A Thread of Truth Read online

  Beaming, Abigail unbuckled her seat belt and practically leapt out of the car. “Just lock the doors, would you? I’ve got to run to my meeting. I can’t wait to tell Donna about this! It’s the absolutely perfect solution to all our problems. Must run. Tell Bethany and Bobby I said hello. Thank you so much, Ivy!”

  She slammed the door shut and scurried toward the front door without an umbrella, her high heels echoing definitively against the sidewalk, seemingly unaware that she was getting soaked.

  I got out of the car. “You’re welcome,” I called after her, though I didn’t see what I’d said that was so helpful.

  7

  Evelyn Dixon

  “All right, Wendy. The total is $126.75.”

  Wendy opened her eyes wider and pushed her rhinestone-encrusted glasses up on her nose. “Really?”

  “Well, that does include the forty-five-dollar class fee as well as your fabric. But, I understand. It does add up.”

  “Could be worse.” Wendy shrugged as she riffled through her enormous handbag looking for her checkbook. “My ex-husband’s hobby was drinking and chasing women. Sweetie, compared to that, quilting is a bargain!” Wendy wrinkled up her nose, squashed her lips into an open O, and snorted with laughter, her tongue pushing out between the circle of her lips with each snort. I joined in. Wendy’s laugh was so unique and so comical that it was impossible not to.

  “So, how are things going around here, Evelyn?” she asked as she bent over her checkbook. “How’re you feeling these days?”

  “Couldn’t be better. I just saw my doctor last week. No signs of cancer anywhere. Of course, I’ll have to keep going back for regular checkups, but the doctor thinks I’m fine.”

  “That’s great! Wonderful! And the shop? How’s business been?”

  “Not bad. Not booming, but every month is a little better than the one before. Our Internet business is good and we’re getting more walk-in traffic, too. Somebody must be spreading the word. This week I had a group of three customers who were driving from Rhode Island to New York and took a ninety-minute detour just to check us out. Not everyone would go so far out of their way to visit a new shop, but if the word is getting out among the hard-core quilters, it’s a good sign.”

  “That’s terrific,” Wendy commented, and handed me her check. “You’ve come a long way in two years. Remember when you found this place? I’d been going through the longest dry spell, hadn’t gotten a commission check in I don’t know how long, and there I was, getting ready to close up for the night and thinking that I’d just wasted another day of my life in the real estate business when the phone rang. It was you, saying you wanted to lease this old wreck of a building and would be over in five minutes to sign the papers. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to think! It had been so long since anyone had asked about this place that I had to dig through the archived files to find out what they wanted to rent it for. The paperwork was dated something like 1982! Back in the days when I still had all my own teeth!” Snort! Snort!

  I put the check in the register and handed Wendy her receipt. “Remember how you tried to talk me out of taking out the lease? Some Realtor you are.”

  “Well, I was worried about you. You’d just been through a divorce. I thought maybe this was your way of going on the rebound. That instead of taking up with another miserable man who would burn through your money and break your heart, you decided to do the same thing except with a quilt shop!” Snort!

  “I didn’t see how you could make a go of it, not in this location, but I was dead wrong. Forgive me for doubting you.”

  “That’s all right, Wendy. It isn’t like you were the only one who felt that way. Do you have your punch card with you? You get a fifteen-dollar gift certificate for every three hundred dollars you spend. You must be pretty close by now.”

  “Hold on,” Wendy said, digging through her voluminous handbag. “It’s in here somewhere.”

  The front door jingled. I looked up to see Abigail and Franklin enter with Liza following close behind. “Liza!” I ran out from behind the counter to give her a hug. “I didn’t know you were coming home this weekend! Does Garrett know?”

