Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters (27 page)

“Elaine would have loved this,” said Christine. “She would have been so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” said Russ. He felt Elaine’s presence so strongly then that he could not manage to say more.

Two weeks after the exhibit closed, Russ heard about an opening at Elm Creek Quilt Camp from a posting on the QuiltArt Internet list. Grace Daniels, a friend who was a museum curator in San Francisco, attended camp there every summer and gave it glowing reviews. He checked out their website and mulled it over for a few days before deciding to apply. He had all of the materials they
wanted, so it was easy to assemble the application packet and send it off. A few weeks later when they called to invite him to Pennsylvania for an interview, he was away from home, teaching a series of workshops in Oregon and Idaho. He returned the message from the road; he and an Elm Creek Quilter named Sarah McClure quickly settled upon a date for the interview.

Sarah McClure also gave him an assignment: to design a quilt block pattern suitable as an emblem of Elm Creek Quilts. He didn’t have the slightest idea how to begin. While he had many original designs saved on his computer, it would take a huge stretch of the imagination to believe any represented a quilters’ retreat.

He went to Elaine’s quilt studio and studied her fabric stash, hoping inspiration would strike. Elms meant leaves, bark, twigs—he pulled shades of green and brown from the shelves. A creek meant flowing water, whorls, eddies, pebbles on a creek bed—he selected blue, white, and gray. He tossed the folded fabric bundles onto the floor at random, taking in the colors and thinking.

The obvious answer was to put together some kind of pictorial appliqué block with elm trees, a creek, and a big stone manor like the one in the photograph on the website, but he had never tried that kind of appliqué and doubted a project so important should be his first attempt. Besides, the Elm Creek Quilters were probably familiar with his signature style and wanted to see how he could adapt it to their request and to the significantly smaller canvas. This was a test of his imagination and versatility, and he would lose points if he took an easier way out.

Since everyone else would probably appliqué elm leaves and creeks, he ought to focus on another aspect of Elm Creek Quilt Camp. Above all else, his Internet acquaintance who attended each year praised the camaraderie that developed among all the quilters, strangers as well as old friends. He knew something about that. It had not been easy to break into the traditional female
world of quilting, but once he had, he had forged strong friendships there. Without them, he might never have survived the aching loneliness of life after Elaine.

After a few aborted attempts, he struck upon a design that represented, to him at least, the power of quilting to forge community. He chose shades of green, blue, and brown, layered them with white, and cut narrow strips on the diagonals. He swapped out fabrics and sewed the squares and rectangles together in a design that resembled banners of those four colors flowing from the corners of the block to the center, where they met and appeared to weave together. To him, the pattern symbolized the power of quilting to draw together people of disparate ages, races, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and genders, united by their passion for their art.

It occurred to him that his design might be too abstract for the Elm Creek Quilters’ purpose; he could not imagine them actually using it as a symbol for the quilt camp. He had already failed the assignment in that respect. Still, it was an honest response to what the ideal of Elm Creek Quilt Camp meant to him, so he decided it was good enough.

A few weeks later, he flew into Pittsburgh, rented a car, and drove through the rolling, forested Appalachians into the valleys of central Pennsylvania. Though he had lectured in Lancaster twice, he had never been to this part of the state, and he now understood why Grace had warned him to allow plenty of time and to bring a map. Sarah’s directions were fine until he left the interstate, but they fell apart not long after the Waterford city limits. He was supposed to look for a rural road through the woods marked by a small wooden sign for Elm Creek Manor. The turnoff had no name that Sarah knew of, so she had warned him to watch his odometer and go by the mileage rather than road signs.

When he arrived at the place where the gravel road was supposed to be, he found nothing but dense woods. He drove another
mile, then turned around and backtracked until he started seeing signs for Waterford College again. Sighing in frustration, he turned the car around and drove back the other way, monitoring the odometer more carefully and driving more slowly as the mile approached. This time, a young woman stood on the grassy shoulder between the road and a narrow gravel driveway where the road to Elm Creek Manor ought to be, but he saw no sign.

