An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

  She kicked off the covers, drew on her robe, and padded into the family room in her slippers. Craig was sitting at the computer, his back to her, a cup of coffee and a doughnut within easy reach on the desk. He had already dressed for work.

  “Morning,” Bonnie greeted him.

  He jerked upright as if she had sent an electric current through his chair. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry.” She hid a smile and joined him at the computer just as he quit the application. “Any interesting mail?”

  “Not really.” He shut down the computer. “The usual memos, you know, reminders about meetings, things like that.” He picked up his breakfast and carried it into the kitchen.

  Bonnie followed. “Doesn’t sound like anything worth getting up early for.”

  “Just wanted to get it out of the way.” He poured the rest of his coffee into the sink and left the mug on the counter. “I’d better get going.”

  “So early?” It was only seven o’clock.

  He nodded and wrapped his doughnut in a napkin. “Bob called an emergency meeting about graduation.”

  “Oh, dear. What is it this time?” Bonnie went to the sink, rinsed the coffee down the drain, and placed the mug in the dishwasher. “Not the floor again, I hope?”

  Three years before, heavy rains had flooded the auditorium only days before commencement, warping the wood parquet floor into a series of small hills. The Office of the Physical Plant staff had to scramble to rearrange stages, seating, and enough microphones and speakers for a modest rock concert. It had made for several exhausting days and late nights, but they’d pulled it off in time for the ceremony.

  “No, nothing like that, fortunately,” Craig said. “Just the usual logistical snarls. You know how it is.”

  “Will you have to change your plans for the weekend?”

  He shot her a quick look. “What?”

  “Your trip to Penn State. Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  “Oh.” His features relaxed. “No, I didn’t forget. And no, it won’t be a problem. We’ll have everything sorted out by then.” He took his sack lunch out of the refrigerator and kissed her on the cheek on his way out of the kitchen. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She trailed after him. “Craig?”

  He paused at the door. “What?” He had picked up his briefcase and was waiting for her to speak, his hand on the doorknob.

  Suddenly she felt tired, as if it were the end of the day rather than the beginning. “Nothing. Never mind. Have a good day.”

  “Sure, honey. You, too.” He hurried out the door. She heard him lock it behind him, then the faint sound of his footsteps going downstairs. She felt rather than heard the heavy door to the back parking lot slam shut, and then silence, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the odd clicking noises of their automatic drip coffeemaker as it cooled.

  Bonnie sighed.

  She threw out the used grounds and filled the coffeemaker with fresh grounds and water, then went to take a shower while she waited for the pot to fill. As she showered, she thought about the advice she had given Sarah the previous day. Was it sound advice, and was Bonnie the right person to give it? She had never considered herself an expert on relationships, but then again, she and Craig had been married for nearly twenty-eight years. That had to count for something.

  Their marriage fit the usual pattern, she supposed. Newlywed joy, followed in turn by the challenges of raising kids, the relief when they went off to college, and the pride mixed with loneliness when they found jobs and spouses and lives of their own. Bonnie hoped that their younger son, still a junior at Lock Haven University, would find a job close to home after he graduated, unlike his brother, who now lived in Pittsburgh, and his sister, who had moved to Chicago.

  Their home seemed so quiet now, even though it was over a store downtown and right across the street from the Waterford College campus. Bonnie used to fear that without the daily business of raising their children, she and Craig wouldn’t be able to find anything to talk about for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, that hadn’t been the case. Craig talked about his job and Penn State football, Bonnie talked about Grandma’s Attic and Elm Creek Quilts, and they both wondered aloud when they would have their first grandchild. Maybe they weren’t as romantic as they used to be, but they were both so busy, too busy to carry on like love-struck teenagers. Craig had never been the love poetry and red roses type of man, anyway, and Bonnie liked him too much to demand that he change. What was most important was that they were comfortable together. Over the years they had settled into an easy friendship illuminated by increasingly rare but intense flashes of passion, reminding them why they had come together in the first place and why they had remained together so long.

  After breakfast, Bonnie dressed in a comfortable pair of slacks and a quilted vest she had finished over the weekend. The pattern had come from a new book she was stocking in the shop; if customers complimented her on her attire, she could direct them to the book so they could make vests of their own. Then she finished reading the newspaper, tidied up the kitchen, and began her two-minute commute to work.

  She smiled to herself as she went downstairs to the shop, remembering a joke she and the kids used to share. “This is the only house in town where you go downstairs to get to the attic,” Tammy would say.

  On cue, Craig Jr. would chime in, “You should have called it Grandma’s Basement.” Then they would all laugh.

  It was a silly joke, but it was theirs, and they enjoyed it. How noisy and cluttered and bustling the house used to be, and how quiet and tidy it was now. Craig didn’t seem to mind, but Bonnie missed the mess.

  At least the shop was the same—as cozy and friendly as ever. Grandma’s Attic was the only quilt shop in Waterford, and over the years its steady and loyal customers had become her friends. The business had not made her rich—in fact, some years it was all she could do to break even—but it meant the world to her. She was her own boss, and her success depended entirely upon her own efforts. She also knew that in addition to selling fabric and notions and pattern books, she was providing Waterford’s quilters with a gathering place, a sense of community. How many other people could say that about their jobs?

