Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt (21 page)

Headlights shone and disappeared around the red barn, and Judy was gone.

A hush fell over the remaining Elm Creek Quilters as if none of them could believe Judy would not suddenly reappear, laughing, and tell them she had changed her mind, that she was staying after all. Quietly, Anna began clearing away the dishes, and Sarah rose to help her.

Diane broke the silence. “Gwen better be on her deathbed, or I’ll put her there.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” said Summer crisply, and Diane said nothing more.

After the mess was cleared away and her friends had departed, Sylvia wearily climbed the grand oak staircase to bed, her hand in Andrew’s. She had only Summer’s assurances that nothing terrible had prevented Gwen from attending the party. “I’m her emergency contact,” Summer had told Sylvia as they carried dishes into the manor, “and my cell phone didn’t ring all evening, so she wasn’t injured on the way. She would have called me herself if she were sick. She probably just…forgot.”

Sylvia had no idea how Gwen could have forgotten to say good-bye to her best friend.

Sylvia had chosen colorful, tie-dyed cottons and stylized florals reminiscent of 1960s patterns for Gwen’s quilt, as a nod to her free-spirited nature—tolerant, daring, compassionate. But now Sylvia realized she must mix in some deeper, more tempered hues to reflect a side of her friend that she did not often reveal. Despite the confident face she showed the world, Gwen was no stranger to disappointment and loneliness, and the weeks ahead without Judy and Summer would surely test her. She would miss Judy all the more because she had been unable to bring herself to say good-bye.

Sylvia hoped the gift of her quilt would remind Gwen that the sad partings, however painful, had not left her alone in the world.

A
s soon as Diane dropped her off in front of her white Cape Cod house a short walk from downtown Waterford, Agnes hurried inside, snatched up the phone, and dialed Gwen’s number. It rang and rang, without even an answering machine to take the call, and eventually ended in an annoying beeping tone that meant the phone company wanted her to hang up. Exasperated, Agnes did, but she tried the number twice more before reaching the inevitable conclusion that Gwen had turned off the ringer as she often did when she needed to work undisturbed. What conference paper or lesson plan could possibly have been more important than Judy’s party?

First thing in the morning, Agnes called back to ask Gwen precisely that. She called from her bedroom phone before climbing out of bed—no response. She called before going outside to pick up the newspaper from the end of the driveway—the phone rang and rang. Her exasperation rising, she fixed herself her usual breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and resolved to call one last time after breakfast, and if Gwen did not pick up, she would march over to her house and pound on her front door.

But this time, Gwen answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

Flabbergasted by her good cheer, Agnes cried, “Where were you last night?”

“I was here, working. Why, did you think I was out on Fraternity Row partying or—” Gwen gasped. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. You missed the farewell party, giving Judy her quilt, everything.” Such careless irresponsibility was so unlike Gwen that Agnes did not have the heart to reprimand her further. “The moving van was supposed to arrive at seven o’clock sharp, but they’ll need time to load it. You might be able to catch her if you hurry.”

“I’ll run right over,” Gwen said, and hung up.

Agnes sighed and poured herself another cup of coffee, but the morning paper could not keep her attention. Honestly. Gwen’s work was absorbing, but this was ridiculous. Even with the new semester only a week away, Gwen ought to have been able to take off one Saturday evening. What poor Judy must have thought when her closest friend among the Elm Creek Quilters did not show up to say good-bye!

After church, Agnes worked in the garden, leaving the windows open in case Gwen called back. The phone didn’t ring, not once, so Agnes resigned herself to suspense until she saw Gwen later at Elm Creek Manor. She put away her spade and wheelbarrow, washed up, and was waiting on the front porch swing when Diane’s white BMW pulled into the driveway. Agnes hurried over and buckled herself in before Diane even had a chance to shut off the engine.

“What’s the rush?” Diane asked, glancing at the clock to confirm that she was right on time.

“I want to be sure that all’s well with Gwen.”

“Nothing’s wrong with her that a vacation wouldn’t cure.” Diane backed out of the driveway and headed toward the main road out of Waterford. “She’s a workaholic. She should cut out all academic work cold turkey for at least a weekend. That’ll help her straighten out her priorities.”

“She loves her work, and you know what they say about academia, ‘publish or perish.’”

“One evening off with her friends wouldn’t kill her or her career,” retorted Diane. “Anyone who would put grading papers ahead of a good friend’s farewell party is obsessed with work. It’s unhealthy.”

“She has so much on her mind,” Agnes reminded her. “Elm Creek Quilts, that trouble with her department chair, Summer leaving for graduate school in less than a month—”

“My youngest is leaving for college in a week, and you don’t see me forgetting my friends.”

