Touching Stars (7 page)

Gayle put her arm around Helen’s shoulders for a casual hug. “Well, I’m glad you’re making up for it now.” She greeted the other women, then gave them a brief history of the inn as together they strolled around to the patio.

Cissy seemed the most interested, asking questions as they went. “How many guests do you have?”

“We have room for sixteen, and by early fall we’ll have room for four more, including a couple of children. That’s really all two wells and my sanity can handle.”

Cissy asked a few more questions, and by the time they had finished a brief tour of the first floor, Gayle had shown everyone the basics as well as most of the star quilts in her collection.

“I got the idea for using them as a theme when I found a couple of old ones in the top of a closet,” she said as they started back toward the morning room. “Coupled with the name of the inn, it made sense.”

“What happened to those old quilts?”

“I have them carefully stored, but since they were mostly red and green I bring them out at Christmas for a brief showing. They’re not that well done, but they’ve been here longer than I have.”

“As old quilts go, sounds like yours are being treated well,” Helen said.

They ended in the morning room, where Noah was waiting. Gayle introduced him to the two women who hadn’t officially met him at church.

“Let me make sure Zeke got all the parts out of his pickup.” Helen walked around the pile of wood with a couple of sawhorses beside it, making a silent inventory. “Looks like it’s all here.”

“We were going to set up a new one,” Cissy said. “Like the one Ms. Henry uses at home.”

“We all went and got spoiled,” Helen said. “These new frames with rollers, so you don’t have to baste? I like to had a heart attack the first time I saw one, on account of what my mama and her friends would have thought of it. Now, though, I figure they’d think I was touched in the head not to use the best there is. But it’s harder to sit a number of people around one, that’s a fact. So we’re doing this the old-fashioned way.”

“Authenticity,” Cathy Adams said. “It’ll give your guests a look at the way it used to be done. And still is by a lot of people.”

For the next ten minutes, they efficiently set up the frame, working as if they’d practiced together many times. Helen supervised as they positioned poles beside square notches at the top of the sawhorses. The poles had muslin stapled along their length, and she understood why a few minutes later, when Kate and Cissy went back to the station wagon and returned with the Touching Stars quilt.

The quilt—a sandwich with the pieced top and plain backing as bread and the batting as filling—was basted every four or so inches with plain white thread and oversize stitches. The women centered it on the frame and sewed the shorter end of the quilt to the muslin stapled to the poles. Gayle glanced at Noah, who had done his share of the setting up, and saw how interested he was.

“Pretty cool, huh?” she said.

“Shows you what people can do without a lot of money,” he replied.

“Now that’s a fact,” Helen said. “Just about anybody could find enough wood to put one of these together. Primitive, maybe, but it gets the job done. My mama made dozens of quilts on a frame like this one.”

Peony and Cathy positioned the sawhorses so they were set farther apart than the finished quilt; then, carefully, Kate and Noah placed one of the poles into the square notches, where it snuggled perfectly. Peony and Cathy began to roll the other side of the quilt around the second pole, until they had it as tight as they wanted it. Then they dropped that one in the second notch.

“What are they doing now?” Noah asked Helen as the women wound folded muslin strips in and out of the sawhorse and along the side, pinning them along the other two edges of the quilt.

“That’ll keep it nice and tight while we quilt. You don’t pay attention to that and to keeping it straight, your quilt’ll make you seasick, all wavy edges. Now, a new frame, wouldn’t be no need for all this fussing. But this is the old way, when women quilted together whenever they could grab the time.”

Now that the quilt was tight on the frame, Noah bent over it, examining the multiple stars that were still in view.

“This is something else,” he said. “Look at all those diamonds.”

“You like quilts?” Peony asked, straightening from her stint at wrapping and pinning the muslin.

“We have enough around here, I guess.”

“Never enough. And once we’re done, you’ll have another one.” Helen wandered over to the wall and stared at a series of framed objects. “Well, will you look at these?”

Gayle followed. “They’re pieces of an old quilt from the homestead across the river. My neighbor, Travis Allen, gave them to me. Said they belonged over here with all my other quilts.”

“How’d he come by them?”

“Back in the days when the Allens still owned the property, the house was collapsing. A couple of times hunters used the remaining shell for shelter and started campfires inside, and the roof was caving in. Travis’s father decided he had to finish the job or worry about a lawsuit. There wasn’t much there, but he saved what he could. He found the quilt in an old chest. The rest of it more or less disintegrated when he picked it up, but he was able to salvage these scraps. Travis gave them to me when he came home to stay.”

Helen leaned closer to examine one piece. The section of quilt was about nine inches by eleven, matted on black. The colors were faded, but greens and golds were still discernible. “It’s probably a piece of a star, the tip of one arm.” She pointed to another piece of what looked like plain muslin, which was now a pale, splotchy blue. “And that was probably the center, where all the arms come together.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I had a professional frame them to protect them as much as we could. But I didn’t want to tuck the scraps in a drawer. I wanted people to enjoy them before they turn to dust.”

“You notice some of the fabrics we used in your quilt look like these? Most likely this was a real Civil War quilt. About that time, anyway. Not much to look at now, but it might have been a real beauty all those years ago.”

Noah joined them. “Are you going to teach people how to quilt while you’re here?”

“Anybody who wants a try at it’s welcome.”

“Noah can sew,” Gayle said. “All my boys had to learn. I don’t have time to do their mending. Or the talent.”

“I’ve seen some fine quilts made by men,” Helen told Noah. “It’s an art form like any. You want to give it a try, I’ll be glad to teach you.”

“You’d better watch out, son,” a voice said from the doorway. “If you get too good with a needle, some people are going to question your masculinity.”

