A Thread So Thin (16 page)

“S
tars? Are you sure?” I asked as I unlocked the shop door on Monday morning.

If there is one thing quilters love to make, it’s stars. The sheer geometry of star patterns, combined with the nearly endless variations possible when piecing them, make stars one of the most popular and traditional pattern choices for quilters, including myself. Over the years, I’ve made dozens of star quilts. But when we sent Mom off on her mission to figure out what sort of unique, bold, avant-garde quilt we should make for Liza’s wedding, I was thinking she’d come up with something a little less traditional than stars.

“Liza likes stars.”

“So do I. So does everybody. But you’re not exactly breaking new ground here. I was thinking you’d suggest something a little more unusual.”

“Well, I’m not talking about just any old stars, Evelyn,” Mom huffed. “Give me a little credit for good sense. But Liza does like stars, she told me so herself. I was thinking about it all day yesterday. Remember the Broken Hearts Mending quilt the circle made for you?”

I nodded. It was Liza’s first original quilt design and a pretty remarkable accomplishment for someone who had been quilting such a short time. More importantly, it was an expressive quilt, made with love, showing a series of bright pink, strip-pieced whole and half hearts scattered haphazardly over a field of brilliant green, as if the broken pieces were moving back toward their sundered halves in the process of becoming whole again, representing the thing we all had in common: broken hearts that were still mending.

Liza thought up the design all on her own and, with Abigail and Margot, she had sewn it and given it to me in the hospital, right after my mastectomies. It was one of my most cherished quilts and was lying on the foot of my bed at that moment.

“Yes, of course I remember it.”

“Well,” Mom said, with a definitive nod, “that just goes to show you.”

“Goes to show you what?” I grabbed a stack of fabric bolts from behind the counter and started walking around the shop, putting them back in their proper spots.

Mom trailed behind me as I worked and let out a sigh, disappointed to realize that she’d raised so dense a daughter.

“Don’t you understand? Liza has nothing against traditional themes in quilting. In fact, when we were at the museum…Oh, Evelyn! I wish you’d have come too! Those quilts were just remarkable, real works of art. And to think that a museum—a museum in New York City—recognized that! Isn’t that something? And did I tell you? After the museum, we went to this little Italian place. Did I tell you that we had pizza with no sauce on it? A white pie, Garrett called it. I didn’t think I’d care for it, but it was delicious!”

I shelved a bolt of red paisley, one of the three I’d ordered, only half listening as I tried to come up with ideas for a class project that could incorporate as many yards of red paisley fabric as possible. “Yes, East Coast pizza is completely different from the kind they make in Wisconsin. What does that have to do with Liza’s quilt?”

“Nothing. I just thought it was interesting. Anyway, the point is that Liza was in the museum, looking at these beautiful, old-timey, folk art quilts, and she was so moved she was actually crying! You see? Liza appreciates the old patterns, the history and traditions that go with them, but she likes to interpret them in new ways. That’s what she did with the quilt she designed for you. After stars, hearts are probably the most traditional theme in quilts, but she found a way to take that old theme and bring it into the present day, to give it meaning and a message. I think that’s what we should do with Liza’s star quilt!”

“Okay,” I said as I squatted down to slide a bolt of blue batik into an opening on a bottom shelf. “But how? You said you didn’t want to use just any old star, so what kind of stars were you thinking of?”

“Hunter’s.”

I left the pile of fabric bolts on the floor, got to my feet, and looked at Mom. “Do you think we have time?”

Hunter’s star blocks, sometimes called Indian arrowheads, make beautiful quilts, but you don’t see too many of them, and there’s a reason for that. They’re a little more complicated than other star designs. It’s a little hard to explain, but the basic idea involves appliquéing an elongated diamond onto the points of a triangle and then joining the two triangles together to create a block. A series of these blocks, when joined, end up making very pretty eight-pointed stars.

“I’d really like to give the quilt to Liza at the bridal shower. That’s only a few weeks away, during her spring break. That way she won’t have to skip classes to come. I don’t want her to have any excuses for not attending. By the way, did Garrett give her the invitation and note from me?”

Mom nodded. “He did. As soon as he came in the door.”

