The Aloha Quilt (18 page)

Midori frowned slightly and her gaze turned inward, as if she were replaying their
lessons in her mind’s eye. “Sometimes experienced quilters make the most stubborn
students. They think they already know the best way so they aren’t open to new ideas.”

“I’m well aware that I don’t know everything and I welcome genuine efforts to help
me learn. Just give me a chance.”

Midori’s eyebrows rose. “You think I don’t genuinely want to teach you? If I didn’t,
I could just give you a book and let you figure it out on your own.”

“Of course I know you want to help me,” said Bonnie, flustered. “You’ve been very
generous with your time and advice, and you introduced me to your guild. Just forget
it. I’m being too sensitive. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

But she did know, and from Midori’s expression, she thought Midori knew, too.

“Sometimes the people who are the quickest to anger are quickest to forgive, once
they realize no offense was intended,” said Midori kindly. “Those sorts of people
can become the most loyal friends of all, once you get past that bristly exterior.”
She studied the emerald green appliqué and bent over to smooth a wrinkle in a long,
tapering leaf. “Sometimes people have good reasons for their defenses, reasons you
would never suspect. But never mind that now. We have work to do.”

With a length of white thread to contrast with the emerald green, Bonnie basted the
appliqué to the background fabric with large running stitches, first across the diagonals
and then on the horizontal and vertical axes. Then, following Midori’s directions,
she carefully basted every curve and point, every leaf and fruit, one quarter of an
inch within the edges of the entire emerald piece. “A precise quarter inch is essential,”
Midori said. “You’ll see why when it comes time to appliqué.”

An experienced quilter, Bonnie had already figured it out, but she merely nodded and
thanked Midori for the tip rather than appear to be one of those stubborn experienced
quilters who assumed they knew everything.

Once satisfied that Bonnie would not rush through the
task or grow careless with the spacing of her basting stitches, Midori left Bonnie
to finish on her own. Basting every curve and point was painstaking work that left
her with pinpricked fingertips and an aching neck, so she took occasional breaks to
stretch and to rest her eyes by looking around the garden or the shaded lanai, their
future classroom. As the hours passed, her thoughts drifted from the repetitive motions
of needle and thread to Aloha Quilt Camp. In a few months, the very lanai where she
now worked would be filled with beginning quilters taking their first stitches or
experienced quilters mastering new techniques. Or so they would if Bonnie planned
well, if she accomplished the tasks Claire had assigned her, not the least of which
was finding qualified instructors.

Their recruiting had stalled after an initial bustle of responses from local quilters,
most of whom were fine quilters but lacked teaching experience. Bonnie had inquired
with the Laulima Quilters too, but most of them had other full-time careers, cared
for small children or grandchildren at home, or were enjoying retirement too much
to consider returning to work. Bonnie also knew that there was a world of difference
between helping friends at a quilt guild meeting and designing and leading a structured
course in a classroom setting, so even those few who had offered to teach for them
might not have the sort of experience that Aloha Quilt Camp needed. Despite all this,
Claire insisted that advertising in local quilt guild newsletters and distributing
flyers would eventually pay off. Bonnie lacked her certainty, and believed they shouldn’t
rely upon that alone.

With every stitch, Bonnie became more convinced that they needed to advertise in a
national quilting magazine. It was an expensive but necessary investment in the future
of Aloha Quilt Camp. Advertising had worked for Elm Creek
Quilts and it would work for them. Claire juggled numbers as adeptly as Sarah McClure,
so surely she could trim expenses here or there until she came up with enough to cover
the costs if she wanted to.

The question was,
did
Claire want to?

It was early evening when Bonnie put the last basting stitch into her quilt top, tied
a knot, and snipped the trailing thread. She packed her supplies and rolled up her
quilt top rather than folding it to avoid creasing the fabric. After putting everything
in her room for safekeeping, she returned downstairs and found Claire in the office.

