Apart at the Seams (23 page)

The trip took a bit over an hour.

After oohing and aahing over the car's fancy interior, teasing Abigail about being a cheapskate for not ordering a limo with a hot tub inside, and toasting Virginia's happiness and continued good health with flutes of sparkling cider, we did what we always did when we got together: We started stitching.

“See?” Evelyn said when she saw me pull a plastic zipper bag containing my crazy quilt from my purse. “You were born to quilt. I knew it from the moment I saw you.”

“I don't know about that. You'd think a person born to quilt would be able to master a French knot in less than a week. But I finally got it down; the lazy daisy stitch too! Aside from gardening, quilting is the thing I enjoy most. I work on it whenever I've got a spare moment. Now that I have some of the stitches mastered, handwork is relaxing for me; it helps clear my head.”

“That's great to hear,” Evelyn said, opening up her own purse and pulling out her project. “How is your other quilt coming, the one you're making for your husband?”

“Good! I finished all the blocks, even the ones with the flying geese units. But I'm a little worried about putting them together. Wouldn't it be easier to just sew them into strips instead of using all those zigzag seams?”

Evelyn shook her head as she threaded a needle. “Setting the blocks on point isn't nearly as hard as it looks. There aren't any zigzags involved, even though it looks like there are. You'll need to add some setting triangles to the ends, but after that, you will be sewing them into strips.”

“Really?” I asked doubtfully.

“Really. Bring your blocks into the shop next week, and I'll show you what I mean.”

“Okay, thanks.” I unfolded my crazy quilt, which measured about thirty inches square, and smoothed it out on my lap. “Small as it is, you'd think I'd be further along by now.”

Evelyn put aside the little fabric hexagon she was stitching, using a technique I had recently learned was known as English paper piecing, and leaned over to examine my work.

“It's coming along great,” she said. “Your herringbone stitches are perfect. And those green featherstitches along the yellow floral make a nice transition to the deeper gold patch next to it. Incorporating these touches of black was a good idea—makes the brighter patches pop. But,” she said, brushing her fingers across the black patch, “it's an awfully thick piece of cotton. We don't have anything like that in the shop. Where did you get it?”

I bit my lower lip. “Yes . . . I've been meaning to talk to you about that. How much do you think the napkins cost at your husband's restaurant?”

Evelyn tilted her head to one side, as if she thought she'd misheard me. “I'm sorry?”

“Grill on the Green was the first restaurant Brian took me to in New Bern. It was also the location of our first date since . . . well, since I came up for the summer. It has a lot of memories for me, so last time I was there I . . . I took one of the black napkins.”

I looked down at my lap, blushing with embarrassment. “I'm sorry. I can pay for it. I always intended to, but your husband wasn't in the restaurant at the time, and I didn't quite know how to explain it to the waitress. How much do I owe him? Would twenty be enough?” I asked, reaching for my wallet.

“Twenty dollars?” Evelyn laughed. “For one napkin? Don't be silly. Charlie won't care. He's spent enough time with me and this crew to know that even the most law-abiding quilter can go a little crazy in hot pursuit of a fabric. And I think he'd be honored to have a little piece of his restaurant in your quilt. Don't give it another thought.”

“But I've got to pay him back somehow. How about if I bring him some flowers from my garden instead? So he can put them on the tables.”

“If that would make you feel better, sure. He'd like that.”

“I've got a bumper crop of daisies,” I said. “I'll bring him some of those. Hey, how did your sailing lessons go? You haven't said a thing about it.”

Evelyn's eyes were fixed on her hexagon patch, but her face lit up at the mention of sailing. “I was planning to wait until next Friday to give the full report; today is Mom's day. But since you ask, it was fantastic! At first, I was all thumbs, and during my first attempt at tacking, I forgot to duck and got whacked in the head by the boom, but by the end of the second day, I was feeling pretty comfortable. By day three, I completely fell in love with sailing. In fact, I loved it so much that I've decided to buy myself a sailboat.”

“Wow,” I said as I wrapped my thread three times around the needle, poked the tip through the fabric, and pulled, creating a perfectly formed French knot. “So should we start calling you Captain?”

“Well, maybe just Skipper. I'm now licensed to captain a boat up to twenty-eight feet in length, but the boat I'm buying is only half that size. Just a little day sailer, but it'll be perfect to take out on the lake. I found it used online for a very good price. It even comes with a tow trailer.”

