The Double Cross

by Clare O'Donohue

  “I didn’t want them to be happy,” Bernie said, turning back to face the windshield.

  “Then you seem to have gotten your wish.”

  “I guess,” she said. Then she just stared ahead.

  There was a pay phone just outside the bakery. Bernie went in to get us coffee while I made some calls: first to Natalie, for news of the shop and Jeremy, then Carrie, to see if she could get info on Rita and George’s financial situation.

  I filled Natalie in on the class, the Olnhausens, and the condition of the bed-and-breakfast. I asked her to do an Internet search on George and Rita and she asked me to pass her good wishes on to Bernie and Susanne. Everything at the shop was fine, she told me, though Jeremy missed his grandmother. Then she hesitated.

  “I have something to tell you,” she said, sounding as though the world had fallen apart.

  “Then tell me.”

  “It’s about Jesse. He went on a date last night. Carrie saw them.”

  It took a moment to process. “I don’t know how to respond,” I admitted.

  “Well, it’s lousy of him.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It is.” The great thing about girlfriends is that you don’t have to pretend to be okay when you’re not. “I guess he’s moving on.”

  “Maybe not. I can find out details if you want. All I know is that they were at DeNallo’s for dinner. She’s got red hair, and Carrie had never seen her before, so she must not be from town. We figured you had a right to know.”

  “Thanks. I actually have to call Carrie,” I said, and after a few more reassurances from Natalie that Jesse’s date probably meant nothing, I hung up.

  Bernie was beside me, holding two paper cups of coffee. “Everything okay?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Nothing too serious, but Jesse has a girlfriend.”

  “That can’t be.” Bernie handed me one of the cups.

  “Carrie saw him on a date with someone.”

  “A date isn’t a relationship.”

  “Maybe not,” I admitted, “but it’s usually how things start.”

  “If Jesse doesn’t realize what a wonderful woman you are, to heck with him. You’re better off without such a stupid man.”

  “I could say the same to you.”

  Bernie smiled. “I’m better at fixing other people’s lives than fixing my own. Call Carrie or we’ll get in trouble with Eleanor.”

  I dialed Carrie’s number and gave her as many details about Rita and George as I knew. She offered to do a title search on their land and see where it led, and she repeated what Natalie had already told me.

  “They didn’t look right together,” she said.

  “Okay.” I wanted to talk about it for hours, and I didn’t want to talk about it at all. I decided on the latter. “Cell service is spotty up here, so I will call you tomorrow,” I told her.

  Though it was a chilly April morning, Bernie and I sat at one of the outdoor tables to drink our coffee. I’d eaten breakfast, but Bernie dove into an egg-and-bacon sandwich while Barney salivated.

  “At least he still has his sense of smell,” Bernie said.

  “That’s what Eleanor says.” I patted the dog’s head. “Poor guy, he hates being away from his routine. I think it confuses him.”

  “He’s not the only one who’s confused.”

  “Confused about what?”

  Bernie shrugged. “Why I came, I guess. It’s just been so long. Maybe too long.”

  “Did you keep in touch with George and Rita at all after high school?” I asked.

  “No. I heard things. We’re all originally from Long Island. I moved into New York City with Johnny. They moved to California for a time. Then I’d heard they’d come back east maybe fifteen years ago.”

  “But you don’t know what they did for a living?”

  “The last time I really wanted to know anything about them was so long ago. We were all kids. Everyone changed jobs. George wanted to be an actor, which seemed, when we were teenagers, like a really romantic thing to do. He said he wanted to make movies until he made enough money that we could travel the world.” She sipped her coffee and stared off at the distance. “At one point I heard he sold office supplies.”

  “Doesn’t that make you feel better in a way, to know that he didn’t end up living the perfect life?”

