Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt (30 page)

“It will mean a long way to haul a laundry basket, especially in winter.”

“Maybe you can befriend one of the upstairs neighbors and use their washer and dryer.”

Summer couldn’t count on that. “There’s no cable hookup, and that means no high-speed Internet access. I’m having withdrawal pains just thinking about it.”

“Maybe one of the neighbors has a wi-fi network you can tap into, or you can check your e-mail on campus.”

“That’s another maybe,” Summer countered, “but I can’t beat the location or the price.”

She wished they had another day to search. She hated feeling pressured to rush into a decision without giving herself ample time to see what else was out there. Still, what if that meant losing a perfectly decent apartment out of longing for a perfect apartment that might not exist?

She might be better off to play it safe and forget about the possibilities that might—or might not—be waiting around the next bend in the road.

When Dr. Mayer returned with the documents, Summer promised to review them promptly and give him her decision as soon as possible. When he replied, regretfully, that he couldn’t promise to hold it for her, she assured him she understood. She and Jeremy thanked him for his time and bade him good-bye.

“We can look over the lease at Julianne’s tonight,” Jeremy said as they headed north on Blackstone in search of an early dinner, since they had missed lunch. “If everything looks good, we could sign it and bring it back to Dr. Mayer tomorrow.”

“We could sign it?” Summer teased.

“I meant you.”

“I know.” She laced her fingers through his. So far, the former super’s flat was the uncontested front-runner in the apartment campaign. It might be a very bad mistake to leave Chicago without signing Dr. Mayer’s lease.

She could always wash her clothes by hand in the sink.

Near the corner of Blackstone and 57th, Jeremy pointed out an Italian restaurant called Caffe Florian and easily convinced Summer to give it a try, since she knew he had been craving a slice of real Chicago-style pizza ever since they had left Pennsylvania. Inside, where the exposed red-brick walls were adorned with framed posters of Impressionist art in pastel hues, they sat in mismatched chairs at a rather dilapidated table and shared the best spinach and artichoke heart deep-dish pizza with whole-wheat crust that Summer had ever tasted.

It did not, however, seem to be what Jeremy had had in mind. “You know what would make this even better?” he asked, helping himself to a second slice. “Pepperoni.”

Summer made a face. “You’re deliberately provoking me, aren’t you? I bet Anna could make a tofu stir-fry even you would enjoy.”

“No doubt, but not everyone can cook like Anna.”

Summer finished her pizza and asked the waiter for a refill of iced tea. “I think I’m going to sign the lease.”

“Really?” Jeremy looked as pleased as if he were the one who had made the lucky find. “You will read it first, though, right?”

Summer assured him she would, later that evening at Julianne’s.

They continued to explore Hyde Park, searching rental office windows in vain for vacancy notices until by unspoken agreement they shifted into mere sightseeing. They stopped by the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, where Summer found several books on Gwen’s shopping list and a biography and political analysis of Abraham Lincoln to read on the way home. At the university bookstore, Summer bought herself a T-shirt in the official school color, maroon, and chose two tiny University of Chicago onesies for Sarah and Matt’s twins.

Then they made their way back to Julianne’s apartment building, where they read Dr. Mayer’s lease carefully as they waited on the stoop for her or one of her roommates to return and let them in.

Maricela was the first to come home. Apologizing profusely, she berated herself for not giving them the extra key. “We thought you’d be gone all afternoon,” she explained, preceding them upstairs to the third floor. “Does this mean you’ve had good luck? Did you find a place?”

Summer described the apartment and how they had come to find it, a story she repeated when Shane returned, and again for Julianne. “What a marvelous discovery,” Julianne said. “I’m almost jealous.”

“I’m in the med school,” mused Maricela, smiling. “Maybe Dr. Mayer would let me have it instead.”

“No,” exclaimed Julianne, seizing her forearm. “You’re staying. Don’t you dare make me find yet another roommate. One never knows what horrors may ensue.”

Everyone chuckled, even Jeremy, who raised his eyebrows at Summer as if to say that he was not alone in recognizing the hazards of taking on a roommate.

“Didn’t I say that letting her look for a place might backfire?” Julianne asked her roommates, her tone suddenly losing its merriment.

“You can still ask her,” said Shane. “It gives her another option. She can always say no.”

“Ask me what?” said Summer.

After exchanging a look with her roommates, Julianne said, “Here’s the thing: Shane graduates in December and he’s moving out. We were going to start looking for someone to take his room, or maybe two someones, but by that time, everyone will have their housing arranged for the year.”

“The only students looking for new places in December are the most antisocial who can’t get along with their current roommates,” Shane said. “I can’t in good conscience foist someone like that on these wonderful, considerate women.”