“That's so great, Evelyn. You must feel really proud of yourself.”

“You know,” she said in a slightly philosophical tone, “I really do. You get to a certain age and I think you quit looking for new adventures.” She tied off her thread and clipped it with a pair of embroidery scissors that hung from a ribbon around her neck.

“Of course, every day is an adventure when you own your own business, but this was different, maybe because it was physically and mentally challenging. Like a lot of quilters, I tend to be pretty good at sitting still for long periods of time,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “Anyway, it reminded me that you're never too old to try something new, and I have you to thank for it. If not for you and the sabbatical project, it might never have happened.”

I looked over at Virginia, who was sitting on the far side of the car, squinting at the screen of her new smartphone, making occasional grumbling noises as she tried to get to the next level of Angry Birds.

“Hmm . . . I'm willing to take credit for the sailing, Evelyn. But the part about realizing that you're never too old to try new things? I don't think you'd have to look very far to be reminded of that.”

Evelyn followed my gaze to the far end of the car and laughed. “You've got a point.”

The limousine made a wide turn to the right, and Daryl shifted his eyes upward, looking at all of us in the rearview mirror. “Ladies, we have arrived at Ellington Airport.”

“Ellington Airport?” Evelyn frowned and twisted in her seat so she could see out the window. Her eyes went wide.

“No! Absolutely not!” She gasped and spun around to face Virginia. “Mom! Have you lost your mind?”

S
tanding a few feet away from the limousine, I craned my neck and put my hand above my brow, squinting beneath its shade, searching for a speck of bright red in the cloudless blue sky.

“There it is!” I called out, turning to the others and pointing to the northwest.

Everyone crowded around me, trying to catch sight of the red speck.

“You're right!” Margot exclaimed, hinging her neck backward. “Isn't this exciting?”

Evelyn covered her face with her hands. “Oh, dear Lord . . .”

Abigail patted her on the back. “Everything will be fine.”

“Abbie's right,” I said. “It's not like she's up there alone. She'll be tethered to the instructor. You heard what he said: He's done this hundreds of times.”

“And Tessa's up there too,” Madelyn said, twisting the lens on her camera. “I don't know what possessed her to join the party at the last minute. She wasn't like this when we were kids—I can tell you that. Back then,
I
was the brave one.”

She lifted the camera to her eyes, pointed it at Evelyn, who still had her face buried in her hands, and snapped a picture.

“Could you not do that right now?” Evelyn said, giving Madelyn an uncharacteristically smoldering glare.

“Sorry. I was practicing. I don't want to miss the shot.”

Gayla, who was standing right next to Margot, pointed skyward.

“Look! I think the doors are opening.”

“Yes! Here they come!”

“I can't look,” Evelyn said, then looked anyway, tilting her face sunward just like the rest of us, watching the plane that buzzed like a fat bee overhead.

I held my breath. I think we all did. My heart was pounding, too, but I have to say, I felt so happy. I don't know why exactly. It's just so cool that I know these women, these amazing, fabulous, incredibly brave women. It gives me hope that, someday, I'll be amazing too. When I'm eighty-five, I want to be just as stubborn and adventurous as Virginia.

After a few seconds that felt much longer, two blue-black shapes appeared in the sky and started plummeting toward the earth like stones, and we let out a collective gasp.

After a few more incredibly long seconds, Evelyn cried out, “Oh, Lord! Oh, no! What happened? Their parachutes aren't opening!”

“They will in a moment,” Abigail assured her, sounding none too sure herself. “They're still in free fall. Remember? The instructor said they'd be in free fall for about a minute before they opened the parachutes. Everything is fine.”

“That's right,” I said, putting my arm around Evelyn. “See how high up they still are? Oh, wait! There it is! The chutes are opening. See?”

Margot clutched her hands to her breast, standing there with tears in her eyes. “Oh! How beautiful! They look like red and yellow blossoms falling from the sky.”

Suddenly, my eyes were tearing too, partly from relief that Tessa and Virginia, the grandma I never had, were safe, but also from sheer wonder. What must they be feeling right then? What does the world look like when you're floating with angels?

Beautiful. Limitless. Full of possibilities.

As the shapes drifted closer to the earth, we could see them more clearly, recognized that each shape was actually two people, saw their faces, realized that the red parachute belonged to Virginia and her instructor, who was strapped to her like a shell on a turtle, and the yellow one was for Tessa and her instructor.

