Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters (34 page)

If not for that quote and the small staff picture, Gretchen would have not appeared in the article at all. No one who read the magazine would suspect her true role at Quilts ’n Things.

Heidi was throwing a Publication Day Party, so Gretchen could not slip on her sweater and walk home to sort things out on her own. Dazed, she moved through the celebrating crowd, accepting their congratulations, autographing the small group picture, helping customers with their purchases, and keeping up appearances. The cash register rarely paused in ringing up sales. The magazine had indeed brought out the quilters, which ultimately was the most important thing. The success of the shop, she reminded herself when she was finally able to escape home, was more important than personal recognition.

Joe did not entirely agree.

He read the article and might have stormed off to the shop to give Heidi a piece of his mind if his old injury had not been acting up, forcing him to lie prone on the sofa and restrict movements.
“How did she do it?” he asked, eyes glittering with barely suppressed rage. “How did she pull this off? You talked to that reporter for hours.”

Gretchen felt dull and tired. “I suppose I didn’t sing my own praises enough.”

“And Heidi exaggerated hers.” He winced as he shifted to his side. “You ought to call that magazine and set them straight.”

“What good would that do?”

“They might print a retraction.”

“And again, what good would that do?” The quilting world ran largely on goodwill. Anything she said against Heidi would make Gretchen seem small and spiteful, and Quilts ’n Things would suffer for it.

“It would set the record straight. Heidi’s taken all the credit.”

“She can have it,” said Gretchen wearily. “I’m still a partner, no matter what the rest of the world thinks.”

But she soon discovered that Heidi was all too willing to believe her own press. In the shop, her requests took on the air of commands. She ignored Gretchen’s recommendations when it came time to order new fabric. She adjusted their schedules so that Gretchen worked every weekend instead of alternating with her as they had always done before. She slipped so naturally into the role of manager that it was difficult to disagree with her without seeming petty. Their other employees did not seem to object to the shift in power, if they even noticed it. Gretchen was struck by the alarming possibility that from their perspective, perhaps nothing had changed. Perhaps this was the way it had always been, and Gretchen was just the last to know.

Gretchen’s love for the quilt shop endured, but she was no longer content. Enjoying her work took more effort, but she put a smile on her face and reminded herself how much better off she was now than she had been as an itinerant quilting instructor and Heidi’s housecleaner.

But she was well aware that Heidi deliberately failed to reorder
bolts of Gretchen’s favorite floral calicos unless a customer made a specific request. She also altered the teaching schedule, assigning more classes to herself and fewer to Gretchen. Gretchen found it difficult to criticize the changes. From an economic standpoint they made perfect sense, as an increasing number of their customers preferred Heidi’s methods. And yet she missed the old days, when she felt more useful, more relevant.

When Heidi began self-publishing a line of original patterns under the Quilts ’n Things name, Gretchen welcomed the new direction for their partnership, hoping that it would renew her creative spark as well as her interest in the job. She missed that sense of anticipation that something unexpected and delightful would be waiting for her when she went into work each day. But when she approached Heidi with two designs that she wanted to publish, Heidi balked. “These are nice quilts,” said Heidi, returning the drawings with an apologetic shrug, “but they don’t really have the right look for the line.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gretchen, hurt.

“Well, they’re kind of old-fashioned, don’t you think? The first three Quilts ’n Things patterns were for brightly colored, fun, modern quilts. Yours are more … retro. You’re locked into this blocky-blocky sampler style, and most quilters have moved beyond that.” Heidi spoke gently, but that took none of the sting from her words. “Why don’t you try to make a more contemporary design, and maybe we can consider publishing that?”

Gretchen tried to convince Heidi that many quilters still enjoyed making samplers, as evidence pointing to the brisk sales within their own shop of books like
Dear Jane, Quilted Diamonds
, and
My Journey with Harriet
. Their customers’ requests that they stock more reproduction fabrics indicated that the “retro” look appealed to quilters as much as contemporary designs did.

When Heidi continued to refuse, Gretchen grew indignant. “I am as much a part of Quilts ’n Things as you are,” she declared.
“A pattern line using the Quilts ’n Things name should represent my style as well as yours.”

