The Wedding Quilt (22 page)

“Will you tell me what you think of this?” Sarah implored, and read aloud her most recent draft. Sylvia suggested a few additional details for the job requirements, and Gretchen recommended rearranging a few sentences near the end. Maggie sat quietly, sipping her tea, her hazel eyes looking anywhere but directly at Sarah, the furrow of her brow telling Sarah she wanted very badly to offer her opinion. “How about you, Maggie?” she finally prompted. “You've been awfully quiet. You don't think my writing is all that bad, do you?”

“No, in fact, I think it's great. If I didn't work here already, I'd apply for the job.” Maggie hesitated, her long, slender fingers toying with her teaspoon. “It's just that before you go to the expense and trouble of recruiting a new teacher, I'd like to recommend someone, although I admit I'm anything but an objective, disinterested party.”

Immediately Sarah guessed whom Maggie wanted to put forward: Russell MacIntyre, a talented art quilter who happened to be her long-distance boyfriend. Years before, when Summer and Judy had announced their plans to leave Elm Creek Quilts, Sarah and her colleagues had launched a nationwide search for two new instructors. Of the five finalists, Maggie had been their favorite and first choice, for she was a quilter of unique qualifications. Russell had ranked second.

Two days after her twenty-fifth birthday, Maggie had been walking home from the bus stop when she passed a garage sale and discovered a sampler quilt being used as a tablecloth for a display of glassware. Although she had made only two quilts in her lifetime—one a Girl Scout badge requirement, the other a gift for her sister's newborn—one look told her that this quilt, despite its dusty, disheveled appearance, was something special. The woman running the garage sale was astonished by Maggie's interest in the bedraggled quilt, which she had kept in the garage since moving to the neighborhood twenty-six years before. Her mother-in-law had bought it at an estate auction, and when she tired of it, she had given it to her son to keep dog hair off the car seats when he took his German shepherds to the park. Bemused, the woman apologized for its condition and asked five dollars for it, which Maggie gladly paid.

At home, she moved the coffee table aside and spread the quilt on the living room carpet. Despite the years of ill treatment, the quilt was free of holes, tears, and stains, and the geometric patterns were striking beneath the layers of dust and dirt. All one hundred of the two-color blocks were unique, and each had been pieced or appliquéd from a different print fabric and a plain background fabric that might have been white once, but had discolored with age and neglect. Along one edge, embroidered in thread that had faded to pale brown barely distinguishable from the background cloth, were the words “Harriet Findley Birch. Lowell, Mass. to Salem, Ore. 1854.” The discovery astounded her. How had a 133-year-old quilt ended up as a tablecloth at a garage sale?

With the help of the Courtyard Quilters, a quilting bee comprised of residents of the Sacramento retirement home where she worked, Maggie relearned her long-forgotten sewing skills and made a replica of the fragile antique. Fellow customers of the Goose Tracks Quilt Shop admired her quilt so much that the owner invited her to teach a class so that they could make their own versions. The success of that class led to another, and another, which brought her to the attention of local quilt guilds, who invited her to lecture and teach. As her fame in the quilting world spread, Maggie wrote a pattern book,
My Journey with Harriet,
which quickly sold out of its first edition and went into its third printing within a month. All along, Maggie had kept her job at the retirement home, enjoying her work and her friendship with the Courtyard Quilters, but one day, years of budget cuts and rumors of corporate mergers culminated in the unsettling announcement that another health care organization had bought them out and intended to shut them down.

With unemployment looming, Maggie applied for a faculty position with Elm Creek Quilts and was invited to an interview, where, although she did not know it at the time, her knowledge, skills, and insight into the spirit of Elm Creek Quilts impressed her interviewers—even Diane, who had been particularly hard on all of the candidates in the vain hope that none of them would take the job and Judy and Summer would be compelled to stay.