They rolled their eyes. “You’re still not getting out of the ten bucks you owe us for groceries,” Julianne teased. “We’re immune to your charms by now.”

Summer pretended not to notice Jeremy’s deepening frown. “It sounds great, but I need a place for the end of September.”

“The futon wasn’t that bad, was it?” said Maricela. “Wouldn’t it do for one quarter, considering that you’ll be at the university for at least six years?”

Julianne smiled, encouraging and hopeful. “I know we just met, and I know we might seem a little crazy, but my cousin says you’re cool and from what I’ve seen, we’d get along great. Won’t you think about it?”

“The rent’s three hundred a month, plus one-third of the utilities,” Shane added. “There’s a coin laundry in the basement open to residents only and you can pay extra for a parking space, but there’s a waiting list a mile long.”

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t have a car.” Summer felt her heart lifting. “It sounds great. Really, it does.”

“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Julianne said, but her expression told Summer she hoped she would. “We’re not going to start advertising until October because otherwise we’ll be having people wanting to move in at the start of the quarter.”

“We don’t offer our futon to just anyone,” said Shane.

“I’ll definitely think it over,” said Summer. She was so glad they had asked her, so relieved to have an option to weigh against Dr. Mayer’s apartment. “Thanks. Thank you so much.”

Early Sunday morning, Shane brought back pastries from a bakery called Medici on 57th. Julianne made coffee, and after breakfast, she gave Summer a copy of the lease. “Think about it, and if you’re interested, sign it and send it back,” she said. “But send me an e-mail as soon as you decide, so I can stop stressing.”

Summer promised she would.

By nine o’clock, Summer and Jeremy were driving through Hyde Park, past the Museum of Science and Industry, along the western shore of Lake Michigan, following their maps and Julianne’s handwritten directions to I-90 east.

They spoke little as they left Illinois except to note exit ramps and lane changes. Summer scanned the two leases, comparing clauses, and imagining herself in one apartment versus the other. When they crossed the Indiana border, Summer slipped the leases into her backpack, knowing she had already learned as much as she would from them, and she could not choose her course based upon objective facts alone.

“I keep thinking,” she said, as Jeremy’s car sped east along the interstate past rolling farmland, “that I might be less homesick if I started graduate school with three friends already.”

Jeremy was silent for a moment. “They’ll still be your friends even if you don’t live with them.”

“I know, but it wouldn’t be the same.”

“Dr. Mayer’s apartment is closer to campus, and it would give you more privacy.”

She imagined trudging home from the library, backpack full of books and study notes, and unlocking a door that opened into a quiet kitchen with a single chair pulled up to a table, or alternatively, a room alight with cheerful banter and the fragrances of spicy Moroccan stew. “Maybe too much privacy.”

Jeremy drew in a breath and slowly let it out. “I know you’re leaning toward Julianne’s place, and obviously it’s your decision because you’re the one who’s going to live there. But Summer—” Jeremy hesitated. “I’m going to finish my dissertation in a few months. I’ll be leaving Waterford, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll find a job in Chicago.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to,” said Summer, startled. “You should take the best job you can find, no matter where it is.”

“I’m just saying that we might not be in the same town for years.” Jeremy flexed his hands around the steering wheel, and if he weren’t driving, Summer knew he would absently run his fingers through his curly dark hair, framing his next words carefully. “If you had your own place, it would be
our
place, at least when I visit. And it will probably be a long time until we can have more than just visits, until we can work things out so that our paths lead us to the same city.” He gave her a rueful half smile. “I’d settle for the same state.”

An ache filled Summer’s chest, and she lay her hand on his leg. “There are so many colleges and universities around Chicago. One of them is bound to need a new assistant professor of history within the next year.”

He closed his right hand around hers, eyes on the road ahead. “Or a postdoc. That could hold me over until you get your degree, and then we could plan our job searches together.”

“That would work,” Summer agreed, resting her head on his shoulder.

They drove along in silence, neither of them mentioning how unfair it was to ask Jeremy to delay his own career while he waited for Summer to complete her education, or how unlikely it was that when that day came, they would find a single history department with two available tenure-track faculty positions for newly minted PhDs.

