An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

Julia started. “I beg your pardon?”

  “We’re going to lose the quilting.” Deneford regarded her, puzzled. “Surely you don’t have a problem with that. Now you won’t have to admit to the world you hired a stunt quilter for your scenes.”

  “I could live with that,” Julia retorted. “Whatever would compel you to get rid of the quilting? It’s the heart of the story.”

  “Rick Rowen is the heart of the story,” his agent said.

  “Give me a break,” Samantha’s agent muttered.

  Julia was in no mood for their bickering. “Stephen, do you really think such a drastic change is necessary?” she asked in her most reasonable tone. “Quilting is the metaphor that binds the entire story together.”

  “Not to mention that it’s how Sadie supports her family and saves her farm,” Ellen added.

  “I had some thoughts about that, too,” Deneford said. “Our test audience thought earning money from quilting was, well, a little tame. I decided she’ll run a bordello instead.”

  Deneford’s assistant held up his hands as if framing a sign. “Think Little House on the Prairie meets Die Hard meets Pretty Woman.”

  Julia gaped at them. “Sadie is going to be a hooker?”

  “At least at first,” Deneford said. “Later, when the money starts rolling in, she’ll become the madam.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Julia said, disgusted.

  “It might not be so bad,” Ares said in her ear. “You’re still sexy. With the right lighting and costumes, you could still carry it off.”

  Julia wanted to slug him, but she kept her attention on Deneford. “I don’t think this is a good idea. Maybe you’re not choosing the right test audience for this picture. Why don’t you show those scenes to women? I’m sure you’ll get much better numbers in all age groups.”

  Deneford shrugged. “We might, but that’s not the audience we’re going for.”

  “That’s not the Rick Rowen audience,” Rick’s agent chimed in, and Rick nodded.

  Julia felt her anger rising. “Women do attend movies, you know.”

  “Come on, Julia,” Deneford said. “Don’t go all feminist on me. We both know women will go see a man’s picture, but men won’t go see a chick flick unless they’re dragged there kicking and screaming.”

  “As long as they buy their tickets, does it matter how they go?” Ares countered.

  Julia glared at him. “Thanks for that brilliant contribution.”

  Deneford raised his hands. “All right, all right. Everyone take a deep breath. We all want to do what’s best for the movie, right? We all want to salvage the hard work we’ve already put into it. This is the way to go. I’m staking my career on it.”

  Not only his career, Julia thought, but hers as well. She knew she could balk and complain all she wanted, but ultimately Deneford would have his way. Her only choices were to cooperate or to quit, and she couldn’t afford to quit.

  “I quit.”

  Julia spun to face the back of the room.

  Ellen, her expression weary, had risen from her chair. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Ellen,” Deneford said quietly, “sit down.”

  But Ellen remained standing. “I can’t do this. Sadie Henderson was my great-grandmother. I can’t let you make my great-grandmother into a prostitute. That’s not the way it happened. I won’t do that to her memory. I won’t do that to my family.”

  All eyes were upon her as she walked around the table toward the door.

  “Think carefully before you do this,” Deneford warned.

  Ellen removed from her bag a battered, dog-eared script marked with dozens of bright sticky notes and threw it into the wastebasket beside the door. “Think This Script meets The Trash Can.”

  “Think Another Dime-a-Dozen Nobody Writer meets Unemployment,” Deneford shot back icily. “Don’t forget, Miss Henderson, I was giving you a break based upon a student film and the minuscule talent you displayed in that abominable first script despite the fact that you’ve never done anything and no one’s ever heard of you. If you think you’ll ever get another chance like this again, you’re gravely mistaken.”

  Ellen blanched and swallowed, but reached for the doorknob.

  “You’re not that important,” Deneford said, his voice rising. “I bought your script. I own it. This movie will be made with you or without you. There are four people essential to this project—me, Rick, Samantha, and Julia. I need them, but you need us much more than we need you.”