  Her only disappointment was that none of her children had ever wanted to work at Grandma’s Attic; not even the promise that they would own the shop someday had tempted them. Summer Sullivan enjoyed her part-time job there so much that Bonnie once thought she might want to go full-time after graduation and eventually take over the entire business, but when Summer was accepted into graduate school at Penn, Bonnie decided not to bother asking her. Summer was a bright young woman with a promising future, one she wasn’t likely to abandon for a small-town business. Bonnie had put her heart and soul into Grandma’s Attic, but when the time came for her to retire, she would have to close it down or sell it to a stranger. Neither option appealed to her, but fortunately she wouldn’t have to think about that for a while. Sylvia’s energy inspired her; if Sylvia could start up a new business in her golden years, Bonnie could certainly keep hers going for another few decades.

  At least that’s what she’d thought before the chain fabric store opened a branch on the outskirts of Waterford six months ago. They didn’t carry the specialty quilting fabrics found in Grandma’s Attic, but they sold calicoes and other cotton prints at nearly wholesale prices. They could afford to; their buyer ordered bolts of fabric for the entire national chain, winning enormous discounts because of the bulk orders. Bonnie couldn’t match their prices without going into the red, but as the months passed, she slipped gradually nearer to that mark anyway.

  At first she had told herself that once the novelty of the new store wore off, her sales would bounce back, but that didn’t seem to be happening. “Maybe it’s time to close the shop,” Craig suggested when she mentioned the problem as she fixed his breakfast. “You could always find a job somewhere else.”

  The very idea of closing Grandma’s Attic had horrif
ied her. The quilt shop wasn’t just a job; it was her passion, her calling, and her inspiration. She had broken down in tears that afternoon as she counted the week’s receipts. Fortunately, Summer was there to console and encourage her. Better yet, the younger woman offered to help. Bonnie accepted, more grateful for the compassion than hopeful anything would come of the offer, but to her surprise and delight, Summer returned the next week with page after page of ideas. “Once I started brainstorming, I couldn’t stop,” Summer had said, so excited she could hardly stand still long enough to hand Bonnie the papers. “Grandma’s Attic isn’t beaten yet and won’t ever be, if I can help it.”

  Summer’s master plan included putting the shop online so that quilters from all over the world could purchase their fabric, notions, and books. They also created Grandma’s Attic Friends, a club offering discounts to frequent shoppers. As the shop’s losses gradually declined, Bonnie decided to implement more of Summer’s ideas. Still, as much as she appreciated the help, Bonnie worried that Summer was sacrificing too much of her study time to what was really only a part-time job.

  “Are you kidding?” Summer had replied when Bonnie tentatively approached the subject. “I’d much rather help Grandma’s Attic than study. Besides, classes will be over in a few weeks.”

  “But doesn’t that mean you have finals coming up? And won’t you need to prepare for graduate school?”

  Summer laughed and told her not to worry. Bonnie tried, but she still had misgivings. Gwen would never forgive her if her brilliant daughter got less than straight A’s because Grandma’s Attic was monopolizing her time.

  Smiling, Bonnie let herself in through the back door and locked it behind her. She flicked on the lights and chose a CD to play in the background. Simple Gifts, a folk group from Lemont, suited her mood that morning, and soon the sounds of hammered dulcimer, guitar, violin, and flute were coming through the speakers over the main sales floor. Humming along with the music, she went through the aisles straightening bolts of fabric and tidying shelves. The bathroom was clean, but she gave it a quick going-over anyway before vacuuming the carpet in the main room, her office, and the small classroom in the back. She taught fewer classes there than in the days before Elm Creek Quilts, and now the room was more often used as a playroom for customers’ children. Bonnie lingered over the toy box. The stuffed animals were store samples she had made to help promote pattern sales, but the other toys had belonged to her own children. It pleased her to have an excuse to hold on to them long after her own kids had put them aside.

  After retrieving her money bag from its locked hiding place in her desk, filling her cash drawer, and dusting the items in the display window, Bonnie unlocked the front door and turned the sign in the glass so that passersby could see the shop was open. It was exactly half past eight o’clock, and another workday had begun like so many others before it—and, God willing, like many more to come.

  Since the morning hours were traditionally slow, Bonnie went to her office to take care of bills and prepare deposits. The bell on the door would ring if any customers entered, and she could see the entire sales floor through the large window beside her desk.

  Even pausing to help a customer or two, Bonnie was able to finish her paperwork within an hour. Then, with her inventory checklist in hand, she turned on her computer and logged onto the internet. Some of her suppliers accepted orders by email, which shaved at least a day or two off delivery time. Summer had shown her how even a business based on something as traditional as quilting could benefit from technology.

  But not today, apparently. To her exasperation, her server was down for the second time in less than a week. “That does it,” she said. Before the week was over, she would find a new service provider. It was bad enough that she couldn’t place her fabric order, but how many sales had she lost because customers couldn’t log on to her web page?

