When he didn’t respond, she said, “May I come in?”
“I’m busy.” His voice was muffled through the door, but she could hear the tears in it.
“Oh. Okay.” Megan thought for a moment. “Well, I’m going to start supper. It might be a while. Do you want a cookie to tide you over?”
“I’m not allowed to eat sweets before meals.”
“Just this once we can make an exception.”
“I don’t want any stupid cookies.”
“Do you mind if I have one?”
A pause. “I don’t care.”
“Okay, then.” Megan took a bite of the ghost’s head. “Mmm. This is delicious.”
“You can have them.”
“I can’t eat them all myself. I’ll get sick.” She took another bite. “Maybe you’ll want some after supper.”
“I don’t want anything she makes.”
Megan waited for him to say something more, but when he didn’t, she decided to leave him alone. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she said, hoping he would join her there to talk. She waited, but he didn’t leave his room until she called him for supper, and then he took his seat and ate without a word. His eyes were red-rimmed, and as soon as he had finished eating, he returned to his room without clearing his dishes, a chore that had become such a habit that he sometimes automatically rose to clear his place at restaurants.
After straightening the kitchen, Megan tried again. She knocked on his door and asked if he wanted to carve pumpkins. “No,” he said through the door.
“But you planned your design and everything.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
Megan covered the kitchen table with newspapers in case he changed his mind, but he only left his room once, to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth, and then it was his bedtime.
The next morning, Megan taped the box of cookies shut and placed it by his backpack and the bag holding his Batman costume. When he saw the box, he gave her an odd look. “Why is this here?”
“I thought you could share the cookies with your class.”
“They won’t want them.”
“Not want cookies? You’re kidding, right?” Megan made sure his jacket was zipped, then put on her own coat and opened the door to the garage. “Come on, let’s go. We’ll be late.” Sullen, Robby picked up the bag and backpack, leaving the cookie box for her to carry.
As they drove to school, Megan reminded Robby that she was leaving work early so she could pick him up right after the class parties ended. “If there are any cookies left, bring them,” she said. “We can take them to Vinnie’s.”
Robby perked up at the reminder of the party, enough so that he submitted willingly to a hug and kiss. “I’ll see you later,” she called as he shut the door. He waved good-bye with the tips of his fingers, his left arm wrapped around the box of cookies.
Throughout the day, Megan found herself thinking about Robby and wondering how his day was going. She doubted she would be able to persuade him to send Gina and Keith a thank-you note for the cookies. Most likely she would end up sending an acknowledgment herself. She wondered if this would be the way of things for the rest of their lives, Keith and Robby communicating by proxy through her and Gina.
Robby’s school ended classes for the day after lunch, when the students gathered in the gymnasium for a Halloween parade. When Robby was in kindergarten, Megan had joined the other adoring parents with camcorders in the bleachers, searching the long line of costumed children for her son, and grinning with delight when she spotted him marching proudly with his friends. Afterward, the students held parties in their separate classrooms. Megan pictured Robby distributing the cookies Gina had so lovingly made, and hoped the other students wouldn’t reject them as they had most of Robby’s other offers of friendship.
The school parking lot was reserved for faculty and staff, so Megan parked on a side street a few blocks away and walked to school, self-conscious in her costume. Because of the trouble with the cookies, she had postponed the decision until that morning, when she put together an empire-waist dress, elbow-length gloves, and other period accessories and decided she was Elizabeth Bennett. Throughout the day, however, she began to have an uncomfortable suspicion that not even fans of Pride and Prejudice would be able to identify her, even with her hair up. Only then, when it had been far too late to change her mind, did it occur to her that whatever she wore would make a lasting impression on Adam.
She still wasn’t sure what impression she wanted to make. As nice as Adam had seemed, Megan had mixed feelings about Vinnie’s matchmaking. She had grown accustomed to being alone, and in many ways, although she wasn’t as happy as the happily married people she knew, she was much more content than those tangled in fractious relationships. The thought of enduring all the heartache of falling in love and breaking up and starting over with someone else in a unrelenting cycle of searching and hoping made her weary. She didn’t think she should put herself—or Robby—through that again.