The candle had traveled halfway around the circle when the door to the manor swung silently open and Summer stepped out into the twilight of the cornerstone patio. Sylvia watched as she made her way around the periphery of the circle of quilters—who were unaware of the newcomer, rapt by the sharing of confidences and hopeful expectations for the week ahead—to her mother. The mother and daughter shared a long embrace and a few inaudible whispers before Summer broke away and went to murmur something in Anna’s ear. When their new chef nodded, Sylvia guessed that Summer had told her that Jeremy was waiting in the kitchen to take her home after the Candlelight welcoming ceremony. Sylvia was surprised, but pleasantly so, when Summer took a seat beside her mother instead of racing back to her boyfriend. Then again, they had just spent many hours together in a very small car. Perhaps it was no surprise that for the moment, Summer preferred to enjoy the open air, the night sky, and the company of friends. The Elm Creek Quilters had missed her more than her short absence warranted because it had offered a bittersweet taste of what was to come.

If only pursuing her goals would not lead Summer so far away from them.

Choosing fabrics for Summer’s section of the Winding Ways quilt had been a simple task of pairing contrasting shades of the young woman’s beloved Amish solids. Summer’s blocks were the first Sylvia had completed, for she had anticipated Summer’s departure long before the young woman announced her intention to return to school. She had assumed that Summer might leave with Jeremy after he completed his degree at Waterford College, but Sylvia was no longer certain that they would walk side by side through life. Now she suspected that their paths would diverge, though they might try to prevent it or to pretend, for a time, that they still followed a single road together. Sylvia knew they loved each other and she hoped for their sakes that she had misread the signs. Perhaps all would be well. Perhaps Jeremy and Summer would find their relationship strengthened by the tests of time and distance.

Sylvia knew that if they were meant to be, the winding ways they followed would meet again, somewhere near the horizon.

D
iane backed out of her garage, noting with some surprise the two newspapers lying at the end of the neighbors’ driveway. Usually Mary Beth was up at dawn to walk her yappy little Pomeranian and she picked up the paper on her way back. When the Callahans went on vacation, the fastidious Mary Beth never forgot to stop newspaper and mail delivery until the morning of their return. Mary Beth had many faults—and Diane was capable of listing them in great detail—but forgetfulness was not one of them.

Then again, Mary Beth had been distracted lately. She believed that her son, Brent, was the victim of a great injustice, and Diane’s cheerful wave as she drove past on her way to Elm Creek Manor renewed the insult each and every morning. All summer long, Mary Beth’s perfect son had worked for Diane’s former troublemaker, a reversal of fortune neither of them could have imagined a few years before. Brent’s official employer was Elm Creek Quilts, but Michael had been placed in charge of the young vandals working off their sentences. If Brent put in only a half-hearted effort, it was Michael who ordered him to do the work over. If Brent showed up late, it was Michael who met him in the back parking lot and informed him that he could skip his lunch hour or stay after, but he would make up the time.

How it must be
killing
Mary Beth to know that Michael was Brent’s boss—and would be every summer until the debt to Bonnie was paid. Diane almost felt sorry for her, but then she remembered the look of pure devastation on Bonnie’s face as she waded through the wreckage of Grandma’s Attic, and her heart hardened. No punishment would suffice for the young men who had shattered her friend’s dream. Diane only wished that their parents could have been sentenced, too.

Mary Beth, most of all, would be well served by a lesson in humility. When Diane reflected upon the long history of their mutual antipathy, a clear trend emerged: Believing herself superior to all around her, Mary Beth always got her own way through intimidation and bullying. That was why, Diane concluded, though she and Mary Beth were longtime neighbors, they could never be friends.

Diane’s roots in the Elm Creek Valley stretched far deeper than Mary Beth’s, for she was born and raised in Waterford, the daughter of a chemistry professor and a homemaker. She could have attended Waterford College for free thanks to the tuition waiver for the children of faculty, but at eighteen she was restless for change and she begged her parents to let her apply elsewhere. It was no less of a journey for all that she chose the University of Pittsburgh, little more than 150 miles from home. She thrived in the city, on the friendships she formed with other girls in her sorority, and, if she’d had her way, she would have stayed in college forever. Since the university frowned on that and her parents would pay for only the standard four years, Diane did enough to pass her classes and earn her teaching degree. She hadn’t planned to return to her small hometown after graduation, but on a weekend visit home, two factors conspired to make the path back to Waterford very attractive: She heard a rumor that the middle school needed a new sixth-grade teacher, and her father brought home to dinner the newest member of the chemistry department faculty, a cute assistant professor named Tim Sonnenberg.

Shortly after their second anniversary, Diane and Tim bought a charming home a few blocks south of campus in a neighborhood populated by Waterford College professors and administrators. The gray stone house with a sloped roof and Tudor woodwork backed up to the Waterford College arboretum, insuring lots of shade and privacy. It was only after Mary Beth’s family moved in four years later that their domestic tranquility was shattered.