On the flight home, while Maggie was hand-piecing a quilt block and mulling over her visit to Elm Creek Manor, a man moved to the empty seat across the aisle and struck up a conversation about quilting. They were both a little embarrassed to discover that although they didn't recognize each other, they had previously met; the man turned out to be Russell MacIntyre, a renowned contemporary art quilter from Seattle, and a few years earlier, they had both been seated at the head table at the awards banquet of the American Quilter's Society's show in Paducah. It soon came out they were both returning home from interviews with Elm Creek Quilts, and after the initial awkwardness of learning that they were competitors passed, they chatted all the way to Seattle. As the plane touched down, they exchanged business cards and agreed to have lunch the next time they were scheduled at the same quilt show. They disembarked and parted ways, and Russell had almost reached the security checkpoint when he realized he didn't want to wait for another unlikely synchronicity of their travel schedules. He checked the monitors for Maggie's connecting flight, sprinted to the gate, and just as she was about to disappear down the jet bridge to her plane, he called out to her, and they arranged to meet the following week when he traveled through California on a teaching tour.

After that, they spoke every night on the phone, and they enjoyed a wonderful weekend together when Russell's travels brought him near Sacramento. Two weeks after that momentous plane ride, Sarah called Maggie with an offer of employment. Maggie, confident that Russell would surely be chosen for the second vacant spot on the faculty, gratefully accepted. And indeed, after hanging up with Maggie, Sarah had called Russell—but Russell, unaware that Maggie had already been hired and trusting her dire assessment of her performance during the job interview, turned down the offer so that he could remain on the West Coast, closer to her. By the time Russell spoke with Maggie, realized his mistake, and called Sarah back to rescind his refusal, Sarah had already offered the position to the Elm Creek Quilters' third choice, Gretchen. Disappointed but undaunted, Russell quickly agreed to work as a visiting instructor whenever they needed a substitute.

In all the years since, Maggie and Gretchen had proven to be wonderful additions to the faculty, and whenever Russell filled in for an Elm Creek Quilter who needed a week off for vacation or family obligations, he received glowing reviews from his students. As his romance with Maggie blossomed, he began visiting the manor more often even when quilt camp wasn't in session. But for the most part, he continued to reside at his home in Seattle when he wasn't traveling from quilt guild to art gallery, lecturing and teaching, although both he and Maggie wished it could be otherwise. They were in love and wanted to be together, but their careers kept them mostly apart.

Of course now that Bonnie was leaving, Maggie would want them to hire Russell to replace her. As Maggie waited pensively for the verdict, Sarah and Sylvia exchanged a long look that communicated volumes. When Russell had interviewed for the two vacant faculty positions nearly four years earlier, the Elm Creek Quilters had intended to hire him. During his time as a visiting instructor, he had been amiable, productive, and diligent, never bemoaning the misunderstanding that had cost him the permanent faculty job. He had won the approval of the Elm Creek Quilters and the admiration of his students, and also—and this was by no means the least of Sarah's considerations—having him join the faculty would make Maggie very happy.

Sarah raised her eyebrows at Sylvia, a silent inquiry, and Sylvia returned the barest of nods. “I think that's an excellent idea, Maggie,” Sarah said. “Do you think he'd be interested in the job?”

“I know he would,” Maggie exclaimed, bounding to her feet. “I'll go call him.” She bolted for the doorway, where she hesitated. “As long as it's official?”

Sarah laughed, and Sylvia said, “It's official, my dear. Please let him know our intentions, and if he's interested, Sarah will call him later to work out the details.”

Thus Russell joined the Elm Creek Quilters, and Maggie's happiness made the loss of Bonnie a little easier to bear. A few months later, Maggie and Russell married in the ballroom of Elm Creek Manor, a commitment they had long spoken of and wished for, but had deferred until they could be together. When Sylvia learned this, she declared that if she had known why they were deferring their marital bliss, she would have created a new position on the faculty especially for him. “You could have fired someone to make room,” Gwen remarked. “I nominate Diane.”

“Too late,” retorted Diane, but like everyone else, she knew Gwen was only teasing. Although the departures of founding members never failed to introduce them to wonderful new teachers like Gretchen, Maggie, and Russell, the absence of dear friends sometimes made them wistful for the early days of Elm Creek Quilts, when their imaginations were full of plans and their days with hard work, when success was but a fond dream and the likelihood of failure daunting.

