The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society (55 page)

“Or sleep!” Hannah adds.

“Thank you so much,” Frances says. “I don’t know what to expect—we’re going to play everything by ear. We’ll follow her lead.”

“Take lots of pictures when you’re in China,” Connie says. “It’s on my list of places to visit one day.”

“I will,” Frances promises. “And I’m going to be putting everything on my blog, too. I’ll try to post something every day while we’re there. Pictures, observations, everything. When I come home I’ll put it all together in a memory book.” She looks at her watch. “Oh, I have to go! Reed and the boys are waiting for me.”

“Go home and finish packing,” Hannah says.

“Here,” Frances says, holding out a small booklet to Madeline. “I don’t have a lot of pictures of Bettie, but she was kind enough to contribute to Mei Ling’s quilt. I took a picture of her square, and then of the entire quilt. I also included Mei Ling’s picture in there. I wrote a short explanation under each picture. I was going to wait until I could get a picture of Mei Ling with the blanket, but I can add that later. I want Bettie to have something for tonight.”

“It’s lovely,” Madeline says when she sees it. “I’ll take it over and add it to the table. Travel safe, Frances, and we’ll see you when you return.”

Frances waves goodbye, and Hannah grabs a couple of tissues from a nearby tissue box.

“She’s making me think of adopting someday,” Hannah says,
dabbing her eyes. “I never thought about it much, but it seems like a beautiful way to grow a family, you know?”

Connie puts an arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “You’re going to make a great parent someday,” she tells her. Hannah smiles and gives her a hug.

Connie sees Imogene and Bettie coming up the walk. “Hurry, everyone! Here she comes!”

There’s a commotion as people rearrange themselves in the tea salon. Isabel throws a sheet over the table filled with albums.

“It’s too quiet!” Connie whispers, and then says in a louder voice. “Act normal! Start talking! About anything!”

There’s a burst of animated conversation as Bettie and Imogene walk through the door.

“Huh,” Bettie says, her brows knit in confusion as she looks around. “I didn’t think so many people would be interested in using ink mists and chipboard accents.”

Connie and Madeline refrain from giggling as Isabel hurries forward.

“I have a quick announcement to make first,” Isabel says. “Come on, Bettie, keep me company.” She leads Bettie up to the podium.

“Oh, I think I’m going to need that box of tissues,” Madeline says, already sniffling. Connie grabs a couple of tissues as the box passes by. She doesn’t consider herself an overly emotional person but she wants to be prepared, just in case.

At the front of the room, Isabel stands behind the podium. Bettie is seated behind her. “Excuse me, everyone? If I could have your attention for a moment, please?”

The crowd quiets as everyone finds their seats. Others line the walls and spill into the hallways.

“I want to thank everyone for joining us tonight,” Isabel begins. “As you know, Bettie’s home burned down a couple of weeks ago. She lost almost everything in that fire, including her scrapbooking business. Her personal effects were gone or destroyed.”

Isabel turns to her. “Bettie, for years you’ve been the keeper of our
memories. Now, we want you to know that we’ll become the keeper of yours.” She walks over to the table and pulls back the sheet. There’s a burst of applause as Bettie gapes at the pile of albums wrapped and stacked on the table. Isabel motions for her to come over.

“What in the world …?” Bettie murmurs, a flushed look on her face. “Holy Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat. Are all these for me?” She picks one up.

“Everyone here went through their own albums and contributed pictures that you were in,” Isabel explains. “We didn’t want you to lose all your wonderful memories.”

Bettie is flipping through an album, already commenting on each and every picture.

“Oh, I remember that day!” Bettie is saying. “And that day!” She giggles. “Boy, stripes really didn’t do me any favors, did they? Look, Isabel. Oh, goodness, is that Seymour March picking his nose in the background?”

There’s a ripple of laughter through the crowd.

“The parade!” Bettie exclaims. “1979. Oh, what a day that was! Who did this album? I love all the stamping on this page. And the gridded patterned paper is lovely!”

“Thank you, Bettie!” comes a cry from the crowd.

Bettie picks up another album covered in leather, this one filled with photographs, articles, small letters and notes. “The Society biography!” she exclaims. “Christopher Barlowe, where are you?”

