A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) (14 page)

But oh! How Abigail would have balked at hearing herself described as an angel! There was nothing of harps and gossamer wings about Abigail! Still, I considered her one, and, for that matter, Liza too. They might have been angels in very unlikely disguises, but the effect was the same. They appeared when I was sorely in need of a message of hope. They had abilities that I lacked and used them to help me.

Liza was quiet and hardly spoke to me at first. I was surprised to realize that, in spite of her tough-girl gothic fashions, she was really very shy and lacked confidence. But my other instincts about her had been correct; she had a deep appreciation for the power of color and an innate artistic sensibility. She knew exactly how to arrange colors and textures for maximum impact. On that first Monday when she came in to help with the inventory, she timidly asked my permission to rearrange some of the displays. Her initial efforts, moving my collection of batiks toward the front of the store and displaying them against a collection of sea-grass matting and big plastic glasses filled with rolls of brightly colored batik fabrics, electric blue straws, and paper umbrellas reminded me of a picnic on a tropical isle. It was darling! Not only that, the new point-of-sale inventory system that Margot installed told me that sales of batiks, which were some of the most expensive fabrics in the shop, were up by 46 percent. When I asked Liza if she had any ideas for other displays, her face lit up.

“Really? You like what I did?”

“Are you kidding? I love it! And so do the customers. You’ve got a real eye, Liza. You’re an artist.”

She laughed derisively. “Funny. That’s not what the teachers at art school thought. I did pretty well in my sculpture classes; guess I like working with things that have texture. I tried adding different found objects to some of my paint canvasses, but my teachers didn’t like it—said I hadn’t followed the project guidelines. I failed oil painting. Got a D in watercolor. Abigail thinks I flunked out, but that’s not quite true. I would have before long, so I figured, why stick around and wait for them to throw me out? At least this way I got to leave while it was still my own idea, you know?”

I didn’t know, but this was the longest conversation I’d ever had with her and the first time she’d ever confided in me. I didn’t want to interrupt. She needed to be heard. I’d already come to realize that communication between Liza and her aunt was more than a little strained.

Liza bit her lower lip and then shrugged. “I don’t know who I was kidding anyway. Thinking I could be an artist. It was just a silly dream.”

Hearing that, I couldn’t keep silent any longer. “It’s not silly! Dreams may be the only things on earth that aren’t! I don’t care what your teachers said, Liza, you are an artist. Maybe you’re not a conventional sort of artist, but who cares? You’re in very good company. Throughout history the real artists, the innovators, were never appreciated initially. Did you know that Vincent van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime?”

Liza laughed, and this time she meant it. “Yeah, and he died insane, lovesick, and minus an ear. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Seriously, Evelyn, you’re not actually trying to compare me to Van Gogh, are you?”

“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t seen any of your paintings yet, but you certainly have a unique eye for color, and you’re very creative. What you did with the batik display was so inventive! If you have any other ideas for displays, just say the word. You have my permission to display the stock in any way you see fit.”

“You really mean it, don’t you?” I nodded, and she beamed.

“Well, I was thinking about arranging the whole shop into seasons—fall, winter, spring, and summer groupings. I just think it would be a lot more interesting than the standard color-wheel system.”

“Have at it,” I said. “Do whatever you want. Also, I’ve got some quilting books I’d like to show you. This idea you had, of trying to add objects within a piece to create texture and interest? Quilters have been doing that for years; it’s called embellishing.” I pulled a couple of the more innovative art quilt books off a nearby shelf. “Take a look at this and see what you think. It might give you a few ideas. And feel free to take anything you need in the way of fabric or notions if you want to give it a try.”

“Really?” She looked around the shop eagerly, and I could practically see the wheels turning in her mind. Her eyes were full of ideas. “Anything?”

“Absolutely,” I assured her. “I’d love to see what you come up with.”

“Well,” she continued shyly, “to tell the truth, I was wanting to start working on a quilt, but I’m not sure how to get started. I made a sketch and was hoping I could show it to you at our regular Friday night business meeting. That is, if you don’t mind.”

