Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing (36 page)

“When I talked like that, you left me,” she said.

He rose and put his arms around her. “We don’t have to be traditional; we can have the best of both worlds. You and the kids can come down on weekends, just like today. The bills are covered, and so are our careers. You have your space, I have mine. We meet in the middle with the kids. A lot of families are doing this these days. And think about it: It’ll add to the excitement of when we see each other. Man, last night—when have we ever had sex like that?”

Mary Theresa shook her head. “That’s not my kind of family,” she said. “We may as well be boyfriend and girlfriend, not husband and wife.”

All of Mary Theresa’s hope for a reconciliation faded. Rocky’s and Lucy’s faces were all she could think of, and she couldn’t get home fast enough to hold them and kiss them.

“I’m going home,” she said, walking toward the bedroom to gather her things. “I know where I want to be, and it’s home with my kids, with or without you. I took them for granted before, and I never want to do that again. I’m leaving it up to you to decide about your job. It’s your choice, not mine.”

Mary Theresa came out of the bedroom and gave Hadley a tight hug, gripping his chest near hers. She breathed heavy and knew what she had to do. She looked up at him and gave him the wettest, sexiest kiss of her life. Pulling away from him proved difficult, like separating duct tape from fabric. But she succeeded, knowing it might the last time their bodies would be that close.

A
hhhh, nothing like home,” Rosa purred as she snuggled up in her favorite poodle-pattern flannel pajamas atop her queen-size four-poster bed. She carefully adjusted her tired body to sit back and pull up the pink-and-red-beaded quilt she’d bought at a Mumbai flea market many years ago. The bed covering wouldn’t budge because of the dozen worn, cracked scrapbooks and collage-covered photo albums that were strewn across her bed. Rosa had spent the day soaking up a Doris Day marathon on cable while examining old photos and letters from her life. She had always planned to have the pictures scanned before they aged any further, but neither Rosa nor her staff ever followed through. Perhaps some pictures were meant to have a specific life cycle, just like people.

Three weeks had passed since Rosa returned home to New York, her symptoms growing stronger each day. The weakness, the fevers, the reactions to her medications, the crankiness. She’d made her peace with God and was ready to leave this Earth with grace. She had just one last order of business to tend to.

She blew her nose in a tissue and called out for the maid to come remove the books. Reyna, her longtime housekeeper, jogged in and quickly stacked the albums, returning them to Rosa’s bookcase.

Reyna jogged back and asked if Rosa wanted her to untie the curtains around her bed.

“Not yet,” Rosa said.

Rosa had always despised bare walls and ordinary furniture. So during her more limber years, she’d tacked a large sheet of lattice across the tops of her bedposts. She then used thin, waxed twine and strung hundreds of glass beads she’d collected from all around the world, and hung them from the edges. Rosa did the same with trims, except those she fed through the outer edge holes of the lattice all the way around. Over the years, they became heavy, stringy curtains in a wild array of colors and textures—pompom fringe, lace, chunky yarn, leather straps.

Rosa was never one to waste fabric. If she didn’t use it within a year, she found a way to incorporate it into her bedroom. Therefore her walls, from the ceiling to the floor, resembled a never-ending hobo quilt. When it came to buttons, Rosa poured them into ice-cream dishes and flowerpots and used them for decorations throughout her living quarters.

As the credits of
Calamity Jane
scrolled up the TV screen, Rosa slowly scooted herself up to reach for the table-sized remote. Next on deck, HBO’s
True Blood
.

Rosa’s thin, veiny fingers tap-danced across the jumbo remote as she increased the volume to almost maximum, then altered the color and shape of the screen. She’d finally tweaked it just right when Joseph buzzed her on the intercom.

“Rosa, you decent?” he said.

Frustrated by the interruption, she switched off the set. “Come on in! Can you be a darling when you get here and move my flowers a bit closer? I can barely notice their scent.”

Joseph wheeled in a dress rack with six gowns swinging from the center while another maid hustled in and closed the tall green velvet curtains around two of the room’s walls.

“It’s always so chilly in here, ma’am,” the maid said, rubbing her arms up and down. “Would you like the heater turned up?”

“I know, it’s cold in here, but turning up the heater won’t help. I’m fine, thank you,” Rosa assured.

“Well, the plan didn’t turn out exactly as we expected,” Joseph said, sitting on the edge of Rosa’s bed. “That slimy Johnny pulled a fast one, but our girl persevered. We’re ready for Friday.”

“Delightful!” Rosa said in her weakened voice as she tried to stretch a few inches to peek at the dresses. “They’re as lovely as I remember. I knew she was the one. I knew it! Poor thing, I hope she isn’t too shaken up. It wouldn’t have mattered if she signed those papers or not. Um, the flowers, dear?”

“Oh!” Joseph remembered, looking up and around distractedly. “Sorry about that.”

He shuffled across the bedroom, past the vanity table, beyond the double walk-in closet, and three steps to the left of the wall of dress closets. He gripped the vase of that day’s batch of fresh-cut lilies, daisies, and roses from the brick fireplace mantel and slowly trekked his way back to Rosa’s bed, where he set it at her side atop the cherrywood nightstand. Rosa lovingly plucked out a daisy, and passed it under her nose, inhaling the beauty of its scent.

“Joseph, it’s time to book the flights,” Rosa said. She flattened the flowers against her chest and whispered, “Please, Lord, give me the strength to make it through this week. I’ve come so far, please let me finish.”

*   *   *

By Wednesday, Mary Theresa had yet to receive a call, e-mail, or even a text from Hadley. The glow that had lit up her face
from the weekend faded to a look of disappointment—but only at night when the house was quiet and she slept alone in her bed.

The rest of the hours were divvied up between the kids, work, chores, meals, exercise, and sewing.