A man raises his hand and gives a shy wave.

Isabel passes her a small pink album. Bettie chuckles before she even opens it up. “Margot West, are these pages scented?”

“Guilty!” comes Margot’s delighted reply.

Isabel passes album after album to Bettie, who takes a look before passing it down into the crowd. Everyone is laughing and pointing at pictures while Society members make observations about the different layouts and choices of paper stock and embellishments.

Madeline comes over and loops her arm through Connie’s. “My own album is coming along nicely,” she says. “I think I’ll be able to give it to Maggie for Christmas. What about you?”

“I’m almost done,” Connie says. “And when I am, I want to show it to you.”

“Sweetheart, I’d be honored,” Madeline says.

Connie’s going to show it to Eli, too, because she wants him to know where she came from. He already knows her family history, but she’s taken the time to add more written memories and pictures printed from the Internet. Serena’s in there, too, as is Madeline. In short the album is full of the things Connie loves best, of memories most precious to her, and she wants to share it with him.

Everyone around them is talking and laughing, and some women have tears in their eyes. The albums are still being passed around when Bettie suddenly stands and picks up her sequined mallet.

“Excuse me,” she says, and there’s an immediate hush. “Thank you, everyone, for all of this. I’d like to thank you all in person, too, but with the way my brain’s been acting these days, I’d be just as likely to thank the same person three times and forget someone else altogether. So thank you, everyone.” There’s a round of applause and Bettie turns to look at Isabel. “Is there anything else?” she asks.

Isabel smiles, shakes her head.

Bettie brings down the sequined gavel onto the podium with a bang. “Then the November meeting of the Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society is officially in session. Let’s begin.”

“That was a good meeting,” Bettie says as Isabel drives her home. Imogene is in the car ahead of them, her passenger seats filled with albums and gifts.

“It was,” Isabel agrees. “Are you tired?”

Bettie shakes her head. “I feel awake. Really awake. Like everything’s been muddy but now it’s clear.” She looks at Isabel hopefully. “Maybe I’m getting better. My mind, I mean.”

Isabel manages a smile. “Maybe,” she says, but she doubts it. From what she’s been reading, dementia is like this. Good one day, lousy the next. Clarity, then confusion. It can go on like this for a long time.

Bettie shifts in her seat, pulls her scarf tighter around her neck.
“It’s going to be a cold winter,” she says. “It’ll probably be harder for me to walk over, what with the snow and all.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Isabel says sternly. “If you want to come over, I’ll come and get you. Anytime, okay?”

Bettie gives her a hopeful look. “Really?”

“Really.” Isabel looks at her and smiles. “And if you want, we can talk about having you stay over a couple of nights whenever you want. I know Max would love it. Me, too.”

Bettie is nodding. “I’d like that,” she says. “It’ll give Abe and Imogene a chance to get a little cootchie-cootchie in. One night I was looking for my catalogs when I saw them—”

“I’ll work out a schedule with Imogene,” Isabel says quickly, not wanting to hear any details about the Garzas’ love life. “That reminds me. We have that scrapbooking crop at the house next month. You can stay over then, too. We’ll rent a movie and pop popcorn. Anything with Jennifer Lopez, right?”

“She’s so good in
Maid in Manhattan
,” Bettie says with sudden fervor. “And that Ralph Fiennes. I could watch it a million times over.”

“
Maid in Manhattan
it is, then.”

There’s a pause and then Bettie says in a small voice, “Isabel?”

“Yes?”

Bettie reaches out to touch Isabel’s hand on the steering wheel, but doesn’t say anything else. They drive like this all the way to Abe and Imogene’s house.

At Imogene’s house, Isabel helps Bettie out of the car and walks her up the walkway to the front door. Imogene carefully eases her car into the garage and they watch as the garage door closes behind her, until the last bit of light disappears.

“Well, good night, Bettie,” Isabel says. She leans forward and gives Bettie a hug. Bettie feels small and fragile in her arms.

“Thank you for being so good to me, Isabel,” Bettie says. She’s about to turn away when she hesitates. “I think if I ever had a daughter, I’d be lucky if she were like you. Good night.” Bettie opens the door and steps inside, closing it quickly behind her.