Robby was waiting for her on the playground, as they had arranged. Other children played nearby, but he sat alone on a swing in his Batman costume, scuffling his feet in the gravel. Megan spotted his backpack and the bag with his school clothes on the ground not far away.
He looked up when Megan called his name, smiled, and got off the swing. “Where’s the box?” Megan asked him. “Are all the cookies gone?” At that, Robby’s face fell, and he turned his back on her to pick up his back-pack. “What is it? What happened?” She pictured him shyly offering the other children the cookies, and some bully shoving them back in his face. “Didn’t the other kids want the cookies?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They got broken.”
“Got broken?” Megan echoed. “How?”
Robby shrugged.
“You must know how.”
Robby said nothing, his eyes downcast. “They broke on my way to school.”
“But I let you off right in front of the building.”
“I dropped the box.”
Megan watched him, waiting for more. Gina had padded those cookies with so much plastic wrap and paper that Robby could have dropped the box off the roof of the school and the cookies might have survived unscathed. “What did you do with the box?”
“Threw it away.”
“Show me.”
“But they’re only crumbs now.”
“Show me.”
Reluctantly, Robby led her toward a garbage can on the edge of the playground. He stopped a few feet away and pointed. With her thumb and first finger, Megan gingerly moved aside wadded-up brown paper lunch bags, school assignments on lined paper, and crumbled candy wrappers until she uncovered the box. She stooped down, placed it on the ground, and lifted the lid. Inside it was just as Robby had said: Each cookie had been pulverized into crumbs until their original shapes were completely obliterated. Some of the crumbs had been compressed into piles, and in these she found the impression of the sole of a shoe.
She took a deep breath and rose, returning the box to the garbage can. “Who did this?”
Robby shrugged.
“One of the other kids?” She recalled the name of the sixth-grade terror who had stolen his lunchbox the previous month. “Was it Kenny?”
He shook his head.
Megan was quiet for a moment. “Did you do it?”
Robby held perfectly still, which told her all she needed to know.
“Let’s go.” She took his clothing bag in one hand and placed the other arm around his shoulders, and led him back to the car.
The drive to Dayton took more than twenty minutes, and Megan used the time to tell Robby, as she did every day, some of the interesting things that had happened at work. Eventually, perhaps because of the familiarity of the routine, he relaxed and told her about the school parade and his class party. He didn’t mention the cookies, and neither did she. She didn’t have the heart to scold him for destroying Gina’s present; in f
act, she thought she might have done the same in his place.
They arrived at Meadowbrook Village Retirement Community to find a high-rise apartment building surrounded by several one-story condos, four units to a building. They were set back into a woods, giving them an air of privacy despite their closeness. Vinnie’s condo was the farthest from the parking lot, as Megan and Robby discovered as they walked from building to building searching for the right number.
Vinnie answered the door dressed in a blue-and-white-checked dress and a red yarn wig. Two bright red circles were painted on her thin cheeks. “Come in, come in,” she said, ushering them inside. She hugged Megan. “Hello, dear. I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Megan said, surprised by how much. Suddenly she felt a wave of nostalgia for camp—for the freedom and friendship and peace it had brought her. She wished all the other Elm Creek Quilters lived close enough so that they, too, could have come to the party.
Vinnie turned to Robby. “You must be Robby. I’m Vinnie, but you can call me Nana. I don’t know anyone your age who doesn’t call me Nana.”
“Nice to meet you,” Robby said, shaking her hand. If he was startled to be conversing with an eighty-two-year-old dressed as a Raggedy Ann doll, he hid it well.
“Let’s see. What are you supposed to be? Now, don’t tell me. Let me guess.” Vinnie put her hands on his shoulders and spun him around slowly, inspecting his costume. “Are you one of those rangers, one of those Power Rangers?”
