Skin Deep (14 page)

Garland closed her eyes and cooperated with the kiss. Mmm, nice, but no fireworks…not yet, she hastily amended. Surely they would come soon.

Chapter 8

G
arland mentally ran through her list as she pulled into a parking place on Main Street in Mattaquason. The grocery shopping was done. Now it was the library, Vernon’s Five and Ten for thread, Kathy’s gallery, and the Purser’s Shop, for clothes for Alasdair.

Rob had given Alasdair and Conn the go-ahead to spend more time up and out of bed. Which meant that no matter how handsome Alasdair looked in the robe she’d given him—rather like a figure from a medieval illumination—he needed real clothes.

When he’d come downstairs for the first time, Garland had felt a little like Mrs. Van Winkle introducing Rip to the wonders of modern technology that he’d missed out on during his twenty-year snooze. Even the refrigerator had surprised and confused him though oddly enough, cars and passing airplanes had not. She puzzled over his bizarrely selective technical amnesia as she reminded him not to stand in front of the freezer with the door open when he wanted to cool off. She had measured him because she wasn’t sure that he could handle a shopping trip, even to quiet, off-season Mattaquason.

The sun was finally out after two days of rain that had culminated in a ferocious storm last night. Garland lifted her face to it as she walked. Well, the equinox would be here in a few days. Winter couldn’t last forever. Not even this one.

The woman behind the counter at Vernon’s Five and Ten peered at Garland from behind a pair of enormous glasses. “All-cotton thread? I think so. You’ll have to look. All the dry goods are in aisle three, ‘bout halfway down. Say, are you the lady that’s moved into town with the quilts? I saw that story on you in the paper. My sister-in-law’s a quilter, too. There’s a quilt guild in Brewster she belongs to. You oughtta check it out some time. I’ll tell her you were in here.”

After Garland had found and paid for her thread the clerk gave her a radiant smile and fished out her cell phone. As the door swung shut, Garland could just hear her say, “Maureen? Guess who I just met?”

In the library, Garland returned a book that had somehow been overlooked last August and spent the winter on her bedside table. The volunteer behind the desk looked at the due date stamped in the back and raised her eyebrows.

“Things were a little hectic when I left last summer,” Garland explained defensively.

“Mm-hmm.” The woman scanned the barcode on the book and glanced at the screen on the circulation desk’s computer. “Well, after ten weeks we have a maximum late fine of—oh my goodness, you’re Garland Durrell! You’re on the board of the Friends of the Library, aren’t you? No late fees for you, Mrs. Durrell.” The woman patted her blue-rinsed hair and beamed at her.

“Actually, I’m not on the board any more. I resigned last fall.” Garland dug her wallet out of her handbag to pay the late fee. She’d given up all the board positions she’d formerly held. There would be enough alimony from Derek to live on until she hopefully started selling quilts, but not enough to maintain the high level of charitable giving that being on boards usually entailed.

“I was so sorry to hear that. The library will miss your generosity, especially just now with the anniversary plans heating up for next fall. But your quilting, now—I did enjoy the story in the paper. After I read it I told my husband, ‘I did have to go and have an appointment down in Hyannis with the podiatrist on the day of the Women’s Club meeting and miss seeing Mrs. Durrell’s quilt, didn’t I?’ I suppose I’ll just have to wait for your show this summer.”

“Er, thank you—”

But the woman hadn’t finished. “Aren’t you down on Eldredge Point? How did you weather the storm last night?” She leaned on the counter and spoke in lower tones. “Did you hear about what happened down near Uncle Eb’s Beach? Seems like the wind was just in the right quarter with the waves, and dug the bank on the northern end out in a matter of hours. The Swains’ house went right into the drink. Mr. Swain got out all right but they’re still looking for his wife. They’re both in their eighties and she was dreadfully crippled with arthritis. Just terrible. I’ve always said that building so close to the water is a bad idea. But that house was over a hundred and fifty years old. You would have thought that if something like that were going to happen, it would have happened already. Just terrible,” she said again.