“Mommy, can I wear this dress to gymnastics tomorrow, please, Mommy, please?” Lucy begged as she paraded around the family room in her new hot-pink-and-purple springtime dress. “I like that the flowers are bumpy when I touch them. You make pretty dresses, Mommy.”

Pleased that her daughter appreciated her mother’s domestic talents, Mary Theresa spread out a long piece of vintage drapery across her worktable.

“Thank you, sweetie! Let’s save that dress for a super-special occasion, OK? But Mommy will make you a sweatsuit for gymnastics. How about that?”

“OK! But put bumpy flowers on it like this one, you promise?” Lucy replied.

Mary Theresa reached behind her, grabbed a large basket of embroidery thread, and presented it to her daughter. “Here, mija, pick out the colors you want and I’ll make the bumpy flowers just the way you want.”

Mary Theresa’s need to be a micromanager had been replaced with fashionitis. Creating clothing from scratch had become a healthy antidote to corporate stress.

Taking a cue from Scarlet—Santana
and
O’Hara—Mary Theresa came up with the idea to use unwanted drapes, tablecloths, sheets, scarfs, napkins, and dishtowels and cut them into square and rectangular quadrants to make her own bolts of fabric. She then used vintage sewing patterns on that fabric to make a collection of tops, pants, jackets, skirts, and dresses for kids.

Scarlet’s patternless sewing class had unfurled Mary Theresa’s tightly wound imagination. And now with the workshop over, she put her newfound creativity to work. She loved that her memories and skills of pattern- and dressmaking from high school bobbed to the top of her brain, anxious for action. Therefore, every morning after she dropped the kids off at school, Mary Theresa stopped at a downtown café, sketched until nine a.m., went home, clocked in her time for DelTran, and then hopped on the sewing machine until the kids’ school day ended.

While Mary Theresa could blueprint bloomers in the dark, she tripped at coordinating colors and patterned fabrics. It took Rocky to point that out. One afternoon after school, he nibbled on Goldfish crackers and watched as she pinned a marigold and yellow batik fabric pocket to a sagey mud-colored jumper. He stopped chewing to say, “Ewww, Mommy, that material looks like someone pee-peed on it, and the other one looks like…
poop
!”

Rocky fell to the carpeted floor, covered his face, and rolled around, laughing and shouting, “Poop, poop, poop, poop!” Lucy stared at him while innocently sipping her apple juice.

“Ugh. Boys,” Lucy said, as if his actions nauseated her. She peeked over her mother’s shoulder, and Mary Theresa held up the pocket and jumper combo for her opinion.

“Poop and pee?” she asked Lucy.

Her daughter scrunched her face. “Yeah.” Lucy then set down her juice box, sorted through her mommy’s fabric bin, and wrestled and tugged with two pieces from the very bottom—orange gingham and lime green polka dots. “I like these,” she said.

Ever since then, Mary Theresa let Lucy and Rocky serve as the certified Cotorro committee for fabric matching.

This afternoon, the three of them snacked on chicken fingers
and apple slices, watched reruns of
Hannah Montana
, and took turns choosing fabrics for a quilt donation project. Rocky tossed down a fat quarter of black-and-white stripes, and Lucy set a roll of purple satin trim on top of it.

“Wow, you two make a great team!” Mary Theresa said, clutching her kids close to her and kissing their foreheads. The kids sharply pushed themselves off of her and scrambled across the long distance of the family room through the foyer and to the front door.

“Daddy!” they hailed at the top of their lungs. “Daddy’s home!”

Mary Theresa’s heart shivered.
Those poor kids,
she thought. She hated that Hadley’s ghost lurked around every corner of their home. Just then she heard the doorknob turn and, thinking it was a home invasion, she sprinted with all her force across the room to grab the children. She threw her arms around them and glanced up slowly to see Hadley on the doorstep.

*   *   *

Four hours later, Hadley joined Mary Theresa as she read the kids their bedtime story and put them to sleep. Their faces beamed with a mixture of excitement, relief, and comfort as they both tightly held their father’s hand. Mary Theresa did her best to pretend the night was like any other, but in reality she could barely think straight. She could tell by the look on Hadley’s face that he had given his answer about the job offer.

Once they put the kids to sleep, Mary Theresa made her way downstairs to clean up the dinner dishes while Hadley turned one of the couches to face the big-screen TV and plopped down like a floppy rag doll. He grabbed the remote, hit the button, and grabbed an apple empanada from a dessert plate Mary Theresa had set out earlier. She finished cleaning the kitchen,
shut off the lights, checked her hair in the glass of the oven door, and proceeded to the family room. She didn’t know what to say or how to act or even where to sit. Before he left her, she felt like his boss. In Palm Springs, his equal. Now? A former girlfriend.

Trying to look at ease, she offered him a napkin and a bottle of water and then curled up at the end of the couch, ready to bring up the topic.

“Wow, I can’t believe how much the house has changed; I didn’t even recognize it,” Hadley said, glancing around, chewing his empanada, sounding just as uncomfortable as she felt.

“Yes! My friends from the patternless sewing class came over and helped me redecorate. You like it?”

“Yes, it looks great. The kids look happy. You? Gorgeous.”

Mary Theresa’s cheeks heated up from flattery. She wanted to leap across the sofa and hold him, but couldn’t get the image of him leaving out of her head. Or his announcement about the job extension. She may have evolved from her former nitpicky, drill-sergeant style, but that didn’t mean she’d become a pushover.

“I noticed you didn’t bring a suitcase. Is this only a visit?” she asked, reaching across the couch for an empanada. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her close, and nudged her head up with his chin so he could kiss her neck. She went with the moment and then blew out a mouthful of air and climbed back to her corner of the couch.