Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters (29 page)

“That’s okay. I didn’t recognize you.” He wrestled in vain with his memory. “You are …?”

“Maggie Flynn.” She held out her hand for him to shake. It was warm and smooth, except for a few quilting calluses on finger and thumb. “I did the Harriet Findley Birch book. The My Journey with Harriet quilts?”

She looked at him hopefully, and he was fervently grateful when his faulty memory suddenly kicked out the details. “Of course. Maggie Flynn.” Now he realized why her appliqué pattern had looked familiar. Elaine had taken a My Journey with Harriet class at a weekend retreat with her quilt guild. Russ still had the twenty or so little blocks in reproduction fabrics she had made from Maggie’s patterns. “You have a legion of followers. You’re a genuine celebrity.”

“Only in the quilting world,” she said, but he could tell she was pleased.

“Are you teaching for a guild in Seattle?”

“No, I’m on my way home. I’ll be in Seattle only long enough to catch a connecting flight to Sacramento. How about you?”

“Seattle’s home for me. I’m just returning from a job interview.” Instinctively, he shook his head to clear it of the memory.

Her eyes widened. “Job interview? Not at Elm Creek Quilt Camp?”

He paused. “You, too?”

She nodded.

“Oh.”

“This is awkward.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Russ quickly assured her. “I don’t stand a chance. Believe me, I’m no longer in contention for the job.”

“Your interview must have gone better than mine. There was this one woman—”

“Diane?”

“Yes! The blonde. What was her problem?”

“I have no idea. I thought she just hated men quilters.”

“Don’t worry; it’s not that. She doesn’t like women quilters, either.” Maggie frowned and laid her quilt block on her tray table. “Or maybe just me.”

Russ couldn’t imagine how anyone could dislike Maggie.

“Maybe it was a set up. Maybe she was there to be the devil’s advocate.” Which meant, of course, that he had fallen for it and failed the test entirely. “Are you a full-time instructor?”

“No, only part-time. I’m a geriatric care manager at Ocean View Hills—it’s a senior citizens’ home in Sacramento.”

“It must be a very tall building to have an ocean view from Sacramento.”

She smiled. “I’ve always thought the name was a bit silly. It won’t matter for much longer, though. It’s closing.”

“That’s too bad.” Russ found himself hoping Maggie had made a better impression on the Elm Creek Quilters than she thought. “You’ll probably get the Elm Creek job. I would think they’d be glad to have you on their staff. Your style is so versatile, and you could lecture on quilt history as well as teach quilting.”

She gave him a rueful half-smile. “That’s what I tried to tell them, but I think Diane was more persuasive.”

“Trust me. After meeting me, Diane probably decided you could be her new best friend.”

“I would put in a good word for you, but that would probably do you more harm than good.”

Russ laughed.

Maggie stared at him, wide-eyed. “You have a nice laugh,” she said softly, and quickly turned her gaze to her sewing, as if embarrassed by what she had said.

Russ was suddenly very glad that he had left Elm Creek Manor early.

He remained in his new seat for the rest of the flight. He and Maggie rejected the painful subject of their interviews and turned to their quilts, favorite quilt shops, industry gossip, quilting friends they had in common, their families. 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.

Russ intended to walk Maggie to her gate, but he lost her in the disembarking crowd after returning to his original seat for his carry-on. He was disappointed, but at least he had her card. He would email her from home.

He was almost to the security checkpoint when he turned around.

He found her flight on the monitor and raced to the departing gate. “Maggie,” he called, finding her in the line to the jetway. She looked his way, and her face lit up with surprise and, he hoped, pleasure. “Russ?”

“I’m coming through California this week on a teaching tour,” he said. “Can we get together? Coffee, or dinner, or something?”

“I’d like that,” she said. “Call me. Or email me. One or the other.”

“I will.”

She nodded and turned away to hand her boarding pass to the gate attendant. She glanced over her shoulder at him and waved, hesitating a moment before disappearing down the jetway.

“I’ll see you next week,” Russ called, but she was already gone.

