An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

  Within a few minutes she forgot the party, the humiliating dearth of offers, the patronizing responses of the few movie producers who owed Maury too much to avoid returning his phone calls. A woman named Sadie Henderson and her life in pioneer-era Kansas drew her in until they became more real than the tapestry sofa beneath her, more vivid than the music of the orchestra and the celebration just beyond the study door. She could almost taste the dust in her mouth as the script transported her to the small prairie homestead Sadie struggled to build with her husband, Augustus. Her heart broke when Augustus died, leaving Sadie with two young sons. Alone, Sadie persisted despite grasshopper plagues and drought when other neighbors gave up and returned to homes back east. She shared Sadie’s grief when she sold off cherished family quilts to raise money to improve the farm. Sadie then took in sewing from her more successful neighbors, running the farm by day and stitching her neighbors’ quilts late into the night. Her quilting kept the family alive until at last, years later, the farm flourished.

  Long after she finished the last page, Julia held the script to her chest, lost in the details of Sadie’s hardship and triumph. In Sadie’s place, Julia would have crumbled in a week. She longed to meet Sadie, understand the source of her strength, and somehow harness that power for herself.

  The door opened, startling her out of her reverie. “Well?” Maury asked, sitting beside her.

  “It was quite good,” she said cautiously, testing him. “But who would pay to see a movie like this, old ladies and nuns? It’s a little—well, I don’t know. A little too squeaky-clean.” She thumbed through the script, shaking her head. “Maybe you should see if Sally Field is available.”

  “How can you say that?” Maury protested. “You said you wanted something meaningful, something worthy of your talent. This story has all the pathos and character development you wanted—or at least I thought you wanted.”

  “Relax, Maury. I didn’t say I wouldn’t consider it; I’m just not sure what this will do for me.”

  “It’ll get you an Oscar nomination, that’s what it’ll do,” he said, but his voice had lost some of its distress.

  “It does have some great monologues,” she admitted, but suddenly a horrible thought struck her. “Which part did you have in mind for me?”

  “Sadie Henderson, of course. Not when she’s in her twenties, but after that. Bernier will get his best makeup people. I’ll insist on it.”

  She was too relieved to notice Maury’s implicit admission that, without makeup miracles, she was far too old to play anyone younger than a matriarch. For a moment she had feared that Maury intended her to play the cruel elderly neighbor who tried to buy up the Henderson farm.

  “So are you interested or not? Just say the word, and I’ll send this along to Anne Bancroft, Judi Dench—”

  “I’m interested,” she interrupted. She refused to entertain even for a moment the thought of Dame Judi collecting a golden statuette for a role Julia had declined.

  “Then I have someone I’d like you to meet.” Maury crossed the room, opened the study door, and ushered a young woman inside. She was slender and dressed in what was likely her best suit, but her unfashionable haircut and lack of makeup marked her as a breed apart from all the other young women at the party. “This is Ellen Henderson.”

  “Miss Merchaud, it is such an honor to meet you.” The young woman approached and shook her hand. “I’ve admired your work since I was a little girl.”

  Julia twisted a wince into a smile. “That long, hmm?” The young woman’s grip was strong and confident, and suddenly Julia realized something. “Your name is Henderson. Are you a descendant of Sadie Henderson?”

  “She was my great-grandmother. My script is based on her diaries.”

  “I’m so delighted to hear that,” Julia exclaimed, forgetting her reserve. She so wanted to believe that Sadie had been a real woman who had lived and breathed and walked the same world she walked.

  “Your writing makes Sadie live again,” Maury said.

  Ellen blushed at the compliment. “It’s the actor who brings the script to life. Miss Merchaud, there’s no one in the world I’d rather have portray my great-grandmother than you.”

  Years in the business had taught Julia to suspect flattery. “And why is that?”

  “You have this core of strength, this resilience. I’ve seen it in every part you’ve played, ever since Mrs. Dormouse in The Meadows of Middlebury.”