  She looked wonderful. She’d gone back to her natural hair color, a deep chestnut brown with some reddish undertones. It was much more becoming than the dye she’d used when we first met. So much had changed since that day when she dragged Abigail into my first Quilt Pink event. The sullen, angry teenager, the girl with the darting eyes, slumped shoulders, and all-black wardrobe had been replaced by a smiling and confident young woman. Of course, she was still our Liza, artistic, a little edgy, blunt, and just as strong-willed as her aunt Abigail. The two of them could go ten rounds over the silliest things, but these days it was more just for her own entertainment than from any desire to really hurt Abigail. She still liked to wear clothing that got attention, mostly of her own design, like the black jean jacket she was wearing today, embellished with a line of bottle caps she’d grommeted to the shoulders like epaulettes on the uniform of a four-star general. It was an original, just like Liza.

  “I didn’t have a chance to call him,” she said, hugging me back. “My Friday sculpture class was canceled, so on a whim I just hopped the next train headed north.”

  “And she forgot her cell phone in the dorm,” Abigail interrupted. “Thank heaven there was a pay phone at the station and that I was home when she called to ask Franklin and me to pick her up. Otherwise, she’d have spent the weekend standing on the platform at the Waterbury train depot. Really, Liza, you must start planning ahead a little. What if I hadn’t been home? What if I’d decided to go out of town for the weekend?”

  “Then I’d have called a cab to take me to New Bern, found the spare key you have ‘hidden’ under the flowerpot even though everyone in town knows exactly where you keep it, let myself in, and spent the weekend eating your food and swimming in your pool. Oh. And I’d have called Garrett to come over and spend the weekend with me so we could do a little passionate necking on your sofa. Right before we emptied out your liquor cabinet.” Liza rolled her eyes. “Really, Abigail. Do you think I’m ten years old or something? If you’d been gone, I’d have worked something out. Besides, I knew you’d be home. It’s Quilt Circle night. You wouldn’t miss out on that unless you’d gotten a better offer, like dinner at the White House.”

  The look on Abigail’s face told me she was ready to launch into a full-scale argument with her niece but, thankfully, Wendy interrupted. “Evelyn, I’ve got to get back to the office and I can’t find that silly card anywhere. It must be in my other pocketbook.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Save the receipt and when you find the card, bring it in and I’ll punch it for you.”

  Wendy scurried out the front door just as Garrett came out of the back office. “I was on the phone with a customer, but did I hear somebody say something about passionate necking? Count me in.” He winked at Abigail before crossing the room to give Liza a kiss. “I didn’t think you’d be here until next weekend. Why the surprise? Did you miss me? So much you decided to come up here to buy me dinner?”

  Smiling, Liza reached up, grabbed a piece of Garrett’s hair, and yanked it playfully. “You wish. Actually, I came up here to come to my quilt-circle meeting. I may live in Manhattan, but I’m still an affiliate member, you know. However, if you play your cards right, I’ll let you buy me dinner on Saturday night.”

  “Hmmm. What about the passionate necking part? Do we still get to do that?”

  “Maybe,” Liza said casually. “If you play your cards right.”

  “All right, you two,” I said. “Enough flirting. Go tell Margot it’s quitting time. If she hasn’t been able to get the accounts to balance by now, it’ll just have to wait until Monday.” I walked to the front, turned the closed sign face out, and opened the door. “Franklin, Garrett, nothing personal, but—clear out. This meeting is for members only.”

  Franklin kissed Abigail on the cheek and then turned to Garrett
. “They want us to leave.”

  “Do you think?” Garrett looked at me as I stood holding the knob of the open door.

  “Well, fine,” he harrumphed. “I can take a hint. I’ve been thrown out of better places than this. Come on, Franklin. Let’s go to the Grill and have a beer. I’ll buy.”

  Franklin shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t. I’m headed over to Ivy’s to babysit. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to be inducted as a full member of the Cobbled Court Quilt Circle, with all the rights and privileges herein.”

  “Rights and privileges? Such as?”

  “Such as having Uncle Franklin babysit Bethany and Bobby on Friday nights so she can have an evening out with the girls and do some quilting. At least, that’s what they say they do up there. I’m not convinced there’s as much quilting as gabbing going on.”

