Threading the Needle Page 7

  My mother made fun of Dad’s short midshipman’s haircut and starched uniform, but he didn’t care. He was smitten. Every time he could get leave, Dad made a beeline for the city so he could see her.

  Edna heaped the whole blame for all that happened on my mother, but I have my doubts. Dad was a good man, but he was a man, and young, subject to the same tricks and traps of biology as any other healthy, normal, not-quite-twenty-year-old male. I’m sure my mother didn’t have to tie him down to get him to sleep with her, but you could never have gotten Edna to believe it.

  I’m not saying my mother was an angel. I don’t know what she was; I never met her. Neither had Edna, but that didn’t stop her from painting my mother as a conniving tramp who had lured my father into her bed—and probably plenty of other men as well. Scores of them. Who knew which of my mother’s revolving door of lovers fathered me?

  “You don’t look like anyone on our side of the family, that’s for certain,” she’d say. “A girl like that could have put anything over on him. Tommy was always too softhearted for his own good.”

  I suppose it’s possible, but I do have his eyes. As far as my mother being able to put something over on him? That’s possible, too.

  Within a few months of meeting Dad, my mother was pregnant. Whether Dad was the only one or only one of many, I have no idea. But he insisted on “doing the right thing” and marrying my mother.

  I’m a little unclear on what happened next, but I know the wedding never took place. In due course, my mother gave birth, dumped me with Dad, and disappeared, never to be heard from again. Dad dropped out of school to care for me, which made my grandparents furious. It didn’t happen until I was three, but Edna insisted that stress over Dad’s quitting school caused my grandfather’s fatal heart attack.

  Dad rented a house in Groton and found a job in maritime construction. Welding hatches onto submarines was as close as he’d ever come to seafaring. His hours could be strange, but the work was steady. The Cold War was good for business.

  Dad hired a babysitter, Mrs. O’Dell, to look after me while he was working. Other than that, it was just Dad and I, living in a little house just a few blocks from the Connecticut shoreline. Most of the time, I was happy.

  When I was in the second grade, my school held a mother-daughter tea. Mrs. O’Dell offered to go with me, but Dad took the day off work and came himself. He was the only father there. I remember how funny he looked sitting in a second-grader-sized chair, drinking pink lemonade and eating a pink-frosted cookie shaped like a tulip. I remember all the women in the room smiling as they looked at him, and feeling so proud of him. Dad was very good-looking.

  Amelia Jessup’s desk sat next to mine. Her mother looked at my father, smiled, and said, “Amelia, aren’t you going to introduce me to your classmate?”

  “This is Madelyn Beecher,” Amelia replied dutifully. “And this is her father, Mr. Beecher.” Smiles and handshakes were exchanged between the adults.

  Then Amelia turned to her mother, and in that hoarse stage whisper that seven-year-olds have, she rasped, “Madelyn’s father came because she doesn’t have a mother. But Teacher said we aren’t supposed to talk about it.”

  The silence that followed was blaring. I remember hearing the clock ticking and nothing else. Amelia’s mother’s cheeks flamed bright red. After a moment that seemed to hang suspended in time, the teacher announced that there was more lemonade in the pitcher and then made a great show of filling everyone’s glass.

  That was the first time in my life that I remembered feeling shame. Funny thing is, I didn’t even understand what I was supposed to be ashamed of. That night, when he was tucking me into bed, for the first time, I asked Dad about my mother.

  “Why didn’t she want me?”

  “I want you,” he said. “Always did. Always will. Who else do we need? We’ve got each other, don’t we?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, all right then. That’s the deal. Anybody who doesn’t like it can just go to hell.”

  Dad wasn’t a man of many words, but the fierce flame of love in his eyes was eloquent. I didn’t ask about my mother again.

  Dad never spoke to or of his parents. Until Mrs. O’Dell called Edna after Dad’s accident, I never knew I had a grandmother. Edna wasn’t happy about having to take me in, but felt she had no choice in the matter. She couldn’t just hand me over to the state to raise, could she? What would people say?

