The Fortune Quilt (10 page)

Suddenly, I feel nine years old. Suddenly, I am craving comfort, from any source. I don’t care. I just want to be cut a break. I want to be taken care of.

Suddenly, with a desire so raw I can’t fight it, I want chamomile tea.

Well, hell. Any port in a storm, right?

“Do you have honey?” I ask feebly, and let her lead me inside.

***

I am sitting on Brandywine Seaver’s couch, wrapped up in a fleece throw. The Quilt of Evil is slumped on the floor below where I’m sitting, and I have my feet tucked up under my legs so that I don’t accidentally make contact with the evil. Brandy comes out from the kitchen carrying a tray with a tea pot and two mugs.

“Have you ever had real tea? I mean, loose-leaf brewed?” she asks amiably.

“No,” I say. “I don’t think so.”

She smiles, radiating inner peace. “You’ll never go back.”

She places the tray on her coffee table, pours us each a cup, hands me one, and sits down on the couch.

“So,” she says, sipping her mug. “Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know where to start,” I say. The sane part of me is gaining ground, and I am starting to amass just enough perspective to be embarrassed by my behavior.

“Well,” she says slowly, “how about with your best friend?” Her nose wrinkles slightly as she gives me a look of sympathetic discomfort. “You didn’t know she was a lesbian?”

I laugh out loud, and it feels good, but it’s followed by a wave of sadness that I don’t enjoy so much.

“His name is Christopher.”

“Christopher?” Her brow crinkles. “The camera man?”

I am confused for a moment then remember, of course, she’s met Christopher.

“We’ve been best friends since college. He bought me a book with an amber spine seven years ago because, as it turns out, he loves me, which, you know, who saw that coming?”

Brandy is silent, looking at me as though I’m stupid.

“What?” I say. “You saw that coming?”

Brandy gives a demure shrug, then nods. “Well. Yeah. You guys were only in my house for an hour but… yeah. I thought you were already dating.”

I stare at her. Of course she would claim she knew or her cover as a psychic is blown. But still. It’s kind of obnoxious.

“And you knew, too,” she says, taking a sip of her tea.

Okay.
That’s
really obnoxious. “I did not.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No.” I clench my teeth. “I didn’t.”

Brandy makes a face that says, “Did, too,” but out loud she only says, “Well.”

I keep quiet. It’s not worth it. Instead I sigh and say, “Well, if you knew so much, you could have tipped me off that Christopher had the book with the amber spine.”

Brandy’s face is blank.

“You know,” I prod. “The amber spine. The book that Christopher had.”

She gives a confused half-smile and shakes her head. “What? Is that from the reading?”

“The reading that ruined my life?” I say. “Yeah. You don’t remember?”

“No,” Brandy says matter-of-factly. “I read the quilts to get them out of my head. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Did I say something about a book with an amber spine?”

I sigh. “I don’t even know if it was amber. It might have been orange. It was dark when he showed it to me.”

She quirks her head to the side and grins. “So, he’s in love with you. Is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t know,” I whine. “I’m thinking maybe.”

Brandy looks contemplative for a moment, then leans forward. “There’s something you need to understand. You got that quilt because it was time for you to have it. Because these things were coming. Maybe the Universe wanted to give you a heads up. I don’t know. But I didn’t curse you. All of this would have happened anyway, with or without the quilt.”

I stare at her. This hadn’t occurred to me. And it sounds like typical pass-the-buck crap to me.

“But the show got canceled. The story didn’t even air.”

Brandy smiles knowingly. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“That I’ve lost my job?”

“No,” she says. “That you were brought here for a purpose, and that purpose was not to put my pretty mug on TV.”

She’s looking at me expectantly. I got nothing. “I was brought here to fulfill an assignment.”

Brandy smiles softly. “I’m sorry things are so hard on you right now. Do you want to hear my theory on times like this?”

