Make Quilts Not War (7 page)

Byrne went off the left side of the stage, only to reappear in the far aisle at the seating level moments later.

“What did you ladies think?” he asked as he approached
Harriet, Carla and Lauren, who were still in their seats. Mavis and Connie and Aunt Beth had gone the opposite direction to straighten the last quilt they’d hung before being drafted as audience. The words rolled off his tongue with a charming lilt.

“That was great,” Carla gushed, her face lighting up.

“We were just discussing the fact that Carla’s never been to a
rock concert before,” Lauren said. “You’re her first.”

“I hope I didn’t disappoint,” he said with a slight bow.

“It was…amazing,” Carla stammered.

“I’m surprised someone of your…” Lauren searched for a
word.

“Renown,” Harriet supplied.

“Yes, someone of your renown would come to such a small town event as our sixties festival,” Lauren finished.

“Normally, I wouldn’t,” Colm said with a practiced smile. “As you can see, we’re equipped for a much larger venue, but when an old friend calls, what can you do?” His Irish accent seemed to get stronger as he spoke. “Wait here a second.”

He jogged to the side door to the stage, opened it and spoke to someone on the other side. He returned with three lanyards, large yellow cards swinging from their ends.

“Here you go, ladies,” he said. “They’re good for any of the performances. Come back beforehand and meet the band before we go on.”

“Thank you so much,” Carla said, gushing enough for all three of them. Harriet said a polite thank-you, and Lauren managed a tight smile.

“I suppose this means we
have
to go now,” Lauren said when
Colm was gone.

“What an ingrate,” Harriet shot back. “Lots of girls would toss their panties on stage for this privilege.”

Lauren hit her shoulder, but Harriet just laughed.

“Where have you been?” Lauren demanded of Jenny when they had rejoined the group. She had just come up from the back of the auditorium.

“I ran into the quilt history chairman, and she wanted to go
over our information with us again. Now she
formally
wants each trio to dress alike. And she wanted to be sure we didn’t overlap on our stories. I tried to reassure her that I didn’t have the slightest inclination
to talk about mustard-yellow polyester or peach-colored shell
shapes, but I guess the trio with the Amish quilt wants to tell the entire history of hand-quilting and how their quilt fits in the whole picture.”

“Are they wearing Amish costumes?” Harriet asked.

“They are, and before you ask, no, none of them is Amish.”

“Isn’t that sacrilegious?” Lauren asked.

“Perhaps,” Jenny said. “But fortunately for the organizers, there aren’t a lot of Amish in northwest Washington to call them out on it.”

“I’ll be glad when this is all over,” Connie said with a sigh. “I’ve
got to make baby quilts for the unwed mothers group. We’ve got three girls having their babies next month, and one is having twins. And this bunch didn’t take to quilting the way our Carla did.”

“I think we’re done here for the day,” Aunt Beth announced.
“Everyone ready to split?”

Harriet looked at her aunt.

“I’m practicing the lingo of the times, honey,” she said and laughed.

Harriet shook her head. It was going to be a long week.

“Are you sure you’re okay with me leaving?” Aunt Beth asked Harriet for what had to be the tenth time.

“I’m
fine
. My tables are all set up, which I know you know be
cause you and Mavis helped me. I’ve got my box of quilting samples right here.” She pointed to a large plastic tub sitting by the studio door.
“I have my business cards, order forms, a paper printout of my
current calendar, and two thousand pens with
Quilt As Desired
and my phone number on them.

“I also have a baggie full of cheap tape measures with the same info, only to be given to people who seem serious about having me stitch their quilt. Am I forgetting anything?”

“Do you have some bottles of water? And a healthy snack?”

“You know I do. Now, go, help Jorge. He actually needs it.”

“You’re sure?” Beth asked, causing Harriet to roll her eyes and sigh loudly.

“I haven’t been twelve for a long time, and having a fight with Aiden didn’t change that.”

“I’m not sure why they decided to start this shindig at five
o’clock on a Wednesday,” Beth grumbled as she put on her coat then wrapped her scarf around her neck.

“I think it was something about wanting to shake out any problems before the out-of-town crowd arrives on the weekend.”

“Couldn’t we have done that Thursday morning when it would have been light out?”

“I’m just guessing here, but I’ll bet someone thought that
Twink
ies, Bugles stuffed with cheese from a can, and cocktail weenies
were a hard sell as breakfast fare.”

“I suppose, and I guess it would have been too hard to make a brunch out of Instant Breakfast.”

“Jorge told me he’s been working on a few modern twists on the old classics. Something about dipping Twinkie slices in chocolate. Ritz crackers, too.”

“Sadly, that isn’t a new idea. The crackers, anyway. Ten or fifteen years ago, everyone and their brother were dipping any salty snack they could get their hands on in chocolate—potato chips, pretzels, peanuts. You name it, I’ve had it delivered to my door by a well-meaning friend on a decorative holiday plate.”

“Was any of it good?” Harriet asked hopefully.

“That’s beside the point,” Beth said and glared at her niece. “Just because you
can
do something doesn’t mean you should.”

“Oh, live a little, Auntie.”

“I’m going to gain five pounds just working in Jorge’s booth.”

Harriet laughed. Her aunt counted calories like an anorexic both for herself and her niece, but somehow it didn’t seem to result in any noticeable reduction in her aunt Beth’s comfortably plump girth.

“See you there,” Beth called as she went out into the rain.

Harriet was surprised by the size of the crowd that showed up for the festival opening. The aisles of the vendor hall had a steady flow of people browsing from booth to booth.

“Harriet,” Lauren said in a bright voice, “this is Kathy Ramsey. She lives in Sequim and is interested in having you quilt her latest project.”