Diane had tried to be friendly to her new neighbors and took over a plate of lemon squares after the Callahans moved in. She understood that Mary Beth was busy unpacking and wasn’t miffed when her new neighbor didn’t invite her in to chat. But the very next week, Diane returned from the grocery store to discover to her horror that Mary Beth had dug up a row of forsythia bushes Diane had planted the previous spring. Mary Beth claimed that according to the lot survey the former owners had shown them, the bushes were actually on the Callahans’ side of the property line. “I had no idea they were yours,” Mary Beth exclaimed, her eyes wide with innocence. “What were they doing in our yard, I wonder?”

Even after Diane called the county and paid for a new survey that confirmed the property line was precisely where the Sonnenbergs had always thought it to be, the damage was done. Worse yet, Mary Beth planted some sort of berry bush in place of Diane’s forsythia, and the birds who feasted on the tiny blue fruit dropped obnoxious thank-you cards all over the Sonnenbergs’ red-brick patio. For two months Diane grimly hosed off the splotches every morning until realization smacked her in the face: Mary Beth’s berry bushes were on Diane’s property. Berating herself for her oversight, Diane pruned back the bushes, dug up the stumps, and raked the whole mess onto the Callahans’ lawn. The next day, Mary Beth left a terse letter in Diane’s mailbox demanding reimbursement for the berry bushes. Diane responded with an invoice for new forsythia bushes and soil mix. Mary Beth never paid.

Even so, Diane felt victorious, never suspecting that she had won only the first battle of an interminable war.

When Diane’s son and Mary Beth’s became best friends in the second grade, the women’s husbands, who got along just fine, fervently hoped that their wives would seize the opportunity to resolve their differences. Instead, they exercised their dislike in subtler ways, and Diane, at least, tried to keep their sons out of it. Diane almost didn’t join the Waterford Quilting Guild when she overheard at Grandma’s Attic that Mary Beth had been elected president, but since that would have been exactly what Mary Beth wanted, Diane joined anyway. They avoided each other within the larger group, and Diane befriended other guild members who, like her, stayed well outside the periphery of Mary Beth’s inner circle. After a few years of feeling like an outsider in her own guild—and hearing that others felt the same—Diane decided to run for guild president.

If she had known she was trampling on nearly a hundred years of tradition, she might have kept her mouth shut. Or maybe not, because under Mary Beth’s leadership, the guild had become cliquish and moribund, inviting back the same handful of local speakers every year, running the same block swaps, and hanging the same quilters’ works at quilt shows, showing little variation from one year to the next. The guild’s creativity had so stagnated that Diane could predict with unfailing accuracy which guild members would bring what dishes to the holiday socials and potluck picnics.

The guild desperately needed change, so perhaps even if Diane had known that incumbents and popular nominees were always allowed to run uncontested, she might still have asked Gwen to nominate her. Mary Beth would have struck back with the same ferocity either way. Diane had refused to be intimidated, even when Mary Beth unfairly used her time at the microphone during guild meetings to promote her own campaign. When Diane protested and asked to be granted equal time, the guild voted to allow each candidate to make a campaign speech on the evening of the election. Diane used her time onstage to emphasize that new leadership would bring a change of pace and fresh ideas, and that if she were elected, she would invite better speakers, direct new workshops, and spend members’ dues more frugally and with more accountability. When it was her turn to speak, Mary Beth kept her remarks unexpectedly brief. She described the accomplishments of her previous terms and then, “for the benefit of my opponent, who may not be aware of what is required of the president,” she read the president’s official duties from the bylaws, punctuating each line with a gesture or facial expression meant to show how unqualified Diane was for that particular task.

“The president shall prepare the agenda for and preside at quilt guild meetings and shall direct such meetings in a pleasant and professional manner.” A tentative bite of the lower lip, for everyone knew Diane was the reigning queen of sarcasm.

“The president shall appoint committee chairpersons and coordinate the activities of all the committees.” A worried intake of breath, for Diane could barely keep her purse organized.

“The president shall be authorized to cosign checks on behalf of the guild.” Eyebrows arched warily, for Diane rarely managed to pay even her own member dues on time.

“The president shall appoint an ad hoc committee to help coordinate all necessary activities for producing a quilt show.” A helpless shake of the head. “Oh, honestly, ladies, need I go on? Would any of us feel comfortable entrusting our beloved Waterford Summer Quilt Festival to someone who has never won a ribbon?”