Gayle knew Eric’s remark was meant as a joke. She turned to beckon Eric, clad in gray sweats, into the room to meet their guests, but Noah looked straight at his father.

He didn’t smile. “I’ve got a pretty good idea what a real man looks like, and I know for sure he doesn’t have to keep proving who he is over and over again.”

If Eric realized how directly Noah had insulted him, he gave no sign. He turned to Gayle. “What’s going on?”

“The church quilting bee’s going to be here this summer working on this quilt for the entryway. The guests will love it. Let me introduce you.”

She started with Helen, who didn’t blink. Anyone who watched the news knew the story of Eric’s escape from almost certain death, and his was a familiar face under better circumstances, as well. But Helen had no interest in celebrity.

“I know your sons are glad to have you here,” she said, sticking out her hand for a brief handshake. “Just don’t you interfere with making this one a quilter.”

Eric laughed, and they shook. The other women were not quite so blasé. Cathy, who had a son in the National Guard, told Eric she appreciated what he and his colleagues went through to bring them the news. Kate and Peony told him how glad they were he was okay.

Eric managed to be charming, but Gayle could see even this minimal effort was wearing him down. As soon as the good wishes ended, she put her hand on Noah’s shoulder.

“Help your dad get settled out on the porch, please. And get him something to eat if he’s ready.”

For the briefest moment she thought he was going to refuse. Noah, the son she could always count on to help her. His gaze flicked to his father; then he shrugged. He turned to Helen. “I’ll be back for a lesson once you get started.”

“I’m counting on you, boy.”

Gayle watched the two Fortman men walk out together. She hoped she hadn’t made a bad situation worse.

“We need to be going,” Helen said. “We just wanted to get all set up.”

“There’s a graduation party here tonight, but I plan to lock the doors to this room. The quilt will be all ready for you next week.”

The women gathered purses and said their goodbyes. Cissy lagged behind with Gayle. Once the others were far enough ahead that they couldn’t hear, she put her hand on Gayle’s arm to stop her.

“I have something to give you,” she said.

Gayle waited as Cissy pulled a white envelope out of a tote bag. “It’s my résumé. There’s not a lot on it, I guess. Probably not nearly as much as I’d need for this job, but I just want you to know I’m interested.”

Gayle’s mind had been with Noah and Eric on the porch, and for a moment she didn’t understand. Finally she realized what Cissy meant. “The job here?”

“I saw your advertisement on a bulletin board over in Woodstock.”

“But you have Helen to worry about. And Reese…”

“Marian—my mother-in-law Marian—says she’ll take Reese while I’m working, and she’ll be in preschool over at the church five mornings a week starting in the fall. Helen, well, she doesn’t need me during the day. You want the truth, I think she’d like some hours all to herself. We get along real well, but it’s a lot for her to have us and Reese. Reese, well, she’s not the quietest little girl the stork ever dropped down a chimney.”

Gayle had to smile. Reese was a child with a well-defined personality.

Encouraged, Cissy continued. “I know I’m young, and my education, well, it’s spotty. But I got my diploma and took a few college courses on the Internet. I read all the time, and I’ve worked on my grammar, and I like people.”

Cissy was still so young, Gayle just couldn’t imagine it. But she knew one thing: she owed this girl the formality of an interview. Cissy had come so far against such odds, and Gayle didn’t want to discourage her.

“I’ll look this over,” she said. “Will you have time next week to come in and talk some more?”

“Whenever you say.”

“Let’s plan for that, then.”

Cissy’s lovely face grew lovelier as she smiled. “I do appreciate it.”

“So where’s everybody else?” Eric asked Noah. “I didn’t mean to sleep so late and miss everyone.”

Noah didn’t look at him. “Jared took off a while ago. He’s gone more than he’s here. Dillon’s around somewhere. What can I get you?”

Eric patted the rocker beside his. “Why don’t you sit a little while and enjoy the view with me? I ate those great pancakes somebody left. Did you make them?”

“Jared did. He’s made them for you before, but you probably don’t remember.”

Eric heard the barb in what on the surface sounded like a simple explanation.
He
probably didn’t remember because
he
probably hadn’t paid much attention at the time. Just the way he rarely paid attention to anything that was happening in the lives of his sons.

“It’s cool for early summer.” Eric put his hands behind his head and stared out at the river glimmering in the distance. Small talk was an effort, but he wanted to try. “The weather’s as close to being perfect as I’ve ever seen it.”

He waited for Noah to sit, and finally his patience was rewarded. But the boy didn’t reply.

Eric tried another gambit. “It’s going to feel odd, isn’t it, to have Jared gone next year. You two are good friends.”

“We fight like all brothers.”

Eric glanced at Noah, who was staring into the distance. He had matured, not as remarkably as Jared, but adulthood was looming. Still, there was a natural affability that would not change with age. Under most circumstances he was both approachable and sympathetic. Eric wondered if this son was learning to discern the difference between people he should trust and people he should not.

Perhaps he was, because it was clear he didn’t trust his father.

“I used to fight with my sisters, but most of the time they were right and I wasn’t.” Eric smiled in encouragement. “I’m sure you can’t say the same thing.”

“I doubt the way you grew up has much to do with the way I have.”

“Well, I had both parents in residence, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I mean Jared and I might fight sometimes, but we’re close.” Noah turned to look at his father. “He’s not going to go off and pretend I don’t exist.”

“Wow, the arrows are coming from all directions this morning. Apparently ducking isn’t an option.”

“It’s just a fact. You’re not close to your sisters or your parents.”

Or his kids. Tarred with the same brush. Eric felt more tired than he had on waking, but he realized he could at least explain this much.