Heidi turned away, shaking her head. She busied herself with paperwork on the desk and muttered under her breath.

A word caught Gretchen’s ear. “What did you say?” The office door was open and passing customers might hear, but she did not care.

“I said that you’re the
junior
partner,” said Heidi. “You apparently need the reminder. I can’t put my store’s name to anything I’m not proud of. If you don’t like it, my daughter would be happy to buy out your share, or you can be a silent partner and not come into the shop anymore.”

Shocked, Gretchen could not reply. Heidi studied her for a moment, took her silence as submission, and left Gretchen alone in the office.

Gretchen went home without a word for anyone. She called in sick the next morning and was relieved when one of the part-time employees answered so she did not have to speak to Heidi. Heidi would consider her excuse a lie, but it was not. Gretchen
was
sick-sick at heart, sick and tired. Worst of all was the sinking suspicion that Heidi’s decision was justified. Gretchen’s quilts
were
old-fashioned. She had branched out from her beloved floral calicos in recent years to tone-on-tones and graphic prints, but her quilts were still composed of traditional blocks in traditional layouts. They were beautifully and exquisitely made, if she did say so herself, with perfect points and graceful curves, each tiny piece in its precise and perfect place. But in an age of raw edge appliqué and fusible webbing, none of that seemed to matter anymore.

It was time she faced facts: The quilting world had passed her by. She felt like a mother who had nurtured a child from the utter dependence of infancy through the awkward teenage years only to watch her child suddenly blossom into a Phi Beta Kappa cardiologist or Supreme Court justice or rocket scientist too busy and
too important to call home anymore. She had loved quilting at a time when few others did, but it had grown away from her, and she could not change to keep up with it. A woman like her was fortunate to have any connection at all to the wider quilting world beyond her own sewing machine and lap hoop. She would be a fool to throw that away.

And she had Joe to think about. The years had not been kind to his old injury, and there were days when his back was so stiff and painful that he could not manage his tools. For years he had spoken wistfully of retiring to the country, where he could enjoy his woodworking without the pressure to complete pieces for clients. Gretchen longed to grant him that wish, but they knew they had to remain in the city so Gretchen could work. Retirement was a long time off for both of them. It might never come.

When Gretchen returned to the quilt shop, chastened and resigned, she and Heidi continued on as if their confrontation in the office had never occurred. Perhaps as a conciliatory gesture, from that day forward Heidi worked on the Quilts ’n Things patterns away from the shop, on her own time, and never asked Gretchen to hang the pattern packs on the display rack or to fill Internet orders. Occasionally, Heidi would admire a quilt Gretchen had made and agree to consider it for the Quilts ’n Things pattern line; she must have thought she was being supportive and encouraging, but the sketches and instructions always ended up in Gretchen’s employee mailbox with a brief note of rejection providing only the vaguest of explanations why they were not suitable. Gretchen found Heidi’s ongoing interest painful to bear. It would have been a relief had Heidi stopped asking for submissions they both knew she would eventually reject.

It would have been a greater relief if Heidi had limited their contact to the hours they spent within the store, but apparently that was not to be. Gretchen had worked for Heidi for so long that she could hardly refuse to help when asked, not without putting
greater strain on an already troubled relationship. And if Heidi more frequently asked her to do unpaid favors outside of the quilt shop, Gretchen never acknowledged that she complied because she was the junior partner, or because Heidi’s daughter was waiting in the wings to buy out her share.

On the afternoon of Heidi’s party, Gretchen left one of the part-time employees in charge of closing the shop and ran Heidi’s errands at the dry cleaner’s, the bakery, and the florist. Then it was off to the Muellers’ large home in an arboreal neighborhood of Sewickley, where she found a caterer’s truck in the driveway behind a van bearing the logo of a professional housecleaning service. A bit put out, Gretchen went around to the back of the house to her usual entrance, wondering why Heidi had asked her to come over when she apparently already had sufficient help.

Heidi was in the kitchen instructing the two caterers.

“Gretchen, finally,” she greeted her, taking the dry cleaning. “I’ll run these clothes up to the master suite so you can get started.”

