The Fortune Quilt (17 page)

“Sweetheart,” Brandy says. “It’s Thanksgiving. You’ll never get through it unless you start drinking early. But you have to do it right - no more than one glass of wine per hour, and you must have at least 8 ounces of water for every glass of wine, no exception. But once dinner’s served,”—she hands me my glass with a grin—“all bets are off.”

***

We work through the morning, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, Brandy is right. Peeling potatoes and drinking wine before noon seems to be just the thing to draw me out of my funk. We put some Aretha Franklin on and make a very sad spectacle of ourselves, singing and dancing and drinking and cooking. It is two-thirty when we’re done with the prep work, and Brandy leads me outside to her shed to get the extra leaf for her dining table.

“Thank you,” I say as I follow behind her on the little stone path that leads to her shed, which is painted red with black dots, and looks quite a bit like an oversized, cubic ladybug.

“For what?” she asks, pulling open the door.

“For not letting me go back and wallow,” I say. “This has been fun.”

She turns to look at me, her hand over her eyes to shade them from the bright Arizona sun.

“You’ve got a red blotch over your shoulder,” she says. I angle my head and pull at my sweatshirt, looking for the stain, and Brandy laughs.

“No, I mean, in your aura.”

I drop the sweatshirt. “Oh.”

“I know you don’t believe in any of that,” she says, “but will you humor me by answering a question?”

“Can I avoid it?”

She grins. “What ever happened with your best friend? Christopher, right?”

I feel a pain in my ribs and I twist my torso a bit to relieve it. “Nothing. I mean, I talked to him when I first got here, but… not since then.”

She nods, crosses her arms over her chest. “Weren’t you two best friends?”

“We were. Yeah.” She continues to just stare at me. I take a deep breath. “I’m not sure what you want me to say, Brandy.”

She motions to the allegedly red spot in my alleged aura. “If you don’t acknowledge the problem, you’ll continue to be blocked.”

“I’m not blocked.”

And again, with the staring. I shift on both feet and stare back defiantly. Then, I give in with a martyr’s sigh.

“Fine. I called him, I ripped off the Band-Aid and I haven’t heard from him since so I assume he hates me and that pretty much brings us up to date.”

Brandy nods. “And how do you feel about that?”

I can tell by the look in her eye that resistance is futile. I close my eyes for a moment and… share.

“I miss him.” I can feel my eyes heat up a bit under the lids, but keep them closed. “But I don’t want to hurt him any more than I already have, so I think it’s best just to forget about it.” I open my eyes, blink hard once, and motion toward the shed. “Can we get the stuff now?”

Brandy doesn’t move. “It’s okay to grieve, you know.”

“If someone were dead, I would.”

“There’s a theory that when two people form a relationship, they form a third spiritual entity. When the relationship dies, that entity dies. Grief is a completely natural response, and it’s almost impossible to move on if you don’t allow yourself to experience it.” Her focus goes out to the horizon. “Trust me on this.”

“So, what?” I can hear the defensiveness in my voice, but I can’t seem to squelch it. “I’m supposed to just sit home and cry and grieve?”

“No. But I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to do something.”

Her smile falters a bit, and it’s then that I finally realize we’re not talking about me. We stand in silence for a while, and I wonder what it must have felt like for Brandy the night Jamal told her he wanted to be Janesse. As heart-breaking as the whole thing with Christopher was, I don’t imagine it holds a candle to what Brandy went through.

I am still trying to form something worth saying when Brandy turns and heads into the shed. I follow her, and we silently move cardboard boxes, uncover the additional table leaf, and start back toward the house. We are halfway there when Brandy stops and turns to face me.

“I can take this the rest of the way by myself,” she says, her typical bright smile back on full duty as she shifts the leaf out of my grip. “You go get changed.”

I glance down at myself. Jeans and a sweatshirt - the height of style for my wardrobe. “Something wrong with this?”

“It’s Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday. You have to dress. That’s part of the fun.”