“You’re a few years behind the times,” Megan said. “They’re not in anymore.”
“I’m Batman.”
“Oh, of course!” Vinnie shook her head helplessly. “I’m afraid I don’t keep up with my superheroes as well as I should. If your mother had dressed as Robin I would have known right away.” Her eyes went to Megan. “What exactly are you?”
“I’m almost afraid to let you guess.”
“Are you Betsy Ross? No, you’d be carrying a flag. Are you a suffragette?”
“No, I’d be carrying a picket sign.”
“Or a ballot box.” Vinnie studied her for a moment longer, then sighed. “I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me.”
“Elizabeth Bennett, from Pride and Prejudice?” Megan had a feeling she’d be repeating that line many times that night.
“Of course,” Vinnie said, but she still looked puzzled. At that moment, a buzzer sounded somewhere out of sight, just as the doorbell rang. “Oops, my brownies are done. Will you get the door?” Vinnie asked as she hurried off down the hallway. “It’s probably Adam.”
“Sure.” To her annoyance, Megan felt a flutter of nervousness at the prospect of seeing him again. She hung back and let Robby open the door. On the doorstep stood the same brown-haired man from camp and the diner, almost unrecognizable in a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century-style cape, leggings, and plumed hat. In one hand he carried a telescope; with the other, he doffed his plumed hat, and smiled.
He looked endearingly ridiculous, and Megan suppressed a smile. “Adam? Is that you?”
“At your service.” He replaced the hat and came inside. “Hello there,” he greeted Robby. “Hey, don’t I know you? You look familiar.” He frowned. “You resemble—but no, that couldn’t be it.”
Robby was interested. “Who?”
“Well, I was going to say you look like the famous millionaire Bruce Wayne, but anyone can see you’re Batman.” Adam shook his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you. I admire your work.”
Robby grinned and took off his mask.
Aghast, Adam flung up an arm to shield his eyes. “Don’t do that! You’ll give away your secret identity.”
“I’m not really Batman,” Robby explained. “This is just my Halloween costume. I’m Robby Donohue.”
“Of course.” Adam smacked his forehead with his palm. “Halloween. I forgot.”
Robby grinned, recognizing that Adam was pretending but going along with the joke. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Guess.”
Megan saw Robby’s gaze travel from the plumed hat to the leggings to the telescope. “Christopher Columbus?”
“Not a bad guess, but that’s not it.” He raised his eyebrows at Megan. “Care to try?”
She had been about to guess Christopher Columbus, too, but she noticed the deliberate way he held his telescope and said, “This is a long shot, but how about Copernicus?”
“Very good,” he said, impressed. “Wrong, but close. I’m Galileo. Most of my students thought I was supposed to be one of the Three Musketeers.”
Robby’s face screwed up in puzzlement. “Wouldn’t you need a sword or something?”
“Exactly. That’s what I told them. Can you imagine a musketeer whacking people with a telescope? He wouldn’t get very far that way.”
Robby laughed, then tugged at Megan’s hand. “Mom’s turn. Guess who she is. No one else knew.” He looked up at his mother. “Can I give him a hint?”
“No hints,” Adam said. He studied Megan’s costume, looking her up and down until she felt her cheeks growing warm. “Are you Jane Austen?”
Megan’s jaw nearly dropped. “I can’t believe it.”
“Am I right?”
“No, but that’s the closest anyone’s come all day. I’m supposed to be Elizabeth Bennett.” With a self-conscious laugh, she twirled around in her long dress. “I guess I should have chosen something less obscure.”
“No, you look beautiful.”
Robby grinned up at her, nodding so that Megan grew flustered and quickly changed the subject. “Do all the teachers dress up at your school?”
“Not all,” Adam said with a shrug, and Megan guessed that only those with a sense of humor did. She wondered what he was like as a teacher. She suspected he was one of those whom the students liked, even when he graded tough and pushed them to work harder than they ever had before.
