Scandal (3 page)

They were beautiful, all sizes, shapes and designs.

My neck was getting a crick in it as I stared at a particularly intriguing one, labeled
Tumbling Blocks
. It was the illusion of three-dimensional blocks made by the piecing of dark
triangles against lighter colored ones, that amazed me.
Now just how was that done?

Impressed, I had pulled out my camera to take a photo, when I felt the weight of a hand
upon my shoulder.

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

I turned to shake off the hand and stared into Len Bolder's face. Older than the face in my
memory, but the same dark eyes with extra long lashes. Face tan and weathered.

Len. I swallowed and gathered my cool. And took the photo. "Len. It
is
you."

His eyes swept me in a frank once-over, his smile lifted his sharp cheeks and deepened the
dimple beside his mouth.

I restrained the impulse to put my hand to his lips and then to the dimple. I'd forgotten just
how cute he really was, or is. I felt my face freeze into a wide-open stare, let out the deep breath I'd
been holding, and grabbed his hand.

His fingers curled over mine, lingering upon and then leaving my ring. "Hey!" He pulled me
to him in a hug that I returned.

Inside me there was a loosening, but with the tiniest pulling of hairs, like when you pull off
the rubber band you put on your wrist to store it for a while.

"How in the heck are you! I've been over here at the Authors Table--Oh, have you seen my
book?--and I thought I saw someone who looked like you pass by our table and go into the quilts. I
talked the guy next to me into watching my place while I came looking."

His top lip covered his bottom one for just a second, in a manner that I fondly remembered
meant he was thinking about what he was going to say next. "Are you here alone? 'Cause I could be
gone long enough for us to have a cup of coffee and catch up...if you could?" He was obviously
wondering about my marital state.

I told myself I shouldn't be judgmental. I'd had a flash of regret of having the ring on when I
realized he would have the wrong idea. I had left it on at first for reasons of love, and then
sentimentality. I was still wearing it now because it kept men at bay.

"Uh, sure. There's a place outside."

"Oh, I know where it is. I have a Thermos. I'll grab it and a couple of cups."

I was full of questions, and I felt the trepidation I always felt when I had to tell someone
about being a widow and how I'd become one. I didn't like talking about it.

He led me back to the Authors table, grabbed the jug and two cups from the center area
that had been neatened up from last night's debacle. He also grabbed a copy of his book. I caught a
quick flash of the title,
Hunting For The Perfect Photo
, with a photo of him sitting in a duck
blind wearing camouflage, camera raised.

I wondered if we'd have enough time to talk about both his book and my widowhood. We
had bugs and the photo to talk about too. He wasn't wearing a ring. Some men don't wear one
because they work with machinery.

He introduced me to the man next to his spot, Joe, who said, "Didn't I see you last night in
the bug mess?"

"You were here for that?" Len said.

I told Joe that yes, I'd been there last night. We chatted a moment until Len lightly took my
arm.

"I'll be back. I just need to catch up with this lady. Been a long time." I pulled my arm from
his hand and moved from leading to watching him walk in front of me. His butt cheeks shifted nicely
against the thin cloth of his brown cotton trousers.

The flame began then to rise within me, a heat I'd not felt for some long time. I
remembered my fingers on the sweet place under his lip, touching and tracing and kissing it. With
that small heat began the seeds of the scandal that was in time to overtake me and the Willamina
Quilt Show women.

Aunt Sophie was surely looking at me from the ether with that knowing shake of her head. I
ignored the hint of my own caution, and plunged ahead.

"Married?" I asked him as he poured coffee into our cups.

"I'm not cut out for marriage. Things have been better since Lin and I straightened that out.
But..." He looked at me with a wry grin. "...we see each other a lot. We have a business and we work
together. You're wearing a ring, so where's the lucky guy?" He looked around as if expecting to see
him stroll up.

"Not here." I fumbled at my wedding ring. "Not anywhere nearby." Plunging into the
present, I twisted the ring, and pulled it off. "You remember Roger Straw?"

His nostrils flared. "How could I forget?"

