The Aloha Quilt (37 page)

“I’m counting on it. I want to see you as much as possible before you fly back to
the mainland, snowbird.”

Bonnie felt the same way. How ironic it was that just as Claire had made it easier
for her to leave Maui, Hinano had made it more difficult.

Claire couldn’t contain her delight that Bonnie had decided to stay over. “Maybe I
should spend the night here too,” she said, trailing Bonnie upstairs to her old room
on the transparent mission of bringing fresh towels for her bathroom. “I’d be able
to get an earlier start tomorrow morning.”

Bonnie almost laughed. “Claire, it isn’t a slumber party. Go home to Eric.”

Reluctantly, Claire switched the towels and bade Bonnie good night. Alone, Bonnie
took in the room, the turquoise-and-white Breadfruit quilt spread upon the cozy bed,
the view of the moonlit ocean from the lanai, the framed photographs from their college
days Claire had arranged on the dresser, her favorite comfortable chair. Over the
past few months the room
had come to feel like home, but winter was almost over and soon she would depart.

She would be leaving, and yet she wouldn’t be returning home. Where was home for her
anymore? The condo she had shared with Craig and the children was gone. She was now
only a faculty member and not a part owner of Elm Creek Quilts. Sylvia had welcomed
her into the manor, but did Bonnie belong there any more than anyplace else?

She missed Hinano, but she slept well that night in the room she had come to think
of as her own.

Bonnie had been so focused on the approach of their weeklong dress rehearsal that
another significant date completely slipped her mind until Darren Taylor phoned to
inform her that her divorce was officially final.

“That’s it?” she asked, wondering how she could have been too preoccupied to mark
her last day as a married woman when she had been married for more than half of her
life. “I don’t need to appear in court or sign some paperwork or something?”

She had already signed the paperwork, Darren reminded her. They had only been awaiting
Craig’s acceptance of the property settlement, and once he realized that he had gotten
the most advantageous division he was going to get, he acquiesced.

“He signed the documents?” Bonnie asked, skeptical. After so much belligerence and
so many threats, it was hard to believe that Craig had finally given in, that it was
finally over.

But Darren assured her Craig had and it was. “He wasn’t happy about it,” he acknowledged,
“but his lawyer managed to convince him it was for the best. Now you’re both free
to move on with your lives.”

Bonnie thanked him for his hard work on her behalf, knowing that without Darren she
would have lost all the money from the furniture auction, Elm Creek Quilts would have
had a nasty new part-owner determined to ruin them, and other even more dire consequences
might have befallen her.

As she hung up the phone, she felt a strange mixture of sadness and relief. It was
good to have it over and done, and yet it was unfortunate that a marriage begun with
so much love and hope and high expectations had ended so miserably. Bonnie wondered
why she didn’t feel more celebratory, especially since she had once feared she might
never untangle herself from the snarls of their failed marriage. She decided that
she was simply too busy to weigh the consequences and contemplate her future as a
single woman. After she returned to Pennsylvania, to the places that retained so many
memories of Craig and of happier times when the children were young, full awareness
of her dramatic life change would no doubt sink in. For now, she was caught up in
the excitement of the launch of a promising business with wonderful new friends, and
she meant to enjoy every moment.

Chapter Thirteen
 

The moment they had been anticipating and preparing for finally arrived on Sunday
morning of the last week in February. Bonnie hardly slept the night before, her thoughts
churning through all the last-minute details she must race to wrap up before their
eighteen carefully selected quilt campers came to the Hale Kapa Kuiki. Some were Maui
residents—Laulima Quilters or long-time customers of Plumeria Quilts—while others
were flying in from all corners of the world, quilting friends Claire had met in her
travels while Eric was in the service. They were sure to be the friendliest, most
receptive, and most tolerant group of campers the Aloha Quilters were ever going to
welcome to the inn.

But they would also be the group to observe Aloha Quilt Camp at its unpolished, unpracticed
worst. Claire had made them promise to provide thorough, unsparing evaluations at
the end of the week. “We can take your toughest criticism,” Claire assured each camper
at registration, where each received her room key, information packet, and a beautiful
lei
made of plumeria blossoms. “It’s the only way we’ll improve, so let us have it.”

“Maybe let
her
have it,” Arlene chimed in on more than one occasion. “As for me, I want to hear
only praise, as lavish as you can get. Lie if you have to.”

Everyone laughed whenever she said this, but Bonnie found herself hoping that at least
a few of their guests would take her seriously and be gentle—however, she reminded
herself, that would defeat the purpose of having a soft opening and not help Aloha
Quilt Camp in the long run.

As their guests arrived and settled into their rooms, Bonnie observed them going from
room to room, knocking on doors, eager to meet their fellow campers. Many of the quilters
from Maui were already acquainted, which gave the inn the festive air of a friendly
reunion. Throughout the afternoon, quilt campers greeted one another with hugs and
exclamations of delight and introduced new roommates to old friends in impromptu gatherings
that spilled into the hallway.

“You were right to assign the quilt campers to the same floor,” Bonnie told Claire.
“Otherwise they’d be disturbing vacationers and interrupting honeymooners.”

Claire’s bleak expression revealed that they had avoided such conflicts by luck and
not foresight. “I’ll keep doing that as long as we host both quilt campers and regular
guests. I hadn’t considered that one group might disturb the other.”

