The Giving Quilt (18 page)

“He was a teacher, and a very good one,” Jocelyn replied. “The orchestra was a part-time gig, mostly for fun. He used to say his stipend barely paid for his sheet music.”

Jocelyn smiled briefly, but her gaze was faraway, and Michaela felt as if she were intruding on a precious, private memory. As she looked away, her eyes met Linnea's, and from the shocked sympathy she saw there, she knew Linnea hadn't known about Jocelyn's grief either.

* * *

Before breaking for lunch, Gretchen demonstrated how to add a mitered double border to their quilt tops. Michaela had mastered that technique while she was in middle school, so she merely listened politely as she pinned her last two rows together instead of taking notes. She was not the only camper who was not quite ready for that last step; only Karen and Pauline had finished sewing all of their rows together.

“The classroom and the workstations throughout the ball-room will be available for the rest of the day,” Gretchen reminded them. “I'll be around if you need my help, but if you can't find me, feel free to ask any of the Elm Creek Quilters, or seek help from one another. I'm sure none of you kind and generous ladies would need the extra incentive, but if you give another camper help with her quilt, that's something to list in your Giving Journal.”

A light ripple of laughter went through the classroom, and then everyone got back to work. No one, not even Pauline and Karen, finished assembling her quilt top before the end of class, and nearly everyone left her supplies and works in progress at her place.

Jocelyn and Michaela headed off to lunch together as they had the previous two days, and this time, Karen fell in step beside them. “All I have to do is press my borders,” she said, “and I'm done with my top.”

“I'm nowhere near that point,” said Jocelyn, shaking her head. “I have only half of my rows sewn together.”

“After lunch I was going to work on some UFOs I brought from home, but I'd be happy to help you if you like,” said Karen.

“That's kind of you, but I'd like to do this on my own,” said Jocelyn. “I've wanted to learn to quilt for a very long time, and I think it will be more satisfying if I sew every stitch myself.”

“You should have plenty of time,” Karen assured her.

“Oh, I'm not worried. I'll skip the evening program if I have to.”

They had reached the banquet hall, where Pauline stood holding open the door so that Michaela could swing through on her crutches. “You can't miss the evening program,” she exclaimed. “The Waterford College Chamber Ensemble is coming to play for us. Sarah says they're marvelous.”

“I've heard them before, and they're quite good,” Karen added. “Sylvia said the program includes ‘music for the season.'”

“Thanksgiving carols?” said Michaela, dubious. “I didn't think there were any.”

Karen smiled. “I think she meant Christmas music, but you never know.”

“I would hate to miss that,” admitted Jocelyn.

“Just get as much done as you can between lunch and supper, and then take a break for some fun,” said Mona, who stood just ahead of them in the lunch buffet queue with her sister. “That's what I'm going to do, and I'm even farther behind than you are.”

“I don't think either of you is technically behind schedule,” said Karen. “We don't really need to have our tops finished until tomorrow morning.”

Linnea dug into her tote bag and pulled out the syllabus. “Tomorrow's agenda includes pressing our quilt tops and longarm machine-quilting them.”

“That will be so awesome,” said Michaela. “I've always wanted to use one of those big machines. I keep trying to talk my mom into buying one, but she loves to quilt by hand. I would too, if it didn't take a million years to finish a single quilt.”

The others chimed in with their agreement, all except for Jocelyn. “I was actually hoping we would learn to hand-quilt,” she said, picking up a plate for herself and one for Michaela. “That's more my style. I was looking forward to learning a more traditional method.”

“Must be the history teacher in you,” Linnea remarked.

“I'm sure one of the Elm Creek Quilters would be happy to teach you during free time,” Karen said. “Really, though, machine-quilting is the way to go if time is of the essence.”

Jocelyn nodded. “In this case, it definitely is.”

“I suppose the only solution is to come back for a week of Elm Creek Quilt Camp in the summer so you can take a hand-quilting workshop,” said Linnea.

Jocelyn laughed. “I like that idea.”

“I think we all do,” said Pauline.

They found a vacant table and seated themselves around it. Michaela set her crutches aside and thanked Jocelyn for helping her carry her lunch. “I never would have guessed you were a beginning quilter,” she added. “Your quilt is coming together so well.”

“I've noticed a tremendous amount of progress between your first blocks and your last,” Pauline chimed in, and then she made a sudden, pained face as if someone had kicked her beneath the table. “That came out wrong. I'm not saying your first blocks looked bad—”

“That's not how I took it,” Jocelyn broke in, laughing. “Thank you. I think I've come a long way in a short time too.”

“Doesn't it feel good to be quilting after wanting to for so long?” Mona asked her. “Linnea has been promising to teach me for years, but we live so far apart, it's been impossible to fit lessons into the schedule.”

“Our visits are too few and too far between,” Linnea lamented. “And whenever we're able to get together—”

“There's always so much to do,” Mona broke in.

“And too many other people around,” Linnea finished.

“I learned how to quilt here at Elm Creek Manor,” Karen said. “A few years ago, when I was expecting our first child, my husband surprised me with a week at quilt camp after I mentioned that I had been seized by an irresistible compulsion to make a crib quilt. I can't really explain it. None of my friends or family quilted at the time, and I hadn't grown up with quilts around the house.”

“You don't have to justify your obsession with quilts and quilting to us,” Pauline assured her.

“I forgot I'm among people afflicted with the same condition,” said Karen, smiling. “So, I didn't have anyone to teach me, and I was absolutely terrified of what might result if I tried on my own. Once I learned how, though, there was no holding me back. I think that week at quilt camp might have been the best gift my husband ever gave me.”

“Other than your children, of course,” Pauline said.

“No, that's the best gift
Karen
ever gave
him
,” said Linnea, and everyone laughed.