"I don't think he ever forgot you, either." I said, with a short laugh. "We were married for
twenty-three years, and he died a little over two years ago." I shrugged as he watched me playing
with my ring, turning it and putting it on my middle finger, pulling it off, admiring the diamonds in
the simple round of the wedding circle as they flashed. "Haven't felt like taking it off." I returned it
to my finger. "It's silly and sentimental to still wear it."

"Sorry to hear it. Nice to know you two lasted. Kids?" He took a big gulp of his coffee.

"No. Just never happened. Neither of us really cared, though. Not enough," I amended, "to
do anything serious about it." I felt no need to recount the yearning years. They had passed with
time. "I have nieces and nephews. That's enough for me. You?"

"A son and a daughter. The perfect family, though somehow we could never hit the
mark--Linda and I, I mean. The kids are great. It was a relief for both of us when we went our
separate ways." He shrugged his shoulders at the modern term for divorce.

"The kids were young. Harry and Sandra stayed with Linda most of the time but we did a
lot of stuff together, camping, weekends, and, you know, stuff. Our relationship is mostly through
the business."

"Business?"

"You'll never believe it. I write and take photos of events. Like the Fair here."

He smiled ruefully as I shook my head. He'd hated that when we were together I was
aiming to be a professional photographer. It took time away from him and I'd smelled of developer
chemicals. He'd said that when we got married I'd have to give it up because he "...wasn't going to
have a wife who smelled like a chemist."

"I know. But it just happened."

"Does she develop the prints?" I couldn't help it.

"Ah, she did." He rushed past that, "We do most of it digital now, on computer. You know.
It's different."

Most?
I wondered just how gone she was.

Aloud I said, "Yes, I do know. I'm in the business, too. I'm still taking pictures and shopping
them out. Makes us in competition, huh? Funny."

"Yeah, funny." He raised his eyebrows at me, shook his head. "We also buy and sell arts and
crafts, sort of an import-export business, except we don't go beyond the U.S. borders. She's off in
Alaska right now, visiting her sister who's married to one of the native guys there, head chief of the
village, or something.

"Say! They're both quilters, Linda and her sister, Pam. They got me into it, which is why I'm
wondering just what you were doing looking at the quilts? You one of us?"

"'Us? You quilt?"

"Sure. Doesn't everybody?"

I pulled the remaining water and chips from my bag. This quilting thing was like a curse
that was following me around. "My Aunt Sophie quilted."

"I remember that. A house full of them if I remember right."

"I sew."

"Therefore, you are."

"Don't be silly. I don't quilt." The noise of the Fair seemed exceptionally loud, even here in
the little picnic grove.

"Speaking of photos--" I'd suddenly remembered just why I'd looked him up, "You took that
one of the woman on the table last night. It's great but I wasn't happy with the attention to our little
accident."

He'd just started to peel a banana he'd pulled from his own small bag, and his grin
transformed his face into happiness. "Yes. Wow, wasn't that a hoo-rah! That woman made a mess of
our table and didn't even buy a book." He finished peeling the banana, offered me half, which I took.
"But what do you mean, 'our' little accident. How were you mixed up in all that?"

I told him the whole bug story. "So you see, 'our' is practically my whole family. Connor just
about had a kid coronary when he saw that photo and the headline this morning. As did we
all."

"Well, don't that beat it! My little snapshot is what brought us together." Somehow he is
always the focus, the main deal.

I'd wondered if the world still revolved around him. Apparently it does.

"I'm glad I caught your eye, however it happened. Did I tell you that you are looking fine?
You were always sweet, but you've grown up real nice. That red shirt does fit you, and you always
were a good blue jeans gal. I've often wondered... Hey!" He shifted gears. "Dinner, on me, tonight.
Heck, bring everybody. Corn dogs, my treat."

I love his laugh. It comes from his whole body, beginning with deep rumbles from his belly,
rolling up his esophagus, pouring out his throat. It bounced around the grove. People around us
looked our way and smiled. He has shorter laughs but this was the best, his completely happy
laugh.

"And then we can talk about quilting!"

At least a new line. Gotta give the guy credit.

