The Aloha Quilt (24 page)

“He won’t,” said Claire.

“—I never would have contested the property settlement. I should have let him keep
the money from the auction and considered it the price of freedom.”

“You couldn’t let him rob you blind,” protested Claire. “You did what you had to do
for your own financial security.”

“Maybe.” But what if her security came at the cost of her friends’? “Maybe I was too
greedy. Maybe I should have left well enough alone.”

Claire threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “Craig says it, therefore it must
be true.”

Astonished, Bonnie stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When friends who love you and care about you tell you that you’re a wonderful woman
and deserving of all good
things in life, it goes in one ear and out the other. When Craig makes some ugly,
nasty remark, you grab on to it with both hands and hold it close to your heart.”

“I do not.”

“You do,” remarked Midori, spooning mango preserves into petite serving dishes. “I
haven’t known you that long, but I’ve seen it, too. You’re one of those people who
finds it far easier to believe the bad things others say about you than the good.”

“You’ve been that way as long as I’ve known you,” said Claire.

“You, on the other hand.” Midori leveled her spoon at Claire. “You always believe
the good you hear and not the bad, which is maybe why you and Bonnie get along so
well. Opposites attract.”

Claire fixed Midori with a look of injured innocence. “That’s not true.”

“Actually, it is,” said Bonnie.

Claire rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows I’m my own worst critic.”

Midori raised her eyebrows at Bonnie, who shrugged to show that she too realized that
Claire had just proven their point.

“Don’t believe a single hateful thing that man says,” Midori admonished Bonnie. “Your
children are grown. Since he can’t threaten you with custody issues, he’ll try to
use what’s second most precious to you: Elm Creek Quilts.”

“Midori’s right. Don’t worry yourself sick over this needlessly,” said Claire, squeezing
Bonnie’s hand. “Put it out of your mind until you talk to your lawyer. He’ll know
what to do.”

Bonnie agreed that they were right. There was nothing she could do at the moment,
and worrying wouldn’t make Darren Taylor return her message sooner.

But she couldn’t drive the fear and worry away. Elm Creek Quilts was in jeopardy,
she had brought this danger to their door, and her friends were completely unaware
that all they had built could come crashing down around them.

After breakfast, Claire urged Bonnie to go online and contact her cellular provider
about changing her cell phone number. First she had to register on the site, then
she had to find the right web page with the right information, and finally she had
to call an 800 number, plow through a series of voicemail prompts, and wait twenty
minutes to speak to a human being. To her relief, the customer service rep didn’t
press her for details when she explained that she had been receiving harassing phone
calls and had to change her number. Unfortunately, the change wouldn’t go through
for two business days, so Bonnie faced four days during which Craig could call her
constantly if he chose. She hoped he wouldn’t, but in the meantime she would put her
trust in her caller ID to screen him out and she wouldn’t answer any unfamiliar numbers
in case he tried to trick her by calling from another line. He hated having his desires
thwarted. Ignoring him was the surest way to infuriate him, but she had no choice.

Having closed her quilt shop for the holiday, Claire had intended to spend the rest
of the long weekend at home with Eric, but she lingered at the inn, reluctant to leave
Bonnie distressed and alone. Only when Bonnie insisted that she would be fine and
that Claire shouldn’t change her plans did Claire transfer a few files to her zip
drive, tuck a bundle of papers into her shoulder bag, and say that she would return
on Monday. “Sooner if you need me,” she emphasized, hugging Bonnie and glancing back
worriedly at her twice on her way to the front door.

After Claire left, Bonnie stayed online to send her kids, the Elm Creek Quilters,
and Darren her new phone number, noting that it would not be in effect until Tuesday
and warning them, especially Barry, not to give it to Craig. Then she put the computer
to sleep and wished she could do the same to the tumult of thoughts swirling through
her mind. She had to concentrate, focus, force herself to think of something else.
A stack of newly arrived résumés sat on Claire’s desk awaiting Bonnie’s attention,
but the task she had been eagerly anticipating for weeks no longer appealed to her.

“Tending to our guests is enough work for Thanksgiving weekend,” Midori advised when
Bonnie wandered into the kitchen. “Find something pleasant to distract yourself with
instead.”

Bonnie nodded and climbed the stairs to her room, heavy hearted. If she were back
home, her friends would have their arms around her, offering their sympathy and reassurances.
She longed to call them, but how could she ask them to comfort her when she might
have put all they had worked for at risk? How could she speak to them without warning
them of what might lie ahead, and what good was a warning when she didn’t know the
extent of the danger or what steps they could take to protect Elm Creek Quilts?

Compelled to warn her friends but reluctant to alarm them needlessly, Bonnie decided
her only real choice was to wait. Darren Taylor would know if Elm Creek Quilts was
really at risk, and he would know what she could do to mitigate Craig’s influence
if it came to that.

If she were at Elm Creek Manor she could distract herself with her friends’ company
and her Christmas quilting projects, but she had left her stash at the manor with
her other belongings and had no Christmas projects to work on, since
she had planned to buy special Hawaiian gifts for her friends and loved ones instead.
But she didn’t have to work on holiday quilts to keep the Elm Creek Quilters’ Thanksgiving
Friday tradition in her own way.

She had not worked on her Pineapple Patch quilt since basting the emerald green fabric
to the ivory background. It was still where she had left it weeks before, neatly rolled
up and lying on her bamboo bureau. She carried the soft bundle and her sewing tools
downstairs and outside to the covered lanai, where soft breezes caressed her and the
gentle tinkle of koa wood wind chimes whispered a promise that she must not despair,
not until she knew all was lost, and perhaps not even then.