On the drive home, Isabel keeps touching her cheek and smiling. When she turns the corner for her street, she sees a familiar truck parked to the side, her porch light on.

Isabel parks in the driveway, then walks up to the porch. Ian Braemer is there, two steaming cups of coffee in hand, waiting for her on a brand-new porch swing.

“Surprise,” he says, and holds out one of the cups of coffee. “Care to join me? It’s decaf.”

“You did this while I was at my meeting?” Isabel asks, even though the answer is obvious. She takes the cup of coffee and it instantly warms her hands.

“I did. I ran to the coffee shop and got us two tall decafs.”

She gives him a playful punch in the arm. “I meant the porch swing, Ian.”

“Oh, this,” he says, as if noticing it for the first time. He grins. “I hope it’s all right. I was going to ask you but I didn’t want to spoil it. I figured I could always take it back down if you hated it. This space always seemed as if it was waiting for a porch swing.”

“Yes,” Isabel says. “It was.” She sits next to him and he gives the swing a little push with his feet. “And don’t you dare take it down, I love it. Thank you, Ian.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, and if you don’t like the color, we can always paint it something else.”

The swing is white, of course. Isabel laughs. “It’s fine,” she says. “Though I think I’m over my white phase once and for all. I’ve been colorless long enough.” She runs her hand along the chain of the porch swing. “Maybe we’ll paint it yellow in the spring.”

“Whatever the lady wants,” Ian says. They swing for a moment in silence, watching the stars. The sky is full of them tonight, twinkling and winking at them from afar. “Though I hope you don’t mind me correcting you on one little point.”

Isabel takes a sip of her coffee, holds it against her cold cheek. “What’s that?”

“Black is the absence of color,” he says. “But white is the blending
of all colors. It’s like sunlight. Sunlight is white light that’s made up of all the colors in the spectrum. So while you may have thought you didn’t have any color in your life, in truth it was filled with every color of the rainbow.”

Isabel thinks about this, then looks at him. “You’re kind of a know-it-all, aren’t you?”

“Only when I know it all,” he says. “Which isn’t often. It’s just that color is one of those things you know about when you do what I do for a living. Besides, something tells me I may have met my match.”

Isabel tilts her head, gazes at Ian Braemer. He’s handsome in a simple, rugged way, and she likes that he knows who he is. “I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, for the house.”

He smiles. “It was my pleasure, Isabel.”

“And you know you never sent me an invoice,” she says. “We should probably settle that before you move on to the next job.”

Ian plants both feet on the ground, stopping the swing. “Isabel,” he says, and his voice is full of amusement. “You don’t owe me anything. I told you, it was my pleasure.”

Isabel had figured as much, but she didn’t want Ian to think she was taking advantage. “Can I cover the cost of materials at least?”

He shakes his head. “I’m glad I could help a friend.”

A friend? When he says this, Isabel feels her temperature drop. “Oh,” she says, standing up. “Well, thanks.
Friend
.” She rubs her nose, like she’s about to sneeze.

He watches her. “Uh-oh, you’re mad at me.”

“What? No, I’m not,” she lies. “It’s getting late, I should probably go inside.” She stands up but Ian reaches for her hand.

“Isabel, stay out here a little longer,” he says. He pulls her gently back toward the swing, but she resists.

Her feelings are hurt. Does he see her only as a friend? “Why?”

Ian stands up, still holding her hand. “So I can kiss you.” He pulls her toward him and gives her a tender kiss on the lips.

Ohhh
. Isabel feels her body tingle at the touch of his lips, smiles at her own foolishness. They kiss again. “I think I could get used to this friendship,” she says when they finally break away.

“Or,” Ian says. “We could try for something a little more. A proper date, maybe?”

Isabel nods, breathless.

“Still want to go back inside?”

She shakes her head.

They sit on the swing, hand in hand, and drink their coffee while they look out onto Isabel’s sleepy street, at the families moving about in their homes, the occasional car hurrying to reach its destination. They sit like this together, quiet and comfortable, but above all, happy.

Epilogue