The Quilt (10 page)

“What the hell do you think you are doing
?”

She raised her head and stared at Stephen across the expanse of greasy food.

“Come on Sandy.  You’ve been making it pretty obvious you are as interested as I am.”

Sandy fought to control her temper.  If she shouted Joanne would be the one that suffered and while the end result would possibly be for the best there must be a less painful way for her to find out exactly what she intended marry.

“Firstly, you arrogant bastard, I would never consider betraying Joanne.  You don’t know how lucky you are that she, for reasons I cannot explain, has settled for someone like you.” 

She waited for her words to sink in.  He continued to grin
at her across the table.  She felt his hand begin to move slowly up her inner thigh.

“Secondly
, even if you were single, I would not find you attractive.   Actually, I find you revolting, arrogant and feminine.” 

He didn’t flinch, he didn’t remove his hand and the grin never slipped from his face.

Sandy lowered her voice and spoke through her gritted teeth.

“
There is no chance Joanne will end up wasting her life on someone like you.  And I will make sure that she doesn’t.”

He slowly removed his hand from Sandy’s leg and smiled at her brightly.

“We will have to wait and see about that won’t we?” 

He winked, displaying an unaffected confidence.

“You don’t know what you are missing.” 

Dismissing Sandy he
turned his back and yelled towards the closed door.

“
Joanne.  I’ve changed my mind.  I think I will come to the airport.”

“You b
astard,” Sandy hissed. 

Joanne stood frozen in the doorway.  She didn’t know what had passed between the two most important people in her life, but whatever it was
had turned the summer warmth to winters ice.

Later that evening Sandy sat sulking in the departure lounge of Nelson airport waiting for the boarding call. 

The visit had been short and s
he was leaving before she had had the privacy or the time to find the words to tell Joanne what she needed to hear.  

She
had intensely disliked Stephen when she had first met him.  That dislike had strengthened to an unhealthy loathing. She hated the bridesmaid’s dress she had been fitted for, she hated everything it symbolised and she hoped more than anything else she would never have to wear it.

Chapter 9

“Joanne and Sandy”

Sandy boarded the plane.  She glanced at the aisle seat.   A young breastfeeding mother looked up nervously and smiled.  At least it wasn’t occupied by a fat man with greedy eyes squeezed into a far too small suit.

She settled
into the comfort of her seat and watched the hills unfold beneath her.  She let her mind wander back to the first time she had met Joanne.

They had
arrived at the same place, at the same time but for totally different reasons.

Joanne was the accidental product of career driven parents.  Her father was a senior partner in a large and successful inner city law practice.  Her mother was the CEO of an international cosmetic company. 

They
had scheduled Joanne’s upbringing to fit in with their efficient and demanding lifestyles.  They tolerated as little disruption from her as possible and juggled pick-ups and drop offs between their appointments and meetings.

Their house
was tidy, their schedules were tidy, they took holidays in exotic locations where they would employ nannies and continue to work at their computers and make their long distance phone calls. 

Joanne
grew up socialising and communicating with successful, high achieving adults.    Aim high, work hard and push open the doors of success for a happy and worthwhile life.

When Joanne reached her teenage years her mood swings and mild displays of rebellion were foreign territory to her family. It was decided the only logical solution was to dispatch her off to a nearby and exclusive Auckland boarding school.  Here she could study, get through her “difficult” years and graduate without the distraction of boys in a co-educational school. 

By now h
er mother and father had, at least in their opinion, completed their parental duties and were ready to continue their busy, tidy lives without further interruption or conflict. 

Their difficult daughter arrived at the gates of the strict
, exclusive school wearing the latest fashion and trailing designer bags full of books and expensive cosmetics.  Her mother had always hoped Joanne would make more of her looks.

Sandy, by contrast, was like a solitary exotic bird dancing her way through a world she considered too dull, too black, too white and too grey.  Ideally, she would have been comfortable spending her teenage years in the 1960’s, fitting into a family that thrived on art, music, marijuana and large helpings of rock and roll. 