No
. I sip the tea. She’s right. It’s good. She’s watching me, waiting, and I sigh. “Sure.”

“I think that when everything goes wrong, it’s because nothing was right in the first place. It’s like, when you knit… do you knit?”

I stare at her.
Do I look like I knit
? I wonder.

She shrugs acquiescence. “Okay. Well, when you knit, if you get something wrong and keep knitting, then when you discover it, you have to rip out all those rows of stitching to go back and fix it. Life is like that. Sometimes, it has to rip out all the stitches to go back and fix what’s wrong.”

This sounds ridiculous to me. But the tea is good, so I just give a noncommittal, “Hmmm,” and sip some more. And suddenly, I am bone tired.

“Wow,” I say, yawning. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s—” I yawn again and can’t finish the sentence.

“Oh, yeah,” she says. “I should have warned you. Chamomile packs a punch if you’re not used to it.”

“Oh,” I say.
Great. Now I’ve been cursed
and
drugged
.

Brandy smiles. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

I shake my head, staring into my mug. The tea is looking kinda swirly and pretty. I take another sip.

“I’d offer to have you stay here,” Brandy says, motioning around, “but the quilts kinda take over all the extra space. I usually need at least a week’s notice to have guests.” She stands up, smiling. “But I own a cabin, back on the land behind the house. My tenant is a good friend, and he’s out of town for the weekend. You can stay in his bed.”

Sleep in a strange man’s bed? Yuck. “No. That’s okay. I’m sure there’s a motel around here somewhere.”

Brandy looks scandalized. “Motels are where people go to commit suicide. Come on. We can put on fresh sheets. He won’t mind.”

She starts for the door, and I follow, deliberately stepping around the Quilt of Evil. We walk out to my car and I grab the backpack I filled with a change of clothes and basic toiletries. She leads me down the white rock path that winds to the back of her property. As we get to the side of her house, the foliage takes over, and we’re surrounded by creosote and palo verde. The air is fragrant and warm, and the moonlight sprinkles down on us through the trees. The path angles upward toward the foothills, and then opens into a clearing where there are two cabins, each surrounded by so much foliage that they look like they’re just wedged into the hills themselves. The closest one is painted yellow; the second one, a little farther down the path, is a robin’s-egg blue. Both have small decks that are adorned with wind chimes and mismatched outdoor furniture, ranging from small plastic tables to whitewashed wooden rocking chairs.

“Wow,” I say. “How… eclectic.”

Brandy grins and turns toward the yellow cabin. She pulls a key out of her pocket and turns it in the lock. We go inside and it’s… interesting. The space is large and open, with white walls and hardwood floors. The cabin is large enough for two, maybe three rooms, but instead it’s simply wide open with a couple of support columns in the middle. A kitchenette lines one wall with a small table and two chairs nearby. In one corner is a bed, with a slightly ajar door to what I assume is the bathroom.

The other half of the space is taken up by paintings, drop cloths, palettes, paintbrushes. Leaning against the walls, covering the modest sofa and coffee table, are dozens of paintings, some finished and some not. Landscapes, portraits, still lifes. The subjects vary greatly, but the style ties them all together. Everything is painted in little swishes of color, like a bunch of tiny S’s, some tightly curled, some relaxed and lazy, all twisting and twirling together to be the parts that create the whole. As I step closer to one, a still life of brightly colored gerbera daisies, the daisies give way to the swishes. When I stand back, the daisies take over again, and I can see the forest for the trees.

“So,” I say, “the guy who lives here. He’s a painter, huh?”

Brandy sighs. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they? He hasn’t painted in a while, though. I keep bugging him to start up again, but…”

She trails off. I don’t push. To be honest, I really don’t care. All I want from this guy is his bed.

Brandy shows me through the place, pointing out the coffee maker, the bathroom, the linen closet. I watch her as she puts fresh bedding down, listen as she tells me to help myself to whatever I might need. She seems very familiar with everything, and has no problem offering me this guy’s coffee and toothpaste. I wonder briefly if she’s sleeping with him or something, but my brain sticks on the word
sleeping
.