I shake my head. “This is as good as it gets, babe.”

Brandy looks me up and down, then jerks her head in the direction of the house. There’s a delighted twinkle in her eye that scares me a bit. “Come on.”

I follow her. We set the leaf in the hallway and she takes my hand and drags me upstairs to the loft, and I discover where all the quilts, fabric and supplies went. They are in piles three feet deep around her bed, on her bed, on her dresser with narrow paths between to allow passage from one area to another. Brandy winds her way to her closet, opens it, and pulls out a flowy orange crepe dress. She holds it up, crinkles her nose, and tosses it on the bed, then dives back into the closet.

“Um, Brandy?” I say. “You’re at least six inches taller than me. Nothing you have is going to—”

“Shhhh!”

“Okay.” I watch as she tosses out dress after dress, most of them full-length and in which I’d look like a little girl playing dress-up. I stand there, staring at the piles of quilts around me, wishing I had my glass of wine with me.

“You know, it’s really okay,” I try again after a few minutes. “I’m sure I’ve got a sweater or something. It’s just, I worked in television production and I wasn’t on-air much so my wardrobe is kind of late-80s-teenage-boy anti-chic.”

“Oh, my god. It’s perfect!” Her voice travels back at me, muffled from the closet. Then she steps back and holds out a little chocolate-colored number, chiffon over silk, with a halter top that dips down to the ruched empire waist and…

“Where’d you get that?” I ask.

She checks the tag. “I ordered a dress through a catalog like six years ago, and they screwed up my order.” She gives a little squeal of excitement and holds it out to me. “It’s a petite.”

“You kept it for six years?” I take it and check the size, then hand it back. “It’s too small.”

She pushes it back at me. “Try it on.”

“It’s. Too. Small.”

The doorbell buzzes, and I hear Allegra yelp and curse. Brandy claps her hands together and giggles.

“Showtime!” She runs past me, tossing out, “Just try it on!” over her shoulder as she darts down the stairs. I sigh and grab the dress, holding it up to my body and checking myself out in the sliver of real estate left on the mirror over Brandy’s dresser.

It
 
is
 
pretty. It’ll look terrible on me, I know this as certainly as I know my own name, but I also know that Brandy won’t take no for an answer until I’ve at least tried it on. If then. I stomp into her bathroom and slam the door, dumping my jeans and sweatshirt and grumbling to myself as I step into it. I’ve barely got the side zipped when Brandy pushes into the bathroom without knocking.

“Jesus, Brandy!” I say, but am silenced by her expression as she puts her hand over her mouth and her eyes moisten.

“What? What happened? You okay?”

She touches my shoulders and turns me toward the mirror. I stare at myself for a moment. In the last ten years, the only dresses I’ve worn have been bridesmaid dresses, which are designed to make the bride look good. The chocolate in this dress plays nicely off my hair, and the green in my eyes catch even my attention. The top leaves little to the imagination, and isn’t meant to be worn with a bra, but it’s pretty.
 
I’m
 
pretty.

Wow. Who’da thunk it?

“Why did you keep it?” I ask. “They sent it to you by accident.”

“There are no accidents,” Brandy says, tugging a bit at the skirt to fluff it out. “Everything happens exactly how and when it’s supposed to, and we just say it’s accidental because we don’t have the patience to wait and find out why things happened that way. The universe sent this dress to me so I could hold it for you, Carly.” She turns me to face the mirror and stands behind me, her face aglow over my shoulder. “How could you imagine that’s not the case?”

I have to admit, she makes a good argument. The dress is perfect, and I never would have bought it for myself in a million years.

Brandy gives my shoulders a tender squeeze, then steps toward the door. “I’m going to get Allegra up here; she’s a genius with makeup.”

“But…” I say. “I can’t wear this. I… I don’t have any shoes…”

…and I’m half-naked
, I add internally. I’m ready to admit that the dress is perfect. I’m not entirely convinced I’m ready to wear it in front of people.