Vinnie joined them then, purse in hand. She hugged her grandson and raised her cheek for him to kiss. Then she declared that they had better get over to the clubhouse for the party before all the food was gone, and she shooed them outside.
The clubhouse was in the lobby of the high-rise, and it had been decorated with black and orange streamers, jack-o’-lanterns, and cardboard cutouts of black cats and ghosts. The other residents and their children had already gathered there and had seated themselves at tables covered with orange-and-white-checked tablecloths. Costumed grandchildren darted among the tables, and Robby looked after them longingly as Vinnie led her guests through the refreshment line and to an unoccupied table. Robby hastily ate one cookie, claimed to be full, and ran off to join several young vampires, princesses, and Jedi Masters in a game of tag.
Megan kept one eye on Robby while chatting with Vinnie and Adam. Vinnie found frequent excuses to leave them alone while she hurried off to greet one friend or another. Megan smiled, watching her travel among clusters of friends, just as she had every day at quilt camp.
“Why are you smiling?” Adam asked.
“I enjoy watching Vinnie have a good time.”
“So do I.” They both watched as Vinnie and two other women burst into laughter at some joke. “After my grandfather died a few years ago, I wondered if I’d ever see her like this again.”
“I’m sorry,” Megan said, turning to face him. “I knew Vinnie had lost her husband, but I had no idea how recently.”
“That’s why she moved here. She couldn’t stand being alone in the house they had shared for so long.” Adam’s eyes were on his grandmother. “They married young, right before my grandfather was sent overseas in World War Two. Each was the other’s first love.”
“It’s hard to lose your first love,” Megan said, thinking of Keith. Then she remembered what Vinnie had told her about Adam and said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“Vinnie told me about your … situation. About your fiancée.”
“Oh.” Adam let out a wry laugh. “I guess I should have expected that. I
imagine everyone at camp knows?”
Megan nodded apologetically. “I didn’t mean to dredge up unhappy memories.”
“It’s okay, really. Besides, Natalie wasn’t my first love.”
“She wasn’t?”
“No. Before her I was in love with a beautiful brown-eyed girl named Michelle. She was the love of my life. Of course, we were only in the fifth grade at the time, so our relationship consisted mostly of holding hands at school roller-skating parties and claiming to hate each other.”
Megan couldn’t help smiling. “How did it end?”
“She left me for a sixth-grader with a moped.”
Megan laughed. Just then Robby ran over to grab another cookie and to ask Adam to be his partner in the three-legged race. Adam good-naturedly agreed, and Robby led him off.
Vinnie returned then and took her seat with a happy sigh. “Sorry I left you alone for so long. I trust my grandson is behaving himself?” Without waiting for an answer, she patted Megan on the hand and said, “Now, catch me up on all the latest news. Have you heard from that ex-husband of yours?”
Except for the Halloween present Gina had sent on his behalf, she hadn’t, so Megan had little progress to report on her quest to involve him in Robby’s life. “I think the Challenge Quilt will be one block short,” she said.
“Nonsense. You’re trying, and that’s all we expect you to do. The rest is up to Keith,” Vinnie said. “Have you heard from any of the others recently?”
Vinnie knew about Donna’s success in getting Lindsay to return to college, but Grace owed her a letter and so she had not yet heard about the true identity of Justine’s older man. Vinnie listened, wide-eyed, as Megan filled her in. Afterward, she lamented, “Such interesting news, and I’m the last to know. Why didn’t Grace tell me?”
“If you were online, she would have,” Megan said, although Vinnie had often declared that she and computers didn’t get along and that she had no intention of setting fingers to keyboard in this lifetime. Now, however, she looked undecided and said she’d think about it.
“Did Julia ever get an email address?” Vinnie asked.
“If she did, I don’t know it. I don’t think she’s much of a letter writer.”
An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler Page 76