“That can’t be it,” he muttered, driving on. Sarah had said that the road was not paved, but that strip of dirt and rocks couldn’t possibly accommodate the kind of traffic a thriving business would generate. It must be the young woman’s driveway, he thought, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. And if it was, he thought, turning the car around yet again, she ought to know the right way.

“Excuse me,” he called to the young woman, slowing the car nearly to a stop. She was strikingly pretty, with big brown eyes and dark brown hair pulled back into a thick braid that hung to the middle of her back. She looked to be in her early thirties. “I’m looking for the road to Elm Creek Manor. Do you know where it is?”

The young woman bit her lip and stepped aside, revealing the missing sign. “It’s that way,” she said, gesturing to the narrow strip of gravel leading into the woods. “Sorry for blocking the sign.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Russ, smiling. “This isn’t the first time I’ve missed it. Thanks.”

She nodded and gave an apologetic wave as he drove into the woods. The road wasn’t as bad as it had looked from the highway, but it still was only barely passable. If an oncoming car suddenly appeared, one of them would have to pull off into the trees. He decided he would volunteer. His car was a rental.

The pretty girl standing by the sign … He wondered what she was doing there, waiting alone by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Was she a camper? He should have offered her a
ride to the manor just in case. He felt a sudden surge of protectiveness for the girl. Something in her wary manner made him instinctively associate her with Carly, though they looked nothing alike. When he had first met Carly she had been so defensive, so purposefully aloof, so bruised by her father’s abandonment. She had needed years to accept that Russ would not also leave her. Now she was a mother herself, and her little son called him Pop-pop, for grandpa.

He wished Elaine could have been there to hold her first grandchild within an hour of his birth, as Russ had.

The narrow road wound through the trees and opened into a clearing, an orchard to the west, a red barn built into the side of a hill on the right. Russ followed the road up the low slope and around the barn until it ended in a driveway at the rear of the manor. He parked the car, took his briefcase in hand, and climbed the back stairs to the rear door. It swung open before he could knock. A woman exiting the manor glanced at his raised hand and smiled. “Just go on in,” she said. “Everyone does. You don’t need to knock.”

Russ took her advice and found himself in an empty hallway that dead-ended into another passage a few yards ahead. A frenzied buzz drew his attention to a doorway on his left, which turned out to be the entrance to the kitchen. A timer complained on the countertop, and the aroma of baked chicken filled the room. Next to a 1940s era stove, he saw a doorway leading to a brightly lit room.

“Hello?” he called. “Uh … your timer went off.” When no one responded, he crossed the kitchen and peered inside a small, sunny sitting room. No one was within.

He turned off the buzzer and hesitated, wondering if he should take out whatever was inside the oven or at least turn down the heat. He might end up ruining the meal rather than salvaging it, though, so he left it alone and went to look for the missing cook.

He strode down the hallway and took a right at the intersection. He had almost reached an impressive front foyer when a door opened in front of him. A tall, silver-haired woman with just the slightest stoop to her shoulders stepped into the hallway, chatting with a much younger woman with glasses and long brown hair.

“Excuse me,” said Russ.

The two women stopped so suddenly that someone else trying to leave the room crashed into them from behind. “Ouch,” complained the woman Russ could not see.

“May I help you?” inquired the older woman.

Russ jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I just passed by the kitchen. A timer was going off.”

“My chicken,” exclaimed the younger woman. She sprinted past Russ toward the kitchen.

The older woman sighed and turned to address someone behind her. “We can’t manage like this much longer.”

“We’re pitiful,” said a shorter, stockier woman as she emerged from the room. Her long red hair was streaked with gray. “It’s only been a week and we’re falling apart. Oh. Hello,” she said, spotting Russ. “You must be Russ.”

“How did you know?” he asked. He was sure he had never met her before.

“We don’t get your kind around here much. And I recognize you from the photos in your book.” She extended her hand. “I’m Gwen Sullivan, Elm Creek Quilter.”

He shook her hand. “Russ McIntyre.”