A murmur of dismay swept through the crowd, breaking on the island of motionless calm that was Diane’s friends. One of them squeezed her shoulder, a brief gesture of encouragement, but Diane knew she had lost before the first ballot was cast. She realized then that the guild would never change, and that it would never fulfill its potential to be a fun, energetic, and meaningful group, enriching its members and benefiting the community. So she dropped out of the guild, and her friends left with her. Mary Beth and her cohorts quickly spread rumors that Diane had blackmailed her friends into leaving, and in the frenzied speculation about what dirt Diane might have had on them, everyone forgot the legitimate points Diane’s campaign had raised about problems that threatened the guild’s long-term survival.

Mary Beth never forgave Diane for stirring up so much conflict and threatening her position. Diane didn’t care. As the years passed, she found more pleasure with the Elm Creek Quilters than she ever had known with the Waterford Quilting Guild—and fresh, new reasons to dislike her next-door neighbor. Once Mary Beth hung wind chimes outside her kitchen window that rang and clanked and banged with the slightest breeze so loudly that Diane and Tim couldn’t sleep at night unless they shut every window facing the backyard. When Mary Beth refused to take them down, Diane researched city noise ordinances, discovered that Mary Beth was risking a fine, and threatened to turn her in. Mary Beth took her revenge two years later when the Sonnenbergs built a skateboard ramp in their backyard, unaware of codes restricting recreational construction in their historic neighborhood. Mary Beth was not content to merely threaten Diane; she filed a complaint with the city, who ordered the Sonnenbergs to dismantle the ramp.

Their most recent spat occurred when Mary Beth refused to announce the Elm Creek Quilters’ request for help with Sylvia’s bridal quilt, even though many members of the guild knew Sylvia personally and would have gladly contributed a block. Indignant, Diane snuck into a guild meeting, lured Mary Beth away from the podium with a fake cell phone call, and made the announcement herself. The guild members were so upset that Mary Beth had refused the invitation without consulting them that she was eventually forced to resign. Mary Beth’s youngest son, Brent, became so enraged that he stole Diane’s keys to Grandma’s Attic and destroyed the shop in a misplaced act of revenge, a twisted act of defending his mother’s honor.

Brent had aimed for Diane, but he had struck Bonnie. It was so unfair, so wrong, that Diane wished her friends were sterner taskmasters. Working at Elm Creek Manor was hardly punishment enough; the vandals performed the same duties as Diane’s own two sons, only less competently and without pay. If it had been up to her, she would have sentenced them to hard time.

How could anyone take their punishment seriously if it went on hiatus at the end of the summer? Already it was the last week of camp, with only one more week until the juvenile delinquents who destroyed Grandma’s Attic would be temporarily released from their commitment. One more week for Brent, Will, and Greg to learn a valuable lesson, if they let themselves, and one more week for Diane’s own sons to earn spending money for the upcoming school year. One more week—Diane choked back a tearful sigh—until Diane and Tim would load up the car and drive their youngest son to Princeton.

It seemed only five minutes ago that Todd had been running through the sprinkler, learning how to ride a bike without training wheels, reading comic books under the covers with a flashlight—and now, before she could catch her breath, he was leaving for his first year of college. She was so proud of him she thought her heart couldn’t contain all she felt, but it pained her to think of his empty room, his empty chair pulled close to the breakfast table. She liked to joke about how their grocery bill would plummet, how she would no longer have to do laundry three times a week; in truth, she would gladly fill her hours with the tedious chores she had spent the last twenty years decrying if it meant her boys were home again, and that everything was still ahead of her.

How was she supposed to fill the hours once the boys were out of the house, after quilt camp ended for the summer and she had no place to go each morning? Once she would have asked Bonnie for extra shifts at Grandma’s Attic, but with the quilt shop gone, Diane faced a long, cheerless, empty winter, counting the days between Todd’s visits home. At least Michael, a junior at Waterford College sharing a rented house downtown with a few other students, would continue his weekly visits home to do his laundry and have supper with his parents, so she would not feel entirely abandoned. But what of the other six days of the week?

“Get a life,” Diane muttered aloud as she pulled into Agnes’s driveway. Suddenly it occurred to her that that was exactly what she needed to do. It wasn’t her sons’ responsibility to give her meaning and purpose. That was
her
job. She could sit around and mope, or she could plot a new route for herself, following one of the shaded footpaths she had glimpsed in passing as she faithfully trod the well-traveled road of motherhood. Now she would have more time for herself and for Tim, for Elm Creek Quilts and for her friends. Wasn’t that what she had always said she wanted?

Why didn’t the prospect of so much freedom cheer her?

Agnes emerged from the house and waved, her blue eyes cheerful behind her pink-tinted glasses. “Last week of camp,” she declared, smiling, as she settled into her seat and buckled herself in. “What a summer it’s been. So much change, so much upheaval.”