  On my second day in New Bern, I was sitting on the branch of one of the apple trees when I overheard her say that to her three-doors-down neighbor, Mrs. Kover.

  “Edna, don’t say that. She seems a sweet little girl. And don’t you think it’ll be nice to have some company? Give it a chance. After all, she’s your only grandchild.”

  “So Tommy said.”

  “She has his eyes.”

  Edna said nothing.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Kover said, “I was just coming over to ask if Madelyn could come to our house for lunch tomorrow. Tessa will be home from camp this afternoon. She’ll be thrilled to have a playmate so close to her own age.”

  That was how I met Tessa Kover. That first summer we were inseparable. But maybe that was because we were so close in age and because summers in New Bern were hot, long, and offered few childhood distractions, at least the organized kind. Back then, mothers didn’t spend their lives hauling kids from one activity to the next. They told them to find something to do, to be home for dinner, and shooed them out the door.

  Tessa and I had no trouble keeping busy. We built tents in the backyard and staged puppet shows in the Kovers’ living room. We made cookies and quarts of vanilla ice cream, sitting in the shade of a spreading maple tree and taking turns cranking the handle of the Kovers’ old-fashioned ice-cream maker until the sweat beaded on our foreheads and the soupy custard inside froze into something semisolid. We made daisy chain crowns for our hair and key chains from neon pink and white plastic lanyard, a skill Tessa had acquired at camp.

  Was Tessa thrilled to have me for a friend? At the time I didn’t care. All I knew was I liked her.

  No. I didn’t just like Tessa. I loved her. Loved her with that intense, exclusive love that only very young girls are capable of, the slavish devotion of an abandoned pup for its rescuer. Loved her so utterly that if my grandmother commented, as she often did, “I suppose if Tessa Kover jumped off a bridge, you would too,” I wouldn’t have thought two ticks before answering, “Yes. Absolutely, yes.”

  When school began and I had a chance to meet other children in New Bern, my attachment to Tessa wasn’t diluted in the least. I wanted no other friends. I had Tessa.

  Whatever Tessa did, I did. When Tessa cut her hair into a short bob, I nagged Edna until she got out her shears and cut mine too. When Tessa joined the Girl Scouts, so did I. And when Tessa had to get eyeglasses, I faked my school eye test, deliberately mistaking Es for Gs. The teacher sent a note to Edna, who took me to see the optometrist, who was not fooled. Edna was furious. In the parking lot outside his office, she slapped me across the face so hard my ears rang. It was the first slap of many.

  Tessa wasn’t just my friend; she was my ideal. My idol. I didn’t just want her; I wanted to be her. I wanted her life, her family, the love and acceptance I’d been denied. Her family was part of the package. They were so happy, so wonderfully normal. That’s what I wanted, just to be happy and normal. Just to be like Tessa.

  At ten, at eleven, at twelve, at thirteen, I was too young to understand that love isn’t a mirror, reflecting back what you’re feeling word for word, gesture for gesture. I didn’t know that sometimes, that most of the time, love goes unrequited.

  I do now.

  8

  Tessa

  September

  Lee slipped his arms into his blue blazer and turned toward me.

  “How do I look?”

  “Good,” I answered before wiping away a trace of shaving cream his razor had missed. “Definitely the best man for the
job.”

  “Yeah?” He peered into the bathroom mirror and examined his reflection, as if worried that I was just being nice.

  I wasn’t. He did look good. Farmwork had made his shoulders wider, more solid, and his face, bronzed brown from working out of doors, was handsome against the crisp white collar of his shirt. But the sight of him dressed so formally depressed me. I knew he’d rather be wearing overalls and barn boots than a blazer and wingtips.

  Lee flicked imaginary lint off his lapel. “Tie or no tie?”

  “No tie. It’s just a temp job. You don’t want to look too anxious.”

  “I am anxious. I need this job. No point in pretending I don’t.” He pulled a blue paisley tie out of his jacket pocket and looped it around his neck. “The head of HR is George Kortekass’s cousin. He called her and put in a good word for me.”