“Don’t worry,” Bonnie said. “No one’s complained, so everything’s fine, right?”

Although Claire nodded, Bonnie knew they shared the same sudden realization: They
had avoided their first potential disaster by chance, but what other unforeseen problems
awaited them like traps ready to spring?

But the quilt campers were so cheerful, so eager to begin a week devoted to friendship
and fun, that Bonnie couldn’t dwell upon whatever unanticipated obstacles might await
them. As
an Elm Creek Quilter she had learned to adapt to unexpected quilt camp disasters,
and she had to believe that the Aloha Quilters would as well.

As evening approached, the faculty and the first campers of Aloha Quilt Camp gathered
on the central lanai for a Welcome Luau, full of all the delicious flavors Bonnie
had come to love:
kalua
pork cooked all day in the
imu
, steamed chicken
laulaus,
vegetable long rice, lomi lomi salmon, and taro rolls, with coconut pudding
haupia
for dessert. Hinano and three friends provided the music, and often Bonnie caught
herself watching him, enchanted, instead of paying attention to her guests.

“You’re a terrible distraction,” she scolded him teasingly when the band took a break.

“Me?” His eyes widened in injured innocence. “What about you? You’re a worse kine
distraction. I haven’t struck so many wrong notes since I was a
keiki
.”

Bonnie had to laugh. As far as she was concerned Hinano couldn’t hit a wrong note
if he tried.

When everyone had eaten their fill, Claire called them together and led them through
the gate at the back of the garden down to their private beach, where she and Eric
had arranged grass mats around a bonfire. As the campers took their seats, Midori
offered a brief history of the hula while two of her nieces performed the graceful,
swaying dance accompanied by Hinano on ukulele and another man on drums. After a round
of applause, Midori brought forth her
‘uli ‘uli,
gourd rattles topped by red and yellow flowers, and demonstrated how dancers shook
them in the hula. Bonnie, who had never seen Midori dance the hula before nor suspected
she knew how, was so delighted and impressed that her cheers rang out above everyone
else’s.

Then Claire stood and raised her hands for silence. “Now
I invite you each to take some time to reflect upon the significance of our gathering.”
Firelight cast a glow on the campers’ upturned faces as Claire gazed around the circle.
“One of our traditions is to conclude the first evening of quilt camp with a ceremony
we call Ho ‘
ā
Ahi,” she told them. “It means ‘to kindle fire.’ ”

“Traditions?” one of the guests spoke up, muffling a laugh. “I thought this was the
first night.”

A ripple of quiet laughter went up from the circle, and Claire allowed a smile. “We’re
hoping it becomes a tradition,” she clarified. “We were inspired by a similar tradition
at Elm Creek Quilt Camp, but we’ve adapted it to make it especially Hawaiian.”

Bonnie detected a ripple of expectation passing through the group at the mention of
Elm Creek Quilt Camp, and her heart stirred with pride. Perhaps someday Aloha Quilt
Camp would also be held in such high esteem by quilters from around the world.

“At its simplest,” Claire continued, “the Ho ‘
ā
Ahi is a way for our guests to introduce themselves to us and to one another. Since
we’ll be living and working together closely this week, we should feel as if we are
among friends.”

Claire paused, allowing the expectant silence to grow before she explained the ceremony.
The campers would pass the
‘uli ‘uli
around the circle, and as each woman took her turn to hold the feathered gourd rattles,
she would explain why she had come to Aloha Quilt Camp and what she hoped to achieve
that week. When she was finished speaking, she would shake the
‘uli ‘uli
as Midori had shown them and pass them on to the woman seated beside her.

“But there’s another equally important reason for our ceremony,” Claire went on. “It
helps us to get to know one another,
true, but it also helps each of us to know ourselves better. It encourages us to reflect
on our goals and hopes for the week to come, and the better we understand our dreams,
the more likely we will be to make them come true.” Claire found a place on one of
the woven grass mats and joined the circle. “I’ll begin.”

“She’s improvising,” Midori murmured for Bonnie’s ears alone. Too surprised to reply,
Bonnie merely nodded and seated herself among the quilt campers. When Bonnie had described
the Elm Creek Quilters’ Candlelight ceremony to the Aloha Quilters, she hadn’t mentioned
that the teachers joined in the sharing—because they never had. They led the ceremony,
but didn’t participate. Apparently Bonnie had forgotten to explain that to Claire,
but as Claire held the
‘uli ‘uli
reverently and described how the creation of Aloha Quilt Camp was the fulfillment
of a long-cherished dream, Bonnie wondered if it was better that she had not. At the
Candlelight ceremonies back at Elm Creek Manor, there was always a moment of nervous
silence after Sylvia asked for a volunteer to speak first, and whoever accepted the
challenge set the tone for the rest of the ceremony. If the first to hold the candle
spoke quickly and vaguely in an anxious rush to get it over with, the other campers
usually did the same. By taking the first turn, Claire not only encouraged the others
to speak thoughtfully by doing so herself, but also showed that she was one of them,
that she hoped to learn and grow from the camp experience just as her guests did.

Perhaps the Elm Creek Quilters should adopt this variation of the tradition when their
new camp season began. Until that moment, it had not occurred to Bonnie that the more
experienced camp staff would have anything to learn from the new. Perhaps Bonnie would
have more than souvenirs to bring home to her friends at Elm Creek Manor.