“What do you need me to do?” asked Gretchen. “You seem to have everything covered.”

“You’re right. I’m probably fine, but you know how stressed out I get over Chad’s business parties. It’s easy to throw a get-together for friends, but when the purpose is to impress potential clients …” Heidi ran a beautifully manicured hand through her dark brown pixie cut and sighed. “I still have to shower, and dress, and—well, since you’re here anyway, would you mind taking a walk through the house to make sure everything is spotless? You never know how hired help is going to perform. My mother always said they do worse on important occasions out of spite.”

Gretchen winced, but the caterers and the middle-aged woman scrubbing Heidi’s tile floor did nothing to indicate they had overheard, although they could not have avoided it. “Of course,” she
agreed. Heidi thanked her and hurried off, the recently pressed dress and suit slung over one shoulder, their thin plastic sheathes rustling crisply.

Feeling foolish, Gretchen strolled through the house going through the motions of inspecting the cleaners’ work. Heidi could easily handle the task herself, but perhaps she sought Gretchen’s professional opinion. She found only two problems so minor that they hardly qualified as problems: The shortest of the four cleaners had neglected to dust a high shelf that Gretchen, too, had occasionally missed back in the day, and an old copy of
Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine
had slipped beneath a sofa cushion in the family room.

On a closer look, Gretchen discovered that it was not an old issue, after all, but the most recent. The address label indicated that it was the store copy, from the subscription Heidi had ordered for Quilts ’n Things so the four employees would leave the copies for sale in pristine condition on the racks. They had a longstanding agreement that no one could take the store copy home until everyone else had read it, but Gretchen had never seen this issue. Apparently the rule was flexible where Heidi was concerned.

“Oh, you didn’t need to be that thorough,” said Heidi, entering the room and finding her replacing the cushion. “I can’t imagine our guests will peek under there.”

“Do you mind if I borrow this?” asked Gretchen, holding up the magazine. “The cover quilt is exquisite.”

Heidi’s eyebrows rose in muted incredulity. “It’s a little beyond you, don’t you think?” She gestured for the magazine. “I’m in the middle of an article. I’ll let you have it when I’m finished.”

Gretchen reluctantly handed it over. “The other girls might wonder why it’s not in the break room.”

“Only if you tell them.” Then Heidi smiled. “Oh, come on. I’m not the first to bend the rules a little. I promise I’ll bring it back as
soon as I’m done. There’s a quilt I might want to teach next session. I need to study it for a while and make a sample top.”

“You could just photocopy those pages.”

“Gretchen! I’m surprised at you. That’s a violation of copyright law.”

Gretchen thought the situation was covered under the Fair Use provision, but she did not want to make a fuss that would delay her return home to Joe. She dropped the subject, told Heidi that the cleaners were progressing nicely, and left before Heidi could assign her another errand.

On Monday morning, she opened the store alone and put on a pot of coffee for early bird shoppers. Heidi’s weekends off had extended into Mondays, but Gretchen did not mind. She rather looked forward to days when Heidi was unlikely to stop by. The shipment of
Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine
arrived midmorning, so Gretchen unpacked the boxes and stocked the shelves, admiring the cover quilt anew. She wondered how long Heidi would hold on to the store’s copy and thought of how they always had one or two of the previous month’s issues left over when the new edition arrived.

Surely they could spare one copy, just this once.

At lunchtime, Gretchen left the shop in the care of the part-time helpers, discreetly took a copy of the magazine from the rack, and retired to the break room with her ham sandwich, apple, and pint carton of skim milk. The cover quilt was indeed beyond Gretchen’s abilities, as Heidi had rightly noted; the Grand Prize winner of the Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival had taken its maker nearly eight years to complete. Gretchen would have to content herself with admiring the photograph of the original.

She spent a half hour pleasantly browsing through the magazine, lingering over the classified section, where she often picked up ideas from other shops or found a bargain. A quarter-page ad immediately caught her attention, and she held her breath as she
read that Sylvia Compson’s Elm Creek Quilt Camp was seeking two new teachers.