Lauren handed her a blank order form and a pen on a clip
board. Harriet took them and guided Kathy to a chair at the back of the booth. She pulled the box of quilting samples from under the table and began discussing possible patterns for the quilt top Kathy described.

“Thanks for helping me in the booth tonight,” Harriet said to
Lauren when Kathy had placed her order and moved on to the
next booth in their aisle.

“It’s purely selfish. Things were dull in this town till you moved in. I’m enjoying my front row seat to the train wreck that is your love life. I don’t want you to pull up stakes and move.”

“Thanks, I think,” Harriet said and shook her head.

“Isn’t that that stage manager guy?” Lauren asked and pointed
to the other end of the aisle and the small man with the beaded
braids in his beard.

“Looks like it. I wouldn’t have pegged him for a quilter,
though.”

“If long-haul truck drivers can be quilters, why not roadies?”

“I’m still having a hard time picturing those hulking, tattooed, beer-bellied truckers quilting at the truck stop between loads. I know it’s true, but still I can’t quite get the right visual on that one.”

“Incoming,” Lauren announced and stepped into the aisle to snare her next target.

An hour passed before the crowd thinned again.

“Do you need a break?” Robin asked. She and DeAnn had been waiting in the aisle for the last customer to move on.

“We’re fine,” Harriet said.

“Yes, we need a break,” Lauren said at the same time.

“Go,” DeAnn said. “We can hold down the fort here. Most of the people are migrating to the food court, so you shouldn’t be busy. The food vendors are doing a sort of happy hour.”

“Each food booth has some offering for a dollar,” Robin said. “You should go while they still have everything.”

“Okay, then. If anyone comes by and is interested, just put their name and number on an order form, and I can call them back to schedule a time to talk about it.”

“We can handle it,” Robin assured her.

“Let’s go see if Jenny wants to come with us,” Harriet suggested. “We have to walk through the main exhibit hall to get to the food court, so it’s not out of our way.”

“Sure,” Lauren said. “Maybe we can invite the Amish group and the Vienna Boy’s Choir while we’re at it.”

“Would you stop it? We’re just going to get Jenny. She needs a break, too.”

“Connie and Mavis probably already took her.”

“Geez, listen to you. We have to walk right past her area. What’s the problem?”

“Besides having to be on our best behavior? Can you imagine her eating a chocolate-covered Twinkie? Or a cocktail weenie?”

Lauren did have a point. Jenny’s silver pageboy haircut was never out of place, her outfits always coordinated, and Harriet had never seen her take more than a taste of junk food—just enough to not offend the others by being too perfect.

“Okay, just promise me you’ll have a Twinkie with me, no matter what Jenny does or doesn’t eat.”

“I just have to dodge my aunt.”

“I’ll distract her, and you buy two of them from Jorge.”

“Agreed,” Harriet said and led the way to the door that connected the south vendor hall with the main exhibit hall.

“Is that Jenny?” Lauren whispered as they approached Jenny’s
quilt. With her Afro wig, tie-dyed tunic and large round-lensed
sunglasses, the person standing next to the quilt was unrecognizable.

“How’s it going?” Harriet asked when they stopped in front of her.

“I can tell I’m going to get real tired of saying the same words over and over again,” Jenny replied.

“You’re not going to make it if you’re crumbling after two
hours,” Lauren said.

“I didn’t say I was crumbling. People so far have asked the same questions over and over, starting with ‘Is this really a quilt from the sixties?’ and usually going on to ‘Did you really make this quilt?’”

“Can’t they match your name tag with the sign?” Lauren asked, pointing to the quilt and the prominent sign pinned to its edge, stating it was made by Jenny Logan.

“Apparently not,” Jenny said with a smile.

“Can you take a break?” Harriet asked.

“I’d love one. Let me tell Pamela she’s on.” Jenny walked to the opposite side of her display area and spoke to a slender woman sitting on a chair watching the crowd.

“Can you take over for a few minutes?” she asked.

“Sure, let me get my wig and sunglasses on.” Pamela Gilbert
was wearing a tunic that also appeared to be tie-dyed.

“Your costumes are great,” Harriet said with true admiration.

“We found three similar tunics, and then my daughter over-dyed them in rainbow colors,” Pamela said proudly.

“We weren’t sure which one of you was which until Jenny
spoke,” Harriet marveled.

“I’m happy to take a turn,” Pamela said brightly.

“I won’t be gone long,” Jenny removed her glasses and pulled her wig off. She’d pinned her own hair into two bun-like curls behind each ear. “I wish I could take these hairpins out,” she complained. “Between the pins and the wig, it feels like bugs are crawling over my scalp.” She pulled a small triangle scarf from her skirt pocket and centered it over her hairdo, tying it at the nape of her neck. “These little scarves were real popular back in the day.”

She patted her head with her hand.

“The food is going to be gone if we don’t get moving,” Lauren prodded.

“I can catch up if you want,” Jenny said. “I need to stop at the restrooms on our way. They’re right by the door out to the courtyard.”

“Okay, we’ll meet you outside the main doors,” Harriet said and headed for the front of the building.

“Jenny seems tense,” Lauren commented when she and Harriet were outside. The scent of frying food floated on the slight breeze. “For whatever reason, she didn’t want her old quilt in the show. They almost bullied her into participating. I don’t know what the problem is or was, but it’s clear there was one.”

“There must be a line in the restroom,” Harriet said and looked at her watch. More than five minutes had passed.

“I told you we should have just gone ourselves,” Lauren shot
back and resumed rocking from her toes to her heels.

Someone screamed as the main double doors burst open and a
crowd of people pushed out into the courtyard. Another loud
shriek followed, then a man’s voice shouting for someone to call 911.

“What’s going on?” Lauren pushed past Harriet, heading for the open doors.