The Giving Quilt (3 page)

“It is indeed,” replied Sylvia. “Our own Gretchen Hartley designed it.”

The woman admired Gretchen's handiwork through thick, rectangular lenses with black plastic frames—but her gaze quickly turned doubtful. “It's so pretty, it's hard to believe most people could make it in a week.”

“It's easier than it looks,” said Gretchen, who had returned to the foyer from the ballroom at the sound of the front door, accompanied by her husband and Agnes, who promptly took her seat behind the registration table and smiled expectantly at the new arrival. “It's composed of easy-to-cut squares and rectangles, and I have lots of tricks to speed things along. You'll see.”

Joe stepped forward to assist the newcomer with her luggage up the four marble stairs, and she trailed after him to the registration tables, her gaze lingering on the quilt. “I'll be in a front-row seat at class tomorrow,” she promised Gretchen earnestly, her brows drawing together over green eyes as if to emphasize the significance of her vow. “If I really apply myself—and I intend to—I think I could make two Giving Quilts this week.”

“That's the spirit,” said Gretchen, smiling.

“I admire your ambition,” remarked Sylvia.

The woman looked from one Elm Creek Quilter to the other, shaking her head. “Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that I wouldn't accomplish more than that. I brought a few UFOs from home to work on too. I intend to finish five quilts total this week.”

Gretchen's eyebrows rose. “That's a quilt a day.”

The woman shrugged. “Well, not really, not if you include today and Saturday. I think I can squeeze in some sewing tonight and a few hours more before the Farewell Breakfast Saturday morning.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “I'd like to make more but I think that might be pushing it.”

“Please remember to take a few breaks to eat and sleep now and then, won't you?” said Sylvia, only partly in jest. When the woman nodded, utterly serious, Sylvia resolved to keep an eye on her throughout the week to make sure she set down her needle and enjoyed a walk by the creek or an evening program with new friends now and then. Sylvia wanted her guests to leave Elm Creek Manor refreshed, relaxed, and renewed, not utterly exhausted.

“What's your name, dear?” prompted Agnes.

“Pauline.” The woman's gaze fell to the list on the table and she craned her neck to read the upside-down text. “Pauline Tucker from Sunset Ridge, Georgia.”

“Welcome to Elm Creek Manor, Pauline,” said Agnes warmly, handing her a room key and the various maps, schedules, and papers Gwen had sorted into neat packets. When Matt offered to valet-park her car, Pauline dug a set of keys attached to a jumble of souvenir key chains from her coat pocket, handed him the set, and jokingly asked him to fill up the gas tank while he was at it.

As Joe escorted Pauline upstairs, the double doors swung open again and in came three women in matching quilted coats worn over identical fuchsia sweatshirts. Sylvia smiled, recognizing the three inseparable summer campers immediately by their signature color and their companionship, although she didn't recall their names. In fact, if Sylvia ran into one of them alone on a street in downtown Waterford, clad in brown wool or navy tweed, she might think her a perfect stranger.

Fairly bursting with delight, Team Fuchsia—as Diane had privately nicknamed them—called out greetings to the Elm Creek Quilters and made their way to the registration table with rollaway suitcases in tow. Almost as soon as the door closed behind them, it opened again, and the president of the Waterford Quilt Guild entered. “Hello, Nancy,” Sylvia said, welcoming her warmly as Andrew came forward to assist her with her bags. Sylvia linked her arm through Nancy's and escorted her to the registration table, inquiring about her husband, children, and various works in progress. Since Nancy had assumed leadership of the local guild, she and Sylvia had found many occasions to bring Elm Creek Quilters and Waterford Quilt Guild members together for socializing, advocacy for their mutually beloved art form, and, of course, quilting at the manor. At present the two groups were collaborating on the Waterford Winter Quilt Festival, a quilt show that would be held at the manor in February. Sylvia had the exhibit space and Nancy possessed the quilt show expertise, and together they were a formidable team. Sylvia hoped to find time during the busy Quiltsgiving week to take Nancy aside to review photos of several quilts recently submitted for entry into the show.

After Nancy collected her keys and paperwork and headed off to her room with a promise to see Sylvia later, Sylvia returned to welcoming other guests, sighing with contentment. She had so much to do, so many new challenges to tackle, so many good times with friends and family to anticipate. That, she believed, was the secret to her longevity.