Mind? Of course not. In fact, I was thrilled! “Liza, that’s a great idea! I should have thought of it myself, but I’ve been so wrapped up in myself that I never…But I should have. Oh well. No time like the present. Starting this week, Friday night business meetings are a thing of the past!”

Liza looked a little confused, not realizing that she had inadvertently hit upon the thing I’d most desired—a way for me to give something back to my three angels. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to start a quilting circle, that’s what I’m talking about! Just you, me, Margot, and Abigail. Come Friday night, instead of all of you helping me, I’m going to do something for you—help each of you start making a quilt that’s all your own! But don’t say anything to the others. I want it to be a surprise!”

“A
ren’t you ready yet?” Liza’s frowning visage unexpectedly appeared in my dressing-room mirror, giving me a start.

“Obviously not.” I pulled the edges of my silk blouse together to cover myself. There were three shirts lying on top of the dresser. I was having trouble deciding between them. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock?”

She ignored the question. “Evelyn said to be on time. We have a lot to do tonight.”

“Oh, she did, did she?” I groused. “You see? That’s what you get for going out of your way to help strangers. You do one or two things for them and suddenly they think they’re entitled. No one ever asked if I wanted to spend every Friday evening of my life sitting around Evelyn Dixon’s apartment discussing how much she should charge for thread. I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

“Like what?” Liza glared at my reflection, waiting for a response to her question, which I refused to dignify with an answer.

Finally, she sighed and said, “Hurry up, would you? It’s too cold for a blouse anyway. Why don’t you wear that turquoise sweater you had on last week. You looked really good in it.”

Was that a compliment? From Liza? I was surprised and, judging by the look on her face, she was too.

“Just hurry,” she said, resuming her usual impatient tone. “I’ll see you over there.”

She left, and I returned to the problem of getting dressed, finally deciding to take Liza’s advice. The sweater did look good, and it was comfortable. After spending the whole day in a suit and heels at the Women’s Shelter board meeting, listening to Ted Carney drone on endlessly about the need for more stringent intake guidelines, a cozy sweater was a welcome change.

Liza was so judgmental, I thought as I stepped out of my heels and slipped into a pair of soft leather driving moccasins. “Like what?” she’d said, mocking how I spent my time. What did she know about it anyway?

The shelter was an important resource for all sorts of families in crisis. Someone had to provide the funds to keep it running. Someone had to sit through the silly board meetings. Of course, I sometimes wondered if the board didn’t overcomplicate the mission. No, that wasn’t quite true. I didn’t wonder. I knew. Today was a perfect example.

Ted Carney was such a pompous blowhard. All during the meeting, I’d sat drumming my pen on the conference table and wishing someone would pipe up and tell Ted he was ridiculous. We didn’t need more stringent intake guidelines! If anything, we needed to make the intake process easier. Then we needed to raise more money so we could help more people.

Just the week before, I’d taken a tour of the shelter. Until then I’d only seen the facility during the construction phase, before there were any people actually living there. Now that the building was finished, every inch of space was filled. The director told me that the waiting list of new applicants was months long. And there were so many children! Of course, I’d seen the facts and figures regarding the demographics of the people served by the shelter. However, it’s one thing to read a report and note that X percentage of our residents were under eighteen and quite another to meet a six-year-old girl named Bethany with mismatched bows in her pigtails, one blue and one green, who, until she’d moved into the shelter, had been living in a car. I’d had no idea. The shelter apartment she shared with her mother and baby brother was tiny, just one room with a kitchenette and bath. There were no curtains on the windows, just white blinds, no pictures on the walls except a crayon drawing that the girl made at school and proudly hung on the refrigerator. Even so, she was eager to show me her new home.

It was, to say the least, a disturbing visit. I didn’t sleep well afterward.

What did Ted Carney think? That families were lining up to live in a shelter because it was such an appealing prospect? That they crowded in the tiny studio apartments we could provide because they were trying to save money on rent?