G
retchen rose carefully so she would not jostle her husband, still asleep on his side of the bed, supported with pillows to relieve pressure on his lower back. As she dressed, she paused to study his face, so dear to her even after forty-two years of marriage. Even in sleep Joe wore a slight grimace of pain. He was so handsome as a young man that all her friends had envied her. On their wedding day, she had considered herself the luckiest woman alive. She still considered herself blessed to have shared so many years with the man she loved, but she no longer believed in luck, good or bad. People made choices and lived with the consequences. Through the years she had discovered that some people had certain advantages that allowed them to escape the worst consequences of their bad decisions, but she wouldn’t call that luck. If she did, she would have to wonder why good luck and bad had not been distributed more equitably, and dwelling upon that was the quickest route to bitterness.

By the time she started cooking breakfast, she heard Joe climbing out of bed—pushing himself to a seated position, swinging his legs to the side, grasping the back of the bedside chair, hauling himself to his feet. Morning was the worst time of the day for her husband, muscles stiff, medication yet to be taken. He hated for her to see him gritting his teeth and struggling to rise, so if he did wake first, he would feign sleep until she slipped downstairs. He didn’t know she knew.

She set his eggs and sausage on the table as he entered the kitchen. “Morning, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her. His cheeks were shaved smooth, his hair carefully combed. He looked as prepared for a day at work as any other husband on the street, even though his commute took him only as far as the garage.

“Morning to you, too.” She poured his coffee and took her own seat to his left. It was a small table, just big enough for two plates, two cups, and a serving dish. Their dining room table sat four comfortably, six if they didn’t mind getting a little cozy. When it was just the two of them, though, it was too much trouble to clear off her fabric and sewing machine three times a day.

“I forgot to tell you,” said Joe, buttering a slice of toast. “Clyde came around yesterday to see if we wanted to meet him and Jan at the fish fry at the VFW tonight.”

“I can’t,” said Gretchen. “Heidi’s having a party. She wants me to come by and help out beforehand.”

Joe frowned. “Will you still be on the clock or is this volunteer work?”

“Oh, Joe, don’t start.”

“All I’m saying is that she can afford to hire help. She doesn’t need to draft you into service unless she’s going to pay for it.”

“I work for Heidi and you know it.” Gretchen tried to sound reasonable, but it was exasperating that they still argued over this. “My family has always worked for hers. I don’t think she could manage without me.”

“Darn right she couldn’t, which is why she should pay you what you’re worth.” He set down his coffee cup with a bang, a mulish look in his eye. “If I could work, you could quit your job and tell Heidi to stick it where—”

“I like my job,” Gretchen reminded him. “I don’t want to quit working. The quilt shop is like a second home to me.”

“At least you could drop all the extra fetching and carrying and cleaning.”

Gretchen bristled with annoyance—in part because she knew he was right. She liked Heidi, but it was often inconvenient to pick up Heidi’s dry cleaning on her way in to work, or collect her mail and newspapers while her family was away on a Caribbean cruise, or to help the housekeeper clean Heidi’s grand home in Sewickley for a party to which Gretchen would never be invited as a guest. “It’s all part of the job,” she said. “I prefer to think of it as helping out a friend.”

Joe grunted, and Gretchen knew what he was thinking: In Heidi’s eyes, Gretchen was closer to a servant than a friend.

Perhaps Heidi did not consider Gretchen a friend, but through the years, Gretchen had learned that a shared history was as important as affinity. Perhaps more so. As people who had known her since childhood grew scarcer, they became more precious, even if they were not the same people who made her laugh or whose company she most enjoyed. And if nothing else, Gretchen and Heidi shared a history, one that had begun before they were born.

When Gretchen’s grandmother emigrated from Croatia, she lived with a cousin’s family and found a job at a butcher’s in the strip district in Pittsburgh. Because she was pretty, clean, and good with sums, she was occasionally told to ride on the wagon to make deliveries to the fine houses in Sewickley on the other side of the river. On one occasion she met Heidi’s great-grandmother, who sized her up as a quiet, industrious sort of girl and hired her to replace her second housemaid, whom she had recently fired for theft. Gretchen’s grandmother was almost let go herself when the lady of the house discovered she spoke only rudimentary
English, but she relented at the recommendation of the housekeeper, who appreciated a hardworking girl who would not talk back. Gretchen’s grandmother was relieved to stay; the work was hard, but no more so than at the butcher’s, and in the Albrechts’ house, she had her own bed in a small, third-floor room she shared with the other housemaid.