  She shrugged. “No one lives the perfect life. I made T-shirts when I first got married. Johnny worked at one of those free newspapers, drawing cartoons. Then when the kids came along, he worked at a greeting-card company, and I got a job behind the counter at a drugstore. When he died, I went back to school and became a pharmacist. It was a struggle but that’s life. It’s scary sometimes when you don’t know what’s going to happen next, but that’s what makes it fun.”

  “That’s what Susanne says about making an art quilt.”

  Bernie laughed. “She’s a wise woman.”

  “And a good friend,” I said.

  Bernie nodded. “She always has been. I guess I was a little rough on her. I think I was just embarrassed by how hard it hit me, hearing those names again.” She waved her hand as if to dismiss the topic. “We should get back.”

  I was beginning to realize that something about Bernie’s story didn’t make sense. “George said Johnny was a millionaire.”

  Bernie laughed. “His family had money, something to do with the insurance business. I never really knew much about them, because his father thought Johnny was a hippy, throwing his life away on some girl from nowhere. He cut Johnny out of his will. We never saw them after we were married. They never even met their grandchildren.”

  “Does George know that?”

  Bernie frowned. “Why would he care?”

  “Maybe he thinks you can help. They’re obviously in over their heads at the bed-and-breakfast.”

  “That’s crazy, Nell. Even if I could, I wouldn’t be so foolish as to invest money in a broken-down inn in the middle of nowhere.”

  “It makes you wonder why they did.”

  “Well, if you’re worried that they’re hoping to get some cash from me, rest easy. Johnny didn’t leave me anything but memories.”

  I nodded. “Good memories, I hope.”

  “Very good memories.”

  I hesitated but I said it anyway. “Rita told me you were already married by the time she and George got together.”

  “Did she? Well, I guess time plays tricks on some memories.” She got up and threw the rest of her sandwich away.

  “Not so fast, Bernie,” I said as she walked toward the car. As I spoke a police car, lights flashing, pulled up next to me.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Hello there.” A large man in his sixties got out of the police car.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Maria just took some scones out of the oven. She always calls me when she has fresh ones.”

  “You had your lights on,” I said.

  He blushed. “I never have reason to use them, so once in a while I fire ’em up. Everyone in town knows it means there are fresh scones.” He looked at Bernie and me. “On your way through town?”

  “We’re staying at the Patchwork B-and-B,” I said.

  He nodded. “Quilt classes. They threw it together so quickly, I didn’t think they had time to find any folks looking to learn. Glad to see I was wrong.”

  “We’re not taking the class,” Bernie explained. “We’re here to help the teacher.”

  “Well, nice to have you here either way. I’m Jim McIntyre. I’m the chief of police, so if you ever need anything . . .” He started to walk away then stopped. “Can you ladies wait a moment? I’ll be right back.”

  As he walked into the bakery, Bernie leaned in and whispered. “I feel like we should make a run for it.”

  “Why? Have we done something?”

  “Why else would he ask us to wait?”

  We found out a minute later, when Chief McIntyre emerged with two warm cranberry scones and a dog biscuit for Barney. />
  “If you ever need me, my office is one street over,” he said. “But you’re more likely to find me here.”

  “The hope is that we won’t need you at all,” I said. “Unless Maria makes another batch of scones.”

  We watched him get back in his car and drive up the street, not so much because we were interested in the chief, but because the scones were so good that we couldn’t move until they were finished.

  When we returned to the bed-and-breakfast, Bernie went straight to her room, saying she was in the middle of a good book she had to finish. I stuck my head into the class and saw that everyone was working away and Susanne seemed very much at ease. I stayed in the back, but Barney wandered the class, greeting everyone and being his usual welcome distraction.

  The students had translated their sketches to fabric and were now adding details that expressed their point of view. One of the twins was carefully removing small twigs from a plastic bag and placing them on her quilt, while the other was adding words to her quilt in longhand. Frank had also added words, but he had printed them onto fabric, using Susanne’s computer, and was fusing them to his quilt top. The others were adding beads and drawings. Everyone seemed busy and focused on their work.

  Susanne held up several antique postcards, smiling.