“Good.” I stooped down to pick up the remaining bolts of fabric. “Well, if you think we can get it done in time for the shower…”

Mom had stopped following me and was standing in front of the batiks section, looking at fabrics with sparkling eyes and toting up color values in her head. “Oh, we can. I’m sure of it.”

“All right, then. When do we start?”

“Soon. As soon as I figure out a design.” She placed a finger on top of a bolt of burnt orange batik and tipped it forward to see how it looked in the light.

“Evelyn, can I have some drafting paper and a pencil? I’ve got an idea.”

A
long with the invitation to her own bridal shower, I’d sent Liza a long, handwritten letter of apology, trying to explain why I’d been so stupid, how my careless words erupted from my old resurfaced hurts and fears rather than from any doubts about Liza. I told her how much I cared about her and how I hoped she could forgive my thoughtlessness so we could renew our old friendship. I said I was sorry in every way I could think of.

I know Garrett gave her the note; Mom saw him do it. To make sure, I even asked him about it myself, but he said exactly what Mom did, that he’d given it to Liza as soon as he saw her. But that was two weeks ago and I still haven’t heard a word from her. Just as before, my calls and phone messages have gone unanswered.

Margot suggested I talk to Garrett and enlist his help in getting Liza to respond, but I don’t want to do that. Rob’s mother used to do that—send me messages, usually critical ones, through him—and I always resented it. Things are rocky enough without involving Garrett in this.

Weddings are supposed to be such happy things. So why had this one gotten to be so complicated? And this rift between Liza and me wasn’t the only thing. Abigail is driving me insane.

I know that I’m just the mother of the groom and that my primary function is to stay silent, especially since I’m not paying for this. So far, I have, but I’m about this close to throwing Abigail to the ground, rolling her up in a bolt of high-loft quilt batting, and stuffing her into a closet!

It’s one thing for her to turn this wedding into one great big, glitzy circus, but when she starts trying to meddle in the only two things that are really my responsibility—the bridal shower and the rehearsal dinner—we’ve got a problem. Well, as maid of honor, the shower is really Margot’s show, but we’re working on it together.

When we threw Abigail a surprise bridal shower, it was very hurried. Because Franklin was still recovering from his heart attack, we held the shower in a conference room at the hospital. We didn’t have much time to plan, so we kept things simple, but we still managed to put on a nice little party with cake and champagne, flowers, and a few gifts. Everyone had a wonderful time, Abigail included. It was only last year, so you’d think Abbie would still remember that and have a little faith in us.

Now we’ve got more time, so while we’re not going overboard, we are planning a very special shower for Liza. We’re going to have it in the shop. By moving a couple of display units out of the way, we’ll have plenty of room for the tables. Charlie is making the food, lots and lots of appetizers. Liza is more of a grazer than an eater, I’ve noticed. She likes to take a couple of bites of something and then move on, so we thought an all hors d’oeuvres menu would please her.

Margot and I are making cupcakes, daisy cupcakes. I’m baking the cupcakes and Margot will do the decorating. When she was in high school she had a job in a bakery, so she’s had a little experience with that. We’ll have a few silly games, just for fun. And the flowers will be simple: big bowls of daisies, Liza’s favorite. I was a little surprised when Abigail told me she hadn’t chosen them for her bridal bouquet.

During the party, Margot is going to take pictures of Liza with all her friends, and Ivy will quickly download them on the computer and print them out on special photo fabric. Then all the guests can sign them and later we’ll sew them up into a little wall quilt as a keepsake for Liza.

All in all, I think it will be a lovely party, just a fun, relaxed get-together with the girls. With all the pressures of school and the wedding, I think that’s exactly what Liza could use, but Abigail disagrees. Strongly.

She thinks we should have the shower at the Walden Inn, or the country club, or just about anywhere besides the shop, never mind that this is the place where we first met Liza and that some of our best memories took place right here. Abigail thinks that shower games are silly, that we should hire a professional photographer and florist, that we should have sterling silver party favors for all the guests engraved with Liza’s initials and the date, and, most of all, that we should turn the whole thing over to Byron Dennehey, that wedding planner.

Abigail has always breathed rarified air. I’ve gotten used to it because, for all her eccentricities, she is a good woman and a good friend and unfailingly polite, even to people she doesn’t much care about. But right now, she’s acting like a complete witch. She was so dismissive of our plans that she made poor Margot cry. I’ll admit, that isn’t that hard to do. Margot is very tenderhearted. But Abigail knows that. She should have been a little more sensitive. When I told her so, she stormed out of the shop in a huff. She’s missed two quilt circle meetings since then.