  “You saw Meadows?” That couldn’t be. Mrs. Dormouse was her first major role, but Meadows was a children’s film that had quickly slipped into obscurity despite strong critical acclaim. Besides, Ellen hadn’t even been born when it came out. For that matter, her parents had probably been too young to see it.

  “My public library ran it during its summer film festival when I was in the fourth grade.” Ellen gave her a shy smile. “I loved the book, but when I saw how actors brought all those characters to life, I was transfixed—and transformed. Especially when I saw how you made Mrs. Dormouse more real than she had been even in my imagination. That was the moment I knew I wanted to make movies when I grew up.”

  Ellen’s genuine admiration hit home. “I’ll take the part,” Julia said, without thinking of contracts or box office or who might share top billing.

  Ellen’s face lit up. “Oh, Miss Merchaud, thank you.” She seized Julia’s hand and shook it again. “You won’t regret this. I promise.”

  Julia laughed and eased her hand free. “I’m sure it will be a delightful experience.” She raised her eyebrows at Maury, who recognized his cue.

  “Miss Merchaud and I have some details to discuss,” he said, showing Ellen to the door. “Why don’t you go on out and enjoy the rest of the party?”

  Ellen looked uncomfortable. “If you don’t mind—if you won’t be needing me, I think I’d rather go home. It’s getting late.”

  As Maury promised her they’d be in touch, Julia wondered how long the awkward little wren had been forced to mingle among that crowd of peacocks as she waited for Julia to read her script.

  When they were alone, Maury said, “You’ve just won her loyalty for life. Bernier took on the project on the condition that she would obtain a major star for the lead role.”

  “Really?” Julia felt a rush of pleasure at being considered a major star by a man like Bernier, but the sensation was quickly followed by anger that she had not taken the compliment in stride. Dame Judi no doubt heard such praise twenty times a day. “I wonder why she didn’t mention it.”

  “She wanted to be sure you took the part because you truly loved her story, not because you felt sorry for her.”

  “If she keeps that up, this town will eat her alive.” Still, the young woman’s sincerity was oddly refreshing. Julia wished she had not been in such a hurry to dismiss her.

  “She’ll learn.”

  “The sooner the better, for her sake,” Julia said. “So, when do we get started? Will we be shooting on location?”

  “We’ll have to for some of the exterior shots,” Maury said apologetically.

  “That’s fine.” Then she added, almost to herself, “Some time away would be good for me.”

  “I’m glad you think so, because I was planning to send you on a little trip.”

  “A week at Aurora Borealis?” Wouldn’t that be just like Maury, to pamper her at her favorite retreat in Ojai.

  “Not exactly. This will be more of a working vacation.” He was smiling, but he still looked tentative. “You need to learn some new skills for this part.”

  “I already know how to ride a horse.”

  “But you don’t know how to quilt, unless you’ve been keeping secrets from me.”

  “You know I don’t keep secrets from you.” Then she paused. “Do I really need to know how to quilt?”

  He nodded.

  “Can’t we use a stand-in?”

  “You need to know how to quilt for this role. It’s important, Julia.”

  He said it so gra
vely that at once she understood what he would not admit aloud: He had won the role for her by telling William Bernier she already knew how to quilt. “I see,” she said briskly. “I’ll just have to learn, then. I might even enjoy it. Are you planning to bring a quilt tutor to the set? Is there such a thing?”

  “I had a better idea,” Maury said. “I’m sending you to quilt camp.”

  Megan hadn’t felt so frustrated and helpless since the afternoon Robby had come home from Cub Scouts with a black eye and a missing tooth. At first he wouldn’t tell her what had happened, and when she phoned the scout-master, his only explanation was, “Some boys aren’t cut out for the Cub Scouts. Why don’t you try again next year, when he’s thicker skinned?”

  “This is the Cub Scouts, not the Marines,” Megan had snapped.

  “Tell that to your son. He threw the first punch.”