People came to us because they were desperate. What the board should do with its time was figure out how to raise more money and to build more apartments to help more people in need, not create more red tape to keep them from getting that help. Why hadn’t someone told him that?

It had been a long day. I reached up and massaged the sore muscles in my neck. The last thing I wanted to do right now was go to yet another meeting, but I was resigned to my fate. If I didn’t show up, Liza would glare daggers at me for a least a week. Wearily, I pulled myself to my feet. At least with Margot running the agenda, there would be no time wasted on long speeches and speculation. Margot was all about action items and assigned responsibilities—far too many of them directed at me.

Once again, I wondered how I’d gotten roped into all this. A year before, my life was fine—my dance card full of tennis, luncheon dates, cocktail parties, a few board meetings, and charity galas. I was happy.

Now I was too busy for tennis and lunch, questioning the value of my various community commitments, and unable to sleep at night. I was tired and troubled. On top of that, I was living with a teenager whose very presence in my home was an ongoing accusation, who displayed her despise for me with every glance, and I was on the verge of offending some of the most influential people in New Bern by standing up in public and announcing that they were full of hot air.

What in the world was going on? When was I going to get my old life back? When would I just be able to relax and enjoy myself again?

I arrived at the shop at five-fifteen. The
CLOSED
sign was out, but I went inside, knowing that Evelyn would have left the door unlocked for me.

As I climbed up the back stairs to Evelyn’s apartment, I was surprised to meet Charlie Donnelly coming down. I was even more surprised to see him grinning broadly and whistling a tune. I’d known Charlie for years and never once had I known him to whistle or seen him with such a lighthearted expression on his face. It made me wonder if there was more to Evelyn’s “friendship” with Charlie than she was letting on, but of course Evelyn’s private business was certainly no concern of mine.

That’s one of the problems with letting yourself get too close to other women; they are always butting their noses into each other’s private affairs and then reporting their findings or speculations to anyone within earshot. There’s nothing worse than a gossip. That’s why I keep my own confidences.

“Hullo, Abigail. You’re late,” Charlie announced with his customary tact.

I gave him a look. “Hello, Charlie,” I said, stopping in the stairwell and leaning forward to accept a peck on my right cheek. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“That’s where I’m headed right now. I had a bit of a catering job to see to first,” he said, tipping his head toward the door of Evelyn’s apartment.

“A catering job? Here?”

“You’d best get up there. The food is getting cold.” He pushed past me without answering my question and continued down the stairs, whistling all the way.

Being brushed aside like that was irritating, but something did smell wonderful. I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Evelyn answered the door, looking cheerful and well put together in a flattering black knit dress worn over black leather boots with an exotic hemp belt with silver accents circling her waist. Stylish. Perhaps I should have worn the silk blouse after all.

“You’re here!” she exclaimed, as if genuinely pleased to see me. “Come in!”

The dining table was set with a white cloth and a bright bouquet of Gerbera daisies. Candles gave off a warm yellow glow and a faint scent of vanilla that wasn’t quite overcome by the enticing smell of roast fowl. Evelyn’s apartment, which I’d always felt she’d decorated in simple good taste, letting her many beautiful quilted wall hangings take center stage on the exposed brick walls, looked quite elegant in the candle glow. Margot walked over and handed me a glass of cabernet.

“Here you go. Charlie said you only drink red.”

“Charlie is right,” I said, taking a moment to appreciate the scent of oak and newly turned earth that emanated from the glass before taking a sip. “Very nice. What is going on? I thought we were having a meeting.” Margot shrugged, obviously no better informed than I.

“We are,” Evelyn confirmed. “Just a different sort of meeting. But first we’re going to have a lovely dinner. After everything you three have done for me, I wanted to do a little something for you.” She took a sip from her own wineglass. “And I wanted to give us a chance to talk about something besides my cancer or the shop, so we could get to know each other a little. We’ve spent every Friday night of the fall together, but I really don’t know any of you.”