  George Kortekass was another accountant in Lee’s division back in Boston. It was nice of him to recommend Lee, but I really wasn’t keen on the idea of his taking this job; the company was clear on the other side of the state. Still, the pay was pretty decent.

  “Here,” I said, taking the ends of Lee’s tie. “Let me do that for you.”

  “Thanks.” He sniffed and leaned his head closer to my hair. “You smell good.”

  “It’s a new shampoo I’ve been working on—orange and clove. I thought it might be good for the holidays. What time is your interview?”

  “Not until eleven, but I want to get down there early. You never know what kind of traffic you’ll run into on Ninety-five.”

  I finished making the knot and slid it into place under his shirt collar. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Stamford is such a long commute.”

  “Winter is coming. We need to order heating oil before the prices go up. If there were any job openings closer to home, I’d take them. Nobody’s hiring.”

  “I know. But maybe if I . . .”

  Lee made an impatient noise, half sigh, half growl. “We’ve been over this ten times. It has to be me. A good holiday season for the shop would solve all our problems, and you’re the only one who can make that happen. I’ve got no idea how to make citrus and clove shampoo. You do.” He stretched his neck and hooked his finger inside his shirt collar, trying to get more comfortable. “Besides, it’s not that far.”

  “Hour and a half each way.”

  “It’d just be for a few months.” He smoothed the lapels of his jacket and looked at his watch. “Gotta scoot. I’ll drop those coolers of tea off at the church before I leave town. Can you collect the eggs before you go?”

  “Sure. When will you be home?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Call me when you do. I’ll be at the church helping out with the fair this morning, but I’ll be in the shop after lunch. I want to hear how everything went.”

  He nodded and he fished his keys from his pocket. “Wish me luck,” he said.

  I kissed him on the lips. “Luck.”

  The weekend forecast predicted sunny skies with temperatures in the low sixties and a slight breeze from the northwest; perfect weather for drinking cider, wearing sweaters, oohing and ahhing over the fall colors, and going to a country fair.

  The fair had been pulled together on such short notice that I wondered how people would know it was even taking place. As I crossed Commerce Street, carrying two shopping bags with my auction items, the answer was obvious.

  At the west end of the Green, across from the stately white elegance of the New Bern Community Church, someone had stretched three long lines of rope between the trees and hung them with dozens of bright, colorful quilts that fluttered like flags in the breeze and commanded the attention of everyone passing by. And as it was the peak weekend of fall foliage season, the passersby were plentiful.

  The fair wouldn’t open until ten, but already there were clusters of people wandering between the artfully constructed corridors of quilts, taking pictures of them and each other, like visitors to a museum of masterpieces hung en plein air. Every parking spot on Commerce Street was filled and in the time it took me to cross the Green and find the silent auction, three buses pulled up to the curb and released streams of tourists who immediately made a beeline to the Green, drawn forward by the vivid colors and arresting patterns of quilts.

  I found Candy Waldgren, who was in charge of the silent auction. Candy and I had served on the high school prom committee. We’d been friendly in school, though not close. Candy was pleasant but nervously energetic, involved in all kinds of church and community activities. Whenever we ran into each other, she’d say we must get together soon, but somehow we never did. I suppose she meant it, but like so many of my childhood friends and acquaintances, Candy had a busy life and a full circle of friends. She didn’t have time to add another to the roster, not even an old new friend. It was probably just as well. When we were in school Candy had been something of a gossip. I had the feeling she still was.

  “This is so generous of you, Tessa. Thank you so much,” Candy said, pushing a stray lock of hair off her forehead and tucking it behind her ear before taking my bags. “This was all pulled together so quickly, I’ve been simply frantic. Next is the library fund-raiser. I don’t know why I said I’d chair it, but I suppose someone has to. Mark Simonson was supposed to do it, but he had to pull out because of some unexpected ‘work commitments,’ ” she said, making air quotes with her fingers.

  “Work commitments, my foot. Sylvia’s divorcing him, that’s what. About time too. He’s been cheating on her with a cocktail waitress over at the VFW for years. Can you believe it? Poor Sylvia.” Candy sighed with momentary pity. “Anyway, once I’m done with all that we’ve just got to get together and catch up on old times.”