  Ellen’s hand trembled—and she released the doorknob. Her gaze went from Deneford, around the table, and came to rest on Julia. She said nothing, but her gaze pleaded with Julia as loudly and as clearly as if she had shouted.

  Julia remembered how she had loved that young woman’s original story, how she had longed to know Sadie, to be her, and she thought of how drastically her history had been altered since then. She thought of Donna, and how thrilled she had been to work as a stunt quilter; she thought of the extras around the quilt frame in Kansas and the quilters at Elm Creek Manor, and how much they would have loved a movie about their passion and their art. Most of all, she thought about the Cross-Country Quilters, and how they stood by each other and supported each other in their times of greatest need.

  “I’m out, too,” she said softly.

  Deneford stared at her. “What did you say?”

  “I’m out.” Julia pushed back her chair and rose.

  Ares seized her arm. “Are you out of your mind?”

  She freed herself and gathered her things. “Sorry, Ares.” She looked around the table. “My apologies to all of you. But I’m ashamed of what we’ve done to Ellen’s story, and I can’t be a part of it anymore.”

  She thought she heard Ellen let out a glad sob, but Ares held her attention. “If you do this, it will mean the end of your career.”

  “I know that.”

  His eyes narrowed with fury. “It also means that you and I are through.”

  Julia smiled. “Why, Ares, you just made my decision that much easier.”

  She turned, went to the door, linked her arm through Ellen’s, and led the dumbfounded young woman from the room.

  Deneford pursued them as far as the doorway. “Your leaving will only improve the project,” he snapped at Ellen. “But you, Julia, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

  Julia felt a tremor of queasiness, but she disguised it by waving her hand and saying airily, “Oh, very well, Stephen, if you must litigate, litigate. As if you don’t have more important things to do with your time. As if you don’t have Samantha ready and waiting to take over my role, as she has already done to some extent. You took a few liberties with our contract, too, did you not?”

  She glimpsed the speechless consternation on Deneford’s face as she spun around and strode away, half propelling Ellen along, half leaning upon her for support.

  She kept smiling as they walked down the hallway to the exit, and nodded as Ellen thanked her over and over, but her thoughts were of the career she had thrown away, the resurgence in fame she would never see, the Academy Award she would never hold, gleaming in all its golden beauty.

  Then she thought of the Cross-Country Quilters. She imagined them cheering her on, proud of her, assuring her she had done the right thing.

  She and Ellen left the building together, and as Julia stepped into the bright California sunshine, a flicker of joy rose in her heart, growing until it burned away her remorse and misgivings, until her smile transformed the mask of an actress into the face of a true friend.

  Twelve

  Donna’s flight arrived in time for her to catch the first shuttle from the airport to Elm Creek Manor. She settled into her seat with a happy sigh as the van full of excited quilters left for Waterford. When Donna’s status as a veteran camper came up in the course of conversation, the first-timers peppered her with questions, which she tried her best to answer. But when they asked her what Elm Creek Quilt Camp was really like, she could onl
y tell them, “You’ll have to discover that for yourself.”

  She indulged in a contemplative mood and spent much of the trip gazing out the window at the rolling, forested hills of central Pennsylvania, daydreaming about the week to come. For more than an hour they drove, past farms and small towns, past historical markers and a sign for Waterford College, until at last the van turned onto a gravel road that wound its way through a forest. This Donna remembered; she looked for the bridge over the crystal waters of Elm Creek, and when they reached it, she knew they were almost there.

  Not far across the bridge, the forest opened suddenly into a broad clearing from which a lawn sloped gently upward toward the gray stone manor. Donna felt a pang at the sight of it, a sense of homecoming and nostalgia she couldn’t quite explain.

  “There it is,” the driver announced. “Elm Creek Manor.”

  The travelers who had not yet broken off their conversations did so then, peering through the windows expectantly. Donna heard murmurs of delight, and she smiled to herself, remembering how she had first reacted at the sight of the gray stone walls and tall white columns. Now the scene was colored by memories of picnics in the gardens, quilting with friends on the broad verandah, and passing through the tall double doors to and from her morning walks.