It was everything I could do to keep from rolling my eyes. The idea of dinner was nice, a lovely gesture, but the last thing I wanted to get involved in was some touchy-feely female tell-all session. I’d already been dragooned into helping Evelyn through her illness. Wasn’t that enough? Did she have to become my new best friend? Evelyn was right; she didn’t know me. If she had, she’d have realized that I didn’t have a best friend, nor was I looking for one.

Evelyn picked up a pair of hot pads and began pulling platters of food out of the oven. “Margot, would you mind getting the salad out of the refrigerator?”

Liza emerged from the bathroom. She looked at me. “Oh good. You’re here.” The word “finally” hung in the air unspoken, but I paid no attention. She turned to Evelyn. “Did you tell them yet?”

“Tell us what? What’s the big secret?” Margot asked.

“Later,” Evelyn insisted. “After dinner.”

It was a delicious meal. After the salad, Evelyn served the Grill’s signature roast chicken with clear, pan-juice gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, and sautéed greens. It was heavier than my usual evening fare, but the perfect menu for a chilly winter night. My resistance broken down by the pressures of the day and two glasses of good wine, I decided to forget about my diet, at least for one night.

But good food and pleasant surroundings aside, I still didn’t like the idea of this forced camaraderie. The others could bare their souls if they liked; all I was going to do was listen.

It was interesting, however, learning a bit more about the others. Evelyn told an amusing story about her hiding in the towel department of a J. C. Penney when she was a little girl because she was so entranced by the rainbow of colors on the wall.

I learned that Margot had graduated from Hamilton College, my late husband Woolley’s alma mater, but I didn’t bother to ask if they knew any of the same people. She had been there decades after Woolley graduated. Margot asked me a few questions about Woolley, how we’d met and fallen in love and all that, but I kept my answers appropriately brief, revealing little beyond saying I’d first met him at a museum.

So odd, this modern bent for asking personal questions. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up. It’s all this television psychology that’s done it. When people go on national television to tell the world every sordid detail of their pasts, I suppose asking personal questions at dinner seems perfectly normal. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly rude. And I haven’t noticed this trend in communal honesty improving the world; quite the opposite. Seems like the entire world has enrolled in a collective twelve-step program—“admitting you have a problem is the first step.” Not in my book. As far as I’m concerned, the first step is deciding that life is hard and getting on with it. Like Daddy said, “Never complain and never explain.” Not a popular piece of philosophy, but it has served me well. I have no intention of abandoning it now.

Besides, I’ve discovered that you don’t need to ask many questions to get people to reveal everything you’d want to know about themselves and more. Generally one, delivered with a penetrating, deeply interested gaze, is sufficient. Then all you have to do is sit back and listen. Try it sometime. You’ll be shocked at what you hear. It works almost every time, but not on me. As I said, I prefer to keep my own confidences.

Margot and I cleared the table and rinsed the dishes while Liza made a pot of decaffeinated coffee and Evelyn served dessert, a tall chocolate cake with crushed peppermint candies sandwiched between the layers and decorating the top. She’d made it herself. It looked tempting, but I simply couldn’t eat another mouthful; the waistband of my slacks was already too tight. I sipped a cup of coffee while the others dug into the cake and the conversation continued.

At Evelyn’s urging, Liza revealed a bit more about her interest in art and how, when she was nine years old, she’d helped her mother paint a carnival mural on her bedroom wall. She said she’d decided, then and there, that she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. Her artistic bent wasn’t surprising, given her parentage. And, of course, Susan had shown an early talent for painting herself. As I recalled, some of her landscapes had been quite good.

There was a lull in the conversation. Margot broke it, saying, “Liza, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what happened to your mother? I know she passed last year, but…”

Liza did mind her asking, I knew. When all this business started with Evelyn, she’d told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to mention Susan’s breast cancer to Margot or Evelyn. Once news of Susan’s illness had become public, all kinds of people had started sharing their cancer stories with her. Usually the stories had been encouraging, but sometimes they had been sad, even frightening. Really! Why don’t people think before they speak?