Years later she married, but continued to live with and work for the Albrechts until well into her first pregnancy. When her own children were old enough, she returned to work as a housekeeper for her original employer’s daughter, now married with a baby of her own. Gretchen’s mother left school after the eighth grade to work alongside her mother, eventually taking over her position when her mother grew too old for the arduous labor. She married a steelworker and moved into a small house on a hill in Ambridge, where Gretchen was born a year later.

Gretchen was six when Heidi was born, and she remembered her mother leaving before dawn to catch the bus to Sewickley, where she bathed Heidi, fed her breakfast, and, in later years, escorted her to school. While Heidi was at school, Gretchen’s mother tended the Albrecht home, hurrying to finish the work before it was time to walk Heidi home and prepare the family’s supper. She returned home to her own family after dark, exhausted, but still eager to hear about her daughter’s day. As soon as Gretchen was old enough, she learned to start supper early so her mother could put up her feet for a little while before Gretchen’s father returned home from the steel mill.

Gretchen listened with amazement to the stories her mother told of little Heidi: the extravagant birthday parties, the closets full of dresses, the ridiculously inappropriate gifts Mr. and Mrs. Albrecht showered upon her. “A string of pearls for a four-year-old,” she marveled one Christmas, “when all the poor little dear wants is their attention.”

Gretchen did not think Heidi was a poor little dear. Heidi had
everything—pretty clothes, a big house, and Gretchen’s mother at her beck and call. If that wasn’t enough for her, she was just being selfish.

Perhaps her mother sensed Gretchen’s feelings, because when school ended for the summer the year she turned twelve, her mother received permission to bring Gretchen along with her to the Albrecht home. Mrs. Albrecht may have assumed Gretchen was there to begin learning the duties she would one day take over, but Gretchen knew her mother wanted to teach her only that Heidi’s life was not one to covet. It was true that the Albrechts had come down in the world somewhat since Gretchen’s grandmother’s day, but they still lived in a large, luxurious house in one of Sewickley’s most prestigious neighborhoods. Gretchen’s mother as well as a cook, gardener, and driver waited upon them.

Six years Heidi’s elder, Gretchen was more of a caregiver than a playmate to the younger girl, and she learned quickly to give in to Heidi’s demands rather than try to teach her to share or to play nicely. The first time she told Heidi not to boss her around, Heidi burst into tears and fled to her mother, who was entertaining guests and was greatly annoyed by the interruption. It was Gretchen’s mother she scolded, however, rendering Gretchen heartsick with shame. She did not make that mistake again, and eventually she convinced herself that Heidi could be a happy, charming girl if given her own way.

Since Gretchen was six years ahead of Heidi in school and an able student, she naturally slipped into the role of Heidi’s tutor. It was then that Heidi’s mother began to take more notice of her, complimenting a flattering change in hair style or suggesting she “smarten herself up a bit.” “You’re becoming a young lady,” she said once. “Why don’t you take some of your wages and buy yourself a pretty dress?” Relieved to have Heidi taken off her hands, she hurried off without waiting for a reply. Gretchen would have explained, if Mrs. Albrecht had let her, that the clothes her
mother sewed for her suited her just fine, and she preferred to save her money for college. After discovering how much her tutoring had helped Heidi, she had contemplated becoming a teacher.

Gretchen made the mistake of confiding her plans to Heidi, who immediately decided that she wanted to be a teacher, too. Her declaration mystified Mrs. Albrecht, who could not fathom how such an idea would have entered her daughter’s head. To her credit, Heidi did not reveal the source of her inspiration, not to spare Gretchen a reprimand but for the thrill of keeping a secret from her parents. Gretchen should have known better than to mention her private wish in Heidi’s presence. Whenever she invented a game or made a joke, Heidi claimed it as her own, embellishing it for her parents, who praised her for her cleverness. If Gretchen happened to admire a dress in a storefront window, within days she saw Heidi wearing a younger girl’s version of it to school. Gretchen’s mother told her she ought to be flattered that Heidi admired her so, but Gretchen quietly resented Heidi’s mimicry. Heidi honestly seemed to believe that the ideas and tastes she picked up from Gretchen originated in her own mind, or worse, that Gretchen’s ideas naturally belonged to Heidi, just as Gretchen’s family belonged to the Albrechts.