The noise and activity brought James and Caroline running downstairs from the playroom, and they begged their mother to be allowed to help with registration. At first Sarah hesitated, but she soon relented and agreed that the twins could help hold the front doors open for the guests, welcome them to Elm Creek Manor, and direct them to the registration table—but they must not get in the way or try to lift any heavy suitcases. The youngsters took their jobs very seriously. Sylvia had to smile whenever she heard them greet newcomers with a sweet, enthusiastic, “Welcome to Elm Creek Manor!”

Throughout the busy afternoon, so many familiar campers passed through the doors of Elm Creek Manor that newcomers stood out. Soon after Nancy arrived, a woman with smooth skin the color of deep espresso entered clad in a knee-length charcoal-gray wool coat and sensible shoes. As well as Sylvia could ascertain from a distance, she appeared to be in her late thirties, with short, glossy curls and soft, dark eyes. She paused in the entranceway, and as she set down her tote bag to loosen a striking scarf of what appeared to be black cotton imprinted with geometric designs of white and rust, she ran a guarded, appraising gaze over the women enjoying refreshments and chatting and laughing and welcoming one another from the foyer to the second-floor balcony. Something in her carriage suggested sorrow and steel, and a determination that kept a soul-deep weariness in check, and Sylvia found herself suddenly, inexplicably moved. At that moment, Sarah approached the woman, and when she smiled and shook Sarah's hand, her face lit up with such warmth that Sylvia found herself smiling too.

Sarah directed her to the registration table, where Sylvia met her. “Welcome to Elm Creek Manor,” she said, extending her hand. “I'm Sylvia Bergstrom Compson Cooper.”

“Jocelyn Ames,” the woman said, shaking Sylvia's hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you. I've heard a lot about you.”

“Most of it good, I hope.”

“All of it good, I'm sure,” said Agnes stoutly.

“All of it good,” Jocelyn assured them, and then, in a more confidential tone, added, “I signed up for the Giving Quilt course, but I wanted to verify that it
is
suitable for beginners?”

“It most certainly is,” said Sylvia, indicating Gretchen's sample quilt hanging from the balcony. “We do assume that you've mastered some basic sewing skills first.”

“Thanks to my high school home ec teacher, I have,” said Jocelyn, accepting her key and information packet from Agnes. “The home ec teacher at the school where I teach gave me a refresher course last week too, just to make sure. Of course, we don't call it home ec anymore. It's Family Consumer Science.”

Agnes's eyebrows rose. “Do you mean that all those years I called myself a homemaker, I should have said I was a scientist?”

Jocelyn smiled. “Apparently so.”

“What do they call math class?” Sylvia inquired.

“For the sixth grade, it's Understanding Concepts of Everyday Mathematics.”

“And what do you teach?” asked Agnes.

“Social studies.”

Sylvia was surprised to hear it was still called social studies. That name was ripe for revision if any a school subject was.

“I enjoy all the topics I teach, but my passion is American history,” Jocelyn said. “I saw on your website that one of your evening programs later this week is a lecture on antique quilts from the estate. I'm very much looking forward to it.”

“I am too,” said Sylvia. “I confess it's pure self-indulgence on my part. I love to show off my ancestors' quilts and brag about them. It's generous of you and my other guests to humor me.”

“Oh, Sylvia, that's nonsense,” chided Agnes, but Jocelyn got the joke and promised Sylvia she would endure the program as best she could.

As soon as Matt appeared and offered to carry Jocelyn's bags upstairs to her room, a pair of quilters hesitantly approached Sylvia, pens in hand, and asked her to autograph their 1982 American Quilter's Society calendars, which featured her best-known work,
Sewickley Sunrise,
as the quilt for May. Thus she was preoccupied and witnessed only from across the room the reunion of the two sisters who had narrowly escaped being assigned to separate suites thanks to Agnes's intervention. They arrived separately but only minutes apart, so one sister, tall, blond, and sturdily built, had only just reached the top of the staircase when the other—blond, a trifle more slender, and a few inches shorter—crossed the threshold. “Linnea,” the newcomer called out, and her sister promptly set down her suitcase and plastic sewing tote, raced down the stairs, and hustled across the foyer to embrace her sister. They laughed and rocked from side to side as they greeted each other, which told Sylvia that they did not live in the same town, or perhaps even the same state, and they saw each other far less frequently than they liked. Sylvia was well pleased that Elm Creek Manor could be the site for such a happy reunion, and she resolved to chat with the sisters later to find out if she had interpreted the joyful scene correctly.