  “They’re back,” I said.

  “I must have dropped them or something. Helen found them on the floor near my desk this morning.”

  “But we looked there,” I said.

  Susanne just shrugged. Things seemed to be going better for her today, so I sat in the back of the class, taking notes on a small sketch pad and thinking about what kind of journal quilt I would make, until the group noticed I was there and began coming over to say hi. Rather than interrupt their work any further, I took Barney and headed toward the other small building, the one intended to house the quilt shop.

  “What do you call this?” I heard Rita asking, as I opened the door.

  “It’s a walking foot,” Eleanor told her. By the way she said it, I guessed it was not the first time. “You use it on your sewing machine when you machine quilt.”

  “I thought you used the other one.”

  “The darning foot is for free-motion quilting,” Eleanor said. “The walking foot is for straight-line quilting.”

  Rita looked up at me and wrinkled her nose at the sight of Barney, who had trotted over to say hello. Poor thing. Since he liked everyone, it never occurred to him that someone might not like him.

  “Can he wait outside?” Rita looked at me.

  “He knows his way around a quilt shop,” Eleanor said. Though the words better than you were not spoken, no one missed her meaning.

  Before Rita had a chance to take offense, though, Eleanor put the two quilting feet on a table and sighed.

  “When you finish with your quilt top, you layer it, baste it, and quilt it,” Eleanor said. “If you’re just using straight-line quilting, you use the walking foot because it grips the top layer of the fabric and helps move the quilt evenly under the needle. But if you’re free-motion quilting, the kind where you want to move the quilt up, down, left, or right without any restrictions, you lower the feed dogs—the little teeth that move the bottom of the fabric—and you use a darning foot.” Eleanor paused, waiting to see if Rita understood, but apparently finding no lightbulb over Rita’s head she went on. “This really would be easier if we made a quilt together. Instead of being abstract ideas, they would be practical pieces of information. Quilters really expect an expert when they come into a store like this,” Eleanor said, the frustration evident in her voice. “Much of my day is spent offering advice or troubleshooting for folks. It helps that I’m familiar with the various feet available for machine quilting.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter because I have that.” Rita pointed to an object the size of a dining room table that was covered with layers of plastic.

  “You have what?” I asked.

  “She bought a long-arm machine and is going to let people use it,” Eleanor told me.

  “It’s for quilting,” Rita said.

  “Yes, I’ve seen them,” I said. “They have frames, sort of like the hand-quilting frames people think of when they think of quilting, but instead you use them with a specially designed machine that allows you to quilt an entire piece in no time.”

  “And this one is all computerized,” Rita explained. “You can set it to a preprogrammed pattern and it will do all the quilting for you.”

  “Cool.” I walked over to get a better look. “We should get one of these for Someday Quilts. We have the room.”

  “We don’t know how to use it,” Eleanor pointed out.

  “So we learn.”

  “I saw it demonstrated by a woman in Lake George,” Rita said. “She’s an expert at the squiggly lines quilting.”

  “Stippling,” Eleanor said, with a tired sigh that obviously came from hours of explaining her passion to a disinterested party.

  “I’d love to learn this,” I said. “I’m terrible at machine quilting. I think it’s because you have to shove half the quilt under the machine and it only has, like, twelve inches of clearance. It’s hard to move a big quilt around. But with one of these babies . . .”

  “They’re nearly the price of a car,” Eleanor said.

  “But if you quilt for other people, or rent time on it, I’ll bet it pays for itself.”

  I could see Rita smiling. Clearly she’d already had the same conversation with Eleanor and lost. Now she’d found an ally, a role I was uncomfortable playing. I backed off from the long-arm machine.

  “It’s quite an investment for your shop,” I said, trying to add a neutral comment to counteract my enthusiasm. But it didn’t work.

  “If you like that, you should see all the other gadgets she’s bought.” Eleanor pointed to a pile of boxes near the back of the shop.

  “I went to a quilt show where they sell just to shops . . . ,” Rita started.