So many years had passed, and now only Sarah remained of the original Elm Creek Quilters. The others had passed on, or had followed winding ways in pursuit of other dreams. But as Sylvia had predicted so many years before, despite the departure of beloved friends, Elm Creek Quilts endured.

And that reminded Sarah of an important task they needed to fulfill. “Before we start collecting signatures on the Memory Album blocks,” she said, rising and smiling fondly at her friends, “we have an errand in the library.”

Gwen and Summer knew what she wanted, and as the friends left the kitchen, the mother and daughter paused in the back foyer long enough to take from their luggage their panels of the Winding Ways quilt. A contemplative hush fell over them as they climbed the grand oak staircase—slowly, to accommodate Gwen's stiff knees—made their way down the second-floor hallway, and passed through the French doors to the library. Summer hung the two long-absent panels in place, her mother's in the upper left corner, her own just below it. An empty place would remain in the lower right corner where Bonnie's panel belonged, but soon Diane's panel would fill the space beside it, and Judy's the space next to that. Although the center panel had originally been intended to represent all future Elm Creek Quilters, over the years they had come to think of it as Gretchen's own. She had been with Elm Creek Quilts so long and had contributed so much that they often forgot she was not a founder.

And then the quilt would be almost complete, despite the absence of other beloved friends, because although Sylvia and Agnes and Gretchen could not be among them except in spirit, their sections of the Winding Ways quilt hung proudly, displayed in their memory.

A
fter admiring the Winding Ways quilt a little longer and reminiscing about days long past, Sarah took the Memory Album blocks from their hiding place in the bottom drawer of the large oak desk and divided them evenly among her friends. They also divided up the wings and floors of the manor, and, pens in hand, went forth to collect signatures and messages of love, hope, and congratulations for the bride and groom.

Sarah worked one side of the third-floor west wing while Anna took the other side, but Anna moved from door-to-door more quickly, not only because several of the rooms on her side of the hallway were not yet occupied but also because everyone wanted to chat with the mother of the bride, and they were not about to pass up a rare opportunity when Sarah was not surrounded by well-wishers, as she was likely to be on the day of the wedding. Sarah meant to stop by each room only long enough to explain the project and collect signatures, but she ended up spending ten minutes chatting about Elm Creek Quilts with Leo's sister-in-law, an aspiring quilter; fifteen more talking over old times with her favorite cousin, a children's book illustrator from Duluth; and nearly an hour sitting cross-legged on the bed with her former college roommate, reminiscing about their favorite Penn State experiences—Nittany Lions football games, midnight snacks of grilled sticky buns at The Diner on College Avenue, and Thon, the annual dance marathon dedicated to raising funds to find a cure for pediatric cancer. Enjoying her friend's company and their shared memories of long ago, Sarah quickly lost track of time.

When she finally bade her former roommate good-bye and promised to continue their conversation later, it was time to meet Anna, Gwen, Summer, and the other Elm Creek Quilters in the library. Comparing notes, they discovered that several strokes of bad luck had prevented them from collecting more than a handful of signed blocks apiece. Most knocks on their guests' doors had gone unanswered, since almost everyone was either out visiting with friends elsewhere in the manor or were enjoying the beautiful autumn day by exploring the estate. Maggie had narrowly escaped disaster when she had turned a corner and bumped into Caroline, barely managing to stuff the blocks into her bag before the bride-to-be got a good look at them. When Sarah admitted that a conversation with an old friend had kept her from collecting more signatures, her friends exchanged guilty looks, burst out laughing, and confessed that they, too, had spent more time standing in the hallways chatting with one another than knocking on doors.

“We'll try again this evening, when people are more likely to be in their rooms,” Sarah decided, collecting the blocks, signed and unsigned, and concealing them beneath a few empty folders in the bottom desk drawer. Before their next outing, she would sort the blocks and check off the names of guests they had already reached, so they would know where to focus their attention.