  “Abigail talked you into babysitting Ivy’s kids every Friday night? Wow. You’re either the nicest guy or the biggest sucker in the world, you know that?”

  Franklin’s eyes twinkled as he gave Abigail a glance. “My boy, you don’t know the half of it. Why don’t you come to Ivy’s with me? We can make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, play Candy Land, and I can tell you about the price of loving a beautiful woman.”

  Franklin put his arm across Garrett’s shoulders and, like Rick and Louis in the final scene in Casablanca, the two men walked out into the shadowy evening and into the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  I closed the door. Liza laughed. “What do you want to bet that Ivy comes home tonight to find those two passed out on the sofa asleep, with their fingernails painted red, and the kids still awake, watching TV and eating chocolate ice cream out of the container?”

  “I wouldn’t want to give you odds on it,” I said, “but that’s all right, chocolate washes out.” I locked the door of the shop.

  “Ladies, let’s call this meeting to order. It’s time to welcome a new quilter into our ranks.”

  The word “meeting” projects a much more formal, organized gathering than the reality of the weekly gathering of the Cobbled Court Quilt Circle. That’s not to say that those kinds of groups don’t exist; there are quilt circles and guilds that have roll calls and rosters, agendas and officers, guest books and guest speakers. Over the years and in various locations, I’ve belonged to such groups and enjoyed them.

  But our little circle is as much about companionship as it is about learning the oldest, or latest, or fastest quilting techniques, probably more so.

  The Cobbled Court Quilt Circle has just four members: Margot, Abigail, Liza, and me. I started it as a means of thanking the others for supporting me through my breast cancer treatment, but in the end I think I’ve gotten as much out of it as they have.

  These Friday evenings are a welcome break at the end of a long week, something we all look forward to; a safe, private space where we can talk, or laugh, or cry with friends or, if quiet is what we are most craving, just sit and focus our attention on the quilting, working in companionable silence with people who know our stories and understand our stillness. Sometimes our meetings are peaceful and calm, marked by low voices, the metallic snip of scissors, and the soft whir of sewing machines. Other nights they are punctuated by raucous, uncontrollable laughter, and the giddy sound of female voices interrupting one another, jockeying to take over the role of narrator for a story they can’t wait to tell.

  I love Friday nights.

  When I was going through my cancer battle, those few hours on Friday were the only times I really felt like myself. For that thin slice of the week, I forgot about the disease that had invaded my body, or if I couldn’t forget about it, at least lived with it, embraced by the warmth of good women whose kindness and determination to see me through my darkest hours gave me hope that, one way or another, everything would be all right. And, in the end, it was. Not that I don’t still need them, or they me. The scars of my surgery have faded considerably but not completely, and the others all carry their own kinds of scars, healing at their own, individual rates. That’s the point of Friday nights. The scars don’t appear as terrible, or take as long to heal, when you’re safe inside the circle of friends. For a while there, Friday nights were the only times I felt lucky.

  That’s why I wanted Ivy to join our circle. I thought that she needed us.

  Ivy has a quick wit but, more often than not, the laughs come at her own expense, poking fun at her own weaknesses with a regularity and fierceness that makes me wonder if she’s really joking at all.

  I really don’t know much about Ivy, but there’s something about her, a sadness that lurks behind her ready smile and goes down to the bone. She tries to mask it, but it’s there, sadness and something else harder to name. Determination, perhaps.

  I saw it clearly one night during the log cabin class at the Stanton Center as she sat at her sewing machine, holding her quilt block in her two hands as silent tears tracked slowly down her cheeks. Seeing her crying, I started to go over and comfort her, but she saw me looking at her and nodded to let me know she was all right, or would be. Ivy is quiet and careful, but she’s also strong. Given what she’s been through, I guess she’d have to be.