As she spread the quilt top over a table, she glanced up and saw Midori approaching.
“Ready for your next lesson?” she asked.

Bonnie wasn’t sure she needed one, as she had learned needle-turn appliqué years before.
Still, she had never made a quilt quite like her Pineapple Patch before and it was
possible Midori knew a different technique to make the stitches finer, curves smoother,
and points more precise. So she thanked Midori and obeyed her first instructions:
to thread a needle with an eighteen-inch length of green thread and tie a knot at
the end. “It is essential to have the right color,” said Midori, a hint of warning
in her tone. “The thread must match the fabric perfectly so that your stitches will
be invisible.”

Bonnie, who had heard that tip more than three decades before, smiled and showed Midori
the perfectly matched thread she had selected when she had chosen her fabrics at Claire’s
quilt shop. “Good,” Midori said, but only after she held the thread against the fabric
and scrutinized both. “Start in the center of your quilt top and work your way out.
Take your first stitches on a gentle outward curve. That’s much
easier than beginning near a point or on the inside of an arc.”

Obediently Bonnie slipped the needle through the back of the quilt top near one smooth,
gentle curve of her appliqué, tugging on the thread to be sure the knot was secure.
The stitch used in Hawaiian appliqué was simply a hemming stitch, Midori explained.
Tucking the raw edge of her appliqué under until it met the line of basting stitches,
Bonnie brought the needle up through the folded edge and back down through the ivory
background fabric where she wanted the appliqué to lie. Then she worked the needle
back up through the ivory fabric a fraction of an inch along the line of her design,
and again took a tiny stitch through the folded edge of the emerald green appliqué.
Again and again she sent the needle through the two paired fabrics, always tucking
the raw edge of the appliqué under an inch ahead of her needle. Soon the smooth curve
of a leaf emerged, held fast to the ivory beneath it.

“Now you see why it was so important for you to baste one-quarter inch from the edge
of your appliqué,” remarked Midori, nodding approvingly as she inspected Bonnie’s
small, neat, practiced stitches. “You cut your appliqué one-eighth of an inch larger
than your pattern, all around. When you tuck the edge under, the basting stitches
keep the fold to a perfect eighth of an inch.”

“The basting stitches guide my seam allowance so I don’t have to mark it on the appliqué,”
Bonnie said.

“Exactly.” Midori watched Bonnie a while longer, perhaps to see if she had more questions,
perhaps to see if she could catch Bonnie in a mistake, but eventually she declared
that she had work of her own to attend to but that Bonnie should come find her if
she ran into trouble. Bonnie hid a smile and promised she would.

She sewed the morning away, listening to birdsong, inhaling
the fragrance of jasmine and hibiscus, savoring the touch of gentle breezes on her
skin. Back home it was snowing; Sarah had mentioned a winter storm alert and thick
flurries already falling. Bonnie felt worlds away, and in the benevolent sunlight
it was hard to imagine Elm Creek Manor shrouded in winter white, braced against bitter
winds.

A far worse storm clouded their horizon, but Bonnie resolved to do everything in her
power to divert it.

Bonnie sewed her way through the long holiday weekend, missing her friends, missing
her children, and waiting in vain for Darren to return her message. Craig called three
times a day, but she refused to pick up when she saw his number in the caller ID window.
Apparently he couldn’t calculate the time difference very well either because several
of his calls came while she was still fast asleep in bed with the ringer silenced.
She deleted his voicemail messages unheard and reminded herself that in two business
days he wouldn’t be able to leave any more.

She took comfort in the emerging beauty of her Pineapple Patch quilt, in pleasant
meals shared with Midori in the kitchen, and in knowing that she was helping Claire
by seeing to their guests’ comfort. Over the past few weeks Claire had noticed an
increase in reservations and positive reviews on travel websites, which she attributed
to their successful Halloween. Claire often told Bonnie that she couldn’t manage without
her, and the praise no longer felt like pressure. Eventually Claire would have to
manage without Bonnie, but in the meantime Bonnie enjoyed contributing to the fledgling
business and feeling appreciated for her efforts. If Aloha Quilt Camp succeeded—
when
it succeeded—she would be proud to know that she had played a significant role in
its success.

If only she could be sure that she would not bring about the failure of another business
even more dear to her.

At last, on Monday morning, Bonnie checked her phone before leaving for her walk and
found that Darren Taylor had called and left a voicemail. After days of anticipation
and dread, she felt deflated when he said little more than that he had received her
message, he would look into the situation, and he would get back to her as soon as
possible. That meant she had another long day of waiting ahead of her, possibly more.

Bonnie was determined not to sit and brood. After exercising and helping Midori with
the usual morning chores around the inn, she took the stack of résumés to the central
lanai and read each one thoroughly, taking notes on a legal pad. Several of the applicants
lived in Hawaii, two in Japan, nine in California, and five more around the rest of
the United States. Bonnie ruled out three of the applicants rather quickly, but not
without misgivings; although they sounded like accomplished quilters, they had never
taught quilting, and Bonnie knew that artistic gifts were not necessarily accompanied
by the ability to teach. A demanding, full-time, year-round faculty position at a
quilt camp required a seasoned professional, not someone who had no idea what it was
really like to think on her feet at the front of the classroom.