“I don’t understand it,” I told Charlie over coffee at the Blue Bean. “Abigail is being completely unreasonable.”

“I understand it,” he said through a mouth full of muffin. “You’re all bonkers.”

“Charlie!”

“Well, you are! Mad as hatters, every one of you. And by ‘every one of you,’ understand that I don’t mean you, Abigail, Margot, Liza, and Ivy, specifically. I mean the female population as a whole.”

“Is that right? Huh. You know, Charlie, it’s hard to believe you didn’t have a really serious girlfriend until I came along.”

“Isn’t it?” Charlie said and then washed down the muffin with a slurp of coffee. “Seriously, Evelyn. You’re daft, the whole lot of you. Women are always going on and on about the need for honest communication and meaningful relationships. But the second there’s a difficult issue, the moment there’s a disagreement or difference of opinion among you, you all run off to your separate corners, terrified to talk about it. Well, that’s not quite true. You do talk about it, to each other, but somehow those conversations never involve the person who’s actually causing the problem.

“You’d never see a man do that. If men have a disagreement, they just take it outside, give each other a good pounding, then buy each other a beer, and that’s that. Simple.

“See this?” he said, pointing to a silvery white thread of a scar that extended from the left corner of his lower lip. “Brendan Cohan gave me that. I was nineteen. He fancied Mary Kate McAfree and so did I. There was a dance coming up. We both wanted to take her, so we decided to fight it out. Oh, Brendan had a tremendous right,” Charlie said with admiration. “He split my lip and I blacked his eye. Afterward, we went into the pub, shared a pint, and were the best of friends ever after.”

“And who got the girl?”

“Bill O’Shaughnessy. Brendan and I were so banged up from the fight that Mary Kate said she wouldn’t be seen with either of us. So, O’Shaughnessy snuck in under the fence and stole our girl. The scoundrel.” Charlie frowned as he took two pats of butter out of a dish and smeared them on the other half of his muffin.

I rested my chin on my folded hands and stared at him.

“What?” he asked.

“That’s it? You and a guy disfigure each other over a girl who dumps you for someone else, someone without a split lip or black eye? That was your big morality tale on the superiority of the male style of communication?”

Charlie reared back his head, offended. “Well, at least it was up front and honest! At least we didn’t pussyfoot around the problem, hoping that if we didn’t deal with it, the whole thing would just go away. No! We had an issue and we faced it, head-on. That’s what men do. But women? Women are pussyfooters, every last one of you. And you’re the worst of them all.”

Now it was my turn to be offended. “I am not! I do
not
pussyfoot, Charlie. What a rotten thing to say.”

“It’s the truth, Evelyn, and you know it.” He narrowed his eyes and pointed a finger at me. “You are a pussyfooter through and through. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you. Let’s start with Abigail. You’ve been sitting here all morning, griping about Abigail, telling me that she’s driving you insane, so insane that you’d like to lock her in a closet!”

I waved off this accusation. “Oh, well, I was just venting. Makes me feel better to talk about it. That’s how women keep from getting into fistfights with our friends. We vent.”

“Yes!” Charlie took his finger out of my chest and raised it into the air, triumphant. “But never to each other! You never confront the issue, you just nibble around the edges of it, like mice circling cheese in a mousetrap, trying to get your little bite in without triggering the trap!”

“Well, isn’t that better than setting it off deliberately? Who wants to get caught in a trap?”

“Nobody. But eventually, you always do. You talk
about
each other but not
to
each other. And eventually, inevitably, the word gets back to the one you were talking about, and
zing!
There goes the trap! You get caught with your foot in your mouth, and a perfectly good friendship is destroyed.”

“Oh, Charlie, you’re exaggerating. Abigail and I have been friends for too long to let something like this come between us. After the wedding is over, we’ll patch things up.”