After the initial cluster of arriving guests, the pace slowed, with one or two campers entering the manor every quarter hour or so. A few lingered near the refreshments table making the acquaintance of other guests over coffee and cookies, but otherwise the foyer was left to the Elm Creek Quilters. With too little activity to entertain them, the twins grew bored and ran outside to play on the front lawn under the watchful eyes of Matt, Joe, and Andrew, who had run out of registration work to occupy their time. For their part, the Elm Creek Quilters filled the lull with chat, and they were engrossed in conversation about their friend Bonnie's upcoming Maui wedding when a hesitant clearing of a throat caught their attention. Unnoticed, a guest had slipped in through the front double doors and had halted a discreet distance away from the registration table, as if she were reluctant to interrupt them or approach uninvited.

“Oh, hello,” Sylvia said, greeting the newcomer brightly. “Here we are gabbing away when you want to register. Please forgive us for this poor welcome.”

“It's really okay.” The newcomer smiled shyly and shifted her backpack on her shoulders. She was of medium height, slender but somewhat pear shaped, and blue eyed, with chestnut-brown hair falling in a soft pageboy to her shoulders. “Who could ever feel unwelcome at Elm Creek Manor?”

The corners of her smile quivered as if she might be the rare individual who could, and something about her discomfiture struck Sylvia as familiar. “Karen?” she said as the name came to her unexpectedly, like a windfall apple rolling downhill and coming to rest at her feet. “Karen Wise?”

The woman's smile turned upward again in relief. “Yes, that's right. You actually remember me?”

“Of course I do.” Sylvia glanced over her shoulder to Agnes, Sarah, Diane, and Gwen, who were nodding. Gretchen and Maggie, who stood some distance away helping a camper interpret the estate map, were unaware of the exchange and thus did not nod or even glance their way. Nevertheless, Sylvia added, “We all do.”

“You made quite an impression on your last visit,” said Diane.

Wryly, Karen replied, “So did you.”

Diane winced at the memory. More than five years before, when the Elm Creek Quilters had sought new teachers to replace two founding members who intended to leave their circle to pursue other dreams, Karen had been one of the five applicants invited to interview at Elm Creek Manor. What the other Elm Creek Quilters did not figure out until later—and what Karen had probably never learned—was that Diane had tried to sabotage the interviews under the misguided hope that if suitable replacements couldn't be found, Judy and Summer would feel obliged to stay. Apparently Karen and her husband had miscommunicated about their child care arrangements, for she had arrived for the interview a few minutes late, harried and apologetic, pushing her youngest son in a stroller and desperately trying to persuade his older brother to sit quietly while she convinced the Elm Creek Quilters that she was the ideal candidate. Distracted by her children and caught off guard by Diane's belligerent grilling, Karen responded as well as she could have done—as well as
anyone
could have done under such circumstances—but she was given little opportunity to truly shine.

Despite those mishaps, which at the time had clearly bothered and embarrassed Karen much more than her interviewers, the Elm Creek Quilters had been quite impressed with her. No other applicant had so perfectly articulated the spirit of Elm Creek Quilts, which was why she had been invited to interview at the manor although she had never taught even so much as a single class at a quilt shop. Karen had taught undergraduate business courses in the chapter of her life before children, but she had never taught quilting, while the other four candidates had such experience in abundance. Elm Creek Quilt Camp students expected a great deal from their classes and workshops, and it would have been unfair to them—and to Karen—to give them a novice teacher.

Sylvia had volunteered to take on the unpleasant task of calling the eliminated candidates with the bad news, and when she had spoken to Karen, she had encouraged her to bolster her résumé by teaching at her local quilt shop, so that the next time Elm Creek Quilt Camp sought new faculty members, Karen would be a more viable candidate. Karen had agreed that this was sound advice, but whether she had followed through, Sylvia did not know. She did know that Karen had never returned for another session of quilt camp—until now.