I. Am. So.

Tired.

Finally, Brandy leaves. I change into a T-shirt and shorts, brush my teeth, and somehow make it to the bed before passing out completely.

***

I am staying in a large hotel. Tabitha King is my roommate. She’s very nice, and looks a lot like Carrie Fisher. We are drinking tea, but it smells funny.

I open one eye, then squint against the bright sunlight coming in from outside. I blink a few times, glance at the clock next to the bed. It reads 11:04.

Wow.

Something smells good. Coffee brewing.

I rub my eyes, sit up in bed, see a man in a pair of flannel lounge pants and a paint-streaked t-shirt standing at the kitchen counter, pulling mugs from a cabinet. I scream and pull the blankets up around me. He jumps a bit, as though only slightly startled by my blood-curdling scream.

And… he looks familiar. Am I still dreaming? I rub my eyes. He’s still there.

Not dreaming. He must be Brandy’s tenant.

And I’m in his bed. Oh, God.

“Hi,” I say quickly, hoping I make sense through the sleep haze. “I’m sorry. Brandy said I could stay here. Do you know Brandy? Of course you know Brandy. Anyway, I’m, uh, Carly, and Brandy said it was okay.”

I take my hand from my eyes and look at him.

I’m either having wicked déjà vu or I’ve seen this guy before. Sandy hair, sticking out in a million directions. Dimples. Two-day stubble. Bright blue eyes. My brain shuffles, trying to put him in whatever context he was in when we met the first time. He’s giving me a look like his brain is doing the same thing, and then his face brightens and he laughs.

“Oh. Wow. Carly?”

I blink, and a rush of memory comes back at me when I hear his voice, all soft and friendly.

“Oh, my God,” I say as the realization hits me. “Will?”

He sets the mugs down on the counter. “That was you under there?”

I sit up a bit, still clutching the blankets to my chest. I’m wearing a big T-shirt, but no bra, and it feels a little intimate to be in a strange man’s bed with no bra on. In Will the Artist’s bed with no bra on, which feels wrong somehow. Probably because he used to sleep with my sister. Possibly because he might currently be sleeping with Brandy. Or because Five is in love with him.

Pick your complication, folks. Every one’s a winner.

I run my hand through my hair, try to wake up a bit. “Yeah, it’s me. Brandy didn’t tell you she brought me here?”

Will shakes his head. “No. I got in late last night. I saw a tuft of hair sticking out from my covers and crashed on the couch. You know Brandy?”

I glance at the couch. Sure enough, on one end is a pillow and on the other end is a crumpled up blanket. I look back at Will.

“Wait,” I say. “You got in late last night, found a strange person sleeping in your bed, and just, what? Hit the couch? No questions?”

He laughs. “I take it you don’t know Brandy very well. Can I get you some coffee?”

“Um.” I look around. My bra is on the floor, sitting next to my backpack with my toothbrush.

My bra. Is on the floor. I can feel my face growing hot. Will nods to the coffeemaker and glances back at me.

“Coffee?” he asks again.

“Um,” I say. “Yeah. That sounds great.” I grab the bra with my toes, swoosh it into my hand and tuck it under my shirt. Will pretends not to notice, but I can see the small smile he’s hiding.

“Just one minute,” I say. “Is it okay if I use your bathroom?”

He keeps his eyes on the coffee he’s pouring. “Fine by me.”

I go into the bathroom, shrug into my bra, replace the T-shirt, give my teeth a quick brush and run my hands over my hair which, frankly, is beyond all hope. I step out and Will gives me a quick glance to make sure it’s okay to look, then allows himself to make eye contact.

“I took a shot and went with cream and sugar.” He walks over, hands me a mug, and sits cross-legged at the edge of the bed. Then he motions toward the head of the bed. “Please. Sit.”