“My mom taught me how to quilt,” said Michaela, suddenly missing her very much. Her mother would have enjoyed Quiltsgiving. Why hadn't they signed up together?

“I meant to take a class a couple of years ago,” said Jocelyn. “I had my tuition paid, my supplies purchased, and everything, but then—” She drew in a deep, shaky breath and after a moment, she managed a smile. “Well, things don't always go according to plan, do they?”

“No, they don't,” said Linnea.

She spoke so firmly that Michaela knew, somehow, that she was referring to something else besides quilting.

“No,” she agreed, frowning at her cast. “They definitely don't.”

* * *

Michaela's favorite picture of herself as a child had been taken by her mother more than twelve years before. Her parents had brought her along to a football game at the local high school where her father was the principal. From their front-row bleacher she had watched, enthralled, as eight older girls in red and white sweaters and pleated skirts ran onto the sideline laughing and shouting, their hair pulled back into ribbon-tied ponytails, their smiles confident and bright. When they told the crowd to shout, even the grown-ups obeyed. When they danced, the audience clapped along. When they did cartwheels and kicks up and down the field, the audience responded with thunderous applause. They were pretty and admired and everyone did whatever they said. Michaela was transfixed. She left her seat and clung to the guardrail at the front of the bleachers, the only barrier that prevented her from running onto the field to join them.

“Do you see them, Mommy?” she called, turning around. “Aren't they awesome?” That was when her mother snapped the photo.

Anyone else viewing the picture saw a pretty girl frozen in a moment of perfect childhood joy, her blue eyes wide with wonder, her blond curls tousled by the September wind. Michaela alone knew that the photo had captured so much more than that, for it had been taken at the very moment she realized for the first time exactly what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

When she grew up, she was going to be a cheerleader.

Fortunately, she only had to wait until junior high to begin fulfilling her dream. The first time she cheered with other girls instead of at home in front of the mirror was in seventh grade. In eighth grade she was chosen captain and learned how to do a round-off back handspring. When she moved to the high school the following year, she was the first freshman to make the varsity team in the history of the school. Her knees shook so badly when her new coach handed her the long-coveted red and white uniform that she almost sank to the floor weeping tears of relief and gratitude. Only her deeply ingrained cheerleader poise allowed her to keep her composure until she got home.

That year she added a standing back tuck to her repertoire; by the time she was a sophomore she could do as many back handsprings in a row as there was room to do them. Her team won the state cheerleading championship every year she was a member, and in her senior year they were invited to perform in the Rose Bowl Parade. As she danced behind the Bank of America float in the glorious New Year's Day sunshine of Southern California, Michaela knew that it was the most thoroughly fulfilling moment she had ever known, perhaps that she would ever know.

For all too soon high school came to an end, and Michaela was forced to move on.

By then she had realized that professional cheerleading was not for her. Those teams didn't want athletes; they wanted sexy Barbie dolls with perky breasts and tight buns, and although Michaela had them, she wasn't about to shake them in front of a national television audience when her grandparents could be watching. Instead she would become a coach. She would earn a college degree in secondary education, find a job in a nice high school like the one she had attended, and help future generations of young women achieve heights never before seen in the sport.

When the time came to select one of the five colleges that had accepted her, Michaela chose St. Andrew's College because it was within driving distance of home, but not so close that her parents would drop by unannounced; because it had a highly respected school of education; and although she would never admit it, because its school colors were red and white, just like her high school. Actually, its official school color was a red, white, and black plaid called Crusader Tartan, but that was close enough.

When autumn arrived, Michaela felt a strange hollowness that the excitement of starting college couldn't fill. For the first time in six years, she was watching the football games from the bleachers with the civilians instead of taking her proper place along the sidelines. But at that first game she ordered herself to stop mourning and start planning. Cheerleading experience at the college level would give her an edge when it came time to apply for coaching jobs, and if she were going to be a Crusader cheerleader, she needed a plan.

She embarked on a detailed program of study, attending every sporting event she could in order to see what skills she needed to learn and what dancing styles the team preferred. She saw at once that she would need to learn more difficult partner stunts, since the guys were always flinging the girls up in the air in ways that her all-female high school squad never could have done. Her tumbling was fine, but her dance style would need to become more daring. A surreptitious investigation of the current team members suggested that decent grades and a sorority membership wouldn't hurt. She was disappointed to learn that an archaic university policy forbade her from trying out until the following year, since all candidates had to have two consecutive semesters with a GPA of at least 3.0 before they could join the team. It wasn't fair, since no other sport had a similar requirement, but she decided to use the time to her advantage.

She enrolled in a dance class for her physical education elective and spent her evenings in the gym or in the library, knowing that if she started out with a solid GPA she could ease up once she made the team. Her dorm roommate had turned out to be a ghastly creature who dressed in baggy clothes, wore black lipstick, and wrote morbid poetry about death and despair, so at least she didn't distract Michaela with too much socializing.

The days fell into a routine that kept her busy but not overwhelmed. She had three classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; two on Tuesdays and Thursdays; dance or tumbling practice in the afternoons; and studying every evening. Her worst class was Basic Chemistry, which she managed to get through by reminding herself of the GPA requirement for cheerleading. College Writing—or Freshman English, as everyone but English department faculty and the registrar called it—was her favorite class, mostly because the professor encouraged them to choose their own topics. She earned an A for her personal narrative titled “Rose Bowl Bound: A Cheerleader's Journey to Southern California,” and the professor had scrawled a note at the top of the page admitting that she had opened his eyes about the athleticism involved in cheerleading. His new awareness, and her 3.75 GPA, brought her first year of college to a satisfying end.

Summer passed. Michaela impatiently studied and danced and tumbled her way through the fall semester of her sophomore year. It seemed forever until February and the organizational meeting for cheerleading tryouts.