  Since she lives at the Stanton Center, we know she was married to an abusive man, a man who Abigail told me was killed in some sort of construction accident and left Ivy and the children without a dime to live on, but she never speaks of him or of how she ended up in New Bern. I think she’s from somewhere in Pennsylvania originally, but I don’t know for certain.

  Not that she has to share any of that with us, not at all. Our quilt circle isn’t a place for gossip, it’s a place for honesty. It might take some time, but I think that’s what Ivy needs: a safe place where she can be herself, and with a group of friends who will love and accept her for exactly who she is.

  8

  Evelyn Dixon

  Abigail was indignant.

  “No? We’re kind enough to invite her to join our quilt circle and she just says no? After all we’ve done for her! Especially you, Evelyn. Where would she be if you hadn’t given her a job?” She answered her own question. “In the unemployment line, that’s where! I’ve never heard of such ingratitude!”

  She practically stabbed the needle through the quilt top and batting she was basting together. Looking at her, I decided it was a good thing Ivy had left as quickly as she did. If not, Abigail just might have turned that basting needle into a lethal weapon.

  We were in the workroom, Abigail, Liza, Margot, and myself, going on with our usual circle meeting like we normally did, but the evening’s previously festive atmosphere had definitely faded.

  Margot was working on a quilted tote bag she planned to give her sister for Christmas. Liza was supposed to be sewing a bunch of shells with holes she’d drilled herself onto the back of a jacket, but mostly she seemed to be drinking wine. And I sat at my sewing machine with my head down, using my seam ripper to remove the stitches from a seam I’d accidentally sewn wrong sides together, the sort of beginner’s mistake I hadn’t made in years.

  “Abigail, calm down. It’s not like joining the quilt circle is a condition of employment around here. Ivy must have her reasons for not wanting to be part of the group,” I said evenly, though for the life of me, I couldn’t think what those reasons could be.

  I was so sure that Ivy would be happy, even excited, at the prospect of being included in our circle. If not for the quilting, at least for the chance to have an adult evening out now and then. It never crossed my mind that she’d refuse the invitation. I couldn’t help but feel a little hurt by Ivy’s reaction.

  “Well”—Liza shrugged and took another sip from one of the coffee cups we used in lieu of wineglasses—“it isn’t like she was rude about it, Abigail. She just said she’d rather not, that’s all. You’re just mad because someone isn’t doing what you want them to do. That always ticks you off.”

  Abigail glared at her niece. “That’s simply not so. I don’t know why you
always think the worst of me, Liza.”

  “Then why are you so upset? Why should you care if Ivy joins the quilt circle or not? You don’t even like her. Admit it, you’re just mad because Ivy isn’t doing what you want her to do. You’re not happy unless everyone is dancing to your tune.”

  Oh great, I thought. Here they go again.

  The last thing I was in the mood for was to listen to Liza and Abigail’s bickering. They were each other’s only living relatives, thrust unwillingly together when the court had briefly made Abigail responsible for her niece after Liza had experienced a minor run-in with the law. Their relationship was often rocky but they truly did love each other, though Liza knew exactly how to push her aunt’s buttons and never tired of doing so.

  I never understood why Abigail, so intelligent about so many things, couldn’t see that Liza was setting her up, striking the match of her aunt’s temper and then laughing at the ensuing shower of sparks.

  “Margot, what did you put in that pound cake? It’s fabulous. I’m going to have another piece. Abigail, can I get you some more cake?”

  It was a weak attempt at a diversion, especially since Abigail hadn’t had any cake to begin with, but I was tired; it was the best I could come up with on short notice.

  “That’s not true,” Abigail said airily, ignoring my question. “It makes not the slightest bit of difference to me if Ivy joins us or not. I do think it was rude of her to refuse, but it’s no skin off my nose that she did. I’m perfectly happy for things to stay as they are. I wasn’t all that sold on adding someone new to the group anyway. I’ve got other things on my mind besides Ivy Peterman, I can assure you.”