A Thread So Thin

by Marie Bostwick

  “Yes,” I said, finally answering her question. “I need advice about a quilt. I’ve been thinking about making a new one, a studio piece, entirely from wrapping materials: tin foil, waxed paper, parchment, cellophane. That kind of thing. I need their advice about the actual sewing. It’ll be tricky.”

  This wasn’t a lie. I’d been experimenting, unsuccessfully, with substituting different kinds of papers for fabrics in my art quilts. I hoped Evelyn and the others might be able to give me some tips on how to do so. The professor didn’t have to know that wasn’t the only sort of guidance I was seeking.

  “Professor Williams…are you married?”

  Her eyebrows arched in surprise as her head swiveled toward me and her frizzy curls jumped, as if they, too, were startled by the question. “Me? No! Why would I want to do that? And why do you ask?”

  “Well…I, um…It’s for a painting I’m working on. A mural. Just in the planning stages now. Just an idea I’m exploring. A mural about the evolution of marriage. I mean, is marriage even relevant for women today? Seems to me that opinions about marriage are completely different from how they were a hundred years ago.”

  “Oh, more recently than that. For my mother, marriage wasn’t a question to be considered. It was just what you did. What everybody did.” She turned her eyes back toward the road and was quiet for a moment before going on in a softer, more introspective tone, oddly unitalicized.

  “I was asked once, when I was an undergrad at Penn State. There was a boy, Drake. He was an engineering major.” She laughed quietly and shook her head. “Imagine. Me being proposed to by an engineer. We met at a peace rally. This was back during the Vietnam War, you know. He was a sweet man. Loved Vivaldi. I’d never thought an engineer would be such a music fan. He was surprising in so many ways….

  “Anyway, he asked me out for coffee after the rally, and the next thing I knew, we were dating. I never thought he’d propose. When he asked, I actually thought it was some kind of joke. But after a minute I realized he wasn’t kidding. It was such a shock. I said no right off, almost before he’d finished asking. He got angry, hurt. Understandable, I suppose.” She shrugged. “I never saw him again after. I don’t know what happened to him. Probably he married someone else. He was the marrying kind.”

  “And you’re not?”

  How could she know that? At twenty, twenty-one, or twenty-two, is it possible that she absolutely knew that she wasn’t the sort to marry? And the way she’d said no to Drake’s proposal, even before he finished proposing, without even stopping to think about it—did that make her enlightened or narrow-minded? Was Professor Williams’s refusal to consider the possibility of marriage any better than her mother’s refusal to consider the possibility of not marrying?

  “I never wanted to have to answer to someone else,” she said. “As a single woman, my time, my life, my opinions are my own. My mother, on the other hand…After my father died, she couldn’t even decide what to have for breakfast. Seriously. When we’d go out to eat, she couldn’t make a choice, so she’d just hand the menu to me and let me order for her, just the way Dad had for all those years. My mother never had an opinion that my father didn’t give her. Except perhaps about my refusing Drake’s proposal. She was furious with me!

  “‘What were you thinking!’” the professor said in a nasally imitation of her mother. “‘You’re not a beautiful girl, Selena, and you’ve got too many ideas, too much education. That kind of thing scares men off. He might have been your only chance! You’ll be alone, Selena, and lonely. For the rest of your life.’”

  Professor Williams pressed her lips together. “My mother was a stupid woman. And cruel.”

  She’d get no argument from me on that. What an awful thing to say to your own daughter. And not just awful, but wrong. Professor Williams was beautiful. With her big brown eyes and riot of curls, she was actually kind of exotic looking. I bet lots of men found her very attractive. Not every guy is looking for a Barbie clone. If they were, Garrett would never have given me a second look. But still…

  It was such a personal question to ask. If I hadn’t needed to know so badly and she hadn’t already revealed so much, I’m sure I’d never have found the guts to ask. But I did and she had.

  “And…were you? Are you?”

