit of news to her that the other had shared, although it had been a while since either had done so. Although Summer had not been home since she had left for Chicago, Jeremy had driven out to see her for a long weekend in late September. He had intended to visit her for Thanksgiving too, but he had been turned back by the same storm that had kept the Elm Creek Quilters snowbound.

  It was the storm that had compelled him to turn around, wasn’t it?

  Since their work in the ballroom was complete until they had more quilts to hang or the boutique merchants arrived with their goods, Gwen bade her friends goodbye. “I have a stack of exams to grade,” said she apologetically, resisting the impulse to dig into her tote bag for her cell phone. “I’ll see you all tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Bring your quilts,” Gretchen called after her as she hurried away.

  Gwen did not stop by the kitchen on her way to the rear foyer, but threw on her coat and scarf and slipped quietly out the back door. She waited until she was halfway to her car before calling her daughter. But what if Summer had no idea what was going on with Jeremy and Anna? What if nothing was going on? Gwen didn’t want to sow doubt and mistrust where none were warranted, and she didn’t want to nag her daughter about trouble in her relationship if Summer didn’t want to discuss it.

  And that, of course, was what bothered her most—not that Summer and Jeremy might have broken up, but that Summer had not confided in her.

  Weighing her options, she climbed into her car and started the engine, shivering until heat began to waft from the dashboard vents. She could not simply blurt out her suspicions or come at her daughter with a barrage of questions, not if she wanted a calm, reasonable conversation. She must be more circumspect.

  Summer picked up on the third ring. “Hey, Mom,” she greeted her cheerfully. “You caught me at a good time. I just finished my Contemporary Issues of Human Rights exam, and I’m on my way to the library to work on my Historical Geography project.”

  “How did the exam go?”

  “Very well, I think. I’ll know for sure when I get my grade.”

  “Grades aren’t always the best measure of comprehension,” Gwen said, slipping into professor mode for a moment. “How’s everything else going?”

  “Fine, I guess. I’m a bit worn out and I’m looki
ng forward to resting over break.” She hesitated. “There was this one thing—”

  Gwen pounced. “What? What is it? You can tell me anything.”

  “I know, Mom. It’s not an emergency.” Summer’s voice faded for a moment as she lowered her phone to greet a fellow student in passing. “A few weeks ago, before registering for winter quarter classes, all the first-years had to meet as a group with the chair of the graduate program. Among other procedural things, she told us to write a paper, a statement of purpose to explain our intentions for graduate study—the intellectual problems and issues that interest us, the historical stories that intrigue us, our preferred analytical or narrative approaches—and why, given the declining number of academic posts in universities throughout the country, we’ve decided to enter this profession.”

  “That’s quite a lot to throw at you all at once,” said Gwen. “Didn’t you have to write a statement of purpose for your application?”

  “Yes, but the application left out that part about the rapidly diminishing number of assistant professor positions that will be available when I finally have my doctorate.”

  “Oh, kiddo. You just got started. You won’t be sending out CVs for years. It’s almost impossible to predict how the academic job market will ebb and flow over time. Focus on learning and doing good work now. Everything else will fall into place.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Is that . . .” Gwen chose her words carefully. “Is that really all that’s bothering you?”

  “You mean that’s not enough?” Summer laughed lightly. “Yeah, that’s really all. Listen, I just got to the library. Was there some reason you called, or were you just checking in?”

  “I just had one quick question. Would you mind if I included our Christmas Garland in the Christmas Boutique quilt show? The ballroom walls still look a bit bare.”

  “I’d love that. Why would I mind?”

  “Well, it’s a special quilt.”

  “All of the quilts we’ve made together are special. I’ll be happy to see that one displayed at Elm Creek Manor when I come home. It won’t be much longer, you know.”

  “I do know,” said Gwen. “I’ve been counting the hours.”

  Summer laughed. “I’ll see you soon, Mom. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Wait,” Gwen blurted, before Summer could hang up. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Just now, I invited Jeremy to join us for our winter solstice feast. He gave me a cryptic look and said I should check with you first.”

  “Oh.” Summer hesitated. “That’s probably because we’re not together anymore.”

  “What? Since when?” Without giving her time to explain, Gwen said, “You broke up over Thanksgiving, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. I wanted to tell you in person, so that you could see for yourself that I was fine, that I wasn’t devastated, moping around the apartment with a broken heart.” Summer forced a laugh. “I didn’t want you abandoning your students so close to the end of the semester so you could hop on a plane and fly out to Chicago to check in on me.”

  “I would never do anything like that,” Gwen protested.

  “So you say, but I didn’t want to test that theory.”

  Gwen muffled a sigh. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, just very busy. And I really do need to get back to work. I love you, Mom. I’ll see you Friday.”

  “I love you too.” Gwen waited for Summer to hang up first, then hung up and returned her phone to her tote bag.