"I'd love to, but tonight I'm going home, taking Sam with me."

His expression darkened. "Sam?"

"My cousin, Aunt Sophie's boy." Did he remember the family relationships?

"Oh, Sam." He smiled, nodding in remembrance. "Sampson. He's an old guy, right? You met
him when she told you about him? Her baby." He gave his shoulders a quick shrug, dismissing
Sam.

"Say, where do you live, anyway?"

The tables in the grove were all filled, and I could see a family looking for a table. "How
about going back in and looking at the quilts? I was looking for one in particular, from Willamina.
We can talk where I live, and all that, inside where it's cooler."

"Good. Because I do have a need to know. Willamina? I think they're doing the afternoon
demonstration in the County Quilt Booth. Wanta go talk to them?"

"Yes!"
Lord, this man is a treasure trove of info.
"Where's the booth?"

He led me back inside, past the cake decorating and the vegetable displays, past the lace
making, to the County Quilting Booth. It was near the Authors Booth and had a rotating display of
quilt making put on by different state counties. He told me these next couple of hours belonged to
Yamhill County, represented today by Willamina. I could hear it before I saw it. Women's voices,
giggles and loud laughter.

One woman's voice rose above the rest. "Come to the Willamina Quilt Show. Best little quilt
show in Oregon." I recognized her voice from yesterday. Magda. She was standing inside an
enclosed square bordered by piles of quilts, handing out an information sheet. Inside the square,
several women were sitting around a quilt stretched taut on a frame, their hands busy pulling
thread through the cloth with tiny needles. It looked for all the world like a 1900's quilting bee.

I took one, glanced at the map on it, and then at her.

Her body was sturdy and her face, with half glasses resting on her nose, was happy. I
immediately liked her.

"When is it and where? I mean, of course it's in Willamina, but when?"

"Oh, honey, it's in November," she said. "See the date here? If you want to enter our
Challenge we have a section open to people not from Willamina. You have lots of time."

"How do you know I'm not from Willamina?"

"Sweetheart, I know every quilter in Willamina. There's not that many of us."

"How about me?" Len said.

"You? Well, I'm sure I don't know what about you." She moved so she was standing
opposite him, with the piled-up quilts between them. "You want to enter our Challenge?" She was
staring at him over her eyeglasses, challenging him. "You can, you know. We welcome men. Some of
our best quilters are men, but right now we don't have any. I'm surprised at the wonderful work
you guys can do. After all, men aren't much into detail and quilting is all detail and patience,
and--"

"You bet I quilt! Doesn't everybody?"

"Maybe not 'everybody'. Some of us might have other things to do," I said, feeling defensive,
excluded. I stood straighter, wiped the churlishness from my tone. "I think it's great that you quilt,
Len. Just not my thing."

A tall thin woman came to stand by Magda. "This guy giving you trouble?" Her hair was a
perfect coif, a sausage roll like I'd not seen outside of photos of women from the Forties, a smooth
folding of hair that framed an angular face. These women appeared to be of my generation, which
made me wonder just when and how they'd started quilting.

The desire to quilt had certainly passed me by. It was something old people did. Wasn't it? I
remembered why I'd wanted to talk to these women.

"...trying to get into our show."

"Well, we just might let him," the thin one said, "but he's got to show us what he's got, first."
She tilted her head flirtatiously.

I didn't care much for this flirting. "I have a question. Magda?"

"Yes, I'm Magda Buler. This is Lena Veil."

"I hear that you have a quilt of Haystack Rock."

They looked at each other.

What was that about
.
Maybe they don't understand what I'm referring to?
I
clarified my question. "At Cannon Beach?"

At that another woman came from the center of the square. "What do you know about a
Cannon Beach quilt?" She pursed her mouth at Magda and Lena, and they both stepped back.

"Hey, Sunshine, we didn't say anything," Magda said.

I said, "I'm sorry if it's a secret. Yesterday while working on the Bug Exhibit, I heard a
couple women mention a quilt about Cannon Beach and I have reason to wonder what it looks like. I
thought it sounded like your voices."