Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter (5 page)

She spent most of the rest of the day in the office catching up on all the work set aside that morning. She joined the faculty and guests for supper, and later that evening assisted Summer with the evening program, a slide show of antique quilts from the Waterford Historical Society’s Quilt Documentation Project. She was too exhausted to join the rest of the Elm Creek Quilters for a celebratory cup of hot chocolate afterward, as was their tradition. She might have joined them if she could have her cocoa laced with rum, but as it was, sleep seemed the preferable option.

In comparison, the next day went remarkably well, with a broken slide projector and an overscheduled Machine Quilting workshop the worst crises she had to solve. She joined in the evening program, Games Night, with her old enthusiasm, and by Wednesday morning, the familiar excitement and anticipation of the first week of camp had returned. She went to the office cheerfully, the stress of Judy’s last-minute cancellation faded, her confidence in her ability to manage Elm Creek Quilt Camp restored.

It was nearly eleven o’clock, and Sarah was considering returning to the kitchen for another cup of coffee when she heard someone running in the hallway. The library door opened suddenly and Matt rushed into the room. “Honey,” he called. “There’s a problem.”

Sarah was already on her feet. “What happened?”

“Summer sent me to tell you Bonnie never showed for her ten o’clock workshop. Her students waited for twenty minutes before leaving. Those that weren’t too angry just joined other classes, but the others …” He shrugged.

Sarah sank into her seat. She had been within arm’s reach of the phone since breakfast and had checked the voicemail only fifteen minutes before. Bonnie had not called.

She glanced at the clock. There was still an hour left in the workshop. If Matt helped her gather the students, Sarah could teach the class. She could extend it past noon so they received the full two hours they had paid for, if the students didn’t have scheduling conflicts, if the classroom space was available …

She scrambled for the schedule. Bonnie’s workshop was on sewing tailored quilted jackets. Sarah could barely hem a pair of pants.

“We’ll refund their money,” said Sarah. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the soft leather chair.

Wherever Bonnie was, she had better have a very good excuse.

S
ummer would have stayed to help Sarah revise the letter for Sylvia’s bridal quilt, but Jeremy had just returned from semester break the night before, and she had not yet had a chance to see him. After suggesting a few changes—most importantly, having participants send their blocks somewhere other than Elm Creek Manor—she hurried outside to her car and drove downtown to Jeremy’s apartment.

She parked behind his apartment building, a three-story red brick walk-up on the opposite end of Main Street from Grandma’s Attic. Jeremy’s car was in the lot, but he walked to and from campus, and a glance at his darkened windows confirmed he was not yet home. She retrieved the groceries from the trunk and hurried upstairs to the third floor. After two weeks apart, Jeremy would be as eager to see her as she was to see him, and she wanted to get dinner started in case he came home early.

She let herself in with the key Jeremy had given her after his roommate moved out upon graduating at the end of fall semester. A pile of unopened mail sat on the table and a snow shovel was propped up beside the front door. Summer hung up her coat and went to the kitchen, where she found a bottle of wine chilling in the refrigerator. She smiled and put a pot of water on to boil.

Not half an hour later, she heard the door open. “Summer?”

She set down the spoon. “In here,” she called, hurrying out of the kitchen. Jeremy met her in the doorway, where she flung her arms around him.

“I missed you,” he said, hugging her. He had cut his curly dark hair and was wearing the organic aftershave she had given him for Hanukkah.

“You better have,” she teased, kissing him.

“I don’t want to spend this much time away from you ever again.”

“Does this mean no more locking yourself away in the library for days?”

He picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around him as he carried her to the sofa. “I’d gladly flunk out first.”

“That’s what you say now.” She ran a hand through his dark curls. “We’ll see what happens when you’re closer to defending your dissertation.”

“Please don’t remind me. My advisor doesn’t expect it until September.”

“I bet you spent your entire break writing.”

“I should have spent it here with you.”

Summer wished he had; most graduate students stayed close to campus during breaks. But Jeremy’s parents had been surprised and disappointed when he suggested remaining in Waterford, so he’d loaded his car with books and research notes and driven home.

She gave him a long kiss. “You’re here now.”

He smiled and stroked her arm. “Yes.”

The timer went off in the kitchen. “Hope you’re hungry,” Summer said, climbing off him. “I made gnocchi with rosemary and sun-dried tomatoes.”

Jeremy followed her into the kitchen. “No sprouts and tofu?”