  As the van approached the manor, Donna searched in vain for a familiar face among the women unloading cars parked in the circular driveway. She waited on the sidewalk as the driver unloaded their suitcases, hoping the other Cross-Country Quilters would arrive soon.

  Suddenly from behind her a voice cried out, “Donna!”

  Donna whirled around. “Vinnie,” she exclaimed with delight. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You, too, honey. My goodness, you’re looking sharp.”

  “Thanks,” Donna said, pleased. In the past twelve months, she had lost twenty pounds, and she now felt years younger. She had hoped her friends would notice. “You look great, too.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Vinnie said, primping her hair. The two friends laughed and embraced.

  Megan arrived not long after Donna had checked in and settled into her room. Two hours later, Julia’s limousine pulled up in front of the manor, creating a stir just as it had the year before. As the four friends welcomed each other with laughter, hugs, and tears of gladness, Donna was struck by how everything felt so comfortably familiar and yet so new and full of promise.

  Only Grace’s absence cast a shadow on their reunion. After months of silence following Grace’s inexplicable behavior at AQS, each had written asking her to meet them again at Elm Creek Manor as they had planned. No one reproached her for her actions or even asked her to explain; all they wanted was her company, and each had tried in her own way to show her how eager they were to see her again. She had never responded.

  When they had finished unpacking, they gathered in Vinnie’s room for show-and-tell before supper. Donna was the first to unveil her block for the Challenge Quilt. She had abandoned the Hen and Chicks block and made a Bear’s Paw instead, with the autumn leaf print as the four feet, and a rich purple for the claws and the small square in the center. Julia and Megan admired her piecing, but Vinnie said, “What does a Bear’s Paw have to do with your challenge? You should have chosen a block with ‘Daughter’ or ‘Mother’ in the name.”

  Donna was quiet for a moment, thinking of the fierce mother-bear rage that had filled her as she brought Lindsay from the apartment where Brandon had beaten her, and the protectiveness that had compelled her to spirit her daughter away to California, where at last Lindsay remembered who she truly was. “To me, Bear’s Paw symbolizes how I overcame my obstacle. Wasn’t that how we were supposed to choose?”

  “If that’s what this block means to you, then it’s perfect,” Megan reassured her.

  Julia agreed, too, so Vinnie accepted her explanation grudgingly, but added, “I would have settled for a block with ‘University’ or ‘Student’ in the title. You could have made a Schoolhouse block, only in the University of Minnesota’s colors.” Vinnie’s eyebrows rose. “Lindsay is returning to school this semester, isn’t she?”

  “She is, but not at Minnesota. She’s transferring to the University of Southern California’s film school.”

  Her friends burst into exclamations of delight, and Julia’s was the most joyful of all. “You’ll have to come visit her,” she said, “and whenever you do, you and Paul can stay with me. Becca, too.”

  Donna agreed, and immediately Megan and Vinnie pretended to pout over their exclusion. Julia teased them at first, but soon expanded the invitation to include them all. “Come in winter,” she suggested. “Get away from that awful cold.”

  To the others, Donna said, “She thinks anything below fifty degrees is arctic.”

  “I do not,” Julia protested, but joined in the laughter.

  Next Megan showed her block, a beautiful Snow Crystals pattern with diamonds cut from the autumn leaf print and a lovely blue floral. In the center, eight diamonds formed a LeMoyne Star; in each corner, six diamonds fanned into a partial star, so that the design seemed to radiate from the center. Julia gasped at the perfect precision of Megan’s sewing. “How did you make all these points so sharp?” she asked, tracing the tip of a diamond with her finger.

  “Sharp points or not, she should have chosen something else,” Vinnie protested. “Snow Crystals. What on earth does that have to do with helping your son?”

  Megan’s smile faded, and a wistful look came into her eyes. “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “I suppose my situation is like Donna’s. Maybe there isn’t a literal connection between this block and my challenge, but this is what I was inspired to make.” She paused, gazing at her block, and quietly added, “The pattern just came to me on a night when I finally realized that I could be happy again.”