  “Yes. Have you seen Margot Matthews? I’m supposed to help her sell tickets for the quilt raffle.”

  Candy already was busy refluffing the bows on my donated baskets but she looked up briefly to scan the crowd. “I don’t see her. They were looking for help making sandwiches earlier. Maybe try the kitchen?”

  Margot wasn’t in the kitchen, but while searching for her I did find Jake Kaminski, who was setting up the dunk tank. He said Margot had run to the quilt shop.

  “Why don’t you wait at the raffle table? She’ll be back in a minute.” He crouched into a pitcher’s stance and threw a baseball at the bull’s-eye as hard as he could. He hit his target at dead center, releasing the spring-loaded dunk seat with a startling slam.

  Jake straightened up and grinned. “Not too bad for a one-eyed man, eh?”

  “Not too,” I agreed.

  I made my way back toward the quilts, past carnival booths that volunteers were scurrying to finish setting up, a roped-off area for the used book and tag sale, and a booth where Charlie Donnelly was already selling lemonade and cookies to hungry tourists.

  The raffle table sat at the end of the center aisle of quilts, under the branches of a large tree still loaded with bright orange leaves. Seeing no sign of Margot, I took a stroll through the aisles of quilts, pausing before each one and marveling at the variety of colors, patterns, and styles. Some were simple, using only two or three fabrics to make bold statements; others were perfect mishmashes of color, with scores of scraps that I would never have imagined going together but that somehow did. A few of the quilts were very modern-looking, asymmetrical and abstract arrangements of shapes whose meanings and messages could only be guessed at. But most were very traditional collections of squares, rectangles, and triangles arranged into an orderly geometry of stars, hearts, and flowers, patterns created and crafted by women since colonial days and before, then shared among generations of mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends without credit or copyright.

  The traditional quilts appealed to me most. I liked the history behind them and the balance. My Yankee roots were showing; we New Englanders prefer to live life in proper proportion and good order. Or maybe that’s just what I prefer and I’ve generalized it into a regional disposition that suits my personal taste
. Who can say?

  I returned to the table just in time to see Margot approach carrying a big cardboard box. She smiled when she saw me, lifting her fingers from the edge of the box and fluttering them in greeting.

  “Can I carry something for you?”

  “Oh, no. It’s not heavy, just bulky.”

  Margot set the box on the table and started unloading it. Inside was a roll of raffle tickets, a cash box, a glass fishbowl, some class brochures for Cobbled Court Quilts, and, of course, the raffle quilt.

  It was a square quilt, meant to hang on a wall rather than cover a bed, with nine multicolored blocks of red, yellow, orange, blue, brown, and green maple leaves on a white background, separated by panes of beige, with four borders surrounding the leaf blocks: a thin band of black, then a wider border made up of scraps of the fabrics that had been used in the leaves, then another black border and, finally, a wide border of a printed leaf fabric that incorporated the colors used in the large leaf blocks. I helped Margot unfold the quilt and hang it on a wooden frame so people could see it.

  “Gorgeous!” I exclaimed. “Who made it?”

  “I did. A couple of years ago. The fund-raiser came up so quickly that there wasn’t time to make a new quilt, so I decided to donate this one.”

  “It’s beautiful. I’m going to be the first to buy a raffle ticket. I’ve never won anything in my life, but who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

  I fished a dollar bill from my pocket, put it in the cash box, and tore a ticket off the roll.

  “And if you don’t,” Margot said, “you can always make one like it.”

  “Sure, if I had your talent and a couple of years with nothing to do but sew. Maybe I should buy two tickets.”

  I sat down on one of the folding chairs and began filling in my name and phone number on the back of my ticket. Margot sat down next to me.

  “It’s not as hard as you think. Evelyn always says, ‘If you can sew a straight line, you can make a quilt.’ Nearly all of these,” she said, tipping her head toward the rows of beautiful, colorful quilts, “are made of straight lines. Nothing more. You should give quilting a try, Tessa. I wish you’d reconsider taking my class.”