“Maybe,” he said between slurps of coffee, “but relationships have never been easy for Abigail. Until you and Margot came along, I don’t think Abigail ever had a real friend. You let this fester too long and she might just convince herself that she was right all along, that friendships aren’t worth the price you have to pay for them. She’ll cut herself off from you and go back to being an island unto herself. You know how she is, Evelyn,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re right to be worried about her,” he continued. “She’s not acting like herself. Heaven knows, if a client wants to spend a pile on a catering job, I’m happy to oblige, but even I think Abigail is going overboard. It wasn’t enough that she’s ordered a two-pound lobster for every guest, now she’s got me putting white Alba truffles on everything! Do you know how much they cost? Sixteen hundred a pound, that’s how much! And that’s
my
cost. The thing is, it’s completely unnecessary; the menu was fabulous before, fit for the Queen of Sheba. Next thing, she’ll have me sprinkling gold leaf on the salad course.”

Charlie put down his coffee cup. “I’ve known Abigail for going on twenty years. She’s always been able to afford the best of everything, but until now, I’ve never known her to waste money, and that’s all this is. Pure waste. Something’s not right with her, Evelyn. I’m serious. All this excess has gotten, well…excessive. Almost frantic. Franklin’s worried about her too. He pays her bills, you know. Even before they were married he managed her business affairs. He sat down to talk to her about the costs of the wedding. It didn’t go well. She said some pretty awful things to him, the kindest of which was that he should take care to remember that her money was still hers, and she could spend it any way she wanted. Words were exchanged.” He paused a moment before deciding to spell it out for me.

“Franklin is sleeping in the guest room.”

“Seriously? Whose idea was that?”

“Mutual agreement,” Charlie said. “Seems it was the only thing they could agree upon.”

“Oh, no. That is bad. Really bad. That doesn’t sound like Abigail.”

Abigail had told me that her first marriage, to the wealthy and long-deceased Woolley Wynne, had been far from passionate, and their years together did nothing to change that. Given that, it wasn’t surprising that, when it came to the pleasures of marital intimacy after her wedding, Abigail’s expectations had been low.

I don’t know all the details and Abigail doesn’t feel the need to share them, but all you have to do is spend five minutes with Abbie and Franklin to know that their marriage has been a success in every area. They’re always holding hands and their conversations are sprinkled with endearments. And I know they think it’s a big secret, but everybody has figured out that they have this secret signal going.

Whenever they’re at a party or dinner or even a luncheon and Franklin pulls on his nose, as if it was tickling him, and then sniffs, Abigail’s cheeks suddenly flush red and she makes some excuse about having a headache or being tired. Then Franklin gets her coat and they scamper back home, Franklin grinning and Abigail blushing, looking awfully bright-eyed for a woman with a headache. Of course, Abigail would be mortified if she knew that I knew this, but I think it’s sweet. After enduring so many years in a loveless marriage, followed by many more as a widow, Abigail deserves this. She and Franklin are very much in love. She adores Franklin. So, if what Charlie said was true, then Abigail really did have a problem.

“Poor Abigail. Something is really bothering her.”

“It certainly is,” Charlie said. “And you’re probably Abigail’s best friend in the world, but are you helping her? Have you talked to her? No. Instead, you’re pussyfooting.”

“Now, wait a minute, Charlie.”

He held up his hand. “No. Hear me out. Abigail’s not the only one you’re too chickenhearted to confront. There’s Liza too. She’s not just your friend, she’s going to be your daughter-in-law. Someday she may be the mother of your grandchildren, yet you’ve done nothing to mend the broken fences between you. Why? Because you’re afraid of confronting her, that’s why. Pussyfooter.”

I was used to Charlie’s brusque manner and teasing by now. Normally, I enjoy it, but this was hitting a little too close to home. He was starting to make me mad.

“Hang on, Charlie. That’s not fair,” I protested as I ticked my objections off on my fingers. “I have called Liza countless times. I’ve left scores of messages. I wrote her a letter that was basically three pages of groveling. And for all my effort, I haven’t received even a hint of a response! Nothing! At the moment, I’m helping organize a bridal shower for Liza that I’ve got serious doubts she’ll even bother showing up for! The way things are going, I’m beginning to wonder if she’ll even show up for the wedding. So don’t you sit there and call me a chicken, Charlie Donnelly! I’ve done absolutely everything possible to patch things up with Liza!”

Charlie pressed his lips together and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not everything. You haven’t gone to see her, to confront her face-to-face.”