Garland finally escaped after another five minutes of being enthusiastically talked at by the volunteer (“My name’s Shirley. Actually, both of them are. Shirley Shirley. I almost didn’t marry my husband because of it, but I’m used to it now.”) and after having her fourth attempt to pay the late fee refused. She took a few deep breaths on the library steps, then headed for the Purser’s Shop
(Fine Gentlemen’s Clothing, est. 1921.
)

Garland found herself drifting to the soft, handsomely tailored designer-label khakis and pinpoint-weave button-down shirts rather than the more utilitarian athletic pants and sweatshirts she’d intended to buy. Somehow sweats and Alasdair just didn’t go together. He was too elegant, too unconsciously dignified, even when peering in amazement at the toaster as it popped his sixth piece of toast into the air.

In the end, she bought the khakis and oxfords, some soft cotton shirts and pants for Conn and, after much internal argument, a deep green cashmere sweater. She soothed her conscience with the fact that it had been marked down substantially in preparation for the summer season and tried not to think too much about a cashmere-covered Alasdair as she handed the sales clerk her credit card.

The elderly clerk swiped her card through the slot in the register and glanced at it as she handed it back to her. “Thank you, er—oh, Mrs. Durrell! How nice to meet you.”

Garland smiled, groaning inwardly. There wouldn’t be any escaping that
Mariner
article, would there? She put the shopping bags in her car and fished a different bag out of the back seat, then turned down the hill toward the Captain Hayes Gallery.

The pale sun warmed the salt-weathered, soft gray cedar shingles of the town’s buildings, making them shine like old silver. Here and there withered Christmas greenery, brown and shedding its needles, looped around the windows and doors of shops that had closed for the winter after New Year’s. But in other windows, signs proclaiming “winter clearance sale—must make room for summer merchandise—BIG savings!” blossomed, as sure an indicator of approaching spring on Cape Cod as robins and crocuses.

Just ahead, three slightly swaying figures stood on the sidewalk in front of the Captain’s Bridge, waiting for the pub part of it to begin serving at noon. Fishermen, most likely, come to drink—and in the men’s room, snort or inject—up their paychecks until their next trip out. It wasn’t surprising that one of the most popular bumper stickers in town read
“Mattaquason…a Quaint Drinking Village with a Fishing Problem.”
Garland hurried past them, crossed the street, and blew into the Captain Hayes Gallery on a gust of chilly wind.

“Where’s your winter clearance sale sign?” she asked as the chain of Indian brass bells on the door that announced her arrival shivered into silence.

Kathy looked up from the box of pottery she’d been unpacking. Bits of straw were scattered on the floor around her, making the large white room with pickled wood beams look like an upscale horse barn. “Right there by the door, but it’s written in Farsi,” she said, nodding at a small sign written in flowing, curly script and illuminated with geometric designs in gold, turquoise, and umber.

“Is that what it really says?” Garland put down her bag and studied it.

Kathy rested her elbows on the edge of the box. “No. It actually says, ‘This space intentionally left blank.’ I once had a translator overseas who shared my sense of humor. She had her uncle make it for me. So have you been hitting the boutiques, you crazy shopping diva?”

Garland hated shopping, and Kathy knew it. “Not particularly, unless the Five and Ten counts as a boutique,” she replied lightly. Hopefully no one would tell Kathy she’d been buying men’s and boys’ clothes at the Purser’s Shop. “Honestly, Kathy, I couldn’t so much as poke my head in a shop without someone saying, ‘Oh, you’re Mrs. Durrell.’ That darned article in the paper.”

Kathy chuckled. “Local girl makes good. What did you expect?”

“I’m not local. I’m a lowly summer resident.”

“Not any more you aren’t. People know you from the Historical Society and library. Being successful automatically makes you a local. So what’s in the bag, if you didn’t shop till you dropped?”

“Some new summer merchandise you aren’t having a sale to make room for.”

Kathy jumped up from the floor and dusted the bits of straw from her jeans and Peruvian sweater, eyeing Garland’s bag. “Ah! Some merchandise? You have more than one?”

Garland smiled and held the bag out to her, then sat down on one of the old church benches scattered around the gallery. Kathy made little sounds like a contented hen as she held up the now quilted and bound landscape quilt.