  “Quilt market,” Eleanor and I said together.

  “Yes, and they had amazing things that I knew quilters would love.”

  “How do you know what quilters will love if you don’t quilt?” Eleanor was no longer even trying to hide her annoyance.

  “I may not know anything about quilting, but I know how to shop,” Rita said, a slight snap in her voice. “And obviously the younger generation of quilter agrees with me.”

  “I’m not an expert,” I pointed out.

  “But you’re open to new things, and that’s what this shop will be all about. The latest and coolest things in quilting. I don’t want any old, stuffy shop.” She glanced toward Eleanor, who rolled her eyes at the snub. “I want something cutting-edge.”

  “In the Adirondacks?” It came out of my mouth without thinking. I could see that it hurt Rita, but Eleanor was smiling ear to ear.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Adirondacks is a national forest and a popular destination for hiking and boating in the summer, skiing in the winter. With the southern tip only four hours north of New York City, and the top just to the south of Canada, it’s large enough to sustain enormous tourist trade while still leaving some towns untouched.

  Winston was one of those untouched towns. Or maybe forgotten would be a better word. It wasn’t near the places likely to draw large numbers of visitors, like Lake Placid or Lake George. And it wasn’t near the major highways, where anyone on their way to somewhere else, like Montreal, would be likely to stop for a quick look around.

  Though quilters are an adventurous bunch, going on organized cruises to Alaska or on tours of China, I doubted many would venture to the Patchwork Bed-and-Breakfast or its quilt shop. The whole thing seemed like a waste of time. Eleanor, who lived to pass on her love of quilting, clearly felt drained. Susanne was teaching a ragtag bunch of conscripted students. Bernie was reliving a painful chapter from her past. And while I was stuck up here, Jesse was in Archers Rest, dating redheads.

  “Let it go,” I said out loud,
once I’d walked outside and into the woods. “Focus on the beauty around you.”

  I looked around. The trees were pretty. The sky was darkening, but the air was fresh and there was a lot to explore. Barney and I headed toward a hiking trail that led from the main road into a patch of forest. It was an isolated area, with sparse foliage and a few fallen and rotting trees. There was something haunting and, I had to admit, beautiful about the place—once you got away from the inn.

  I sat on a rock and took out my small sketch pad. Susanne was right. Keeping a small drawing pad and pencil with you at all times led to the most interesting discoveries. I tried to remember Oliver’s advice about getting out of my own way and seeing beyond the ordinary. While Barney sniffed at a patch of earth nearby, I sketched a pile of branches that had fallen a few feet away. I was feeling peaceful for the first time since arriving at the retreat, and even when drops of rain began hitting my head, I didn’t want to leave.

  “What are you doing there?”

  I jumped up and spun around, startled by the sudden presence of another person, but I relaxed when I saw that it was only Pete walking toward me.

  “Is class out already?” I asked.

  “Lunch.” He patted Barney on the head. “I thought I’d head home for a bit rather than eat with that crowd.” He turned a little red. “I mean, Susanne is nice, and the class is actually quite enjoyable, but the other students . . .”

  “You don’t have to explain. But I would have thought you knew the others from town.”

  “I know Helen and Fred. Don’t know the twins. Don’t want to know the twins.” Pete picked up a branch, showed it to Barney, and then threw it down the road. Rather than chase it, Barney looked at me, then went back to sniffing the earth.

  “Hey, guy,” Pete called to Barney. “Go chase the stick.”

  “He gets a little confused sometimes,” I explained. “And he’s nearly deaf.”

  “That’s all right. He’s loyal, looks like, and that’s all you need in a dog. Though around here he could step into a mess pretty easy. Lots of old vines, a few half-dead raccoons, even some old traps. You want to steer clear of that stuff, don’t you boy?” He patted Barney’s head and Barney wagged back. “Besides, a lot of folks up here aren’t keen on people or dogs tramping on their land. You need to be careful.”