  Megan had been so flabbergasted by this obvious untruth that she could think of nothing to say, so she hung up. Her gentle, owlish son was among the smaller boys in his grade, and she simply could not picture him as an aggressor. He had few friends at school, but never before had he been beaten up by his classmates. More than anything she wanted Robby to be safe, healthy, and happy, but at that moment, she realized she couldn’t protect him from everything. A bullying gang of seven-year-olds had bluntly defined the limits of her motherly powers.

  As she tended Robby’s wounds, the story came out, but only in defense against the scoutmaster’s charges. Robby argued that maybe he had thrown the first punch, but the other boy had started it by teasing him. Robby had told some of the other scouts that his father never came to any scouting events because he was an astronaut working on top-secret research on the space station. When another boy loftily pointed out that Robby’s explanation couldn’t possibly be true since the space station was still being built, Robby told him that was just a cover story so other countries wouldn’t know how far ahead of them the Americans were. “It’s an international space station, you stupid liar,” the other boy said, and in response, Robby slugged him.

  Like all of Robby’s stories, this one had had a grain of truth in it, but only a grain. Although Keith was a corporate sales manager, Megan was an aerospace engineer, and one day the new technology she developed would be used aboard the space station. But although sometimes Megan wished her ex-husband had been shot into orbit, he and his new wife had made it only as far as Portland, Oregon.

  That day Megan had told Robby that hitting was wrong, and that if he became frustrated or angry, he should just walk away. Several times since, she had also explained—after making certain her son did understand the difference between reality and fiction—how lies sometimes made people angry, because they didn’t like to be deceived. “You don’t need to exaggerate to get people’s attention,” she told him. “Just be yourself.” Robby told her he had to tell stories because no one liked him just as himself. Megan patiently pointed to his bruises as evidence that they didn’t seem to like him very much when he lied, either, and that in the future it might be better to err on the side of truth and caution. “If you like to make people laugh by telling a story, that’s okay,” she said, “as long as you tell them it is a story.” Robby agreed, but it pained her to know that he thought no one would like him if he didn’t put on an act. Maybe she was blinded by a mother’s love, but couldn’t everyone see what a sweet, sensitive, bright little boy he was? Couldn’t the world appreciate him for that?

  The Cub Scout incident had occurred two years ago, five years after Keith confessed to his affair and moved out. When she placed today’s events in that context of misery, they seemed almost trivial. Why, then, was she so upset? This wasn’t the first time she hadn’t been invited to a party, although she never would have expected Zoe to exclude her. So few women engineers worked at their company that they all knew each other, and Megan had considered Zoe one of her closest friends at work. When she overheard Tina and Michelle discussing the Fourth-of-July barbecue at Zoe’s house the previous Saturday, she first thought they were talking about a future event that she, too, would soon hear about from the hostess herself. But when Tina spotted her and both women abruptly stopped talking, Megan realized the truth.

  Later, Zoe came to her office and tried, in her awkward way, to apologize. “There were only couples there,” she explained. “I didn’t think you’d have any fun, you know, being the only single person at a party full of couples.”

  Megan hid her disappointment behind a smile and assurances that she’d be delighted to join them next time, and if she needed an escort, she’d find one. Zoe looked relieved that she was taking it so well, never suspecting that after she left, Megan locked the door to her office and sat at her desk contemplating whether to burst into tears right there or climb out the window, flee for the sanctuary of home, and cry in private. She was a grown woman with a child, but she felt like she was back in high school. She regained her composure by reminding herself that she couldn’t force people to include her, nor could she make them enjoy her company enough to excuse her involuntary single status. Nor could she resent Zoe when most of her other couple friends had also drifted away after Keith left. Maybe they feared divorce was contagious, or maybe they had always preferred Keith and tolerated her presence only because she was his wife. She would never know, because she wasn’t the sort of person to confront others, even when they slighted her.