  She drove home, lost in thought. Summer’s explanation was implausible and, to be frank, a little insulting. Gwen had never been the sort of overbearing, oppressive parent who demanded that her child account for every moment of her time or put aside everything else for a scheduled weekly phone call at a particular day and hour. If Summer needed her to come to Chicago, whether due to heartbreak or illness or whatever, Gwen would rush to her side if asked, but she would never disrupt Summer’s life by showing up uninvited. Surely Summer knew that. And while Summer was very busy and preoccupied with school, they had chatted on the phone at least twice since Thanksgiving. Summer could have squeezed a few words about the breakup into one of those conversations without sacrificing any study time.

  The only logical conclusion was that Summer didn’t want to discuss it, at least not with Gwen. But why, when Summer had freely shared every sorrow and joy with her from the time she was a young girl?

  Gwen brooded all the way home, and once there, she went to the kitchen to make herself a soothing cup of ginger tea. The stack of exams from her Women and the American Experience course awaited her attention in the spare bedroom she used as a study, but something far more enticing beckoned her to the spacious room over the garage she and Summer shared as a quilt studio. Gwen’s father had built the custom-made shelves and bins in which they stored their quilts and fabric, but she had hired a contractor to install the skylights, which let in lovely, diffuse natural light, ideal for viewing the colors of fabric and thread.

  Gwen knew exactly where to find the Christmas Garland quilt: on the center shelf near the front, just below eye level. One of her and Summer’s favorite winter traditions was to snuggle up together on the sofa beneath the quilt, sip hot cocoa and nibble cookies, and watch holiday movies, two or three back-to-back for every night of their respective schools’ winter breaks, unless they had company or were invited to a gathering elsewhere. They knew their favorites so well—not only the classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and the animated Santa Claus stories from the sixties, but newer films like A Christmas Story—that they could and often did recite the lines along with the characters. Every year Gwen wondered aloud why the cartoons, in particular, often depicted Santa Claus as a curmudgeonly diva, and Summer found new plot holes that she had not noticed as a child.

  “They are flying reindeer,” she had pointed out at seventeen during Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer after the toothless Bumble plummeted over the edge of a cliff, taking Yukon Cornelius and his sled dogs with him. “Rather than assume Yukon is dead, couldn’t they spare two minutes for a flyover just to make sure he isn’t lying on the ground injured?”

  “Of course not,” said Gwen, feigning astonishment. “They have to get the women back to Christmas Town!”

  Jeering at the blatant sexism of some of the older movies was another favorite tradition.

  Gwen smiled as she took the quilt down from the shelf and draped it over the worktable in the center of the room, her worries momentarily forgotten in the warm glow of happy memories. And yet like the quilt itself, its disparate shapes swirling in a circular pattern of bright and dark, other memories of the season when she and Summer had made the quilt were fraught with disappointment, uncertainty, and anger. What holiday was complete without a bit of angst?

  Summer was thirteen then, an eighth grader, excelling in her classes, a star forward on the middle school soccer team, beloved by many friends. They had moved to Waterford from Ithaca two years before, after Gwen completed her Ph.D. at Cornell and accepted a job as an assistant professor in the Department of American Studies at Waterford College. Although Gwen had not learned to quilt until she was in her mid-twenties, she had begun teaching Summer when she was ten years old. Summer had made several quilts in the years since, not only simple beginner patterns but designs of remarkable complexity, and she held the record as the youngest official member in the history of the Waterford Quilting Guild. The previous July, she had taken third place in the machine-pieced, machine-quilted division of the Waterford Summer Quilt Festival—not in the children’s division, but right up there with adults who had begun quilting long before she was born.

  In late autumn, as the leaves changed hue and the winds blew colder, Gwen and Summer decided to collaborate on a quilt with a holiday theme. They knew they were starting a bit late in the year for that, b
ut they refused to impose an artificial deadline upon themselves. So what if they didn’t finish before New Year’s Eve or even the Feast of the Three Kings? As nice as it would be to admire a finished Christmas quilt on Christmas morning, it could be even more fun to work on a holiday quilt throughout the festive season.

  On afternoons after school and on weekends, they paged through quilting magazines for inspiration and browsed for fabric at Grandma’s Attic, a marvelous quilt shop in downtown Waterford across the street from the college. Gwen envisioned a silvery white, midnight blue, and rich gold color scheme to represent the solstice, the longest night of the year and the welcome return of the sun, but Summer was drawn to more traditional Christmas fabrics—bright holiday prints, reds and greens with images of Christmas ornaments and snowflakes, and graceful, whimsical designs that resembled German paper-cutting art. Surprised, Gwen nonetheless promptly jettisoned her original plan. She would find more joy in pleasing her daughter than in imposing her own artistic vision upon their quilt.

  While their fabric and color preferences needed some reconciliation, from the start they were in absolute agreement regarding the style. They both wanted to avoid blocks with “Christmas” in the name; such blocks were the obvious choice for a holiday quilt and they didn’t want their quilt to resemble anything countless thousands of other quilters had already made. They also thought it would be fun to break free of the standard square blocks in a straight grid layout and opt for something more distinctive, even if it would be more difficult to make.

  In early November, they were sitting together on the sofa studying Gwen’s encyclopedia of pieced quilt patterns, the book open on Gwen’s lap, Summer snuggled up to her side. They turned the pages, considering and rejecting one block after another, when suddenly they both spotted the same pattern at the same time and exclaimed, “That’s it!”