  “Lonely?” She puffed in disgust. “Of course I am. But so was my mother. She spent her whole life catering to my father, but he didn’t have the slightest idea who she was. And what’s worse, neither did she. I know who I am, Liza. At least I know that.”

  She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and stepped on the gas, taking the New Bern exit at fifty. “Yes, I’m lonely. Hell, yes, I am. Isn’t everybody? Aren’t you?”

  6

  Evelyn Dixon

  “But why do you want to come?” she asked warily. “Why now?” I paused for a moment, reminding myself to be patient, but really…What kind of mother greets the announcement of her child’s upcoming visit with suspicion? The kind who is smart enough to realize that the visit has an agenda, that’s who. Well, there was some comfort in that. Mentally, Mom was obviously as sharp as ever.

  “Because I haven’t seen you in a long time, that’s why. And I miss you. Can’t a daughter want to come visit her mother for a few days without getting the third degree? I just thought it would be nice to see you now that I have some time. It’s been over a year.”

  “Oh. Well, in that case. It’d be nice to see you, Evie,” she said, calling me by my childhood nickname. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t coming out here to check up on me. I was afraid that Mary Flynn had called you and started blabbing.”

  Mary Flynn has been Mother’s next-door neighbor for thirty years. She moved in right after I graduated. She used to have a golden retriever, Rufus, that she let run loose. One day, Rufus ruined Mother’s prize roses, dug up the whole bed. Mother was livid.

  The dog died four years later and Mary had never gotten another, but that didn’t make any difference to Mom. My mother, Virginia Wade, is known far and wide for her kind and charitable nature. She’s one of the sweetest, most forgiving women you’d ever hope to meet, but in Mom’s book there are certain infractions that simply cannot be pardoned. Letting your dog dig up her prize-winning roses just a week before she was due to defend her title at the county fair was one of them.

  “Why would Mary be blabbing? What happened?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Mary doesn’t need a reason to blab. She just does it. The woman’s a terrible gossip. So if she called and told you about me falling, you can just tell her…”

  “Falling? Mom, you fell? When? Where? Are you all right?”

  “Well, of course, I’m all right!” she snapped. “I’m talking to you on the telephone, aren’t I?”

  “Okay. All right. Good,” I said, purposely adopting a calm tone. “But tell me what happened. How did you fall?”

  “It was nothing. I was going out to get the paper and slipped on a patch of ice, that’s all. Mary saw me and came running, yelling for Tom Pearson to leave off shoveling his sidewalk and help me up. Lot of fuss over nothing,” she groused. “It’s not like I’ve never fallen before. It’s January, the walks are icy. This is Wisconsin, for heaven’s sake! In January, in Wisconsin, people fall! There’s no need to go calling a person’s daughter about it! Mary Flynn should just mind her own darned business. And you can tell her I said so!”

  “Mom, calm down. Mary didn’t call me. Really.”

  “Sorry, Evie. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just annoyed with myself for falling, especially in front of Mary and Tom. It’s hard getting old, Evie. Having people think you can’t manage things on your own. People fall all the time, but if you fall and you’re eighty, everybody thinks it’s because you’re losing your marbles. I am not losing my marbles. I was just too lazy to go to the basement and bring up the rock salt. Stupid. I know the ice always collects in that one spot. I should have tossed out the salt before going to get the paper.”

>   “But you’re feeling fine now?” I asked.

  “Yes. I am. And if you’d like to come out for a visit, I’ll feel even better. It would be nice to see you, sweetheart. Saturday, did you say? Shall I pick you up at the airport?”

  “Yes, Saturday. About six o’clock. Don’t worry about picking me up. I’ll get a cab to the house. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Me too, Evie. I’ve missed you.”

  7

  Evelyn Dixon

  I come from what my dad called “good, hardworking Midwestern stock,” and it’s true. I’ve always worked.

  My first job was in my mother’s garden, ten weeds for a penny, then babysitting for the neighbors, fifty cents an hour, and, once I was old enough to get a work permit, waitressing at Gino’s Pizzeria, minimum wage and all the pizza I could eat, which was my idea of heaven.