Claire looked up at Bonnie’s approach and quickly shut down her web browser, and although
she smiled a welcome, she looked so tired that Bonnie considered merely wishing her
a good night and leaving her alone. But just as she was about to say good night, Claire
said, “Midori really had you working hard today.”

“Oh, no. It was my choice. I took breaks every once in a while.”

“That’s good.” Claire glanced back at the computer screen, now showing only her desktop,
and gave an involuntary sigh before turning back to Bonnie with some of her usual
brightness restored. “Do you want to have dinner with me and Eric tonight? You must
be tired of cooking for one.”

She wasn’t, actually. For most of her adult life, Bonnie had planned what and when
to eat based upon Craig and the children’s schedules and preferences. Eating what
she wanted when she wanted was a refreshing novelty. But she didn’t always dine alone.
Often she and Midori prepared a simple meal for two together and chatted about quilting,
Hawaii, or the challenges facing the Hale Kapa Kuiki, sometimes lingering at the table
long after they finished eating to continue their conversation.
In many ways, Bonnie had learned more about the inn and Lahaina from Midori than from
Claire.

“I don’t mind cooking for myself,” Bonnie assured her, “but I’d love to join you and
Eric. Why don’t we bring along a copy of the budget? Maybe if the three of us go over
it together, we’ll find a way to pay for an ad.” Suddenly inspired, she added, “Maybe
we could borrow from the advertising budget for the camp itself.”

Claire pursed her lips and shook her head. “If we did, when it comes time to announce
our launch, we won’t be able to reach potential customers as well. Enrollment will
suffer.”

“It won’t matter if we have an inn full of campers if we have no one to teach them.”

“We’ll find teachers.” Claire gestured to the wire basket on her desk. “Two résumés
came in today’s mail and I’m sure more will follow.”

Bonnie wondered why Claire had not mentioned the good news earlier. “If I were a suspicious
person,” she teased, “I might think you were deliberately putting less than your best
effort into the search for teachers so that I’ll agree to stay rather than leave you
understaffed.”

Claire frowned, rose, and pushed in her chair. “I don’t have any ulterior motives.
I would never want you to stay here if your heart wasn’t in it.”

“Oh, come on, Claire. Don’t be angry. I was only teasing.”

“I haven’t made any secret of the fact that I’d like you to stay. I don’t need to
resort to underhanded tricks when there are a hundred obvious reasons for you to choose
Aloha Quilt Camp over anything else.”

Bonnie had to admit that this made a certain kind of sense, but she still disagreed
with Claire’s decision. “You have an advertising budget for Aloha Quilt Camp. Let’s
take some of
those funds and pay for a help-wanted ad in a prominent magazine with a high circulation
to get the most for our money. If we don’t have teachers, we won’t need to advertise
the quilt camp because there won’t
be
a quilt camp. Even if I stayed, I couldn’t teach every class.”

“We couldn’t do that even if we wanted to,” Claire said. “It’s not like putting an
ad in the newspaper. Magazines like
Quilter’s Newsletter
need a few months’ lead time. We’re too late.”

“Then let’s buy ad space on their website,” said Bonnie, remembering one of Sarah’s
more recent marketing campaigns for Elm Creek Quilt Camp. “They don’t need much lead
time for that. For the same price as a single print ad, we could probably buy banner
ads on the websites of several different quilting magazines.”

Claire studied her for a long moment, then sighed, clasped a hand to her brow, and
ran her fingers through her long, light brown hair. “I suppose those ads could be
considered an early announcement of our grand opening,” she said at last. “They might
generate some buzz. We’ll include a link to Aloha Quilt Camp website and create a
mailing list for when we’re set up and ready to accept registrations.”

“It’s never too soon to start spreading the word to potential future campers.”

Claire retrieved a manila folder from a filing cabinet. “I’ll bring the budget,” she
said. “It’ll be a working dinner. But dessert will be strictly social.”

Bonnie smiled, relieved that the conflict had been resolved as quickly as it had arisen.
“Agreed.”