“Not tonight. It’s a special occasion.” She emptied the gnocchi into the colander in the sink and motioned for him to set the table. “It’s still vegetarian.”

“It smells great.” He gave her a sidelong look. “I promise I won’t do anything as tacky as to ask what’s for dessert.”

After supper, which to Summer’s satisfaction was perfect, from the tender gnocchi to the crusty Italian bread, they sat on the sofa finishing the bottle of wine and catching up on the time they had spent apart. “I missed you,” Jeremy said, setting their empty wineglasses on the assemblage of milk crates that passed for a coffee table.

“So you’ve said.”

“I meant what I said about not wanting to be apart from you ever again.”

She kissed him, then lay down on the sofa, resting her legs in his lap. “After two weeks without you, I feel the same way.”

“Then move in with me.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Move in with me.”

“I heard you. I’m just surprised.”

“Surprised?” He looked hurt. “The only real surprise is why you haven’t moved in already. Officially. You practically live here as it is.”

She sat up. “Not quite.”

“Come on. It makes perfect sense.” He took her hand. “I have to get a new roommate to share the rent anyway, and your lease is up at the end of the month.”

“I was planning to renew.”

“But if you move in here instead, we’ll see more of each other.”

He was so earnest that she almost laughed despite her discomfort. “Yeah, maybe more than we want.”

“This way we won’t have to drive back and forth between apartments. We won’t have to play phone tag just to arrange to have dinner together.”

“If you think I’d cook like this for you every night, you’re out of your mind.”

“That’s not what I expect at all.” He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. “You’d have your own room, your own space. Anytime you want to shut your door and be alone, I won’t bother you.”

Summer found that hard to believe, but instead of saying so, she said, “Let me think about it.”

“Okay. Sure.” He was clearly disappointed. “I guess you want to check with your mom first.”

Sharply, she asked, “Why would I want to do that?”

He shrugged. “To see if she approves. Or more accurately, to see if she disapproves too much.”

“There’s a guy sharing my apartment now.”

“Yes, but you’re not dating him, and there are two other women.” He grinned. “Anyway, I don’t think she’ll object, do you? From what you’ve told me, your mother was pretty wild when she was younger. I don’t think she’d argue about propriety.”

No, Gwen would object on entirely different grounds. “Whatever decision I make, my mother will have nothing to do with it.”

Summer’s copy of the bridal quilt letter arrived three days later, the same day she met Jeremy for coffee and told him she would move in at the end of the month. She could use a change, anyway; the neighborhood of fraternities and undergraduate apartments had seemed exciting when she was a student, but now that she was almost five years out of college and holding down two jobs, the party atmosphere was more of a nuisance than a pleasure. By moving, she would save almost seventy dollars a month on rent for a newer building with its own laundry and free parking. And the company was much better.

Jeremy wanted to start packing at once, but Summer laughed and reminded him that he had to study and she had to work.

“Elm Creek or Grandma’s Attic?” asked Jeremy.

“Both. Grandma’s Attic until two, then I’ll be at home working on some lesson plans for camp.”

“Did you tell Bonnie yet?”

“Not yet. But I will.”

“The sooner you tell her, the more time she’ll have to find someone else.”

Summer knew that, but she also knew circumstances were more complicated than Jeremy thought. She had worked at Grandma’s Attic since she was sixteen, and Bonnie had hinted that since none of her children were interested in running a quilt shop, she intended for Summer to take over upon her retirement. Once, Summer would have been happy to do exactly that, but her responsibilities at Elm Creek Manor had expanded more than she had anticipated. She could no longer divide her attention and remain sane, and since Elm Creek Quilts was without question the more promising opportunity, she had chosen it.

Grandma’s Attic would be fine without her, Summer told herself. If, despite their diminishing sales, Bonnie thought she needed the extra help, she could hire one of her loyal customers or expand Diane’s job to full-time. But telling Bonnie would be much easier if Summer didn’t feel as if she were abandoning her friend when Bonnie needed her most.

Bonnie was in such good spirits when Summer arrived that she immediately decided not to spoil it. “Holiday sales were better than we thought,” Bonnie told her. “We made a profit for the month of December.”

“That’s fantastic.” Summer tucked her backpack away on the shelf beneath the cutting table. “How much of a profit?”

“Enough to pay off all the overdue ninety-day invoices and some of the sixty-day.”

“Great,” said Summer, with somewhat less enthusiasm.

“If this keeps up, we’ll be able to get out of debt by March.”