“You can go barefoot,” she says. “And lose the bra. Allegra will be up in a minute.”

She shuts the door behind her and I stare at myself in the mirror for a minute before reaching back and unhooking my bra.

***

Twenty minutes later, Allegra is finished with me. She has moussed my hair and given me a light makeup job and Brandy was right; Allegra’s a genius. My eyes are smoky and my lips and cheeks are sun-kissed and I look like a real girl.

Allegra packs her makeup back into her purse and grabs for the bathroom door. “I’m gonna go. Count to twenty and then follow me.”

“What? Why?”

“For your dramatic entrance, dummy. It’ll be fun.” She lets out a little snicker. “Will’s gonna totally die when he sees you.”

I grab her arm. “What? Will? Will’s here?”

She laughs. “Just count to twenty, okay?”

“He’s supposed to be in Ottawa until Monday. What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know. He showed up right before Brandy sent me up here.” She looks down at her arm. “Wow. For someone so tiny, you’ve got a hell of a grip.”

I release her arm, and she laughs and opens the door. “Just count to twenty.”

She disappears and I tentatively step out into Brandy’s loft. My stomach is full of butterflies and I feel light-headed. I adjust my halter top and feel totally exposed. My back is bare and my breasts are free range under the silk and…

Something catches my eye, and the panic in my brain subsides. In the middle of the pile of quilts on Brandy’s dresser, I see a familiar pattern. I walk over to the pile and tentatively pull at my quilt, revealing the image of the box with the paintbrushes. I run my hand over it and hear Brandy’s voice in my head.

There are no accidents.

Allegra calls my name and I clench my breath in my lungs and start down the stairs as Aretha belts out “Until You Come Back To Me” in the background. I hear the catcalls before I can see who’s giving them - mostly, it’s Sebastian and James whistling and cheering, but Mack and Gladys from The Town Bookie are making some noise as well. Brandy and Allegra are laughing and sharing knowing looks. The only person who is perfectly still and silent is Will. He is standing at the back of the group with a glass of wine in his hand. He’s wearing a light green Aran sweater and a pair of dark jeans and he’s… beautiful. Our eyes meet, and slowly he smiles. My heart dances and I smile back, then on the last step my right big toe catches on the back of my left ankle and I stumble. James catches me and sets me up right, and I quickly check my breasts to make sure they’re still inside the dress. They are. Thank God.

James tells me I’m gorgeous and gives me a kiss on the cheek. Sebastian grabs my hand and spins me twice. Allegra helps herself to a glass of wine and refills mine, handing it to me as Sebastian trades me for Brandy.

“For a gay man, he really loves dancing with women,” Allegra says, linking her arm in mine as we watch Sebastian dip Brandy.

“He can dance with me anytime,” I say, winking at Sebastian as I sip my wine. Sebastian winks back and laughs.

“Oh, gross,” Allegra says, moving toward the kitchen. I glance up and catch Will’s eye. He takes a sip of his wine without losing eye contact with me and I feel my neck flush.

The doorbell rings and Brandy opens it to more guests; Bernard, the bartender at the Miner’s Inn, and Valerie, who owns the flower shop on the edge of town. Someone swaps Aretha for Cole Porter and I find myself dancing around the room, flirting with everyone. Well, everyone except Will. I am sure that if anyone sees me looking at him, they’ll know how crazy I am about him. I’ve barely accepted it myself, so I avoid him. For the moment, I like to imagine it’s my little secret.

The wine flows and the dinner is delicious and Will and I don’t say a word to each other, but we don’t take our eyes off each other much, either. I float about, trading jokes and compliments, refilling wine. At some point during the evening, someone tucks one of Valerie’s orchids behind my ear, and the fragrance follows me around the room. I feel like Cinderella, like the dress has magically changed me at my core. For the first time in my life, I am completely carefree, and it is a beautiful, beautiful feeling.