As if a
cruel joke of nature, Sandy was born to conservative, strict and staunchly religious parents.  They struggled to understand their only daughter.  They dragged her kicking to church every Sunday. They consulted their priest and other parents in their congregation before they consulted numerous psychologists and medical professionals. 

Sandy would not, could not
, conform to any kind of “normal” that they had the ability to understand.

It was the final straw when a naked, pimple-covered youth fell while trying to negotiate the climb out of Sandy’s bedroom window late one evening.  He hit the ground with a heavy thud, breaking his wrist and severing the final thin thread of trust between mother, father and wayward daughter.

Sandy was quickly packed off to boarding school in an effort to save her soul and what remained of her parent’s sanity.

Sandy remembered eyeing her new roommate with distaste.  The tall, frigid blonde looked about as much fun as a mid-winter swim in the Pacific Ocean.

Joanne was serious and aloof, disinterested in socialising and committed to a rigid study routine.  She was like an alien to Sandy with her obsessive battle to achieve straight A’s and her polite but minimal efforts to make conversation.

Was the person responsible for organizin
g the dorms playing a joke?  Sandy scowled at the slender, tall figure working diligently at the small desk, driving herself until she collapsed exhausted on her bed.  Surely they didn’t think this boring creature would be a levelling and positive influence? 

She imagined the interview room and her mother sniffing into a neat square of cotton.  Red eyes pleading the Dean to provide answers, to
mould her daughter into a person acceptable to her world, to provide structure and people that would lead by example. 

Sandy’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
  That tall wisp of a creature was the last thing she could or wanted to become.

Joanne didn’t have time or the interest to worry about her new room-mates icy attitude.  She just accepted that was the way it would be. 

She was here to graduate and was determined to do so with honours.  She wasn’t particularly concerned about making friends or fitting in
.  Especially if fitting in meant climbing in and out of windows and reeking of cigarette smoke and alcohol.    It was very obvious they were different and she didn’t have the need to judge or the energy to try to understand Sandy.

By the end of term o
ne it was obvious that Sandy was struggling with the school’s high academic expectations.  They had seldom spoken openly but in an unusual moment of candid discussion Sandy confided in her room-mate.  She still remembered that conversation.  It was the first time she had discussed her struggles with anyone and it was the first of many times she would confide in Joanne.

“
I have two options; sleeping on a park bench or getting through school with some sort of pass grade.   I don’t know that the last one is possible, my results are already tumbling.”

She looked at Joanne
, her face clouded with worry.

“What about going home if this system isn’t suiting you?”

“That’s not an option.  And I’m underage so wouldn’t be able to get full time work.”

A flash of sadness
etched on Sandy’s pale face.

“Go home
,” she scoffed.

“I wouldn’t exac
tly be welcomed with open arms.”

Against the odds Sandy scraped through the mid-term exams. 

A few days later it became obvious how
she had done it.

Most students took a break at this time of the year, a short amount of time to regroup and recharge.  For Joanne
, the end of these exams signified the start of her preparation for the next ones.  She had been in the library most of the afternoon sourcing material and methodically making notes.  She stopped for a moment and rubbed her strained eyes.  It must be time to take a break she had read the page that lay open in front of her and could not recall a single detail of it.

Joanne opened the door to the room and stopped
, her books falling with a thud at her feet.  Her desk was a shambles, her study notes were strewn in disarray across the surface and Sandy was staring up like a thief in the night her face frozen in a mask of guilt and remorse.

“What the hel
l do you think you are doing?”

Sandy dissolved
instantly in a river of tears.

“
I am so sorry but I can’t afford to get expelled.  I have to pass.  There are no other options and I don’t understand the lessons.  I don’t understand what is written on the blackboard.  I can’t read it and I can’t understand the words.”

She sobbed and the sound ca
me from deep inside her. 

Joanne reached for a tissue and passed it to Sandy. 
Without a word, she then walked out the door, went back to the library and immersed herself in research. 

It was well after midnight when Sandy was shaken
violently awake.

“Have you ever heard of dyslexia?”