Summer nodded and began straightening bolts of fabric. It wouldn’t keep up, and if Bonnie weren’t so indefatigably optimistic, she would admit it. The year-end rush of quilters seeking materials for holiday projects and husbands seeking gifts for quilting wives had ended with Christmas. “We could get out of debt faster if you pressured some of our delinquent customers to pay their bills.”

Bonnie shook her head and began cutting a remnant bolt into fat quarters. “We’ve been through this.”

“If they want to buy on credit, they should use a credit card.”

“And pay seventeen, eighteen percent interest if they can’t pay off their cards in full?”

“If they can’t pay off their cards, they shouldn’t buy more stuff.”

“Summer …” Suddenly Bonnie looked tired. “Customers expect that kind of service from a shop like mine. If I don’t keep them happy, they’ll shop at the Fabric Warehouse instead.”

Yes
, Summer thought,
where they would pay with cash, check, or credit card
. Granted, customers were fickle and sustaining their loyalty was important, but in Summer’s opinion, Bonnie could well afford to lose a few of those so-called loyal shoppers. Summer could name at least twenty who owed Grandma’s Attic much more than two hundred dollars each. If they were any more loyal, they would sink the shop so deeply into the red that Bonnie would never drag it out.

Summer would just have to figure out some other way to generate more revenue. Then she might be able to leave with a clear conscience.

At least her three roommates took her news without complaint. One even confided that their real worry had been that Summer would invite Jeremy to move in there. Aaron, the lone male in the household, said he had a friend who would be glad to take over the lease. Karen, who had been her friend since their undergraduate days, asked, “What will your mother say?”

“Probably something to the effect that I must be crazy to sacrifice my independence and autonomy for a guy.”

“Really.” Karen folded her arms and regarded her with interest.

“My mother would be more concerned about all the implied sex.”

Aaron, on his way from the kitchen with a bag of chips, added, “Your mom’s going to let you move in with a guy?”

“Let me?” echoed Summer, incredulous. “I’m twenty-seven years old.”

“Well, yeah, but you know. You and your mom …” Aaron shrugged.

“My mom and I what?”

“Ignore him,” said Karen, glaring at Aaron in disgust. “Don’t worry. Tell your mom when you’re ready to tell her. We’ll cover for you until then.”

Summer thanked her and frowned at Aaron, who managed a sheepish grin before backing away. Things were worse than she expected if even her friends questioned her autonomy. She had learned to expect that from the Elm Creek Quilters, who had known her most of her life and who, despite their assurances to the contrary, still thought of her as little Summer in pigtails with her stuffed bear in the basket of her bike. If she had gone away to college or had found work in a far-off city after graduation, her mother and the other Elm Creek Quilters would have been forced to acknowledge her as an independent adult long ago. The tuition waiver Waterford College offered the children of faculty had been too persuasive, however, and once she had earned her degree she had not wanted to leave her mother or the fledgling Elm Creek Quilts, despite tempting offers from graduate schools. Often Summer wished she had experienced life in other places, experiences deeper and richer than the few glimpses that vacations and one semester of study abroad had afforded. Sometimes she even envied Jeremy, who within a year would be leaving Waterford College with his doctorate for an exciting job somewhere. She wondered what it would be like to have no idea where she would be living or what she would be doing this time next year.

For the next three weeks, Summer concentrated on the details of moving, and on the last day of January, Jeremy borrowed a friend’s pickup truck and hauled Summer’s belongings to his apartment. Summer left behind her answering machine in case someone called for her during the few days the phone company insisted they needed to switch over Summer’s number to her new home. Jeremy had agreed to leave the outgoing message on his answering machine blank. “We just have to remember the different rings so we only pick up for our own calls,” Summer reminded him as they stacked her books on shelves in her new room.

“Or we could just tell your mother you moved in, and not worry about who answers the phone.”

“She wants me to come for supper on Sunday. I’ll tell her then.”

She worried that Jeremy would ask to accompany her, but he simply wished her good luck, adding, “And the next time you see Bonnie, you can tell her you’re leaving Grandma’s Attic at the end of March.”

Summer agreed. She might as well offend everyone in the same week.

By Sunday morning, Summer had finished unpacking and was growing pleasantly accustomed to having Jeremy around, although she still felt like a guest in his apartment rather than an occupant of her own space. While making room for her soy milk and herbal teas in the kitchen and rinsing the tiny black hairs from his morning shave down the bathroom sink, Summer told herself the feeling would pass in time.