Agnes muffled a sigh and dropped the subject, reluctant to spoil such a beautiful summer morning with an argument, especially when she didn’t have enough information to properly defend Gwen’s behavior. Until she spoke to Gwen herself, Agnes couldn’t be sure if she deserved a defense.

They pulled into the rear parking lot, nearly empty as it usually was on a Sunday morning. Gwen’s car sat in the spot farthest from the back door, for she liked to leave the choice spots for the campers. Diane used Agnes as an excuse to park closer, no matter how often Agnes protested that she could out-walk most women half her age. Bonnie had not yet arrived, of course; the commute from Grangerville was strangely busy every day of the week, not only during weekday rush hours.

Bonnie could have hitched a ride with Diane every day just like Agnes did if she had accepted Agnes’s invitation to move in with her. Bonnie had shown up on Agnes’s doorstep the night Craig had locked her out of their condo and had settled into a spare bedroom while she sorted out the messy details of her collapsing marriage. At first Bonnie had hoped to move back into the condo after the dust settled, but that conniving, deceitful Craig made sure that couldn’t happen. Agnes assured Bonnie she was welcome to stay as long as she wished, but halfway through the summer, Bonnie happily announced that she had found a charming apartment in Grangerville on a quiet street near a nature preserve. Agnes worried that she had somehow made Bonnie feel unwelcome, but Bonnie assured her she only wanted to assert her independence and see how much she enjoyed the novelty of living by herself. On moving day, Agnes helped her load her belongings into the old station wagon and said, a little sadly, “The invitation stands.” Bonnie promised to remember that and waved cheerfully as she drove off.

Agnes had not yet seen her new apartment, for Bonnie hadn’t invited any of the Elm Creek Quilters over, despite their curiosity and their repeated hints that they wanted to throw her a housewarming party. Agnes wanted to believe that Bonnie had simply been too busy to unpack and that she wanted to wait until she was settled before entertaining friends, but she couldn’t help worrying that Bonnie’s standard of living had taken a nosedive too embarrassing to allow her friends to witness.

If that was the case, the insurance settlement ought to help. Agnes was doing her part to help, too. It was she who had discovered that Craig had hidden his assets by decorating his office with valuable antiques whose true worth only an expert would recognize. Fortunately, a good friend of Agnes’s late husband’s had been just such an expert, and even now he was appraising the collection and preparing it for sale. Agnes didn’t know what Craig had been using for office furniture ever since the court order obliged him to turn over the collection, and she didn’t care. Let him sit on the floor and balance his computer on an old milk crate. It was more than that wretched man deserved after how he had treated Bonnie.

The final sale was supposed to go through any day, and the money would be split evenly between Craig and Bonnie. Agnes had made her friend promise to call her as soon as the sale was final so that she could be the one to break the good news. Her husband’s friend had assured her it would be good news; the only question was how good.

It was a pity any of the money had to go to Craig.

At the sound of a car approaching, Agnes glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see Bonnie arriving right on time. Diane misread her line of sight and jerked her head toward Gwen’s car. “She’s here, all right. Better late than never.”

Agnes placed a hand on her arm. “Diane, dear, I’ve known you since you were a little girl, and I’ve learned to accept that sometimes you speak without thinking. Today, however, I must insist that you mind your words. If Gwen didn’t get to say good-bye to Judy, she’s going to feel bad enough without you heaping criticism upon her. This is not the day to tease and bait her. Understood?”

Diane’s eyes widened with injured innocence. “Of course. I can be sensitive.”

Agnes patted Diane’s arm. “Today you can prove it.”

They climbed out of the car just as Jeremy and Anna pulled up in Jeremy’s weather-beaten compact. Anna was weaving her long, dark brown hair into a single braid, and as she wrapped a band around the end, she said something that made Jeremy toss his head and laugh. Instinctively, Agnes clutched her purse to her side and pressed herself against Diane’s car. Jeremy was a smart young man, but at the moment, he wasn’t watching where he was going.

The car stopped inches away from Diane’s. Anna hopped out, breathlessly smothering her laughter when she noticed Agnes and Diane. “Sorry, that was my fault. I shouldn’t distract him when he’s driving, but he just said the funniest—well, it’s not important. Has anyone heard from Gwen?”

“Anna said she never showed last night,” Jeremy said, his brow furrowing as he locked the car. Tall and slender, he wasn’t handsome in the conventional sense, but he had a cheerful look about him that Agnes found charming, and when he was enjoying himself, his crooked grin lit up his face so that Agnes couldn’t help smiling, too. She had also never heard him say an unkind word about anyone, revealing a generosity of spirit that Agnes much admired.

“I spoke with her this morning,” Agnes said, and as they crossed the parking lot, she repeated their brief exchange—so brief, in fact, that she finished before they reached the kitchen.