When the parachutes were about two hundred feet from the ground, I could hear the sound of laughter and whooping coming from above, which grew louder the closer they sank to earth. We all began running into the grassy field, heading toward the spot where it looked like they were going to land, laughing and clapping and crying.

Virginia was grinning from ear to ear when she landed. So was Tessa. Madelyn snapped pictures as fast as she could, trying to capture the moment.

“That was fantastic! Let's go again!” Virginia exclaimed as her instructor, Gary, unclipped her from her harness.

“Not in my lifetime!” Evelyn said, hugging her mother tight to her. “I wouldn't survive another morning like this one.”

“Well, maybe on my ninetieth,” she said to Gary. “She'll have calmed down by then.”

“It's a date, Virginia. I'll jump with you anytime.”

We buzzed around the two jumpers like bees around a hive.

“Did you have fun?”

“What was it like?”

“Were you scared?”

Tessa, who was beaming, said, “Absolutely! I almost changed my mind, but then Virginia jumped out, and I figured if she could do it, then so could I.”

“Well, I was pretty nervous myself for a second,” Virginia admitted. “When Gary here asked if I was ready to bail out, I suddenly thought, ‘Good Lord, Virginia. Have you lost your senses? You're about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.'” She laughed.

“And then I thought, ‘What the heck. I've got to get down from here somehow. Might as well take the most direct route.'”

 

After we took more pictures and Tessa and Virginia changed out of their jumpsuits, we got back into the limousine. Virginia whispered another address into Daryl's ear.

“Excellent choice,” he said, and made a left turn out of the driveway of the airfield, heading south.

“Another surprise?” Evelyn asked. “I'm not sure I can take much more.”

“Don't be such a party pooper. You'll like this one,” Virginia said. “I promise.”

She was right.

Rein's, in Vernon, is as close to a real New York delicatessen as you're going to find in Connecticut. Some people ordered Reuben sandwiches, others ordered pastrami, Abigail had smoked whitefish salad, and Virginia ordered a hot dog and French fries.

“Mom, it's your birthday. Don't you want to get something a little more adventurous?” Evelyn asked.

“The last thing anyone can accuse me of being today is unadventurous. I
like
hot dogs.”

“Okay, have it your way.”

“I will,” said Virginia. “After eighty-five years, I've earned it.”

 

It wasn't fancy, but no one could fault Virginia on her choice of restaurant. The food at Rein's, including the chocolate cake with birthday candles that the waitress brought out as Virginia was opening the gifts she'd told us not to bring, was delicious, and the portions were huge. Everyone went home with a doggie bag.

Another advantage of Rein's was the location, a strip mall that included, among other things, a terrific shop called Quilting by the Yard.

The instant we got through the door, everybody scattered, scampering off in different directions in search of textile treasures. Gayla, who was sticking close to me, looked confused.

“I don't get it,” she said as we walked between rows of shelving loaded with floral prints. “They're like kids in a candy store, even Evelyn. She owns her own shop—doesn't she already have enough fabric?”

“There's no such thing as enough fabric,” I said, looking left and right, searching for something I couldn't live without. “Only more. Cobbled Court is a pretty big shop, but there's no way Evelyn can carry all the fabric lines she might want to. Quilters are always looking for something new and inspiring.”

We took a loop to the left and found a whole wall of batiks, more than I'd ever seen in one shop at one time.

“Like this!” I exclaimed, reaching out for a gorgeous bolt of bottle-green batik printed with a design of purple and blue dragonflies. I bought a yard of that and two more of a modern, peachy-pink print with blue squiggles that I thought would make a cute skirt for Bethany. If money were no object, I could have bought a lot more, but it is, and I don't have a discount at Quilting by the Yard.

Gayla did pretty well, but didn't go overboard, buying a pack of ten fat quarter “blenders” that I told her would blend well in just about any of her future projects and help build her fabric stash, as well as some skeins of gorgeous, hand-dyed perle cotton threads that would look beautiful stitched into her crazy quilt project. I wouldn't have minded buying some myself, but they were a little beyond my budget. But, without my asking or even hinting about it, Gayla said she was going to pull a few yards off each skein to share them with me.

When I told her she didn't have to do that, she laughed and said, “But I'll never be able to use all this. Not at the rate I'm going.”