  Donna reached over and squeezed her hand, wondering what secret Megan kept, and wishing she could do something to remove the sorrow from her friend’s voice.

  Vinnie sighed in exasperation. “I don’t think you two followed the rules very well.”

  “At least I met my challenge,” Megan said. “Robby’s counselor says he’s making great progress.”

  “Has Keith helped?” Donna asked.

  Megan hesitated. “A little. He invited Robby for a visit in June, and Robby said they had a good time. He’s crazy about his little brother, and he said Gina’s not so bad, either.”

  “That’s good news,” Julia said.

  “It’s a start, anyway. A lot depends on Keith, but I’m hopeful. Robby’s disappearance shook him up. I think … ” Megan paused, thoughtful. “I think he’ll be a better father from now on, despite the geographic distance between them. I think he’ll be a better father to little Bob, too, and maybe even a better husband.”

  Donna was glad to hear it, but she wished that Megan had added something about her own happiness. Megan had never mentioned Adam since the day he had found Robby at the middle school, but Donna remembered how his affection had transformed her, and hoped she would know as great a happiness soon.

  “My turn,” Vinnie said, and reached into her red canvas tote bag. Before bringing out her block, she pursed her lips and glared around the circle of friends. “Now, no laughing,” she scolded them. “I finished my block in January, when circumstances were quite different.” Donna caught the quick glance she gave Megan as she unfolded her block, sighed, and held it up for them to see.

  It was a Wedding Ring block.

  Donna, Julia, and even Megan burst into laughter. “All right,” Vinnie said, with just the barest hint of a smile. “You’re all very amused, I’m sure. But you have to agree this burgundy complements the autumn leaf fabric well.”

  “It’s a lovely block,” Donna assured her.

  “I know that, and that’s why I wasn’t about to throw it away just because I didn’t meet my challenge.” Then she frowned, thoughtful. “Although in a way I did meet at least part of it.”

  Donna
and Julia exchanged a look of surprise, but Megan’s gaze was fixed on Vinnie. “What do you mean?”

  “I wanted my grandson to get over his broken engagement and find someone new. Well, perhaps he hasn’t found someone new, but he must have gotten over his former fiancée, and if he hasn’t, I’m sure he will soon.”

  Megan’s voice was a study in nonchalance. “What makes you think so?”

  “Because she’s marrying someone else,” Vinnie said. “He’s a big shot, too, and almost twice her age. He’s the owner of the company that bought the store where she works.”

  “You’re kidding,” Donna exclaimed.

  “That’s one way to insure your job security,” Julia remarked.

  “Now, I’m not saying that’s why she did it,” Vinnie said. “She might truly love him. On the other hand … ” She shrugged. “Well, she’s stopped pestering Adam, and that’s what counts.”

  “Pestering him?” Megan said.

  “Oh, my, yes. She was always showing up unannounced, making a nuisance of herself. Once she even came to his school because she was upset about one thing or another that had happened at work. Would you believe she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t interrupt his class to console her?” Vinnie shook her head, exasperated. “He can be too kind for his own good. If I were him, I would have told her to buzz off a long time ago.”

  “That doesn’t seem like Adam’s style,” Donna said, giving Megan a side-long glance. Megan didn’t notice, as she was staring at Vinnie’s block, her expression reflecting her conflicting emotions.

  “Then I suppose I’m the only one who failed to meet her challenge,” Julia said with a sigh. She held up her Friendship Star block for inspection, and smiled as the others admired it.

  “I’m glad you didn’t meet your challenge,” Vinnie said. “It was a far better thing you did, sticking up for that poor girl.”

  “I am disappointed about the movie, though,” Donna remarked. “I was looking forward to seeing it.”

  “I was looking forward to starring in it,” Julia said. “But that’s show biz.”

  “Show biz sounds like a lot of malarkey to me,” Vinnie said. “When’s Prairie Vengeance coming out? I want to know so I can be sure to boycott it.”