“Mr. McIntyre,” said the older woman. “What a pleasure it is to meet you. Welcome to Elm Creek Manor. I’m Sylvia Compson.”

“Thank you. Please, call me Russ.”

The woman smiled graciously. “Russ it is, then. Allow me to introduce my colleagues.” She introduced him to four other women as one by one they entered the hallway. Each shook his hand and
greeted him in a friendly way, except for a pretty blonde who scowled and squeezed his hand too hard as if she had something to prove.

Great
, he thought as he shook her hand and forced a cordial smile. Another woman quilter who resented men for invading her domain.

Sylvia Compson explained that they were taking a break after interviewing other applicants and that she would have just enough time to show him around the estate while the other Elm Creek Quilters returned to their classrooms. “Perhaps we should start there,” she suggested, and led him across the three-story tall, marble-floored foyer into a large ballroom that had been subdivided into classrooms by movable partitions. When Grace had described the arrangement in her last email, he had had some concerns about noise levels and space. As he looked around, he observed students setting up workstations in some of the classrooms, talking and laughing together, clearly enjoying themselves. They didn’t seem bothered by the lack of isolated classrooms; if anything, the arrangement seemed to foster a more collegial atmosphere.

Part of the ballroom had not been partitioned off. Beyond the classrooms, Sylvia showed Russ an open gathering space framed by tall windows and a raised dais along the far wall. A group of women had gathered there, and they sat listening attentively to a slight, gray-haired woman in a gray skirt and blue cardigan. One of the Elm Creek Quilters, Russ assumed, watching as the older woman gestured to a quilt the other women held outspread and talked about its design. He waited for Sylvia to introduce them, but when she just watched the woman, quietly thoughtful, he examined the quilt, a traditional block repeated in a traditional horizontal setting. If this was the kind of quilt Elm Creek Quilts expected from its teachers, he was out of luck.

The older woman glanced over her shoulder at them once, but
did not break off her conversation or otherwise acknowledge Sylvia except for a slightly guilty look she threw her before turning back to the campers. Russ thought that a bit odd, but Sylvia did not seem to mind. Instead she resumed the tour, taking him next to the dining room, where more than a dozen tables had already been set for dinner. “Sarah did invite you to stay for supper, didn’t she?” she asked.

“She did, but I have to leave right after my interview to catch a flight home.”

“You mean you won’t even spend the night?”

Russ shrugged. “I wish I could, but I have a few speaking engagements in California beginning tomorrow.”

“My goodness, you’re popular. Not even a day off to rest between trips.”

“I can rest on the plane. But that’s part of the appeal of working here. I could let the students come to me for a change.”

Sylvia nodded thoughtfully and continued the tour of the first floor, then led him up a carved oak staircase to show him an example of their guest rooms and the business office, a large library spanning the entire width of the south wing. Light spilled in through tall diamond-paned windows on the east, west, and south walls. Between the windows stood tall bookcases, shelves heavy with leather-bound volumes. A stone fireplace nearly as tall as Russ’s shoulder dominated the south wall. Two armchairs and footstools sat before it, while more chairs and sofas were arranged in a square in the center of the room. Nearby, parallel to the western wall, was a broad oak desk cluttered with paperwork and computer peripherals, a tall leather chair pulled up to it.

The library, Sylvia told him, was where the Elm Creek Quilters conducted camp business, but it was primarily Sarah McClure’s domain. She handled all their finances, marketing, and operations, allowing her co-director, Summer Sullivan, to concentrate on curriculum, faculty, and anything associated with the Internet.
“But Summer is leaving us for graduate school soon,” said Sylvia with a sigh. “We will miss her dearly.”

Russ nodded and made a mental note to mention his considerable Internet experience during the interview.

Next Sylvia showed him the estate grounds, which included the barn he had passed as he drove to the house, most of the woods, the orchard, and several gardens. He was amazed to learn that the estate was tended by only one caretaker and a few seasonal gardeners.
At last, other men
, he thought with relief as Sylvia introduced him to Matt McClure and his staff. It was probably too much to hope that one or two of them quilted.