“I hope she made it to Judy’s house in time.” Anna tied on an apron and put on a fresh pot of coffee. “It would be so sad for both of them if they didn’t get to say a last good-bye.”

“That’s what I said on the drive over and Agnes almost took my head off,” Diane grumbled as she searched the cupboards for her favorite mug.

Jeremy and Anna both stared at Agnes in astonishment, then looked at each other and burst into laugher. “I’m afraid they don’t believe you, dear,” said Agnes, smiling.

“That’s because they don’t know you as well as I do.”

Agnes folded her hands on the table. She supposed she could give someone a proper scolding when they deserved one, but she had been gentle with Diane. “All I meant was that Gwen surely didn’t mean to slight Judy, and we shouldn’t judge her without knowing what happened.”

“We could go ask her,” said Jeremy, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to do so.

“I’m under strict orders not to say anything,” said Diane, with a pointed look Agnes’s way.

“I didn’t mean you shouldn’t speak to her at all,” Agnes protested. “Just be sensitive. Empathetic.”

“You might as well ask me to wear a muzzle.” Diane slammed a cupboard door. “This never would have happened if she had just stuck around after the farewell breakfast instead of running off to the library. It’s just like last spring when Bonnie didn’t show up for her classes and we had no idea what had happened to her. I don’t know why you people can’t let people know where you’re going to be or at the very least keep your phones turned on. Where is that stupid mug?”

Looking slightly alarmed, Anna took a large pink cappuccino mug from the dishwasher and handed it to Diane. “We have lots of other mugs.”

“This is my favorite,” said Diane, slightly calmer. “I can get the perfect coffee-to-milk ratio if I fill it to that little crack on the inside.”

“No wonder you’ve been unusually grumpy this morning,” said Agnes. “You were genuinely worried about Gwen. You thought we’d have a repeat of that terrible incident at Bonnie’s quilt shop.”

“Only at first,” said Diane, reaching into the refrigerator for a carton of nonfat milk. “Last night after I dropped you off, I drove past Gwen’s house and saw the light on in her office window. She was there working blissfully away, so I knew she was fine.” Diane sloshed milk into her coffee mug. “Once I knew she wasn’t passed out in an alley somewhere, I started to get mad.”

“Her office faces the back yard,” said Agnes. “You snuck around back and peeked in her window?”

“What else could I do? She wouldn’t pick up the phone!” When Jeremy laughed, Diane glared at him. “Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if Summer wouldn’t answer your calls.”

“I wouldn’t have to,” said Jeremy. “You’d beat me to it.”

“For the sake of my peace of mind, I wish all of you who live alone would move into the manor.” Diane sounded as if she was only half joking. “Especially Bonnie, since she’s essentially homeless. But why not Gwen, too? She’s been living alone for years now, ever since Summer moved out. What’s there to hold her back once Summer leaves for Chicago?”

“Summer will visit so often we’ll hardly know she’s left,” Agnes interjected, casting a sympathetic look Jeremy’s way. He was frowning and studying the floor. Surely he would miss Summer as much as Gwen did, perhaps more, in the way of young lovers.

“She’ll flunk out of school if she does that,” Diane scoffed. “And why not you, Agnes? You must want the company, or you wouldn’t have asked Bonnie to move in with you.”

“I love my little house and garden, and I need my own place for when my grandchildren visit,” said Agnes. It wasn’t loneliness that had compelled her to invite Bonnie to move in with her, but compassion. “What about you? You’ll be an empty nester soon. Why don’t you and Tim take a suite upstairs? He’ll have plenty of Elm Creek husbands around for company.”

“After he retires, we might do just that,” said Diane, who knew when she was being teased. “For now, he likes to be close enough to campus to walk to work. What about you, Anna? You don’t need to be close to campus anymore, now that you’ve resigned from College Food Services.”

“Me? Move in here?” Anna let out a small laugh and disappeared into the pantry. “Oh, I don’t know. My apartment’s a shoebox compared to the manor, but I like it.”

“Think of the money you’d save on rent,” Diane persisted. “And the time you’d save on your commute. Plus the bus fare. Jeremy surely won’t be able to drive you every day.”

“It’s no trouble,” said Jeremy.

Diane shook her head. “Maybe not now, but after Summer leaves, you won’t have any reason to come out this way.”

“Really, it’s not a problem,” said Jeremy, directing his reply to Anna.

“Living here would save me a commute to Elm Creek Manor, but what about my other job?” Anna emerged from the pantry carrying a sack of flour. “I’d still have to get to campus several days a week, and sometimes the special events I direct for the provost run later than the last bus out this way.”

A cry of dismay went up from Agnes and Diane. “Haven’t you resigned from College Food Services?” asked Agnes, wondering if Sylvia and Sarah knew.

“You mean we’re in a trial period?” asked Diane. “You’re keeping both jobs until you decide which you like best?”