  For the first two weeks I worked at Gino’s I single-handedly ate an entire pepperoni pizza every single day—this was back in those wonderful bygone days when I could eat anything and never gain an ounce. At fifteen, I had the metabolism of a wolverine. But by the third week, I was down to a couple of slices a day, and by the end of the summer, you couldn’t have paid me to eat a piece of pizza.

  That experience led me to formulate Gino’s Law, which states that overexposure to objects once considered desirable will eventually lead you to regard them with disgust and loathing. Gino’s Law applies to almost everything—pizza, pistachio ice cream, certain men—but it does not apply to quilting. At least, not for me.

  After spending my days ordering fabric, racking fabric, cutting fabric, and selling fabric, and spending my nights sewing quilt samples for the shop and teaching quilting classes, Gino’s Law would dictate that the last way I’d want to spend my none-too-plentiful free time is quilting and fussing with fabric, but it’s not.

  Friday night, quilt circle night, is my favorite night of the week. As soon as I turn the Closed sign face out, I can’t wait to climb the stairs to the big, open workshop where we hold our weekly meeting of the Cobbled Court Quilt Circle. This is the time when I get to kick back and relax in the way that seems most natural to me: with a number ten needle pinched between the thumb and index finger of my right hand, a pair of thread snips looped on a ribbon around my neck, and a glass of good red wine sitting close at hand, surrounded by a pleasant buzz of female voices as my best friends talk about whatever’s on their minds at the moment. The questions under discussion on any given night can range from the inconsequential (Does drinking diet soda actually make you gain weight?) to the profound (Is there any real hope for a lasting Middle East peace?) and everything in between.

  This Friday night, my questions are unspoken and all about Mom.

  How did she fall? Why didn’t she tell me about it? What else hasn’t she been telling me? Should she be living on her own anymore? If not, what am I going to do about it?

  I won’t get any answers until I get to Wisconsin tomorrow, but that doesn’t stop the questions from spinning around in my mind, which is probably why I didn’t hear Liza’s voice at first.

  “Evelyn, what do you think? Evelyn?”

  “Hmm?” I looked up from my stitching to see four pairs of eyes on me, obviously waiting for some kind of response. “What?”

  Abigail was standing at the ironing board, pressing the seams of a table runner. “Haven’t you been listening?” She pressed her lips together to signal her disapproval. “We’ve been discussing this for the last twenty minutes.”

  “I’m sorry. Guess I was concentrating on my quilting,” I said and then casually moved my hand, trying to cover the section of the quilt I’d been working on.

  One look at my uncharacteristically long and uneven stitches and they’d realize that I’d been a million miles away. Not that I have any compunctions about discussing my problems with the others, but I wasn’t ready for their advice just yet. Not until I had a chance to spend some time with Mom and see how she was doing.

  Abigail craned her neck, peering at my stitches, and then raised an eyebrow. “Concentrating on your quilting? Hmm. More like thinking about your vacation. I highly approve of you taking some time off, Evelyn, but really…”

  Her second eyebrow lifted to join its partner. “Wisconsin in January? Why not Miami? Or Bermuda? Somewhere you can thaw out a little, take Charlie along, lie on a beach and drink cocktails out of coconuts with little paper umbrellas sticking out of them. You could use my condo at Hilton Head if you wanted to. Why don’t you call Charlie, tell him there’s been a change of plans, and book two tickets? I can call my travel agent.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Abigail. Maybe another time. Now, what were we talking about?”

  “Liza is planning a new painting, a mural, about how attitudes toward marriage have changed in the last century. Terribly interesting theme. An issue of profound societal importance,” she said, clearly proud that Liza’s artistic expression has evolved from self-portraits in rusty bottle caps to actual paintings utilizing actual paint on subjects of profound societal importance.