“I see you figured out how to use your quilt machine pretty quickly. Dammit, Garland, how did you manage to quilt wind into this thing?” Kathy made her stand holding up the quilt and backed several paces away. “Just amazing. Guess I can put the sign up, then.”

“What sign?” Garland peered around the edge of the quilt.

“This one. Much better than ‘winter clearance’, don’t you think?” Kathy went over to the old desk that served as her sales counter. She held up a small, discreetly lettered sign that read “Quilts by Garland Durrell.”

Garland stared at it until the letters started to blur and look like they spelled something else. That was her. Her name. Her quilts. People wanted to come see her quilts. The ones that she’d made. They weren’t sulking that her quilting took up too much time or clogged their sinuses with dust. They liked them.

Kathy was still talking. “—must say, it was nice of Helen Foster to agree to let the quilt hang here for a couple of weeks before she comes to get it. It’s hard to advertise if I’ve got nothing to advertise with.”

Garland came back to reality. “You mean you already sold it?”

“I told you that I had a standing order from Sonya Feinberg’s friend in New York. And from her friend what’s-her-name as well. Lord, I’ll have to call her and let her know she’s got a quilt if she wants it. If she wants it.” Kathy snorted. “Agreeing to pay a thousand dollars for a quilt she hadn’t even seen yet…I’ll guess she wants it. She knows someone else will be looking over her shoulder, ready to snap it up if she doesn’t.”

“A thousand dollars?”
Garland let the quilt slide to the ground and groped for the bench.

“That was the price both of ‘em suggested. Who was I to disagree? Hey, careful with that thing. That’s the first payment on our condos in Maui.” Kathy snatched the quilt from her and folded it carefully. “You heard me, sweetie. You turned some fabric from your stash and a few hours’ work into two quilts and two grand. Now let’s have a look at the rest.” She stepped back, looking expectant.

Garland bent automatically and lifted the second quilt from the bag. Her brain was spinning, trying to take in Kathy’s words. Two thousand dollars? Kathy had sold two forty-by-forty wall quilts for two thousand dollars? “Are you sure about this?” she said from behind the second quilt. “Surely they must have meant a hundred dollars.”

Kathy didn’t answer.

“Kathy?”

“God damn it,” said Kathy’s voice, a moment later. She sounded distinctly shaky. “I should have asked for five thousand dollars each.”

Garland lowered the quilt and looked down at it. She’d used the same idea and scene as the first quilt, but this time the weather was different. Instead of sparkling, dancing waves, fog drifted across the landscape in moist, gray billows. The islands in the background loomed ominously out of the mist. “I like the silver thread I used to quilt some of it with,” she said. “It adds a nice touch.”

“Nice touch,” Kathy echoed weakly. “It’s a damned good thing this isn’t a bed quilt, because whoever slept under it would wake up sopping wet and with galloping rheumatism. My God, Garland, don’t ever make a quilt of hell or we’ll have the pope himself knocking on our door wanting to do an exorcism.”

Garland laughed. “Oh, come on. It’s just fabric. Aren’t you getting a little carried away?”

“Me and the entire Mattaquason Women’s Club and three extremely knowledgeable New York art collectors? I know they’re just fabric, Garland. It’s how you choose the colors of the fabric and put them together and—I don’t know. They’re something else too. They’re like a window into the essence of what they depict.” She stepped forward and touched the surface of the quilt, then rubbed her fingers together. “I could almost swear it was wet.”

“Then you may want scuba gear for this one.” Garland put the fog quilt down and bent to the bag again.

“Another? Busy little bee, aren’t you?” Kathy’s voice was light, but her expression was avid as Garland rose and unfolded the last quilt.

“And?” she asked, holding up Conn’s fish quilt.

This time, Kathy laughed out loud. “Well, that does it. You’ve just gone and guaranteed your popularity in this town.”

Garland smiled to herself above the quilt. “I did it mostly for fun.”

Kathy shook her head. “Watch this.” She took the quilt, went to the window by the door, and pinned it to the display board there, right over a selection of Indonesian carved teak plaques. Then she went out the door, leaving it open.