Over mahimahi, taro, and pineapple salsa, Claire, Eric, and Bonnie went over the budget
line by line. It was late by the time
Eric drove Bonnie back to the inn. “Thanks for pursuading Claire to buy advertising,”
he told her as he walked her to the door in a completely unnecessary but charming
show of chivalry. “I’ve believed all along that it’s the only way you’re going to
drum up enough candidates for the job, but Claire insisted it wasn’t necessary, and
I hate to argue.”

“You hate to argue with Claire,” Bonnie corrected, for with anyone else, Eric never
avoided confrontation when he knew he was in the right. “You hate it when she’s displeased
with you.”

He spread his hands helplessly. “What can I say? I’m in love with her.”

“That’s why Claire could always get away with anything, even when we were in school,”
teased Bonnie. “I wish Craig—”

Eric winced. “Let’s not spoil a nice evening by bringing him up.”

Bonnie nodded, wished Eric a good night, and went upstairs to bed. She had been about
to say that she wished Craig had learned a few things from Eric’s example all those
years ago back in college—how to treat the woman he loved, for one. How to be a good,
decent, and honorable man. But even back then, Craig had not been inclined to follow
Eric’s example in much of anything. They had been friends, but privately, Craig had
criticized Eric for tolerating too much from Claire. “I would never put up with that,”
Craig had told Bonnie after, in his opinion, Claire had flirted with other guys at
a frat party. “If I were Eric, I’d dump her and let her find another ride home.”

Though Bonnie had been displeased by Craig’s criticism of her friend, she had nodded
and murmured lukewarm agreement before changing the subject. She had always gone along
to get along, had pretended to agree when she didn’t really, merely to keep the peace.
No wonder Craig had ended up
treating her like a doormat so many years later—no, worse than a doormat. Like the
dirt beneath his feet.

If she had stood up for herself long ago, if she had been a little bit more like Claire
and a little less willing to tolerate everything for the sake of harmony, she might
not be on the wrong side of fifty and facing divorce.

She had always considered tolerance and cooperativeness virtues, but perhaps in certain
circumstances they weren’t. She hadn’t permitted disrespectful behavior from her children
and they had all grown up to be responsible adults. She hadn’t allowed Craig to get
away with meeting Terri that first time, and that had given her a second chance to
save her marriage. She hadn’t let Midori discourage her from learning to make a quilt
in the Hawaiian style, and as a result, she was making a beautiful quilt top and possibly
even a friend. She had challenged Claire about her reluctance to advertise the teaching
positions, and Claire had relented. Whenever Bonnie remembered she had a backbone
and that “being nice” wasn’t always the highest priority, good things followed.

The next day, Bonnie pondered this new insight as she went for her morning walk and
with every step her resolve strengthened. What did she have to lose if she started
speaking her mind? Would she anger people? Perhaps, but they would get over it as
Claire had done. Would she lose friends? If honesty scared them away, they were never
her friends in the first place. Would she astonish people who had grown accustomed
to the nice, pleasant, acquiescent Bonnie? Almost certainly, but it might do them
good to have their expectations challenged. It had done Bonnie good already, and she
was just getting started.

Resolved, she walked faster and faster, pumping her fists, working up a good sweat.
She found her steps leading her off
her usual route, away from the beach toward central Lahaina. When she passed the coffee
shop where she had interviewed Hinano, she realized what her destination must be.

The lights were off in Nä Mele Hawai‘i Music Shop when she arrived, the sign hanging
in the front window turned to
CLOSED
. She peered inside, hoping to see Hinano working behind the counter and preparing
to open the store for the day, but there was no sign of anyone moving in the darkened
store. She knocked on the door anyway, determined to speak to him before she lost
her nerve. She waited, knocked again, and had reluctantly decided to come back later
when suddenly the door behind the counter opened and Hinano appeared. He stopped short
at the sight of her, but he quickly masked his astonishment and made his way from
the back of the store.