Joanne’
s voice was raised.

“Are you nuts
? It’s almost one in the morning!”

“Listen.  H
ave you heard of dyslexia?”  Joanne repeated. 

Sandy rubbed her eyes in an effort to focus.

“No, I have not heard of dyslexia.”

“
I’ve been in the library.”

“How unusual
,” Sandy shot back. 

Ignoring the interruption Joanne continued.

“There hasn’t been a huge amount of research done yet. Unfortunately, it is not accepted as a condition with the school authorities so there isn’t any actual help available.  In some cases, it can affect people’s ability to read and understand the content.  Quite often they will read fluently out aloud.” 

Joanne hesitated and gave
Sandy a chance to take in what she had just said.  There was a look of interest forming and the veil of sleep had cleared from her eyes.

“Often those with d
yslexia are very intelligent, often artistic and can often have above average verbal understanding if they are read to rather than doing the reading themselves.  It can affect their writing as well.”

Sandy nodded
.

“My writing looks like spiders
all over the page but I can draw really well.  I can take in some of the words in if I’m reading slowly but not all of them and not any if they are on the blackboard.” 

She thought for a moment and then continued as if thinking out aloud.

“Yes, if someone reads to me I understand and remember it completely.”

“So
, maybe I’m not thick after all?”  Sandy was smiling as she spoke.

“Maybe not.  I guess I will have to bett
er my skills when reading aloud.”

Joanne
read to Sandy if they were studying at the same time.  She borrowed a dictaphone from her father’s law firm and voice recorded notes for future reference.  The foundation of their friendship had been laid.

Well after graduation
, Joanne actively lobbied both the school they were attending and the Department of Education in an effort to have dyslexia formally recognised.  She tirelessly campaigned for assistance to be provided for students diagnosed with the learning disability and campaigned to have a program formulated to recognize at risk children as early as possible. 

Finally
, in 2007, Joanne celebrated New Zealand’s recognition of dyslexia.

It came far too late to help Sandy.

Joanne and Sandy were almost opposites.  They
were as different in the way they looked as they were in their personalities.  Apart from the oxygen they breathed there seemed little to bind this unlikely pair in friendship. In many ways they never fully understood each other, they really never had to. Their differences balanced out to bond them in a sister-like friendship.

Sandy took it as a personal challenge to teach Joanne to laugh at herself, to relax and socialise, to enjoy small animals and understand things didn’t
always have to exist for any particular logical reason.

Joanne had never really known anyone as outrageous as Sandy and through her friendship
she made friends with the young people that had once teased her relentlessly, she learnt to enjoy a normal social life, she became more spontaneous and lost some of her once rigid inhibitions. 

She
sneaked out of the dorms to visit nightclubs on Auckland’s busy Queen Street and eat fatty burgers at the iconic White Lady.

It was a sunny Friday afternoon in the last term of their final year in college when things fell apart for Sandy. 

Joanne rushed to gather up her books glancing nervously at her watch.  She was already running late and Sandy would be waiting.  They had organized to meet after tutor group and the normally punctual Joanne was flustered by her uncharacteristic lack of time management.
 

Joanne
rounded the edge of the building but abruptly stopped and slipped back behind the concrete unnoticed.  The school principal looked flustered and angry his hand was firmly placed on Sandy’s elbow as he accompanied her out of the school grounds.  Her grim-faced parents followed, their heads bent in shame.

Sandy had been caught smoking marijuana
.  She had been expelled without question.

Through sheer perseverance and hard work Sandy had been achieving grades that were adequate enough to enable her to graduate.  No small feat when she struggled with a system she wasn’t set up to succeed in.

To be expelled in the final few weeks of her struggle seemed grossly unfair.

Sandy faced the world of adult responsibility w
ith limited education, a record showing drug abuse and reading and writing difficulties.  The only thing that was in her favour that day was her age.  She was now old enough to live independently and she had no intention of returning to the confines of her strict and religious family. 

Sandy toyed with the idea of sleeping on a park bench but that had about as much appeal as returning home.