  Abigail’s eyes were gleaming. I could practically see the wheels turning in her brain as she made a mental list of everyone she knew who sat on the board of major modern art museums and tried to calculate which of them owed her the most favors and might be open to the idea of hanging Liza’s mural in their gallery. Abigail has more connections than LaGuardia Airport, and she loves using them on behalf of people she cares about, especially Liza.

  “Liza’s taking a poll,” Abigail continued. “She wants to know what you think about marriage. Is it necessary or relevant to women today?”

  Liza rolled her eyes a little, pushed aside the pile of dangling shell paillettes she was sorting through—flat, buttonlike discs that she was going to use as pearly scales on the tail of a mermaid quilt she was getting ready to embellish—and got up to refill her wineglass.

  “You don’t need to make it quite so clinical sounding, Abigail. I’m not gathering data so much as impressions. I just want to know what everybody thinks about marriage. Abigail is all for it”—she smiled—“but what would you expect from a newlywed? So, I’m not sure her opinion is exactly reliable. And she completely glossed over her failed first marriage to Woolley Wynne. Now she’s twittering about the joys of matrimony.”

  “I was not twittering,” Abigail declared. “I’ve never twittered in my life. And I wasn’t glossing over my marriage to Woolley because, quite honestly, I don’t consider it a marriage, not really. Woolley and I were friends, but what we had was more like a business arrangement than a marriage. And, as a business arrangement, it was more or less successful. I never loved Woolley and he knew that. But I do love Franklin. We’re very happy. My only regret is that I didn’t marry him sooner.”

  “Like I was saying”—Liza smirked—“Abigail’s viewpoint is tainted by those rose-colored glasses she’s wearing. Ivy, on the other hand, thinks all men are untrustworthy and has vowed never to marry again.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Ivy protested. “I didn’t exactly say that. Probably some men are trustworthy. Franklin and Charlie are good guys. Garrett and Arnie too. But my track record speaks for itself. I seem to be lacking the kind of internal radar that helps separate the good guys from the bums. Given my history, I think it’s best to leave them all alone.”

  “All right, I stand corrected. Ivy concedes the point that there may be one or two decent men in the world….”

  “Which, for me, is a big concession,” she said with a laugh.

  “And Margot,” Liza said, “agrees with Abigail that marriage is a wonderful institution.”

  “One which I will probably never experience personally.” Margot sighed.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Things aren’t going well between you and Arnie?”

  Arnie is one of the associates at Franklin’s law firm. He and Margot have been dating for quite a while now.

  “Oh, no,” Margot answered. “We’re fine. Arnie take
s me out to dinner every Saturday night. We’ve gotten to be such regulars at the Grill that we don’t even need a reservation. Charlie just holds a table for us. On Sundays we go to church together and then he comes over to the house. I fix breakfast. It’s all very nice. But it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Last weekend, while we were watching TV, Four Weddings and a Funeral came on. Arnie practically dove under the sofa cushions hunting for the remote so he could change the channel. He’s obviously terrified of commitment.” Margot shook her head regretfully.

  “Maybe he just needs a little more time,” I said.

  “Maybe. But forty is getting closer and closer in my rearview mirror. More time is something I don’t have a lot more of.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Abigail scoffed. “You’ve got plenty of time. I didn’t marry Franklin until I was almost sixty-five.”

  “But you said yourself that you wished you’d done it sooner. What if Arnie never proposes? I don’t dare bring up the subject. It might send him running for the door. But how long am I supposed to sit around and wait?” Margot swallowed hard, the way she did when she was trying to keep her emotions in check.

  Liza wisely steered the conversation in a different direction. She carried the wine bottle around the room, making sure that everyone’s glass was topped off.

  “So, here’s where we stand. On the question of marriage, we’ve got two votes for and one against. But let’s face it,” she said, tilting her head toward the others, “these three aren’t exactly in a position to give a valid opinion. Guess it’s up to you, Evelyn. After all, you’re the only one in this room who’s ever had any real experience with this. You were married for…how long was it?”