  A second attempt and a third were equally unsuccessful. Bonnie realized it was useless and chewed on her lower lip, thinking. What now? She could fax the order, but that would delay the shipment. Regular mail would take even longer.

  She could log on using Craig’s account; his email used Waterford College’s server, and she knew his password—JoePa, the nickname of Penn State’s famous football coach. Craig had been so proud of his clever choice that he hadn’t been able to keep it a secret.

  “I’ll be able to hack into your account now,” Craig Jr. had warned.

  “Do it and I’ll disinherit you,” his father had retorted, with a grin to show he was only teasing.

  Bonnie wondered if Craig would mind if she used his account, and decided that if he had, he wouldn’t have announced his password to the entire family. If their places were reversed, she would let him use her account without a second thought. Besides, as long as she sent just one message and didn’t download anything, he would never know.

  It took only a moment to change the settings on her email software, and soon she was connected to the internet. Breathing a sigh of relief, she typed in her fabric order and sent it off with a click of the mouse. Then, by force of habit, she checked for incoming messages.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” she exclaimed, frantically tapping the sequence of keys to cancel the request. But it was too late. A message was downloading. With growing chagrin, Bonnie watched the indicator bar showing the transmission’s progress. Now she’d have to print out the message and give it to Craig when he got home or forward it back to his account so that he would receive it the next time he checked his email. Either way, he’d know she had been using his account. He might not mind, but what if he did?

  She should have just used the fax machine regardless the delay.

  The computer beeped cheerfully and flashed an announcement on the screen: “You have new mail!”

  “No kidding,” Bonnie muttered. The question was, what should she do with it? She could just delete it. Eventually the sender would ask Craig why he hadn’t written back, and they would attribute the message’s disappearance to the vagaries of cyberspace.

  But what if the message was important?

  Bonnie resigned herself to reading the note. If it was important, she’d fess up; if it was just another piece of spam, she’d delete it, breathe a huge sigh of relief, and never again use Craig’s email account without permission.

  She double-clicked the message—and with the first few words, her sheepish embarrassment was driven away by wave after dizzying wave of shock and disbelief.

  “My dearest Craig,” the letter began. What followed was a jumbled muddle of words and phrases that were incomprehensible and yet all too clear. A strange roaring filled her ears; she read the note over and over again, her body flashing hot and cold as the words sank in.

  Her hands trembled as she clicked the mouse—first, to send the message back through cyberspace to her own account, and a second time, to print it. When the sheet of paper emerged from the laser printer, she deleted all traces of the message from Craig’s account. Then she shut down the computer, shaking.

  Craig was carrying on some kind of relationship—no, she ordered herself, say it—an affair. An affair over the internet. A passionate affair, if this message was any indication, with a woman named Terri.

  Woodenly, Bonnie rose from her chair, and before she was entirely sure of her purpose, she locked the shop door and flipped the Open sign to Closed, then set the plastic hands of the display clock to indicate that she would return in ten minutes.

  That’s all she would need, she thought as she went upstairs to the home she and Craig had shared for most of their marriage. Ten minutes to see how far it had gone. Unless he had erased all the other messages, because surely there had been others. One didn’t write “I can’t wait to meet you in person” in a first message. She prayed that he had erased the evidence of his infidelity.

  But he hadn’t. When she called up the email software on Craig’s computer, she found a file of messages from Terri dating back to the previous November. A second file contai
ned messages Craig had sent to her; Bonnie choked out a sob when she saw that he had written to Terri on their wedding anniversary. And on New Year’s Eve he had sent a special note: “It’s nearly midnight, my darling, and I’m standing beside you ready to give you the first kiss of the New Year.” On the stroke of twelve, Terri had responded, “Happy New Year, Sweetie! My arms are around you and I’m kissing you!”

  Bonnie had been in bed by then. She had given Craig his kiss at ten o’clock and had gone off to bed, still weary from the previous weeks of holiday sales and entertaining, but glowing from the joy of the kids’ visit home.

  She read all the messages, every one, and pieced the story together. Craig and Terri had met on some kind of internet mailing list for fans of Penn State football. Eventually they began exchanging private notes, first about the Nittany Lions and then about themselves. Bonnie learned that Craig’s wife was so wrapped up in her two jobs and her friends that she couldn’t carry on a conversation without mentioning them. Terri was divorced, with two preteen girls.

  Bonnie calculated the approximate difference in their ages, not that it mattered. Terri was significantly younger.

  Craig’s wife didn’t share his interests; she didn’t know former Lion KiJana Carter from President Jimmy Carter. Terri found that enormously funny, and confessed that her ex was an Ohio State grad. Messages had flown back and forth regarding rumors that Notre Dame might join the Big Ten; they eventually agreed to disagree whether this would be good for the Penn State team or disastrous.

  And then the messages grew more serious, more longing. There was a brief discussion of Craig’s guilty feelings regarding the wife; Terri wrote that what the wife didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and no more was said on that subject. They wrote of how much they looked forward to each new message, and how they ached when none arrived. From the sheer volume of messages, Bonnie figured they weren’t aching very often.

  Finally she shut down the computer. She sat very still for a long time, staring at the dark screen, numb and dazed.