I really like Gayla, and not just because she offered to share her thread with me. Not even because, when I somewhat awkwardly brought up the subject of Carrillon College and how expensive it would be for ordinary people to afford a program like that, she jumped in before I was even finished and said, “You know, I don't usually deal with adult students, but I'm sure there are scholarships available for people in your situation. Why don't you let me check it out?”

That's what I mean. Given all that she's dealing with right now, you'd think that helping me or anyone would be the last thing on Gayla's mind. But she's very considerate. And funny. Not backslapping funny—she's too quiet for that—but now and then she gets in these little one-liners that crack me up. She's brave, too—really brave.

If my husband cheated on me, I don't know if I'd be able to forgive him and keep the marriage together, but I admire her for trying. And for telling us about it and asking for our support. That took guts. And I think it helped too. I hope so. I know that Tessa has been calling her regularly, checking in on her. It must help her to be able to talk to somebody who's been there.

I think people need that, just the way that I try to mentor women who've been abused, and Evelyn sometimes coaches women who've been diagnosed with breast cancer. Being able to talk to someone who's already gone through it gives the other person hope, helps them feel less alone. Maybe that's some of the reason we have to go through trials like this, so we'll be ready to help the next person who's walking that road.

Well, whatever the reason, I like Gayla. I can't believe there was ever a time when I didn't want to include her in the circle. She's one of us now. She fits right in.

While the others lingered in the quilt shop, Gayla and I went to check out some of the other stores in the strip mall. Neither of us saw anything we wanted—not until Gayla found a used book and record store.

Other than a couple of romances, I've been taking a break from reading this summer. I have enough reading to do during the semester. And I don't own a record player, so looking through dusty bins of old vinyl records wasn't too appealing either. I was just following Gayla, keeping her company, figuring we'd be out of there in a minute.

In fact, we were heading out the door when Gayla spotted something in the glass display counter, gasped, and said, “Holy—It can't be!” She bent over the case, her face practically touching the glass. “Oh, my gosh. It is! I can't believe it.”

I walked up next to her and peered through the glass at an album with a picture of a dark-haired man wearing earphones, a plaid shirt, and a rumpled gray jacket and holding a guitar on his lap.

“What is it?”

Gayla closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and opened them again, as if she thought she might be seeing a mirage. “It's an album, an incredibly rare one,” she said quietly. “There's a track on here of Noel Gallagher singing ‘Wonderwall' as a solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. It was recorded live in Japan in 2002. It's a very rare recording, almost impossible to find.”

“Do you collect old records?”

She shook her head. “No, but I know someone who does. How much do you want for this?” she asked the clerk.

The figure he quoted her was a car payment for me—a couple of them. Gayla's not cheap, but she doesn't spend money she doesn't need to spend either; I've watched her. But she wrote out that check without a second thought.

“It's for Brian,” she explained. “Our anniversary is next weekend. Twenty-seven years. He'll be over the moon when he sees this.”

After what her husband did, she was excited about buying him an expensive anniversary present. She must really love him. I wonder if I'll ever be able to love someone that much. Someone like Dan?

He's good to me and good to my kids; that counts for a lot in my book. And of course, he's completely gorgeous. Those eyes. And that body. I went over to his house to pick Drew up one day and saw him working in the yard without his shirt on. I've never seen a man with shoulder muscles like that, not in real life—magazine models don't count.

Dan and I have kissed a few times, once or twice pretty passionately, but that's as far as it's gone. But I've been thinking about doing more than kissing him, and I have to say, that surprised me. When I was married to Hodge, I never really cared about sex. Of course, we
had
sex; I've got two kids. But it was hardly ever my idea.

All that's changed since I've started going out with Dan. Now I have all kinds of ideas. Sometimes I have to stop, take a breath, and force myself to think about something else. It's very distracting. I made five fabric miscuts last week; I usually make only one or two. But all these ideas I've been having . . . are they good ideas?

For a second, on that day in the bowling alley when he looked at me in a way that stopped my breath, I thought that maybe I could love Dan. That maybe I did. But then I started thinking about my quilt circle friends and all the marriages, divorces, and betrayals they have known.

On the day Gayla told us about her husband's affair, there were eight women in the room. Eight smart, attractive, caring women. Six of them, including me, had been deceived by men who professed love for them. Only Virginia and Margot have gone unscathed. Those aren't good odds.