  As she left work that afternoon, still unhappy, she decided that after Robby went to bed, she’d go online and vent her frustrations to her best friend, Donna. They had been email pals for years, ever since they had met in an internet quilting newsgroup. Whenever Megan needed to pour her heart out, Donna was there with patience and understanding, the same way Megan tried to be there for her. Often Megan wished that Donna lived nearby rather than in Minnesota, so that they could meet for lunch or go quilt-shop hopping like normal best friends. She wondered what that meant about her, that she was best friends with someone she had never actually met in person. Maybe Robby had inherited his social ineptitude from his mother.

  As she pulled onto the long dirt driveway leading up to her parents’ house, Megan checked the dashboard clock. She had arrived later than usual, but probably too early to say hello to her father, who at this hour would be closing up his hardware store in town. Her parents owned nearly ten acres sandwiched between two larger family farms, and although they still cultivated most of the property, the small farm had always been more of a hobby than a career. Megan treasured childhood memories of playing hide-and-seek with her father in the cornfield, the green stalks topped with golden silk towering above her head. Soon Robby would play there with his grandfather again.

  She circled in front of the house and parked beside one of the outbuildings. Her father’s two dogs bounded over to greet her as she climbed the stairs to the front porch. “Hey, Pete. Hey, Polly,” she said, petting the golden retriever first and then the German shepherd. She heard laughter inside, and found Robby with his grandmother in the kitchen.

  “Mom,” Robby cried out. “Did you know when Grandma was little she had her own cow? It would come when she called it and everything, just like a dog.” His grandmother caught Megan’s eye and shook her head. Robby saw the exchange and quickly added, “It’s just a story.”

  Megan’s mother laughed affectionately and ruffled Robby’s hair. “You’re my little storyteller, all right.” She hugged Megan in welcome, but then her smile faded. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “Nothing. Just some stuff at work.” It wasn’t anything she wanted to discuss in front of Robby, and she wasn’t even sure if she ought to confide in her mother. Her parents had raised her to be strong and independent, and she was ashamed to show them how meek and accepting she had become since Keith had left her. As hard as it had been for her staunchly Catholic parents to accept the breakup, it would be even more difficult for them to understand how deeply his betrayal still affected her.

  But when they heard her father’s truck pull
up outside and Robby ran out to meet him, Megan found herself telling her mother what had happened. Her mother continued shelling peas, nodding thoughtfully as Megan perched on a stool and rested her elbows on the counter as she spoke. It was a scene that had played out many times in that kitchen since Megan was a child, first learning the painful truth that the whole world wouldn’t cherish her the way her parents did.

  “What did you do last Saturday?” her mother asked when she had finished.

  “We took Robby to the county fair,” Megan said. “You were there, Mom. Don’t you remember?”

  “Of course I remember, but I wasn’t sure if you did. We had a great time, didn’t we? Wasn’t the weather perfect? Didn’t Robby love the rides and the animals?”

  Megan nodded, not sure where her mother’s reminiscence was taking them.

  “Well, then, seems to me this Zoe character did you a favor.” Her mother finished the last of the peas and dusted off her hands as if brushing off both the chore and Megan’s coworker. “If you had gone to the party, you would have missed the fair. And for what? A party with too many rules to be much fun, or at least that’s how it sounds to me.”

  “It’s not missing the party that bothers me,” Megan said. “It’s being excluded.”

  Her mother’s face softened. “I know, dear.” She cupped Megan’s chin in her hand for a moment, then patted her cheek. “My quilt guild is meeting at Dorothy Pearson’s house tonight. Why don’t you join me? Your father can watch Robby.”

  Megan squirmed. Her mother’s invitation sounded too much like her father’s offer to escort her to the homecoming dance sophomore year of high school, when none of the boys had been willing to ask her and she had been too shy to ask any of them. Her mother’s friends were sweet women, but they had known Megan since she was in diapers and had never stopped thinking of her as a little girl. “Thanks, Mom, but I have some papers to read before bed tonight. I have a grant proposal due next week.”